Home > The Diaries > (47)

The Diaries

Two years, 1 month and 17 days out: Aging hippie wins Battle of Ellis’ Farm, Eleanor Roosevelt would approve

Previous | Next

Good morning, all y'all, from your favorite felon, election integrity activist and (now) suspected terrorist.

It has been just four days since my last confession (er, diary entry) but I wanted to share with y'all some of the very positive fall-out from last Tuesday's unexpected (and unexpectedly pleasant) visit by two Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents to my deep hollow farm. I emailed all y'all about that visit as soon as it happened. Included among y'all are a small band of Tennessee journalists (most of whom don't work for corpulent media) who jumped all over this failed attempt at political intimidation. Some of the coverage below attests to the "jackassery" of Secretary of State Tre ("Where, oh where, have my little balls gone?") Hargett's stupidity and arrogance. It also strongly suggests that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation does not appreciate being used, in the words of one blogger, as the "GOP Stasi".

What follows is just some of the commentary on the "Battle of Ellis' Farm". This story is far (way far) from over. A well-respected investigative journalist for the only Nashville TV station worth watching (if I had bothered to buy the digital converter for my rabbit-eared set) is now on the story, and the word is that the TBI might just pay a visit to Secretary of State Hargett with a set of criminal charges against him. (Hide and watch for that.) So enjoy this coverage, and be sure to read through to the end. I have copied there, in its entirety, the national column penned by Eleanor Roosevelt in August, 1946 which praised the brave ex-GIs -- Republicans and Democrats together, standing back-to-back -- who fought to rescue their ballot boxes (and their country) in the Battle of Athens, TN. I sent that Eleanor Roosevelt column to the lead TBI agent who came to my farm on Tuesday and I will close this diary entry with my cover note to him, and his much-appreciated response.

Have a good Saturday, be happy and never stop fighting for this country. We are the ones it's been waiting for. Bernie
------

What Kind of Buffoons Are Running the Secretary of State's Office Now?
By Jeff Woods in Politics, Woods
Thursday, Jun. 25 2009 @ 5:33AM

New Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett and his little hillbilly sidekick, elections coordinator Mark Goins, are getting off to a fantastic start, aren't they? Faced with a collection of earnest do-gooders with the audacious demand that we count every election ballot, Hargett and Goins are behaving like a couple of thugs.

In the latest news, Hargett sent the TBI to investigate his complaint that one of his terribly dangerous political opponents, the mellow marijuana lover Bernie Ellis, made a "terrorist threat" against the Secretary of State's office. Hargett was worried about the safety of his employees. At least that's his story. What so concerned Hargett? An innocuous comment that Ellis posted on Tom Humphrey's blog. Read the comment here. To keep us safe from people like Ellis, maybe we need Homeland Security to start monitoring all blog comments. There was one by this commenter named Monkey Butt that upset me greatly. But I digress.
Previously, Goins threatened Liberadio's Mary Mancini, who worked with Ellis and others to defeat legislation this session to delay implementation of the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act. That law requires a paper trail for voting machines by the 2010 election. Goins plopped down beside Mancini in the legislative cafeteria.

"I'm a friend of paper ballots," he said, "But when you push your friends too far, sometime they bite back."

And, he added, "I'm this close to biting back."

Here's the moral of this little tale of jackassery: Don't mess with aging hippies. They're meaner than you think. Hargett sees them as a bunch of pansies. But the pansies kicked his ass on this legislation, so he was embarrassed and decided it was time for payback. Sending a couple of TBI agents to Ellis' house would screw with his mind. Right? Unfortunately for Hargett, Ellis, who's a really nice guy, has more than a few friends in the media. As soon as the TBI left his farm, he sat down at his computer and sent an email to these friends. When the first blog post hit the web, it must have been an "oh-shit" moment for the new secretary of state.

See Mary Mancini for more on this abuse of power and on the Republican full-court press against the integrity of elections in Tennessee. Also Jackson Baker reports: "Truth-Stranger-Than-Fiction Department: Citizen Activist Routs State Power in Battle of Ellis' Farm"
--------
For an excellent (though incomplete) summary of how other real Tennessee journalists have responded to this failed attempt at political intimidation, read: "Secretary of State makes unsubstantiated ‘terrorist threat’ claim" on the Nashville Is Talking blog

http://www.nashvilleistalking.com/2009/06/secretary-of-state-makes-unsubstantiated-terrorist-threat-claim/

That article has lots of embedded links to the full text of other stories that have appeared all across the state.
-------
And now for Eleanor Roosevelt's praise for our election integrity forebears (and bad-ass ex-GIs) at the Battle of Athens (TN):

SOURCE: /The Daily Post-Athenian/, Athens, Tenn., August 7, 1946

(Editor's Note — Our attention has been called to Mrs. Roosevelt's column upon McMinn. She seems to have grasped the facts and significance better than any other outside writer.)

McMinn A Warning — By Eleanor Roosevelt

New York, Monday — After any war, the use of force throughout the world is almost taken for granted. Men involved in the war have been trained to use force, and they have discovered that, when you want something, you can take it. The return to peacetime methods governed by law and persuasion is usually difficult.

We in the U.S.A., who have long boasted that, in our political life, freedom in the use of the secret ballot made it possible for us to register the will of the people without the use of force, have had a rude awakening as we read of conditions in McMinn County, Tennessee, which brought about the use of force in the recent primary. If a political machine does not allow the people free expression, then freedom-loving people lose their faith in the machinery under which their government functions.

In this particular case, a group of young veterans organized to oust the local machine and elect their own slate in the primary. We may deplore the use of force but we must also recognize the lesson which this incident points for us all. When the majority of the people know what they want, they will obtain it.

Any local, state or national government, or any political machine, in order to live, must give the people assurance that they can express their will freely and that their votes will be counted. The most powerful machine cannot exist without the support of the people. Political bosses and political machinery can be good, but the minute they cease to express the will of the people, their days are numbered.

This is a lesson which wise political leaders learn young, and you can be pretty sure that, when a boss stays in power, he gives the majority of the people what they think they want. If he is bad and indulges in practices which are dishonest, or if he acts for his own interests alone, the people are unwilling to condone these practices.

When the people decide that conditions in their town, county, state or country must change, they will change them. If the leadership has been wise, they will be able to do it peacefully through a secret ballot which is honestly counted, but if the leader has become inflated and too sure of his own importance, he may bring about the kind of action which was taken in Tennessee.

If we want to continue to be a mature people who, at home and abroad, settle our difficulties peacefully and not through the use of force, then we will take to heart this lesson and we will jealously guard our rights. What goes on before an election, the threats or persuasion by political leaders, may be bad but it cannot prevent the people from really registering their will if they wish to.

The decisive action which has just occurred in our midst is a warning, and one which we cannot afford to overlook.

Previous | Next