by TS Aschenge

Created on: November 21, 2008   Last Updated: December 17, 2008

Politics is the echo chamber of our latent obsessions. It is the sum total of our collective cultural worldview, and every single grain of rice that we consume. It speaks from heart of the nation, while standing garishly poised in the mirror of our society. This is the body of our democratic free will, boldly facing down the physic crucible fronting scene and script of all that the nation collectively has been, and all that it has allowed itself the capacity to become. It is the narrative of the nation's soul crystallized in campaign combat. No candidate or candidacy has ever done more to reveal the true nature of American life and culture than Barack Obama. However, the real task of bringing transparency to the government has only now just begun.

The scene took place in Washington D.C. It was the winter, of the year 2000. While the Vice President was busy somewhere, probably adorning the digs of his brand new un-disclosed location, the new president sat comfortably in his limousine as it was endlessly pummeled with eggs (Moore, 2003). All that he could do was to flash a wide Bubba version of a Cheshire grin. This was the inauguration of Bush the Younger, and it was the end of civic innocence in America. Who does not recall the ubiquitous sense of frustration, of hanging chads and bureaucratic ineptness, the ominous feeling that the Republicans may have actually stolen an election, and then the reality slowly setting in that hundreds of thousand of voters of color were disenfranchised at the blink of an eye? They were purged from the voting rolls we were told, due to the theory that they just might happen to become felons in the future. It was as if the Tom Cruse movie Minority Report were recast for us, only to be acted out in real time. It was all just so truly amazing. Who would've thunk it?

Nevertheless, if the first Bush election was amazing, the second one was surely a charm. Estimates are that in 2004 upwards of more than three million mostly black and brown voters were simply disenfranchised though a combination of either being tossed off of the voter rolls in county after county, from New Mexico to Cleveland Ohio, or they were disenfranchised and their votes were simply not counted (Palast, 2004). During that year, many votes it was said had been "spoiled"; not because they were left out in the midday sun, but because for some reason they were simply thrown away. Voting suppression was rampant in 2004, due to a plethora of Republican machinations; like

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