George Chidi is right.

Let me state the obvious: whoever is responsible for storing material under the interstate that could melt a bridge had better still be in prison when Eleby gets out.

The Department of Transportation bears the true burden for this disaster. And that may be why state investigators quickly made an arrest of someone who doesn’t work in a business suit.

The second-day news stories weren’t looking at the chain of command, working their way down from GDOT Commissioner Russell McMurry, trying to figure out who had the legal authority to allow high-density plastic conduit to be stored under the highway.

Instead, it’s the easy story — pictures of the black guy in an orange jumpsuit that they’ve done a thousand times before. And, because it’s easy to report, everyone reported it, burying the real questions under a wave of sensational news about an alleged crackhead burning down I-85.

via Sure. Blame The Crackhead. – GeorgiaPol

So Mexico has had universal healthcare since 2012.

How was this “corrupt”, “poor” country able to muster the ideological, philosophical strength to do what we can’t? How is it that Americans go into Mexico regularly to receive healthcare at a fraction of the U.S. cost?

Is it Mexico’s Catholic values? Is it the lack of severe racial stratification, the comparative lack of self-identifying Afro-Mexicans in most of the country, and the refusal to include Black people in the Mexican census since the 1910s?

How?

Equal Rights Amendment Passed by Nevada

Politics, Uncategorized, , , ,

Today I found out that the ERA was ratified by Nevada last week, even though it’s after the deadline. It’s the first ratification to pass since the 35th ratification in Indiana in 1977.

The history of the ERA’s passage is one which is extremely complicated and is a zeitgeist of the latter 20th century’s constitutional amendments and our reticence to pass new amendments. With Nevada’s latter-day passage, the “three-state strategy” of NOW becomes a “two-state strategy”.

I’m assuming that Illinois, with a Democratic majority in both houses (but also a Republican governor​), may be the next state to experience a full fight for the ERA. But even Illinois’ Democratic Party has been tough to budge in favor of the ERA.

But after Illinois, which state? The fight for the ERA may likely stall against GOP majorities in both houses of state legislatures in most of these states. They’re all in the South.

 

I love when African Americans tell ourselves that this is our land or birthright and that no one will run us from it.

That birthright was gained through pointless, thoughtless murder and theft of both Native American bodies as well as our own. This land, this birthright, is stolen, ruined goods.

The Native Americans have aboriginal moral title over this entire continent. The descendants of African slaves are just unwilling, alienated guests.

And we will never be secure in peace.

Compare and contrast between the SBC and the largest mainline denominations:

  • SBC – 16 million US members, six seminaries, 44 Unis and colleges – highly conservative on sexuality and socio-economic justice
  • United Methodist – 7 million US members, 13 seminaries, 100 Unis and colleges – moderate on sexuality, liberal on socio-economic justice
  • Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – 3.6 million US members – 10 seminaries, 27 colleges and universities – liberal on sexuality and socio-economic justice

Mainline Protestants constitute some 16% of the US population. SBC members are 5% of the US population, and constitute just under half of the Baptist population in the US.

How “Southern Baptist” Pastors Created the Modern Republican Party

Politics, Uncategorized, ,

Just read an article about how the Southern Baptist Convention is part-and-parcel of the #SouthernStrategy, as well as the SBC’s aid in the rise of Trumpism.

After reading this, I wonder how the SBC is able to retain so much political power that even the Roman Catholic Church, the only Christian organization with a larger parishioner size in the U.S. than the SBC, can find themselves at odds with them on several economic and immigration-related issues.

  • There are 33 million Baptists in the U.S., 16 million of whom are members of SBC-affiliated congregations throughout the U.S. (as of 2013) but the highest rates of which are concentrated in Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee.
  • The SBC provides funding to six seminaries, and the SBC’s state convention affiliates provide funding to nearly 50 universities and colleges in 19 states.
  • At the same time that the South was going through the end of Jim Crow and its immediate aftermath, the SBC was in the throes of its Fundamentalist Takeover.

All of this is crucial in understanding where the SBC is right now.

Cheri Honkala Should Win PA’s HD197

Politics, Uncategorized, , ,

Democrats deserve to lose #HD197 to Green write-in #CheriHonkala, due to repeat Dem corruption. #MyUnpopularOpinion #papol #p2

I’m serious. The one who comes out smelling like roses in the HD197 race is Honkala.

Campaigners for the Democrat who sought to be named on the ballot but ended up a write-in, Emilio Vasquez, are already being accused of abetting voter intimidation. The two predecessors in office, both Democrats, resigned from office due to corruption charges. The GOP candidate who was the sole candidate on the ballot, Lucinda Little, left the Dems because of their corruption.

Now we know that the GOP lost this race, but Friday 3/31 will reveal which write-in won. I hope the Dems lose this seat to the Green write-in. The Dems deserve to lose this race. Honkala should be the first Green member of the PA General Assembly. #papol

Robert Bentley to Resign

Politics, Uncategorized,

What took his corrupt ass

The lawmaker who initiated the move to impeach Robert Bentley said he believes Alabama’s governor will soon step down.

In an interview with WTVY, Rep. Ed Henry, R-Hartselle, said if the House moves on Articles of Impeachment, Bentley would be suspended pending the outcome of a Senate trial. To avoid impeachment, Henry added, Bentley would likely resign no later than next month.

“From what I’m hearing I would expect by mid-April that the governor either will have resigned or the impeachment committee will be moving at a very rapid pace,” Henry said.

via Alabama representative says Gov. Robert Bentley will resign mid-April | AL.com

The Fusion Party in North Carolina

Politics, Uncategorized, , ,

I’m reading on how the Fusion Party in North Carolina brought together liberal Black Republicans and progressive, pro-labor White Populists against the planter elite-dominated Democrats for a short, amazing period before Democrats used “white supremacy” and violence to split the working class vote.

I think that this coalition approach might work in this era: progressive Berniecrats and liberal Democrats who respect each other’s autonomy without taking over each other.

The Democrats won’t fit all progressives, and many progressives who are focused on class issues will see the Democrats as a constraint. Both should be respected as separate parties, and we should negotiate a coalition between the two on good faith.

But this can’t be negotiated under the Democratic tent. The Democrats will have to come to the table, and not assume that they are the only legitimate party in this country.

Maybe we need the Fusion Party to come back to the South, and be the bridge to unite these groups in ways that the Dems in the South will be prevented from doing for the next several decades.

 

Segregation in the South – The Atlantic

Politics, Uncategorized,

This is sad reading, especially about third party politics in the South.

This is, unfortunately, not a surprising account of North Carolina, or of the South more generally. The South of the 1950s was the land of fire hoses aimed at black people who dared protest Jim Crow laws. Today, schools in the South are almost as segregated as they were when Sevone Rhymes was a child. Southern cities including Charlotte are facing racial tensions over the shootings of black men by white policemen, which, in Charlotte’s case, led to massive protests and riots.

But what few people know is that the South wasn’t always so segregated. During a brief window of time between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the 20th century, black and white people lived next to each other in Southern cities, creating what the historian Tom Hanchett describes as a “salt-and-pepper” pattern. They were not integrated in a meaningful sense: Divisions existed, but “in a lot of Southern cities, segregation hadn’t been fully imposed—there were neighborhoods where blacks and whites were living nearby,” said Eric Foner, a Columbia historian and expert on Reconstruction. Walk around in the Atlanta or the Charlotte of the late 1800s, and you might see black people in restaurants, hotels, the theater, Foner said. Two decades later, such things were not allowed.

via Segregation in the South – The Atlantic