Once again, African Americans are asked to cast a blind eye upon the political realities of what is at work in Mississippi and the Black Belt South. We have been asked to believe that our present governor, who helped to orchestrate white flight from the integrated public school system in the 1970s, would have the best interest of the State’s public schools in his heart. We live in a state that cannot bring itself to elect an African American to a statewide office, no matter what his or her qualifications are. A State which gleam with pride at the “Stars and Bars”. Yet cry about fairness, equality, Christian “Values”, and the American Constitutional System. Now we, African Americans, are asked to believe that “Jim Crow” is dead in the “Progressive”, “Conservative”, “Dixiecrat-Republican” State of Mississippi. I am referring to the following editorial from that great newspaper The Natchez Democrat, reprinted in the Clarion Ledger, Saturday, August 22, 2009, Page 9A. The title of the Article is “Voter ID Would Not Mean a Return to Jim Crow” Here it is:
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“If any area of Mississippi should support making voter identification a mandatory practice, Southwest Mississippi should.
In almost every election, allegations of voter fraud bubble up. The most recent case in Wilkinson County dragged on for months and months and sparked investigations from all sorts of sources. [Fraud has been a part of this Nation and this State since the grand old days of the Constitutional Convention in 1787]
Mississippi's voting system should be above reproach. At the moment, it's not. In fact, it's a sinister looking man lurking through a dark alley.
By not requiring a voter to show identification to prove his identity, catching people who lie in order to vote illegally is difficult at best.
Federal laws require employers to fill out forms when hiring a worker to ensure the employer has examined forms of identification in an effort to prove the employee is, in fact, a legal resident of the United States.
But the State of Mississippi thinks that federal practice is too restrictive for what is arguably the most important thing a citizen can do vote.
Instead of moving to get rid of the holes in our current system that encourages voter fraud, our state has chosen to remain stuck in the past mostly out of fear that a voter ID requirement would harm black voting turnout.
That notion at one time had merit. Not so long ago the system run solely by whites was manipulated to minimize the rights of black citizens. But that system has changed. Today, Adams County has two of five county supervisors who are black. Exactly half of the city's aldermen are black and approximately half of our area's judges are black, too.
As for the fears that voter ID would be a return to days of the oppressive Jim Crow era, those fears can and should be eliminated through bipartisan efforts to put the voter ID matter on the ballot and then educate the public on how helpful and harmless voter ID laws can be.”
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Growing up in the Jim Crow State of Mississippi, I was appalled. “Who are they trying to reach”, I thought. Therefore I did a little research: Natchez is in Adams County, a County that is 54% African American, yet, are we expected to be satisfied that 2 of five supervisors are African American? Would they be satisfied if the situation was reversed? These people have enough trouble remembering that the South lost the Civil War, or,that African Americans are citizens, although the "Founding Fathers" forgot to include them in the original Constitution, except 3/5th for the political count, or, that the United States of America has an African American President.
Back to the matter being discussed. The last time I checked, two out of five vptes still leaves the Board of Supervisors in Adams County with a 2/3 Majority in all votes taken by the Board.Is That American Democracy? I also thought, “What would be the number of African American Supervisors today, if the powers that be would have been allowed to force all African Americans, and it would have been all, who did not a drivers license, or have any form of identification, and would have been turned away from the polls? ONE, maybe!!! Remember the Poll Tax, Literacy Test, Grandfather Clauses, Separate-But-Equal. Remember the first election of our current Governor, with the slogan “Keep the Flag, Change the Governor” and the placing of these reminders on signs in the dead of night, like “Knight Riders” of the past.
“Jim Crow” is “Dead”?: Take a look at the continuing economic gap between Whites and African Americans, not only in the Black Belt South, but Nationwide. Look at the unemployment rate in the State of Mississippi, between Whites and African Americans, or, the high school dropout rate; the list goes on, and on, and on.
