Reply #28: I wrote that email.............................. [View All]

Hi, Gary Beckwith here.

I wrote that email, 3 or 4 days after the election, when I first put up a website listing about a dozen of articles that were starting to be published about voting irregularities on 11/2.

I was running a website on my educational project called the Solar Bus. It's a solar powered school bus that I take to schools and public events to show people the possibilities of solar energy and alternative fuels.

I had been following the Diebold story for about a year. After election day, I saw all kinds of hubbub going on the DU and also the Randi Rhodes discussion board. I felt it was necessary to move the info from the esoteric message board world to the world wide web.

When I put up the website, I had to do something to let people know about it. I had a mailing list that was for the Solar Bus, which had nothing to do with voter fraud. There were about 200 people on the list.

I typed up that email (I found that Susan Sarandon quote on DU) and sent it to my list. I also posted a link on the Randi Rhodes discussion board (I did not have an account at DU yet, and the registration function had been disabled).

What happened after that continues to amaze me. It is a testament to the power of the internet, which we should not underestimate.

Before that email, the Solar Bus website got 20 to 100 hits a day. I'm guessing several of the hits were from web spiders, not people.

Since that email went out, the Solar Bus website has gotten over 100,000 hits, currently averaging 4,000+ per day. The server has crashed at least twice. The counter (which you can view at the bottom of the page) broke 3 times and the web hosting service said it wasn't designed for the number of hits I was getting, so they gave me a different counter.

All this started with an email that I sent out to 200 people who didn't really have any reason to be concerned about voter fraud.

Now a month later, the email is still circulating. On a regular basis, people send it to me, as a news item or as an FYI, without realizing that I originally wrote it. A friend of mine that I lost touch with 10 years ago got a copy of it and emailed me. Now it's come full circle, back to DU.

All I can say is keep it coming.

The Solar Bus website has become more than a hobby for me. Since 11/2, I've been sleeping about 2-3 hours a night. I've gotten calls from the New York times and Jeff Fisher (at 2am nonetheless, and I was awake, working on the site!). Hundreds of people have signed up for my mailing list (and I'm over a week behind in adding names). I've been updating the website several times a day, trying to keep it the most current and easy-to-navigate site on the stolen election.

My biggest problem now (besides the lack of sleep) is keeping up with all the stories. I sometimes have to post links to articles I haven't read completely. And it's really difficult to decide what to post at the top of the page when so much important stuff is going on at the same time.

As most of you probably understand, I'm not doing this for notoriety. I'm doing this because this is the most important issue we face as a nation. Nothing else matters if our votes don't count. I've been an advocate of solar energy, the environment, and a slew of other issues for decades. But for now, I'm putting all of that aside, because if we don't fix these problems the other issues don't matter.

Bev Harris has said, we are the media. You can criticize her personality, but in this case her words are true. It's amazing what a single email to 200 people can do.

Now let's all get back to it. We've got work to do.

peace,
gary

P.S. yes, I know DeLay is the House Majority Leader, not the Senate Majority Leader. It's been corrected on the website but there's nothign I can do about the emails that keep floating around. There are a couple other details in the email that have been updated as well. If you get the email and you want to forward it to other people, please fix the DeLay thing before you send it!

and oh yeah, I simplified the URL to the website. you can now get there like this:

http://solarbus.org/election

pretty soon this will work too:

http://election.solarbus.org
(not yet)