Betty Freauf -- Does Our Vote Really Count?

It's a long time until November and I'm sick of this election cycle already because it's all a joke -- an illusion making us believe that our vote really means something. He who gets the most money from Special Interest Groups and does the best spin with the TV ads wins!

Who cares about Kerry's medals? Who cares if Bush didn't show up for his military obligation? These are simply weapons of mass distraction. Kerry and Bush are "blood brothers" with the same secret societies in the background pulling the strings of whomever gets elected as President. [read] The first rule of politics: Place your own people in positions of power and Bush has stacked his administration with Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) appointees.

Perhaps I'd be more apt to listen carefully to what the candidates say if I hadn't decided in 1980 to become politically active. That was a wake up call! That's also when I found out about the CFR and the Trilateral Commission (TC).

Someone showed me a film presentation of how our counties are broken down into precincts and manageable numbers and I got this bright Founding Father idea, IF we could get a few informed people in these precincts spoon feeding the voters information the media suppresses, we could begin to turn this country around. I recently wrote a letter to the editor about a certain conservative candidate's questionable ethics. My letter was rejected. The paper endorsed the candidate. Read Bill Sizemore's article How The Media Cheats.

What is critical to the task of making the dramatic changes necessary to keep our nation strong beyond one or two generations is the courageous and inspired leadership of principled politicians but what a dreamer I was. The American Revolution occurred when small groups of motivated citizens worked with principled leaders to create a synergy for change but it was like pulling teeth to get people to take these precinct positions. They might show up for a Central Committee meeting (communists also have central committees) to vote from a cheat sheet supplied them to get certain people elected to the unpaid county positions but that is about as far as their commitment went.

The Voter Guides (different from the Voters' Pamphlet) published in Oregon by a variety of conservative groups are also helpful. These generally cover moral stands and tax issues and are distributed to churches.

The liberals don't need such gimmicks. They have the liberal media making their endorsements and I have often told people the best plumb line they can use at election time is NOT to vote for the candidates the media endorses and to watch which groups are endorsing the candidates.

For instance, a candidate who boasts of being endorsed by AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) is already compromised.

As I was drafting this article, Oregon's Governor Kulongoski used his pre-recorded phone message asking for my vote for Rives Kistler as Supreme Court Judge, who also has ample money for many TV ads.

I checked my Voters' Pamphlet and I find Kistler is supported by every stinkin' thinkin' liberal in Oregon so I'm voting for his opponent who says in the Pamphlet that "The Oregon Supreme Court has systematically subverted the people's constitutionally-reserved initiative power."

Due to lack of decent constitutional representation, Oregonians have been resorting to the initiative process. It's a terrible way to run our Republican form of government but our only recourse against tyranny. However, lately roadblocks have been thrown into the process by a corrupt judicial system. [Read] [Read]

But these Voter Guides miss the bigger picture. The majority of those who may get elected at the county and state level with the help of these Guides will soon be cannibalized by these Special Interest Groups who care only about their narrow agendas and soon they'll be looking to become just another "career politician" compromising their earlier principles and promises of lower taxes and less government and they'll be swimming in the political cesspool with only one thing on their mind -- getting re-elected and the next higher rung on the political ladder.

In Washington, D.C. there is great tension between principles and politics. The principled member is working for the next generation. The career politician is working for re-election. The real battle is won or lost in the hearts and minds of politicians.

Former GOP Congressman, Dr. Tom Coburn, writes in his book Breach Of Trust (c) 2003, "Though few members discuss the temptations of ego and prestige publicly, it is at the center of most leaders' lives. The battle between ego and principle is illustrated in a variety of ways, but it is evidenced most starkly, and tragically, by the high divorce rate in Congress."

The conservatives up and coming young star, Jim Bunn from Oregon, ran on a "family values" platform and got into the Oregon Senate by appointment when a vacancy occurred. He ran for Congress in 1994 on a similar platform. Then he divorced his wife and eventually married a staff member. He thought he could maintain power and abandon core principles. That may fly well with the Kennedy followers in Massachusetts but it did not bode well with Bunn's Oregon conservatives and they booted his backside out and a Democrat feminist, a Christian school graduate, won the seat.

I often find it amazing how quickly the principles they have when running for office the first time abruptly switch and soon their principles are merely expressions of dialectal materialism, sugar coated to the American taste, sheer opportunism or plain hypocrisy. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and it certainly doesn't take long.

As another perfect example, conservatives elected Gordon Smith to the Oregon Senate in 1992 and by 1994 he had already been selected as Senate President and as a graduate of Brigham Young University, conservatives erroneously assumed he'd be a strong representative on moral issues. I watched his voting record in the Oregon Senate and I had red flags but when Oregon's "career Senator" and one-worlder Mark Hatfield finally decided to quit, he was the natural choice and Mr. Smith went to Washington.

He is good looking. Like so many other politicians, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He is president and CEO of Smith Frozen Foods in Pendleton, one of the largest private label packers of frozen vegetables in the United Sates. His father, Milan Smith, was politically connected to the Mormon Church and the Republican Party. He became assistant secretary of agriculture in 1954 under President Eisenhower when Smith was two and his family moved from their home in Pendleton to Washington D.C. where Gordon graduated from a private prep school.

