Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: storie di ordinaria democrazia

Ricevo e trasmetto un'articolo del giornale inglese The Guardian,
pubblicato qualche giorno fa.
Consiglio VIVAMENTE di leggerlo a chi conosce l'inglese.
Best democracy money can buy
 Gregory Palast examines the sources of the $500m
 that boosted Bush's bid for the White House
 The Guardian, UK
 Sunday November 26, 2000
 Last week, I mailed my overseas ballot for the US
 presidency - and you can wipe that smug little grin off
 your face. I won't put up with condescending comments
 about America's democratic rituals from a nation with an
 unelected House of Lords occupied by genetic fossils and,
 soon, Chris Woodhead.
 In fact, you could think of the $3 billion spent in the
 US campaign in positive, New Labour terms. Call it 'the
 efficient privatisation of the democracy' - though an
 outright auction for the presidency would be more
 efficient still.
 If the guy who lost the vote, George W Bush, nevertheless
 wins the White House, he'll have surfed in on a crushing
 wave of nearly half a billion dollars ($447 million), my
 calculation of the suffocating plurality of cash from
 corporate America, a good 25 per cent more than Al Gore's
 take.
 George W could not have amassed this pile if his surname
 were Jones or Smith. The key to Dubya's money empire is
 Daddy Bush's post-White House work which, incidentally,
 raised the family's net worth by several hundred per
 cent.
 Take two packets of payments to the Republican Party,
 totalling $148,000, from an outfit called Barrick
 Goldstrike. That's quite a patriotic contribution from a
 Canadian company. They can afford it. In 1992, in the
 final hours of the Bush presidency, Barrick took control
 of US government-owned property containing an estimated
 $10bn in gold. For the whole shooting match, Barrick paid
 the US Treasury only $10,000.
 Barrick made deft use of an 1872 gold rush law meant to
 allow pan-and-bucket prospectors to gain title to their
 tiny claims. In 1992, Clinton's newly elected
 administration was ready to prevent Barrick's stunning
 grab. But Barrick is a lucky outfit. Bush's Interior
 Department expedited procedures to ram through Barrick's
 claim stake before Clinton's inauguration.
 Ex-Pres George Bush was lucky, too. When the electorate
 booted him from the White House, he landed softly - on
 the Barrick Goldstrike payroll, where he comfortably
 nested until last year.
 Who is Barrick? Its founder, Peter Munk, made his name in
 Canada in the 1950s as the figure in an infamous insider
 stock-trading scandal. Munk headed a small speaker
 manufacturer that went belly-up, just after he sold his
 stock. This is not quite the expected pedigree for an
 international minerals mogul.
 If we look in the shadows behind Munk we can see the more
 accomplished player who provided the capital to set up
 Barrick - Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
 During Bush's presidency, Khashoggi was identified as
 conduit in the Iran-Contra conspiracy. He had already run
 into trouble with US lawmen when, in 1986, he was
 arrested and charged - but not convicted - of fraud. He
 was bailed out of the New York prison by Munk, who
 provided the $4m bond. Bush performed an even bigger
 favour for Khashoggi: as his last act in office, the
 president pardoned Khashoggi's alleged co-conspirators,
 key members of Bush's own cabinet. As a result, no case
 could be made against Khashoggi.
 In 1996, a geologist prospecting in Indonesia, Mike de
 Guzman, announced his discovery of the world's richest
 gold field. Munk rapidly deployed his president. Bush, on
 behalf of Barrick, contacted officials of the former
 dictator Suharto who were in control of mining
 concessions. Thereafter, De Guzman's company was told it
 would have to turn over 68 per cent of its claim to
 Barrick.
 Barrick didn't have long to gloat. Jim-Bob Moffett, the
 tough, old, Louisiana swamp dog who heads Freeport-
 McMoRan Mining, had a private meeting with his old
 benefactor Suharto. At the end of the meeting, Jim-Bob
 and the dictator stood on the steps of the presidential
 palace to announce that Freeport-McMoRan would replace
 Barrick. (Ironically, Barrick lucked it again. The gold
 find was a hoax. After Jim-Bob learnt he'd been suckered,
 his company invited geologist De Guzman to talk it over.
 Sadly, on way to the meeting, De Guzman fell out of a
 helicopter.)
 While Mr Munk's president did not pay the cost of his
 rental in Indonesia, Bush could redeem himself in Africa.
 In 1996, as genocide in Rwanda fomented civil war in
 Zaire, Barrick smelt opportunity. We have learnt that, at
 that time, Bush spoke with his old golfing buddy, Mobutu
 Sese Seko (then dictator of Zaire) about diamond
 concessions.
 I don't know what ex-CIA director Bush told the panicked
 dictator, but we do know that Mobutu granted Barrick
 exclusive rights to mine diamonds in north-west Zaire.
 Maybe Bush talked about Barrick's mining experience in
 neighbouring Tanzania where, according to Amnesty
 International, Barrick's subsidiary carried out 'extra-
 judicial killings'. Amnesty reports that 50 independent
 miners who refused to move off the Barrick unit's
 concession were buried alive in the pits by company
 bulldozers. Barrick denies the allegations.
 Beyond Barrick, Daddy Bush has many other friends who
 filled up his sonny-boy's campaign kitty while Bush
 performed certain lucrative favours for them. In 1998,
 Bush père created a storm in Argentina when he lobbied
 his close political ally President Carlos Menem to grant
 a gambling licence to Mirage Casino corporation.
 Bush wrote that he had no personal interest in the deal.
 That's true. But Bush fils did not do badly. After the
 casino flap, Mirage dropped $449,000 into the Republican
 Party war chest.
