Recently AIM interviewed Gigi Gaston, director of the documentary film, “We Will Not Be Silenced.” The film documents voter intimidation and corruption by forces working for then-candidate Barack Obama at Democratic precinct caucuses and state conventions during the 2008 Presidential primary. The filmmaker is surprising in that she is a lifelong Democrat, whose grandfather was the mayor of Boston and later the governor of Massachusetts, and she is a Hollywood screenwriter.
She says that after receiving a call from a former congressional investigator, she went to Texas to look into charges of voter irregularities in the Democratic caucus process to choose their presidential nominee. It was down to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. What she found, as described on the website for the film, was “falsified delegate counts, falsified documents, and other violations” And she describes the “disenfranchising of American citizens by the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign,” and said that the “infamous campaign of ‘change’ from Chicago encouraged and created an army to steal caucus packets, falsify documents, change results, allow unregistered people to vote, scare and intimidate Hillary supporters, stop them, threaten them, lock them out of their polling places, silence their voices, and stop their right to vote.”
Through interviews with people with a first-hand knowledge of what was going on, including civil rights activist Helene Latimer, a very disturbing picture formed of what the Obama campaign was up to in order to “win” the nomination. Attorney Gloria Allred is shown calling for the elimination of the caucuses.
Ms. Gaston described how the Clinton campaign attempted to bring evidence of some of these irregularities to the attention of the media, but they were largely ignored.
You can listen to the full interview, or read the transcript here.
Here are some additional quotes from the interview.
“In Sioux City, Iowa, alone, out of a caucus where a hundred people caucused for Obama, 40 people had the same address. Different things like that I saw, but the people are really the things that made me realize what was going on was far more serious than what I’d gone down to do, which was basically to prove everyone wrong. And I was even more startled that when you actually tried to say something about it, and let people know, especially the press in this country—I think not only is our voting in great jeopardy here, but I think the press is.”
“…if you had an Obama sticker on, they didn’t check ID, they just waved you into the room to stand on the side of Obama. That happened constantly. A lot of people weren’t even from that precinct, in that area. If I want to caucus, and, say I’m in Venice, California, or Santa Monica, California, I can’t go to Malibu and caucus also. There were a lot of repeats, of people going all over. Bussing in was the worst part. I don’t know if you saw, in the documentary, where all these parents didn’t know where their kids had been taken, and they’d been taken across from Illinois into Indiana, and caucused, bought dinner, and returned. It’s not legal to pay someone to vote for you.”
“I haven’t left the [Democrat] party yet, because I’m in to try to see if this is one last shot, that they could totally be heroic, unite the party, and address this. I know it’s a crazy hoop-dream, but I haven’t left the party yet. I definitely don’t believe in what—the great gifts we were given as people that came to this country. I don’t believe that it’s still there. I really am concerned about our voting. I really don’t feel we’re going to have—that our votes are ever going to be represented again if we, as people, don’t go, ‘Hey! You guys have to address this!’”
Emphasis, graphics, and all links but the last, by Gulag Bound.
Roger Aronoff is a media analyst with Accuracy in Media, and is the writer/director of the award-winning documentary, “Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope.”
He can be contacted at roger.ronoff@aim.org.
Until a few years ago, I had always considered myself as being more politically aligned with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party, until my wise son “educated” me about the main differences between the two major political parties. The information he provided was the turning point for me, because I discovered I was more politically aligned with the Republican Party’s principles and actions, rather than those followed by the Democratic Party. I considered the events and speeches which have taken place before, during, and since the Presidential election of 2008, and a lot of the events and speeches have alarmed, concerned, and even frightened me. I also gave a great deal of consideration toward the future of my country, and the possibility of it’s falling under the control of the wrong party. Thinking about things such as these further convinced me that I had made the right choice in changing my political affiliation.
Reading Mr. Aronoff’s interview with Gigi Gaston really opened my eyes, because I learned a lot of things about the Democratic Party, such as the ugly, crude, and vulgar methods they used to affect the voting outcome in the 2008 Presidential election, which I had never seen any political party employ before. These methods went far beyond the usual back-stabbing, mud-slinging, dirt-digging tactics which have been used in elections in the past. I saw news clips which showed the potentially violent voter intimidation tactics which were used by members of the so-called “New Black Panther Party,” in front of some of the voting precincts, during the 2008 elections.
The menacing behavior of these large black men, of whom some carried billy clubs or nightsticks, was deliberately directed towards anyone who wanted to vote for Republican candidates. This outrageous show of potentially deadly force, which should never have been allowed to take place anywhere near a voting precinct, went unchecked by anyone. This activity continued unabated as long as the polls were open, with potential voters being physically threatened until they were so frightened that they left the polling place, without having the opportunity to cast votes for the candidates of their choice. Upon seeing tactics such as these being used, and with not one single Democrat stepping forward to put a stop to this ugly spectacle which was taking place, I realized that the Democratic Party had lost all sense of right and wrong, and these activities were degrading everything their party had once stood for. I was shocked and stunned to find out that what I had assumed was a good political party, the Democratic Party, could have the unmitigated gall to stoop to the use of such low-down, dirty tactics, such as those which were being done, to steal the election.
Among the disturbing facts which I found in this article were the names of cities in the state of Texas where these very illegal and disgusting activities took place. Reading about these activies made me feel very ashamed of the Democratic Party in Texas, because Texas is the state in which I have resided for more than half of my 63 years of life. When I saw the televised news clips of scenes in which those New Black Panthers Party members were blocking the entrances to polling places, with the intention of physically and/or verbally intimidating anyone who wished to vote for the Republican candidates, I assumed that this had happened in Chicago, Illinois. The reason for this assumption was because that is the type of thing which happens there, due to the number of mobs, thugs, and street gangs which are in that city.
The Democratic Party needs to pay serious attention to the way its members conduct themselves during election times, because activities such as those which occured during the 2008 election put a huge black mark beside the name of the Democratic Party. Events such as these can seriously hurt the reputation and image of the Democratic Party, and the Chairman needs to put an immediate stop to the use of members of the New Black Panther Party. Whoever was responsible for the placement of those menacing New Black Panther Party members in front of the polling places, where they were intentionally threatening and intimidating the elderly, disabled or female voters, should be stripped of responsibility, placed in a lowly position, and watched carefully, to prevent them from pulling such a stupid stunt again! Those American citizens only wanted to exercise their legal right to vote for the candidates of their choice, but those big, menacing “guards” who were placed in front of the polling places prevented them from exercising that right! Wake up, Democrats, because you are destroying your party by permitting and/or committing actions and activities such as these!
Thank you, Janice.
Unless we see that for some reason you don’t want us to, we will feature your comment as its own “Daily Inspection” entry.
AW