One would think that there would be very few ways white folk could surprise the Blackwoman after all these years. One would think. One thing is clear to me. Your blues ain't like mine.
After all many white folk were the allies of the descendants of the Diaspora and some even died trying to secure the right to vote during some of the darkest times of the Civil Rights Movement.
I keep scratching my head wondering what has changed so much that the right to vote is taken for granted.
Right now, without the Civil Rights Movement and the millions of black people who vote as a result, McCain would be resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Sit with the idea for a moment.
McCain. As president.
At this point in his residency, there would likely be three wars. He was itching to bomb, bomb,bomb. Bomb, bomb Iran.
I suspect the draft would by necessity have been reinstated. At least during this presidency the blue dog small d democrats got to join republican'ts on issues we wanted to see passed. Imagine if they had the chance to join republican'ts on things like conscription and such. Make no mistake. They would have.
Allow yourself to see the real possibility of streets lined with families the way it was during the first Depression. As far as I can tell, these folk are not happy unless a fairly large segment of the population is too poor to be able to feed itself, receive the benefits of modern science or even have a decent roof for shelter.
There would be no GM.
Schools would have to close and those teachers with jobs would have had their class loads increased to auditorium sizes.
Insurance premiums on homeowners would have increased because there would be fewer fireman and the real risk of having your home burn down without the aid of trucks with hoses and water.
Fewer policeman would equal greater crime.
Health care would exist to the benefit of very few, though technically I guess more people would qualify for Medicaid.
Women would not be mandated for equal pay.
There would be an additional two other Scalia type justices on the Supreme Court.
The list is long.
Some people are too young to remember a time when the word homeless was not a part of the lexicon. Homeless was a gift of Ronald Regan. To the American people. It is now a staple in the amoral diet of a nation which has been fed lies with such frequency it seems unable and unwilling to digest anything else.
McCain as president would have been able to realize the dream of shrinking the government small enough to be drowned in a bathtub. There was a point in history where such talk would be considered treasonous. Free speech notwithstanding. Now it is the battle cry of those who would rather see this Republic collapse than share the bounty of a free and prosperous nation with all the people.
If the idea of a McCain residency is anathema then how can the idea of a republican't controlled Congress do anything but make you wanna holla?
Do we really want to look at let alone listen to Bonehead spew nonsense as Speaker of the House?
It has always been clear that there are those who have used racial animus as a means of getting poor whites to vote against their own self interest. Why is it that some so called Progressives seem willing to not vote? Doesn't not voting equate with voting against one's self interest? Especially in these times?
If this past two years has taught us anything it ought to be that our votes matter. Truth be told,that was indeed the lesson of 2000. Have we forgotten so quickly?
As a black woman into her six decade on the planet, no other right means as much to me as the right to vote. People, black and white since the beginning of this Republic have died for the right to vote. Having say so was the primary motivation of the Founding Fathers.
There are places on this globe today where people are dying for the right to vote and to have their vote count. We have that right finally for all citizens and yet some here speak of not voting in protest. Voting is the way to protest in this nation. Have we forgotten this? I haven't. Not for one nanosecond. Nor will I.
See the thing is, I've learned that as bad as things might be at any given moment, they can get worse. No matter how we might feel failed by the current Congress, it could be worse. And will be if those who threaten actually do stay home.
As much as I would have like to see things improve instantly on all levels at one time, I've watched most of the last six decades and realize that progress can at times seem slow, even unlikely. I've learned that persistence is the key to real progress. I have not be hypnotized into thinking that there is a magic bullet able to pierce the veil of selfishness and greed and vanquish it instantly. I will never be deceived into believing that I can throw away my vote and it doesn't matter.
Those of us who marched and demonstrated and protested in the Civil Rights Movement and about Nam wanted what we wanted instantly too. This is the reason we kept it up, and disrupted a nation and helped to usher in such things as the Voting Rights Act and the elimination of the draft and finally the end of Nam. None of these things happened quickly enough for any of us. Instead of stopping we persisted. Slowly things did change. The length of time necessary to effect change was not the issue. Effecting change was the sole focus and this was done by voting. Even when the choices were between lesser evils. It is always in our self interest to do so. Voting our self interest is the thing I see that black folks do. Consistently.
It is the thing that surprises me about some white folk. Those who do not. Vote in their own self interest. Or who get those self interests confused with bigotry and racism.
My grandfather was a republican. At that time there were a lot of southern black folk who were republican. It was the party of Lincoln and Democrats in the south included the likes of Strom Thurmond, George Wallace and Jessie Helms. Voting for Democrats was against the self interest of folk like my grandfather. The only black man in the Senate was a republican.
The election of John F. Kennedy created a shift. LBJ cemented southern black folk into the Democratic Party even as southern democrats or dixiecrats armed with the assurance of support became republican'ts.
