Donna Ladd of Mississippi says it better than I have:
Thus, to watch someone like Barbour–an educated man–stand up and play us against each other to build a voting base for corporate America turns my stomach. And to listen to him try to make our history sound like it wasn’t as bad as it was infuriates me, especially since it is so important for Mississippians to know how bad it was to fully appreciate how far we’ve already come in a few decades. Knowing and understanding that remarkable progress is what will give us the strength and will to keep going, to rebuild what the white supremacists Barbour loves to defend tore apart, to build diverse alliances for progress.
Our racist legacy has left us so much to repair: from “ghettos” created by white people who wouldn’t allow blacks to get loans or build wealth, to a pattern of crime instilled by our state’s habit of dehumanizing black men to the point that too many of them still believe it. We can, and by damn are, bridging these gaps and making progress precisely because of our shared history.
We can’t allow a power-hungry southern strategist to take that away from us.
Hear ye. An alliance of libertardian and religious regressives will install idiocracy if we let it. It will teach this kind of crap to its children and yours as history: the south wasn’t all bad, or all racist, therefore racism is not a problem in the south.
I am the first defender of southern culture, such as it exists anymore. Tea should be sweet and cold and cornbread shouldn’t. But changing the laws of Texas to write bizarre, Glenn Beckian history standards for the many states that use its textbooks, evolution “warning stickers” on biology textbooks in Georgia and Alabama, and the continued success of Republican downballot mobilization on culture issues is killing America.
The crazy part? In Alabama, the first crime the new Republican majority wants to commit is the taking away of Alabama teachers’ right to use payroll deduction for their union dues. Worse, Paul Hubbard — who once saved the NEA in Alabama and became a progressive hero — triangulated Robert Bentley and gets the shaft for his abuse of union dues. The only thing in the way of absolute idiocracy is a doddering old lion, the last southern liberal, whose openness to the new majority is not being returned. Tuscaloosa News:
The bill, which cleared its first legislative hurdle Thursday, would stop Alabama’s public employees from having money withdrawn from their paychecks to support the Alabama State Employees Association and Alabama Education Association. It would prohibit deductions for membership dues and for donations to the organizations’ political action committees.
AEA and ASEA have had many political battles with Riley during the Republican governor’s two terms.
Mac McArthur, executive director of the employees association, said the bill is designed to make it harder for public workers to participate in groups that represent them.
“What this is about is taking away the ability of state employees to be heard,” he said.
Paul Hubbert, executive secretary of the education association, said the bill is political payback for his organization supporting Gov.-elect Robert Bentley in the Republican primary, while Riley supported former two-year Chancellor Bradley.
Make no mistake, the Great Regression is after your children’s minds. It has been for a long time. I doubt Riley is doing this out of spite; he’s simply an opportunist. The GOP played hardball to win Alabama — just ask Don Siegelman — and like the “permanent majority” of Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff dreams, they purpose tyranny. Who controls the past now — and the science, and the civics — controls the future.
They are the fear they want us to feel.
Programming note: other than a video I’m desperately trying to get online, this might be it for blogging until Christmas Day. There’s also going to be a template upgrade before the New Year, so watch out.