There is a saying that goes, “those who refuse to look at history are doomed to repeat it”. African Americans should never forget their history in this State, the South, or the Country. I love the phrase, “lest We Forget”
God Bless.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
HEALTH CARE: A LESSON IN AMERICAN POLITICS
The summer of 2009 will be remembered as the Give Him Hell Summer of American politics. Some have said that the heated "Town Hall" meetings that center around President Obama's push for health care reform, represent America political democracy at work. To this writer, it represents the reaffirmation of the thought of the gullibility of the American electorate and the abiliity of a small group of well connected, well financed, and determined, to reshape the progressive movement toward change, Whatever that means.
Conservativeism, by its very nature, is always diametrically oppose to progressive change and has been a part of American politics since the time of George Washington. I start here because of the constant references to the "Founding Fathers" and "Strict" interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. Not to mention always cloaking these arguments with the Christian traditions that brough about the United States of America, as we know it today. My mother often told me me that if you tell a lie often enough, you will begin to believe it.
American Government 101 teaches us, or should teach us, that the Constitution came out of the Liberal teachings of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Baron Montesquieu. These men influenced the likes of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, the "Founding Fathers". Add to this Christianity and the Protestant Reformation, one should have serious doubts about the anti-health care noise makers that seem to dominate the make or break debate over this issue.
Controlling the debate on a particular issue has also been a critical component within American politics, again, American Government 101. So, let's review the facts: First, during the election of 2008, President Obama promised health care reform. He won by a landslide. Not only that, His Party, Democrats, took control of Congress. Why? The Conservative Republicans, who had control of the government for six of the last eight years had all but bankrupted the Country. And, who have produce such "Great" Presidents as, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George and George W. Bushes. The latter Bush came into office when the Country did not have a deficit and left office with the Country a "Trillion Dollars" in debt. (Supply-Side Economic) Who [Republicans], by the way, lost the last election, BIG TIME!!! I remember that Granni, from the Berverly Hillbillies, thought that the American War Between the States, Civil War, was a current event.
Secondly, this surviving group of Conservative Republicans and "Blue-Dog" Democrats, whatever a "Blue Dog" is, are calling for bi-partisanship, when for Twelve of the last Fourteen years, they have rammed their agenda through Congress, pushed the Nation into two un-winnable wars, widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots, disbanded Civil Rights, and the list goes on.
I can, today, predict the end of this health care debate: The Republicans and some "Conservative Democrats, have forced delay after delay, to create these hihacked town hall meetings, prolong Congressional debate on the issue, and in the end, VOTE AGAINST OBAMA!!! The view is to apear to call for compromise and then VOTE NO!!
This is American Politics at work.
God Bless
Conservativeism, by its very nature, is always diametrically oppose to progressive change and has been a part of American politics since the time of George Washington. I start here because of the constant references to the "Founding Fathers" and "Strict" interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. Not to mention always cloaking these arguments with the Christian traditions that brough about the United States of America, as we know it today. My mother often told me me that if you tell a lie often enough, you will begin to believe it.
American Government 101 teaches us, or should teach us, that the Constitution came out of the Liberal teachings of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Baron Montesquieu. These men influenced the likes of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, the "Founding Fathers". Add to this Christianity and the Protestant Reformation, one should have serious doubts about the anti-health care noise makers that seem to dominate the make or break debate over this issue.
Controlling the debate on a particular issue has also been a critical component within American politics, again, American Government 101. So, let's review the facts: First, during the election of 2008, President Obama promised health care reform. He won by a landslide. Not only that, His Party, Democrats, took control of Congress. Why? The Conservative Republicans, who had control of the government for six of the last eight years had all but bankrupted the Country. And, who have produce such "Great" Presidents as, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George and George W. Bushes. The latter Bush came into office when the Country did not have a deficit and left office with the Country a "Trillion Dollars" in debt. (Supply-Side Economic) Who [Republicans], by the way, lost the last election, BIG TIME!!! I remember that Granni, from the Berverly Hillbillies, thought that the American War Between the States, Civil War, was a current event.
