we’re jamming: war mentality in rigging elections
There’s a confessional book out on the New Hampshire “phone jamming” effort to impact the elections back in 2002. The author was interviewed on Democracy Now (Tuesday, Jan 8 2008). His work in New Hampshire and New Jersey under the direction of leadership is a emblematic of the most impoverished war mentality: winning at all costs.
Witness the two examples offered: first, the “phone jamming” … the overloading of the phone system at the NH democratic campaign offices embodies a straight-forward tactic in warfare, it amounts to taking out communications of your opponent. (Do you hear an echo of Sun Tzu?)
A second example, fits the category of psychological operations … creating pre-recorded messages simulating an automated phone message campaign of the democrats, republican operatives played upon racial fears and labor force insecurity by using minority voices/accents in NJ. Ugly rumors, manipulation of media messages, cultural stereotypes in the general school of low-rhetoric has become accepted. Impersonation of the opponent’s communications, and selective targeting of their likely supporters with divisive messages is significantly more calculated and abhorent.
(Other infamous moments in electoral history reek of the war mentality and speak poorly of our national politics: watergate - irangate.)
Party leadership (of any party) should not conduct itself in a manner beneath the dignity of our republic. Playing hard and playing to win - i.e. with determination - are not the same as winning at any costs. (We can debate this, but I think that even in war, we should not seek to “win at any cost”.) If in our politics we aim for a simple majority of the votes that are counted… partisan electioneers will tend to lose interest in a whole and healthy polity in the scramble for what amounts to a cheapened “victory”.
There’s a lot of room for criticism of our political system… winner take all appears much less attractive than proportional representation (beyond the two-party system), alternative run-off and consensus building paradigms.
Winning at all costs has a deleterious effect… it debases all involved. (But, as debasing as phone jamming and domestic psy-ops may be - challenging voter eligibility and undermining the integrity of the ballot system seem more nefarious. The former being a mean spirited and perhaps racially charged invoking of the letter of the law, the latter demoralizing those who might otherwise argue that our system works despite it’s flaws.)
I’m once again brought back to Kant’s maxim: never fight (a war) in such a manner that would preclude a future peace. I try to apply this at many layers of my life… personal relationships, issue advocacy, political rhetoric. It places one in a very different mind than the war profiteers and war mongers who are vested in perpetual domination and conflict.