When the republican party began the siren song shift beckoning the former Dixiecrats, black folk down south like my grandfather became instant Democrats. It's called knowing on which side your bread is buttered.
Nixon using the fallout of the Civil Rights Movement shifted the entire theme of the republican'ts through the southern strategy and right now, today we are seeing that in fact, the Civil Rights Movement is still being resisted. By the same folk. For the same reason. Aiming for the same result.
Seems clear to me that the real impetus to republican't thinking (and I use the word thinking completely aware of the irony) is to render the vote inessential. Corporations will own and run this country. Even more openly than they already do. This alone is reason enough to vote.
So some are threatening to stay home in November.This surprises me. Like I said, your blues ain't like mine and...I think this is exactly what the corporate masters crave. Further. It. Is. Just. Plain. Dumb.
Now run and tell that.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has recently raised concern for a study from the Urban Institute. The study has revealed that more than one-half of babies in poverty are being raised by mothers living with depression, creating parenting and child development challenges.
Impact of Mental Health Care on Low Income Mothers.
...................................................................................................
Over the past few days, I have been intrigued by the aftermath of Dr. Laura’s racist rant. What’s been most interesting to me is the way that Dr. Laura and her supporters have transformed her from culprit to victim, claiming that her first amendment rights have been taken away.
Dr. Laura Meet Omar Thornton
....................................................................................................
"We have to be able to decode what’s happening and realize that this is religious intolerance on one hand, and it’s [also] good ol’ red-blooded American racial and ethnic bias on the other hand," said Imam Al-Hajj Talib Abdur-Rashid, sitting in his office at the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood Inc. in Harlem
Black Muslims Left Out of the National Conversation on Islam
..................................................................................................
The last time most people heard the name "Van Jones," it was as a political football. He got burned on the national scene, and he's learned a few lessons: play your cards close to the vest and keep moving forward. While his name's been less heard, Jones is still making his case in inner cities, Appalachia and think tanks.
The Fallen Czar One Year Later
...................................................................................................
NOTEWORTHY FALL READING
We pray for the lady visitor and the book she’s trying to put together," said the spiritual leader of the Monroe, Louisiana, Club of Los Angeles at a meeting that Isabel Wilkerson attended in 1996. Ms. Wilkerson was there as part of her monumental research job for "The Warmth of Other Suns," work that seems to have lasted the better part of 20 years and taken a piece of Ms. Wilkerson’s heart in the process.
The Lives Gained by Fleeing Jim Crow
...................................................................................................
AT LAST, it’s out. Or rather, as is the way with these things, large chunks of it have been leaked to the press. The report by the United Nations high commissioner for human rights into war crimes and human-rights abuses during Congo’s wars from 1996 to 2003 has been long in the making, and is also long in the reading—about 600 pages, apparently. The collapse of the country then known as Zaire in the mid-1990s precipitated Africa’s first continental war, involving eight countries, and caused the high number of deaths of any single conflict since the second world war—maybe as many as 4m in all.
Accusations Against Rwanda
...................................................................................................
"Nothing can stop this referendum," Nixon Simon told me last week in a restaurant in the fledgling capital of South Sudan. Simon, a forestry engineer, had just come home to Juba after fleeing as a refugee 20 years ago. But his words could have come from any southerner. Just about everyone in the region -- which has become increasingly independent-minded since the end of Sudan's horrific, decades-long civil war cut the country in two -- agrees they can no longer live under the oppressive yoke of the northern government in Khartoum. Simon is counting down to the referendum slated for next January, when the south is widely expected to vote for secession.
Bordering on Chaos
...................................................................................................
The recently enacted financial reform legislation tries in numerous ways to change how Wall Street companies and their federal regulators act, but a little-noticed provision aims for something potentially more difficult and controversial — altering how they look.
Bill Aims For Diversity on Wall Street
.................................................................................................
It has been said that even the devil can quote Scripture for his purposes. So too, apparently, can conservatives quote Martin Luther King Jr. for theirs. To wit, Glenn Beck, who has perfected the craft of cribbing from Dr. King, thereby debasing the majestic prose of the latter and distorting King's intentions to the point where they would have been unrecognizable to him.
Tim Wise on Glenn Beck and Other Conservative Character Actors
....................................................................................................
Everyone, it seems, likes a story with a happy ending. It may be a particularly American cultural phenomenon or part of human brain structure. But the rather relentless focus on cheerful positive thinking is also getting in the way of confronting the persistence of racism in the U.S.
I Feel Good: Elevation, Positive Thinking and the Persistence of Racism
Editors note
SistahSpeak will not publish next Friday. We will join you again at 10 a.m. Pacific Time Friday September 17th. Have a good one!