INCOMING: The End of Democracy in Ohio?

From the party that advertises being for individual rights, voter supremacy and personal responsibility comes the first Bridge to the world they actually sold you and absolutely intend to deliver; Federalist (i.e. Super-Class) Hegemony:

The End of Democracy in Ohio?: "House Bill 3 has already passed the Ohio House of Representatives and is about to be approved by the Republican-dominated Senate, probably before the holiday recess. Republicans dominate the Ohio legislature thanks to a heavily gerrymandered crazy quilt of rigged districts, and to a moribund Ohio Democratic party. The GOP-drafted HB3 is designed to all but obliterate any possible future Democratic revival. Opposition from the Ohio Democratic Party, where it exists at all, is diffuse and ineffectual.

HB3's most publicized provision will require positive identification before casting a vote. But it also opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge a presidential vote count or, indeed, any federal election result in Ohio. When added to the recently passed HB1, which allows campaign financing to be dominated by the wealthy and by corporations, and along with a Rovian wish list of GOP attacks on the ballot box, democracy in Ohio could be all but over.

The GOP is ramming similar bills through state legislatures around the U.S., starting with Georgia and Indiana. The ID requirements in particular have provoked widespread opposition from newspapers such as the New York Times. The Times, among others, argues that the ID requirements and the costs associated with them, constitute an unconstitutional discriminatory poll tax."

You think I'm joking?

Think about it. Had the states been so carved up as Ohio (and Texas) currently stand, civil rights may still be a black minister's Dream. The Trojan Horse used to deliver this strategic process/weapon was the Republican/conservative party drive for a return to state's rights. Using the values-based wedge issues (the emotional ones that turn off your brain and turn on your reactionism) like abortion, gays and guns they took hold office-by-office.

On the surface being able to "vote" your values and state's rights sound patriotic enough (and hard to argue against) until you realize that by loading the courts with Republican pro-business forces until the local levels are also saturated that the end result is not more consumer or individual protection but less; not more individual rights but fewer, because when a right is denied by the state it will be challenged in higher courts (which will turn it back to the state)that is now legislatively jerry-rigged against individual or group action or protest. End result? Not only do you not win, in some cases it may be ILLEGAL for you to seek your day in court!!!

So, if left unchecked, the pro-corporate, anti-rights forces of the Republican party will continue to target, pull-down and then destroy the laws of each state required to first, guarantee electoral majorities until it is practically impossible to unseat and defeat them and second, criminalize the act of challenging them or their corporate masters!

After that, political opposition parties will become increasingly targeted. It is likely they will be infiltrated by operatives who will commit crimes opening the groups to charges of terrorism until one by one, political opposition represented through pro-rights or other dissenting voices (i.e. environmental activists, consumer protection groups, et al) will be deligitimized and/ or criminalized out of existence.

End result? The Federalist corporate-interest run country --wet-dream of the Super Class. Go ahead, laugh, but buy land in Canada in case I'm right...

(UPDATE 12-14-05)
And AFTER the above legislation is passed, what happens?

In Ohio, a case alleging conspiracy to commit voter fraud was brought by another prominent Republican law firm. Again, the case was dismissed when no evidence could be produced. In Cleveland and Akron, FBI investigators reviewed registration applications submitted by ACORN and found no evidence of any organizational misconduct.

Alleged incidents of "voter fraud" are frequently cited as the main reason for implementing laws that restrict access to voting and disproportionately impact low income and minority, such as photo identification requirements. A year after the contentious 2004 election, however, these claims have been revealed to be false. "It's very political," said Pierce. "They make false claims against our successful voter registration programs, which encourage people to take part in democracy, in order to justify legislation which would throw up barriers to minority and low income voters."