Paul Krassner on democracy delayed - then and now: I had been informed by a reliable source that a think tank, the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California, was contracted to determine how Americans might react to a cancellation of the election in 1972 because of “internal civil unrest” in response to the Vietnam war. Investigative journalist Ron Rosenbaum was able to determine that I was the fourth person down from a leaker in the White House. Feeling like the Ancient Mariner waving his filthy albatross in front of anybody who would listen, I did my best to spread the word, regardless of the possibility that I was being used to float a trial balloon. I worked my way up from the underground papers to the reporters in the press tent at Woodstock. I blabbed about it at campus appearances and in alternative radio interviews. Ultimately the story filtered up into the mainstream media. When Attorney General John Mitchell announced that whoever had started this rumor should be “punished,” I sent him a letter confessing my sin, but I never heard back. Meanwhile, the Rand Corporation concluded that the average American citizen would not stand for a cancellation of the election. Now, 35 years later, that same possibility has been floated publicly from the White House by Condoleezza Rice and others, a trial balloon propelled by the arrogance of power but pricked by the polls. Oh, well, there’s always the possibility of declaring martial law.