We demand a special, internationally-supervised, presidential election
Emanuel Pastreich
September 20, 2024
Let me beat Donald Trump to the punch. No need to wait until November 5th for Donald Trump to tell you that the election was rigged and that he will not accept its results. After all, the election has nothing to do with Donald Trump and the results are not his concern. The results of the election are about the future of the American people and are not the personal property of Donald Trump, or of his billionaire supporters.
No need to wait for Trump’s declaration. I will declare right now, on September 20, that this election is rigged and corrupt, is little more than an entertainment extravaganza put on by the billionaires to confuse us and to induce low-level anxiety in the population that inhibits our organization of an opposition.
As Caitlin Johnstone put it, “This election is being rigged by the donor class. It’s being rigged by lobby groups. It’s being rigged by the plutocrat-owned mass media, and by plutocrat-controlled Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation. It’s being rigged by obscenely wealthy people who can afford to extract political favors in exchange for massive campaign donations in ways normal members of the public never could. It’s being rigged by people who’ve bought up so much narrative control in the form of media ownership that they can set agendas for the entire country in ways the average voter has no chance of ever doing.”
But I will go one further than Donald Trump I declare that we will not accept this election and we will organize a fair and transparent election in the near future in which every American citizen will be allowed to vote in a verified paper format that will be preserved, and that all citizens will be able to do so without any interference by for-profit corporations running voting machines or other scams to disenfranchise the voter.
The election will be held in February of 2025 (exact date to be determined by local citizen’s election committees over the next few months) and our nation’s resources will be concentrated not on foreign wars, not on false flag operations, not on the brainwashing and dumbing down the population in the interests of multinational banks, but on setting up a truly fair election—including providing accurate information about the political and economic state of the United States, and about all the candidates, so that voters are aware of what is at stake and can make an informed choice.
The first step is to form local election committees of committed citizens to draft a plan for this election and its implementation, committees that takes into account best practices from around the world for fair elections, and that work with experts on elections in a tight-knit, professional, and transparent manner that makes the massive manipulation of information about candidates and issues taking place in the corporate media, the alteration of votes, and denial of the right to vote impossible.
It may be possible to extend this effort to the congressional elections, and state elections, but that may take longer. Once we have the election committees organized at the local level, and authorized to implement this plan we can decide together what will be done, and when.
Another critical part of the process will be giving citizens access to information concerning the manner in which the nation is actually run and the behavior of public officials that is accurate and that will make it clear why none of the current candidates are legitimate and why the entire lobbying and consulting complex must be removed in order to establish a democratic system.
Part of that education of the public must include an explanation of how Homeland Security has farmed out "anti-information" contracts to firms which empowers them, and rewards them, for eliminating candidates who run on a truth platform, and precisely how private intelligence firms, many based in Israel, have seized control of the entire political process. This special election is for eliminating this parasitic system that deprives citizens of their right to know and the right to participate in the political process.
Let us face the facts, fellow citizens. We have descended to the lowest realm of the inferno; we have wandered into a dark valley permeated by tragic, pathetic, and comic vapors that render this election unrecognizable, making alien in every respect, except the name “election,” from the democratic system established by the Constitution.
And yet none of the cowardly politicians who take the money in their gaudy offices, none of the venal media pundits who prance across the social media, none of the vain intellectuals enjoying indulgent sinecures at Harvard or Stanford, none of them dare to state what is so obvious to the most casual observer: this election is a fraud, a plastic backdrop to the preparations for a world war and the enslavement of the population in a degraded techno-nightmare.
Perhaps they are too afraid of the bitter medicine known as truth, too covetous of riches and fame offered by the dark forces to tell the people that the emperor has no clothes.
The intellectuals who have been so well educated using the taxes of working people, the intellectuals who understand the world in a sense that working people cannot, have fallen treasonously silent about the critical truths.
Our nation, wallowing in self-importance, cannot make the simple demand that has been made around the world, hundreds of times, in similar circumstances. I am talking about the simple, legal, and ethical demand that we must hold a transparent, accountable, and legitimate election, and that the election must be internationally supervised.
We have watched the elections in America degenerate since the fraudulent election of 2001; somehow people thought it would be just fine to look the other way when that travesty hit us. Politics and government have not been the same since then because we refused to recognize the horrific damage done to our nation by that false election and the military takeover of the nation in February, 2000. It was as if one were stabbed in the back with a stiletto and one merely covered over the tiny hole with a Band-Aid.
Does anyone in his or her right mind think that looking the other way in the 2024 election will allow things to heal on their own, that a healthier politics will emerge without our efforts, without our brave and uncompromising struggle?
If your husband beat you last night, and the night before, will kind words and amnesia make things better tonight? If the babysitter abused your baby last week, and the week before, will playing stupid make the babysitter kinder tomorrow?
What do you think?
I did not think so.
