There's been so much going on with the banks and debates- and I've been following it all- hypnotized like one of the children of Hamelin following the news piper, but yesterday when I read about the ballot "mistake", I saw red. It was the one news story that stopped me in my tracks and made me good and
angry.
How can this be a simple typo....
OSAMA? What bullshit. That was printed on absentee ballots in the state of New York, and what does the accompanying news story say about it?
"Hundreds of absentee ballots sent to voters in New York State's Rensselaer County, near Albany, were printed with Barack Obama's last name spelled as "Osama," the Albany Times Union reports.
County elections officials tell the newspaper that it was a typo that made it by three rounds of proof-readers. They also said the error affected just a few hundred voters, and that they will re-send corrected ballots on request."
'On request'? That's
infuriating. (I suppose if voting Democratic in the presidential election, the ones who don't request a new ballot will have their vote thrown out - because there
isn't a Barak
Osama running- and the only Osama we know has been in hiding for the past eight years.)
This is dirty politics at its ugliest. Corner a rat and you'll see just how vicious it can be.
The party in power is seeing its eight years of imperialistic sway slowly beginning to topple, and nothing-- not even shouts from the crowd of 'Kill him!'- when making a patently false connection of Barak Obama with domestic terrorists, will make them behave civilly. They play dirty. That ridiculous ballot was not a mistype, it is slander meant to mislead and rile, and I'd take that step further and call it a Hate Crime.
I want to see the good old boy
'Amurica' of the Bush era- an administration that was more a regime than a presidency, motivated primarily by fear and ruled by sleight of hand, a thing of the past. I want democracy in more than 'name only'. I hope to see America once again with sound common sense and decency, and arms big enough to include everyone in the legacy our earliest framers had in mind when they sat in Philadelphia and crafted their vision into words.
We have to call out hatred and prejudice of this kind. A
mistake like this one is simply not allowed, and cannot be tolerated.
Not once.
