The topic of voter suppression comes up at election time and is largely regarded as tricks to keep votes from being counted on election day or stopping voters at the polling place doors. We hear about them all and will hear about some today. These attempts are both obvious and trivial compared to the greater, large scale voter suppression that has been going on for decades.
(Cross posted at The National Gadfly
We all know the desired result for voter suppression: keep the numbers of voters down. This always benefits the GOP. Why? Because they are guided by a very powerful minority of people in this country who seek to control the lives and wealth of us all. Namely, the very rich (top 1%) in partnership with the religious idealogues who are willing to serve them. The rich get richer, the religions get richer along with them.
Together, they seek to create a society where authority is not questioned and subservience to them is total. Free thinking, rational thinking and genuine inquiry are like kryptonite to these GOP/Relgious Right. They seek to cloud our ability to reason with the devaluation of science and the suggestion that God is science. The only possible outcome from this is a society of people that are too stupid to compete in the real scientific marketplace of the world around us. But, they don't care. If they need real scientists, they can simply hire some Asians ("After all, they're good with math"). Our real value to the GOP and the Relgious Right is our existence as an ever-hungry maw of consumption. Folks, we're pigs in a sty to them and nothing else.
The last thing that they want is us a)thinking at all and b)showing up at the polls with any ideas at all that threaten the sweet deals they've got going for themselves.
Enter the great voter suppression drive: Make us all believe that our votes don't count. Ever since the Nixon years, there has been a steady narrative playing out in American culture from the GOP, that our votes don't count. "Government is the enemy", "They're all the same", "Government is the problem", "We're for small government" and so on. Conservative think tanks, magazines and talking heads have recycled the same idea over and over again: apathy. It is the ultimate voter suppression.
Look at the numbers of registered voters over the years vs. the number of those eligible to vote. The numbers don't lie. We have been deliberately led to believe that we don't count.
Well, that crap is over! America has woken up. The American voter has woken up. We won't be frightened off by slaveholders or their servants anymore, whether they be radio hosts, elected officials, KKK members or the people on our block. We won't be intimidated by the story that nothing will change. Something will change and it will change tonight. The very exclusive club of old, wealthy white men will no longer hold the deed to the American Dream. It will become property of the American People and we do not intend to surrender it again.
-gadfly