I speak out today with full awareness that any attempt to implement a transparent and accountable special election in the United States will be subject to efforts by the billionaires to force-feed us some new form of tyranny. I make these suggestions not out of ignorance, nor out of naivety, but with the most detached and scientific assessment of where we stand and a sincere intention.
To put is succinctly, we have no choice in light of the drive for world war abroad, the covert implementation of a military government and military economy at home, to prepare to demand a fair and transparent election. We are not in danger of losing democracy. We have been living for years under a military dictatorship with a few oases of truth. We are demanding an end to tyranny.
We must do so understanding that forcing the election to be an election, forcing the government to be a government in accord with the Constitution, is in itself a revolutionary act, a revolutionary act condoned by, and encouraged by, the Declaration of Independence which is the key document that established this nation. We must reject the presidential election and “put in place guards for future security”—to quote the Declaration of Independence—at the local level that ensure the integrity of the elections and we must block out the influence of business, banks, and billionaires.
The United States is a house that has been burned to the ground. There is no use pretending that it is still there if it is not, or that the roof can keep out the rain when it has been incinerated. Nevertheless, the stone foundations, the chimney, and the metal gratings can be put to good use in a new home. The remaining parts of our nation are the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the best of our traditions of political philosophy and practice, from Thomas Paine to Mark Twain, from Frederick Douglass to Eugene Debs, Henry Wallace and Martin Luther King. Our best traditions are also found in the common decency of working people.
The rest of the nation is burnt wreckage. Over there it may still look like a bearing wall, but just push it and you will see it is but fragile cinders that crumble at the touch. It may look like a federal government, but try to contact someone and you will find that it is has been reduced to the cat’s paw of the rich and powerful.
Likewise, it is assumed that to deny citizens the right to vote based on their social economic status, or on their ethnic background, is never grounds for demanding that an election be held again, or that those involved in the crime of suppressing the vote be charged with felonies and sent to jail. It is assumed that it is not a big deal to have easily hacked software on voting machines, or voting machines that leave no verifiable trace of the intended vote. That is to say that the gravest crimes against our citizens are not treated like crimes.
We do not have much time. The expansion of Homeland Security programs, run by multinational corporations like Google, Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft, that employ technology to dumb down our citizens, to induce robotic thinking in citizens, along with the complete control the government by a handful of super-rich families through their well-placed agents and lackeys, demands that we act now.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump
Let us consider the two figures whom the corporate media keeps telling us are the candidates for president, even though both have been selected in a completely undemocratic manner by the rich via the Democratic and Republican Parties, two decayed institutions that are not identified anywhere in the Constitution.
I will not elaborate on why these two are unqualified to serve as president. Let us say that the active collaboration of both Ms. Kamala Harris and Mr. Donald Trump in the 9/11 operation and its continuing cover up (a false flag operation to end the rule of law, establish secret governance, and launch a series of global wars for the profit of multinational banks that have evolved into a world war), in the defense and justification of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing and COVID-19 relief programs (the illegal counterfeiting of over 30 trillion dollars for the benefit of the super-rich via banks), and in the COVID-19 pandemic (a psychological operation meant to traumatize the citizens, destroy constitutional and legal rights, and to replace the government with private intelligence and political consulting firms) means that they are guilty of multiple felonies. Both continue to this day to aid and abet those state crimes.
Their other illegal actions are secondary. Their personal foibles and eccentricities are irrelevant. Participation in, and covering up, state crimes is grounds for banning them from all political activity.
I demand that both of them step down immediately in accord with the Constitution, the law, and human decency. I hope fellow citizens will join me in this long overdue demand. As Frederick Douglass wrote, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
The Democratic and Republican Parties
These two candidates did not come out of nowhere. They were promoted by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, two criminal syndicates that have lost any trace of democratic process in their administration, that serve as platforms for billionaires and multinational banks to manipulate policy and public opinion. These two organizations should be investigated by international tribunes and their criminal activities should be revealed to the world. Until those investigations are complete, however, the Democratic and Republican Parties cannot play any role in the election process.
Regarding the independents and the other political parties, that is to say all the candidates who are allowed to appear in the media as alternatives, but who refused to confront state crimes, who ignored the true nature of secret governance in the United States under a military regime after 9/11, and then during COVID-19 operation, what we can say about these individuals is that they were not involved in crimes to the degree of Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris were and they should be allowed to run in the special election. I am talking about Jill Stein of the Green Party, Chase Oliver of the Libertarian Party, Randall Terry of the Constitution Party, independent candidate Cornel West, and Joseph Kishore of the Socialist Equality Party, and others.
They should not be allowed to have any specific advantages over more qualified individuals, however, who may emerge in the election campaign and who are less compromised.
The multinational corporations, investment banks, and billionaires and their foundations and trusts that have seized control of the politics of the people and reduced it to a circus of depravity cannot play any role in the election. No lobbying, no corporate donations, no funding by the rich will be permitted for this campaign. We will follow the law, the Constitution, and basic morality.