Secondly, this surviving group of Conservative Republicans and "Blue-Dog" Democrats, whatever a "Blue Dog" is, are calling for bi-partisanship, when for Twelve of the last Fourteen years, they have rammed their agenda through Congress, pushed the Nation into two un-winnable wars, widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots, disbanded Civil Rights, and the list goes on.
I can, today, predict the end of this health care debate: The Republicans and some "Conservative Democrats, have forced delay after delay, to create these hihacked town hall meetings, prolong Congressional debate on the issue, and in the end, VOTE AGAINST OBAMA!!! The view is to apear to call for compromise and then VOTE NO!!
This is American Politics at work.
God Bless
Friday, August 14, 2009
AMERICAN POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE
The state of politics in the United States has been, and continue to be a fascination for me. The place that I grew up in, Ridgeland, Mississippi, in the 1950s and early 60s, was a small village of around Three Hundred souls, Blacks and Whites. We tended to get along well, if such a concept was possible in the segregated, White Supremacy State. During these formative years I saw the rise and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, the integration of the University of Mississippi, the murders of Medger Evers in Jackson, the murder of three Civil Rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi. I was part of a group of black high school students that tried and failed to integrate the All White Madison-Ridgeland High School, as a senior. (it is interesting to note that my oldest son, Kevin, graduated from that school in 1989).
It is through these experiences that I watched the current debate concerning Health-Care in disgust. What fascinates me is that many in this Country fail to realize, it seems, is that this debate is not so much about Health-Care, as it is about political power and who holds that power. It seems as though the Media, God bless them, continue to miss the point of what is behind this, so called, grass root protest. They don't seem listen to the constant Republican "TALKING POINTS" that seem to come from ordinary, hard working, mostly White, Americans. The talk of "SOCIALISM" and Karl Marx. History tells us that the KKK also linked racism and anti-semitism to socialism and communist, and justified their actions through the Christian way of life. One man blamed President Obama for the lack of job creation that was created, not by him, but the likes of Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes.
I challenge you to compare the present day Republican Party and their tactics to the post Civil War Democratic Party and their tactics. I submit that you will find a correlation between the influence of the Southern Democrats/Dixiecrats that high jacked the nation Democratic Party from 1877 to 1948 and the present day Dixiecrat-Republican that began to take control of the Republican Party after 1948 under the guise of "Conservatism".
America, take a look at the Dixiecrat Party platform of 1948 with the core of the Republican Party ideology today. In the process they are turning us back hundreds of years.
WAKE-UP PEOPLE!!!!!
It is through these experiences that I watched the current debate concerning Health-Care in disgust. What fascinates me is that many in this Country fail to realize, it seems, is that this debate is not so much about Health-Care, as it is about political power and who holds that power. It seems as though the Media, God bless them, continue to miss the point of what is behind this, so called, grass root protest. They don't seem listen to the constant Republican "TALKING POINTS" that seem to come from ordinary, hard working, mostly White, Americans. The talk of "SOCIALISM" and Karl Marx. History tells us that the KKK also linked racism and anti-semitism to socialism and communist, and justified their actions through the Christian way of life. One man blamed President Obama for the lack of job creation that was created, not by him, but the likes of Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes.
I challenge you to compare the present day Republican Party and their tactics to the post Civil War Democratic Party and their tactics. I submit that you will find a correlation between the influence of the Southern Democrats/Dixiecrats that high jacked the nation Democratic Party from 1877 to 1948 and the present day Dixiecrat-Republican that began to take control of the Republican Party after 1948 under the guise of "Conservatism".
America, take a look at the Dixiecrat Party platform of 1948 with the core of the Republican Party ideology today. In the process they are turning us back hundreds of years.
WAKE-UP PEOPLE!!!!!
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