In 1981 Smith's Frozen Foods was in financial trouble after the death of the owner so Smith returned to Pendleton and bought the the company without any financial help from his father, he likes to point out; however, the January 1996 tiny OREGON OBSERVER says Smith was given $800,000 in state and federal money "to save the family business" - something again the mainline fishwrappers failed to report.

Gordon got elected by the conservatives but most did not have a clue what a hypocrite this guy was. Before the ballots were barely counted, he'd already pledged his allegiance to the Log Cabin Homosexual lobby. He's now been working with liberal Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy to get "hate" legislation passed which will be so vaguely worded that if anyone dares object to the homosexual agenda by rolling their eyes, they'll be subject to prosecution on a "hate" crime.

And who put Ronald Reagan into the president's office? The conservatives! Who did Ronnie appoint to the Supreme Court? None other than Sandra Day O'Connor who was pro-choice and has often been the swing vote on the issue to keep abortion "safe and legal."

Former Congressman, Tom Coburn, M.D. from the state of Oklahoma elected during Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" in 1994 campaign says regarding how the Social Security fund is continually robbed to help balance the budget, "It is not about spending Social Security money. It is not about being true to our word. It is about the foundational structure of our country and whether or not we are going to operate on the principles that we want our children to have. That we are going to reinforce the positive aspects of honor, of commitment to your word. Are we going to set an example for our children in high school that we are going to do what we said we were going to do? Are we going to be true to the founding principles of this country? I am in my last (self-imposed) term, and I must say that I am very much discouraged as a member of this body (about) whether or not we have a great future when in fact we say one thing and mean another. I believe we do not plan to save Social Security."

About the first thing many of these newly elected political neophyte do is look to the entrenched politicians for advice. They don't realize, the old-timers are the cause, hardly the solution.

They are told a person simply cannot win if they try to be principled and if your party is not in power you cannot "do good". Principles enhance an elected official's credibility and demonstrate integrity but alas, that is simply not to be found in most elected officials today and then we wring our hands and shake our heads and wonder why so many of our young people are becoming such immoral, unbelievable liars. People like Bill Clinton is their mentor.

Then the newly elected officials are told they must vote the party line or be ostracized and threatened with no support the next election cycle so they succumb to the will of the party leaders. The "Whip" in Congress, for instance, has the job of taking those in his party to the woodshed if they refuse to obey. This is why self-imposed term limited elected officials can be more independent and effective because they don't care if they are re-elected. They don't have to bow to intimidation. They simply want to obey their oaths of office and keep their principles intact while serving the people to the best of their understanding of their constitutional oath.

I remember when a lady we had as chair person of the Oregon House education committee didn't want to let a school consolidation bill out of her committee in 1997 and the GOP House speaker, who makes the committee appointments, cussed her out and threatened her with losing her chair position if she didn't comply with his demands. She eventually folded like a cheap tent and now all our little districts have been eaten up by the larger districts. Larger school districts are no better than Abe Lincoln's dream of a centralized government which we've been given since the Civil War. Slavery was only secondary. That House Speaker now has a very lucrative lobbying business involving his sons and his wife. [Read] [Read]

The farther away from the people government becomes, the easier it is to install these "career politicians" who are promoting this United Nations, one-world agenda using education as the main source of propaganda and brainwashing of the next generation of kids.

Let's be honest. The "common good of a nation" no longer exists in the federal government or our state legislatures. The "good" of each Special Interest Group prevails.

Former Georgia Governor and now Congressman Zell Miller in his book A National Party No More says Washington lawmakers have replaced dogs as best friends in favor of Special Interest Groups and campaign consultants.

He says the politicians are regularly petted and fed and they wag their tails and do tricks - the favorite one being "Beg," but "Lie Down", "Stay" "Speak" and "Roll Over" are also favorites. The Special Interest Groups have to keep their pets obedient and performing in order to distort issues they must keep alive in perpetuity in order to make their jobs seem necessary.

And this, my dear readers, regretfully is the type of government we have today and why incumbents are generally hard to beat. With the Incumbent Protection System, the incumbents have the power to use "franked" mail pieces claiming they are informational mailings but they are thinly veiled campaign pieces paid for by taxpayers says Dr. Coburn. Every member office has a large budget to send mailings to the district to inform voters about important congressional business.

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On its face, says Coburn, this practice seems harmless enough. However, the campaign committees of both parties see the frank as a free source of campaign funds. Potential challengers simply do not have this opportunity and have to raise huge sums of money to overcome the advantage of the frank.

Our Founding Fathers clearly understood that only a citizenry educated in morality and willingly bound by the self-forged chains of virtue can remain free of the chains of tyranny.

The real hope for the long-term viability of the American experiment, therefore, does not rest with the Republican, Democrat or any political party for that matter. Instead, it rests with the American people who decide they simply aren't going to take it any more! If the American people can reacquaint themselves with our founders' vision and elect representatives with true political courage and not just "career political" rhetoric, things will change.

Betty is a former Oregon Republican Party activist having served as state party secretary, county chairman, 5th congressional vice chairman and then elected chairman, and a precinct worker for many years. Betty is a researcher, freelance journalist and a regular contributor to www.NewsWithViews.com.

E-Mail: bettyboot@countrycablevision.net

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"The real hope for the long-term viability of the American experiment, therefore, does not rest with the Republican, Democrat or any political party for that matter. Instead, it rests with the American people who decide they simply aren't going to take it any more!"