Loki Pays a Visit to Ohio

(note: I wrote this entry early on election day, not knowing any of the returns. My concerns remain, even though the election results were not disputed.)

I am very angry. Of course, I recognize this as a secondary emotion, arising from a deep sense of helplessness and frustration over what is happening to my country. My rage at the election shenanigans occurring across the country boiled over last night, as I read this, regarding the installation of new, untested, unapproved software in a number of Ohio electronic voting machines:

“What ES&S has chosen to do here is extremely dangerous and exactly what you’d want to do if you wanted to plant a ‘cheat’ onto the central tabulator,” March says in his affidavit. 

Their custom application … would have full contact with the central tabulator database on both a read and write basis, while running on the same computer as where the ‘master vote records’ (the central tabulator database — the ‘crown jewels’ of the whole process) are stored,” he says.

“Under this structure a case of accidental damage to the ‘crown jewels’ of the election data is possible. A case of deliberate tampering of that data using uncertified, untested software would be child’s play.” 

He describes the process as “criminally negligent just from a standpoint of data security.”

To wit, John Husted, the Ohio Secretary of State, a Republican, has chosen to install EXPERIMENTAL software on LIVE VOTING MACHINES just DAYS BEFORE a hotly contested Presidential and Senatorial election. 

WTF???!!!

I thought more about it, seething. I couldn't sleep last night. Something deeper was bothering me. There's more to this than meets the eye. This morning, I got the whole picture a bit more clearly. Reflect on this thought:

State Sen. Turner was similarly suspicious: “They should not be experimenting in a presidential election. You know the secretary of state had previous years to try to experiment.” 

Indeed, one of the unanswered questions we sent to the secretary of state asked why they waited until Sept. 18 to begin this contract, since Husted’s been in office for nearly two full years, and they’ve carried out many elections, of lesser import than a presidential election since that time during which this software could have had a trial run. Furthermore, we asked, how did they manage without it until now during both his tenure and that of his predecessors?

It's too obvious. It's not about successfully stealing the election (although perhaps the Ohio Secretary of State would be fine with that outcome...), because it's too blatant, and his culpability is too obvious.

It is, I've concluded, about injecting chaos. And a masterful injection, indeed. 

Consider the range of possible responses. Consider any one, and how difficult it will be for that response to be accepted, and effective at restoring order and integrity. See how easy it will be to cast aspersions and denigrate and challenge that response. 

The minefield is, dare I say, unnavigable.

The end result of all this election tampering is not that the voting results will be changed, but that they will be disputed. Who wins when the results are disputed? When our form of self-governance is called into question?

I have my opinions. I encourage you to think about it, and draw your own conclusions.

A civil war is brewing. Loki is smiling.

Mars and Jesus Agree with Eisenhower

Choosing the Right Thing

 
This morning, someone whispered in my ear. Not sure who. Here's what I heard:

"Every act, even the smallest, benefits from a thoughtful and soulful choice to 'do the right thing'. Anything else is selfish, deceiving, and creates injustice."

Could this have been Mars? Jesus? Not sure. But, strangely, it reminded me of a slice of a Dwight Eisenhower speech, in which he said,

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

I thought it was Eisenhower's farewell address. It wasn't. It was "The Chance for Peace", given in 1953 after the death of Josef Stalin.

I was unfamiliar with the content. I read it all. I recommend you do, too - for both those on the left and those on the right. In it, Eisenhower is calling out to the world, and the Soviet Union. 

It's steeped in the language of a world in fear. It's message is from a man who desires to lead us forward in hope; one who recognizes that the best mankind could achieve without mutual trust is "humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

Eisenhower calls for actions, not words.

"We welcome every honest act of peace. We care nothing for mere rhetoric. We are only for sincerity of peaceful purpose attested by deeds. The opportunities for such deeds are many. The performance of ... them waits upon no complex protocol but upon the simple will to do them."

There is much to be harvested by us, today, from this nearly 60-year-old speech.

For example, do we welcome every honest act of peace? As a country? As a body politic? As a community, neighbor, spouse, or friend?

Perhaps it was Mars who spoke this to me, and tickled me to recall Eisenhower. Perhaps it was Jesus. Because to both of them, the honorable battle is the one waged against the weaknesses within the self, first and always.

Right action is simple once we trust that doing it will make the world a better place. And here, I take one step further from Ike, and one step closer to Jesus, because, sometimes,  we have to stop waiting for "the other guy" to do the right thing first, as we do to prove that we'll be safe if we go along. Trust ultimately carries with it a willingness to be vulnerable. And as I (and Dr. Brene Brown much more eloquently) have pointed out many times, vulnerability is the key to living a fulfilled life.

Eisenhower goes on to simply and clearly define the fundamental mission of his vision:

"We are ready, in short, to dedicate our strength to serving the needs, rather than the fears, of the world."

Wow. How about that. A military general calling us out to serve one another's needs, not our own fears.

In 2012, we could sure use a big dose of THAT.