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| H/T DownWithTyranny |
Earlier today, in researching a post about corporate shill Artur Davis, I recalled how, when growing up, I first grappled with the idea that poor and middle class people-- and it was Southerners I was thinking about at the time-- could make common cause with conservative politicians and right-wing parties. Conservative parties are-- over and above everything else-- reactions against any semblance of equality for poor and middle class people. That's the raison d'etre for conservatism to begin with. In the case of Southerners-- who were at the time massively abandoning the Democratic party and moving to a the "new" GOP of Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, the tendency was to chalk it up to naked racism. But naked racism was just part of it. Just like naked racism is just part of the misplaced allegiance of the teabaggers to the Republican Party today.
Ten things that are plucking my last nerve.
1. The assertion, generally by Republicans, that a requirement to bring photo ID to the polls has something to do with curbing “voter fraud.” One candidate even said in debate the other night that voter fraud was on the rise in Virginia. When asked to provide an example he, of course, could not. Look, you don’t steal an election where the votes are cast, you steal it where the votes are counted. Anybody who gave this issue about ten seconds of thought would realize you can’t fix an election by voting fake voters. It’s too cumbersome, requires too many people to be in on the scheme. It’s a silly idea. We’ve had three presidential elections in this country that might have been stolen — 1880, 1960 and 2000. If they were, they were all stolen after the polls closed. So, when Republicans get serious about voting machines with computer software that can’t be easily hacked and paper trails to allow an accurate recount, I’ll believe they care about “voter fraud.” Until then, they’re just trying to suppress the vote.
4. The way some people who cheered on the Tea Party rallies last year, mock the Occupy Wall Street rallies this year. And, I suppose, vice versa. Before the Tea Party got co-opted by the Republican Party, it expressed a lot of the same populist outrage that Occupy Wall Street does. In my view, this is a country long in need of a little healthy populist outrage. The nightmare of the powers-that-be is that the Occupy Wall Street folks and the Tea Partiers might realize that they’re mad at some of the same people. That graphic going around the Internet isn’t a total joke; there is an intersection of interest between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street around the too chummy relationship between government and business.
This is what democracy looks like.
Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around
Ain't gonna let nobody, turn me around
Turn us around, turn us around
Ain't gonna let nobody, turn me around
Keep on a walking, keep on a talking
Gonna build a brand new world
YES, WE CAN!
YES, WE ARE!
YES, WE WILL!
