What We HAD Here Was A Failure of Imagination

Ten signs that the disasters and catastrophes of the last 8 years should have surprised NO ONE (I wrote this in December, 2000).

What if:
The self-declared "winner" of a closely contested, vital, national election LOST the national total popular vote, but "was declared the winner" based on some old colonial/imperial/racist holdover from the nation's pre-democracic and un-integrated past...

AND 2. The self-declared "winner's" "victory" turned on disputed votes cast--or preventded from being cast--in a province infamous for political chicanery, fraud, and abuse, and which is governed by the "victor's" brother...

AND 3. The self-declared "winner" was the son of the defeated, rejected (and humiliated!) former prime minister; AND the defeated, humiliated father/former prime minister was himself the former long-time member and later chief of that nation's secret police, international terrorist, assassination, and political dirty tricks squad, where he was still held in high regard, had impeccable connections, and was still owed a few favors...

AND 4. An overwhelming majority of members of that nation's most despised caste of former slaves, servants, and sexual playthings, fearing for their lives/livelihoods and the return of their oppression, turned out in record numbers to vote in near-universal opposition to the self-declared "winner's" candidacy...

AND 5. Hundreds of members of that most-despised caste were intercepted on their way to the polls by state police, operating under the authority of the self-declared "winner's" brother...

AND 6. There were internationally wide-spread, but locally ignored, allegations that ballots delivered to polling places of the members of the despised caste in the disputed districts were of the kind known for years to result in large numbers of "disqualified" ballots, AND which ballots may already have been 'pre-marked' so that they might be discarded later as bearing multiple voter's marks (source: London TIMES, NY TIMES, etc)...

AND 7. Poorly designed ballots and faulty machines in several voting districts -- especially those heavily favoring the OPPONENT of the self-declared "winner," in districts where the likely voters were preponderantly members of that despised class -- directly led to thousands of voters voting AGAINST their expressly preferred candidate, while many of those who noticed and requested new ballots were denied...

AND 8. While six million people voted in the disputed province, the self-declared "winner's" margin of "victory" was only 327 notes -- fewer, by far, certainly, than the vote-counting machines' margin of error...

AND 9. The self-declared "winner" and his political cronies opposed -- indeed, declared to be "criminal" and "dishonest" -- a more careful, by-hand inspection and re-counting of the ballots in the disputed province, or in its most hotly disputed districts...

AND ...10. the self-declared "winner," who himself was a governor of a major province -- which province had the worst human-rights record of any province in his nation, and led the nation in executions -- had recently signed legislation in his own province that REQUIRED such a "criminal" recount...

Would the estimable forces of (corporate) freedom and (financial) right in 4th estate of the USofA turn a blind eye upon all this, and urge a speedy resolution of the disputes and installation of the 'victor"?

I doubt it... unless, of course, he were an "authoritarian" leader dedicated to "free" markets and the suppression of dissent.