 The ex-president and famed Desert Strormtrooper-in-Chief,
 also wrote to the oil minister of Kuwait on behalf of
 Chevron Oil Corporation. Bush says honestly that he, 'had
 no stake in the Chevron operation'.
 Following this selfless use of his influence, the oil
 company put $657,000 into Republican Party coffers. Most
 of that loot, reports the Center for Responsive Politics,
 came in the form of 'soft money' That's the squishy stuff
 corporations use to ooze around US law which, you may be
 surprised to learn, prohibits any donations to
 presidential campaigns in the general election.
 Not all of the elder Bush's work is voluntary. His single
 talk to the board of Global Crossing, the telecoms start-
 up, earned him $13m in stock. The company also kicked in
 another million for his kid's run.
 And while the Bush family steadfastly believes that ex-
 felons should not have the right to vote for president,
 they have no objection to ex-cons putting presidents on
 their payroll. In 1996, despite pleas of US church
 leaders, Daddy Bush gave several speeches (he charges
 $100,000 per talk) sponsored by organisations run by Rev
 Sun Myung Moon, cult leader, tax cheat - and formerly,
 the guest of the US federal prison system.
 There are so many more tales of the Bush family daisy
 chain of favours, friendship and campaign funding. None
 of it is illegal - which I find troubling. But I don't
 want to seem ungrateful. After all, the Bushes helped
 make America the best democracy money can buy.
 Blackout in Florida
 Vice-President Al Gore would have strolled to victory in
 Florida if the state hadn't kicked 12,000 citizens off
 the voters' registers five month ago as former felons.
 In fact, only a fraction were ex-cons. Most were simply
 guilty of being African-American. While 8,000 of those
 disenfranchised went through the legal rigmarole of
 getting on to the voting list, the rest - enough to have
 won the state for Gore - did not.
 A top-placed election official (not a Democrat) told me
 that the government had conducted a quiet review and
 found - surprise! - that the listing included far more
 African-Americans than would statistically have been
 expected, even accounting for the grievous gap between
 the conviction rates of blacks and whites in the US.
 The source of this poisonous blacklist: Database
 Technologies, a division of ChoicePoint, and hired by
 Governor Jeb Bush's frothingly partisan Secretary of
 State, Katherine Harris. My thanks to investigator
 Solomon Hughes for informing me that DBT is a division of
 ChoicePoint. Under fire for mis-use of personal data in
 state computers, ChoicePoint founder Rick Rozar made a
 strategic six-figure soft cash donation to the Republican
 Party.
Sent via Deja.com 
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Before you buy.

 diritto di voto, scusa tanto....
A parte la risposta di Ella (che ovviamente condivido), ti consiglio
di leggere il pezzo di articolo quotato sotto:
------
 Vice-President Al Gore would have strolled to victory in
 Florida if the state hadn't kicked 12,000 citizens off
 the voters' registers five month ago as former felons.
 In fact, only a fraction were ex-cons. Most were simply
 guilty of being African-American. While 8,000 of those
 disenfranchised went through the legal rigmarole of
 getting on to the voting list, the rest - enough to have
 won the state for Gore - did not.
 A top-placed election official (not a Democrat) told me
 that the government had conducted a quiet review and
 found - surprise! - that the listing included far more
 African-Americans than would statistically have been
 expected, even accounting for the grievous gap between
 the conviction rates of blacks and whites in the US.
 The source of this poisonous blacklist: Database
 Technologies, a division of ChoicePoint, and hired by
 Governor Jeb Bush's frothingly partisan Secretary of
 State, Katherine Harris. My thanks to investigator
 Solomon Hughes for informing me that DBT is a division of
 ChoicePoint. Under fire for mis-use of personal data in
 state computers, ChoicePoint founder Rick Rozar made a
 strategic six-figure soft cash donation to the Republican
 Party.
------
Quello che mi preoccupa, di tutta questa faccenda, non e' neanche
l'irregolarita'.
E' che, a parte una piccolissima minoranza e due avvocati, il
fatto che migliaia di afro-americani siano stati esclusi
sui due piedi dalle liste elettorali non preoccupa quasi nessuno
(afro-americani compresi).
L'assenza di quelle barricate che sarebbero sicuramente salite
20 o 30 anni fa in una situazione del genere (mi correggo: SONO salite,
visto che cose del genere 20 o 30 anni fa sono successe e come) la
dice molto piu' lunga delle questioni costituzionali.
E non sto parlando solo degli USA:   E' praticamente accertato che Putin
si e' fregato 3 milioni e passa di voti nelle presidenziali Russe.
Se fosse successo 10 anni fa sarebbe scoppiata la rivoluzione.
Oggi, la risposta a questo abuso e' stata un'interrogazione
parlamentare e menefreghismo totale da parte della popolazione.
E questo e' l'ennesimo segno che, piu' che una democrazia matura,
sia l'America che la Russia sono democrazie irrilevanti.
Dopotutto, se il presidente e' universalmente visto come un corrotto
che non risolve i problemi della gente, chi se ne frega se il
"diritto di scegliere" fra due corrotti identici e' negato a una
minoranza etnica, o che il vincitore non sia legittimo?
PER ORA,in Italia PENSO che NON sia cosi'.
Cioe', e' possibilissimo che Formigoni usi uno stratagemma burocratico
per escludere, chesso', i residenti dei centri sociali dalle liste
elettorali come ha fatto il fratellino di Bush con i neri.
Tuttavia sono arciconvinto che se fosse beccato a farlo, una
bella rivoluzione ai suoi danni non gliela leverebbe nessuno.
Che la massima di Jefferson sulla necessita' di avere una rivoluzione
ogni decennio sia stata piu' recepita da noi in Italia che nel suo
paese?
GT
