I think this is very true, but it worries me the extent to which the US may have allowed vested interests like ES&S, Eaton, Dominion and Palantir to take over the management and provision of the firmware and software by which votes are now captured. I heard that a recent software update, without any official oversight, placed the electionware config.ini on the other side of the firewall, where it is not even encrypted or write-protected. Updates are frequently made also to the TRIPP UPS software, to which Windows allows root access, without even a net change manifest. Perhaps all is under control and I'm just feeling a little paranoia but I wonder whether sham elections for all three houses may be the order of the day in the US from now on. It would hardly be the first autocratic regime to stage phoney elections to placate the public, but this may be the first that's technologically accomplished enough to pull it off convincingly.
I agree and still have lingering doubts about 2024 since Elon involvement. Do we go back to hand ballots only with scanned ballots. How can we safeguard elections in this age? Air gap systems only at polls? White hackers to track firmware and software updates? Technology exists but who is in control?
It's a great question, isn't it. The introduction of electronic voter systems could have been an opportunity to make fraud harder and instead it made it vastly easier, because the people in a position to regulate the new systems didn't understand them in enough detail. Instead trust was placed in suppliers who were allowed to effectively regulate themselves. The keystone was effectively handed to Peter Thiel of all people.
I think you asked the crucial question: who's in control? Who isn't already conspiring and who can't be bought? Maybe going back to hand counting temporarily would be an improvement but trustworthy digital systems feel like the way forward ultimately. Open source and fourth-party verification might help. I like the white-hacking idea. Usually having diverse oversight helps. Multiple regulatory bodies. Multiple opportunities to expose any wrongdoing or error. Checks and balances. America has lost trust in its institutions, and its institutions were what was keeping it from the wild west.
It's also not the first time the U.S. has devolved into oligarchy and then saw democratic regeneration. The Gilded Age and then the New Deal and then expanded democratic institutions in the Civil Rights-era.
The Gilded Age of plutocracy ended with the economic Panic of 1890, triggered by the Tariff Act of 1890. President McKinley, at the time, was known as the "Napoleon of Tariffs" (sounds familiar).
This was followed by the Great Depression of 1929, which was preceded by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which Trump's tariffs are often compared to. The economic depression that followed was finally stopped by the advent of the two World Wars, causing a violent reset of world markets.
Mike, you are correct in the need for acknowledgment of the need for change, but we also have to gird ourselves for the economic hardships usually linked to socio-economic revolutions. Fasten your seatbelts, we're heading into some major turbulence buffeting our global economic house of cards.
We're in similar boats. Many places are still functioning properly, but the federal government is side-tracked and corrosive. The People are becoming aware of our own necessary agency, and it's up to all of us to grasp the agency to expose the depths of the sedition permeating the powerful and the wealthy. The mainstream media are happy being clickbait, comfortable with acquiescence.
The trouble is that the Clown Show (formerly known as the "Supreme Court") is captured and is pro-Trump. It is no longer a legal institution or backstop, but the post-legislative arm of the Republican party.
You’ve named it exactly. Rubble is not ruins.
We live in neither democracy nor autocracy.
It’s a liminal space. Fragile enough to collapse. Still porous to renewal.
To call it defeat is self-deception in reverse. To call it democracy is worse.
The fight is real. So is the possibility.
(Interregna, after all, are when futures get written.)
I think this is very true, but it worries me the extent to which the US may have allowed vested interests like ES&S, Eaton, Dominion and Palantir to take over the management and provision of the firmware and software by which votes are now captured. I heard that a recent software update, without any official oversight, placed the electionware config.ini on the other side of the firewall, where it is not even encrypted or write-protected. Updates are frequently made also to the TRIPP UPS software, to which Windows allows root access, without even a net change manifest. Perhaps all is under control and I'm just feeling a little paranoia but I wonder whether sham elections for all three houses may be the order of the day in the US from now on. It would hardly be the first autocratic regime to stage phoney elections to placate the public, but this may be the first that's technologically accomplished enough to pull it off convincingly.
I agree and still have lingering doubts about 2024 since Elon involvement. Do we go back to hand ballots only with scanned ballots. How can we safeguard elections in this age? Air gap systems only at polls? White hackers to track firmware and software updates? Technology exists but who is in control?
It's a great question, isn't it. The introduction of electronic voter systems could have been an opportunity to make fraud harder and instead it made it vastly easier, because the people in a position to regulate the new systems didn't understand them in enough detail. Instead trust was placed in suppliers who were allowed to effectively regulate themselves. The keystone was effectively handed to Peter Thiel of all people.
I think you asked the crucial question: who's in control? Who isn't already conspiring and who can't be bought? Maybe going back to hand counting temporarily would be an improvement but trustworthy digital systems feel like the way forward ultimately. Open source and fourth-party verification might help. I like the white-hacking idea. Usually having diverse oversight helps. Multiple regulatory bodies. Multiple opportunities to expose any wrongdoing or error. Checks and balances. America has lost trust in its institutions, and its institutions were what was keeping it from the wild west.
Understood, and I'm in total agreement. Can't slow it down or even fix it if we can't be honest about what's broken.
It's also not the first time the U.S. has devolved into oligarchy and then saw democratic regeneration. The Gilded Age and then the New Deal and then expanded democratic institutions in the Civil Rights-era.
The Gilded Age of plutocracy ended with the economic Panic of 1890, triggered by the Tariff Act of 1890. President McKinley, at the time, was known as the "Napoleon of Tariffs" (sounds familiar).
This was followed by the Great Depression of 1929, which was preceded by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which Trump's tariffs are often compared to. The economic depression that followed was finally stopped by the advent of the two World Wars, causing a violent reset of world markets.
Mike, you are correct in the need for acknowledgment of the need for change, but we also have to gird ourselves for the economic hardships usually linked to socio-economic revolutions. Fasten your seatbelts, we're heading into some major turbulence buffeting our global economic house of cards.
We're in similar boats. Many places are still functioning properly, but the federal government is side-tracked and corrosive. The People are becoming aware of our own necessary agency, and it's up to all of us to grasp the agency to expose the depths of the sedition permeating the powerful and the wealthy. The mainstream media are happy being clickbait, comfortable with acquiescence.
The trouble is that the Clown Show (formerly known as the "Supreme Court") is captured and is pro-Trump. It is no longer a legal institution or backstop, but the post-legislative arm of the Republican party.
What happened to the circus. You guys need to come back on air.
Exactly