Currently, the United States has no ballot chain of custody; the invaluable votes of citizens are counted by private corporations that are in cahoots with the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and other corporate interests. There are no paper tallies, or receipts, for most voting, and the vote is recorded on proprietary software that is easily altered in secret. Citizens are forced to use electronic voting machines without any option of a reliable paper ballot.
The popularity of candidates is set by for-profit polling companies who promote people for pay and ignore vast swaths of the population in their public opinion surveys. Moreover, working people are unable to obtain the IDs that required to vote, and the time set for voting is such that it is impossible for many working people to vote at all.
The voting process, and the campaigns of the candidates, are controlled by domestic and foreign operations, most importantly by AIPAC, a lobbying firm that serves as an effective intelligence operation, with support from Mossad in Israel, and is devoted to the complete control of all political activity.
An important player in this effort to make a mockery of the election process is the Foreign Malign Influence Center within the Office of the Director of the National Intelligence, and specifically its Election Threats Executive (ETE).
The Foreign Malign Influence Center is aptly named as a center for the malign influence of foreign powers, specifically Mossad and other Israeli-based global intelligence institutions, but also multinational corporations and banks that parade as “American” but pay little or no taxes, are incorporated outside the United States, and service billionaires around the world. The Foreign Malign Influence Center promotes the cover story that it defends against interference in the elections by Russia, China, and Iran. Yet, although such threats are also real, when operations are carried out by the rich and powerful in those nations through various consulting firms, the impact does not compare to the efforts of other global interests headquartered in Washington DC, London, Berlin, Paris, and Tel Aviv.
A Concrete plan for a special presidential election
Starting at the local level, we need to organize citizens into local committees that are committed to hold a fair election using paper ballots that will be preserved in a voting procedure that is handled by the citizens themselves in a transparent manner in accord with the Constitution. That process will also involve allowing all citizens to obtain proper ID without delay, including economic support to obtain such ID rapidly and to be transported to polling places. They must be granted time off from work to learn about the issues and must be given access to detailed and accurate information about who the candidates are, and what they propose, that is untouched by corporations, banks, millionaires, or the consulting firms they employ. They must be given a full week to prepare for the election, time off from work, and free transportation to polling places.
Needless to say, to start this process in a nation that is currently run by the supercomputers that lurk behind TV broadcasts, social media, pornography, and games designed so as to lull citizens to sleep and to destroy all traces of civil society, will be a major task. I will not try to tell you how it will be done because the process of finding a solution will be a result of the genius of the common man and woman rising to the historical occasion.
What I can do is give a clarion call and see who responds to this appeal to their better angels. What I can do is sow the seed of liberty and see where they will sprout.
The United States must be a humble student; we must eager to learn from other nations, from thoughtful people around the world, about what democracy can be and what it should be. Democracy is, above all, about having a system in which the citizen is involved at every step and the citizen is encouraged and inspired to participate in the construction and improvement of the nation.
The larger problems with democratic process such as the unfair electoral college, must also be addressed directly, but that project cannot be done until we have established an independent electoral system at the local level that is run by citizens.
The first step should be a conference of committed citizens from across the nation at which we lay out a concrete plan for forming the local election committees which will guarantee that we have a fair and accountable presidential election. I believe that such a conference can be organized quickly and that it can be empowered to take control of the process of introducing candidates, providing accurate information about issues and policies, extending the right to vote to all citizens, making sure that citizens have the ability to exercise the right to vote, and assuring that the votes are counted in an accurate manner and that the paper ballots are retained.
This election must establish a truly transparent and accountable process in the elections across the United States for the first time and open the door to both participatory and representative democracy for all. Poor neighborhoods, native American reservations, and remote towns inhabited by those whom the powerful have abandoned must all be guaranteed transparent to polling places and verifiable voting systems.
We need rational and ethical, science-based, debate at every level in our society concerning the true challenges that we face and the possible solutions. Over the long term, but starting with this special election, we need educational programs for citizens about the state of the nation that are not funded by corporations and banks, accountable journalism that provides accurate facts, and a culture that encourages intellectual inquiry, that permits citizens to concentrate, and to understand the world around us in historical context. These are rights, not privileges, that must be purchased from corporations.
We must hold open gatherings, town halls, in which citizens are encouraged to meet together and exchange opinions in good faith, to form democratic committees and associations that will consider in detail the policies proposed by candidates.
These meetings between citizens will establish bonds that then will grow in the future, allowing citizens to solve problems themselves through cooperation at the local level, rather than voting for strangers who are expected to solve problems for them. Part of this election will be about self-sufficiency for citizens. Part of this election will be about allowing citizens to organize themselves and solve problems without money, and without government.
Join me, join us, in demanding that this flawed and corrupt election be cancelled and that a truly democratic election be held in the near future. We can start to make up our plans, without interference from billionaires and their consultants, for how we will run our country as we organize the committees at the local level to run this election.
We demand a special, internationally-supervised, presidential election