The disastrous Georgia legislative session is almost at an end. Since the GOP took over the state in 2000, Georgia has been on a downhill slide as Republicans began to methodically take apart all that had been built. Typically, they began to chip away at the public school system and environmental laws and regulations. They appointed inexperienced people to lead government departments, about which they knew nothing. Having suddenly become the lead party in a one party state, they were all hugs and kisses as they celebrated their new found power.
It has taken them eight years to remember how capable they are of shooting themselves in the proverbial foot. For years they stood on the brink of winning the governor's office, but they could never get past the inevitable self destruction. This past election seemed to have been their shining moment. They managed to win more seats in both houses of the legislature. They added more constitutional offices to their booty as a Republican Attorney General, Labor Commissioner, and Insurance Commissioner assumed office.
Given the fact that this past election was a typical southern reaction to an African-American President the GOP was also able to put a large number of known ne'er do wells in office. The new Governor was named one of the 15 most corrupt members of Congress in early 2010 by a non-partisan watchdog group. Before charges could be brought, he resigned to run for Governor. The Lt. Governor, already known to be infinitely corrupt, was re-elected, and his fellow Republicans immediately stripped him of his powers over the state Senate. The Speaker of the House, having replaced a man who resigned in disgrace, took a lobbyist paid trip to Germany with his family over the Thanksgiving holiday. The list goes on and on, but I don't have time nor space to dedicate to such embarrassment.
The two big accomplishments of the legislative session were to have been immigration and tax "reform." The tax "reform" drawn up by a tax reform commission, appointed by the previous governor, turned out to be anything but reform. With little study and thought by the legislators a terribly regressive bill hit the floor, which placed high taxes on services heretofore untaxed, removed mortgage interest deductions from income taxes, cut income taxes a small amount and increased the state deficit by over 400 million dollars. It was well on its way to passage, herded quickly along by legislative leaders. Suddenly an Ivy League educated economist legislator in the Democratic Party put a monkey wrench in their plans by showing how badly the bill would hurt the middle class and cut taxes on the upper class and corporations. Typical Republican voodoo economics. Needless to say, the bill died last week after two weeks of heavy emails and letters to legislators from "we the people." The GOP, today, blamed the Georgia State University's nationally known economics department for the failure of the bill. As usual, it will not acknowledge that its incompetence and poor economic policies are to blame.
The other shining accomplishment was to be an "Arizona styled" immigration "reform" bill, meant to drive immigrants, illegal or otherwise, from the state with the usual racial profiling. The fact that the Arizona bill has been held up by federal judges and is probably unconstitutional did not deter these zealots from their appointed goals. Bravely they strode forward ready to take federal responsibilities as their own and save Georgia from the feared immigrants. Wait, enter, stage left, the business and farming communities. They have hit the legislature with the cold, hard facts that their businesses will either fail or lose millions due to the "reform" bill. At this point, in the waning days of the session, the bill teeters on the brink of failure.
Finally, a couple of weeks ago a prominent GA State Senator and Democrat, introduced legislation to restore the Lt. Governor's powers, a move aimed at stirring the rivalries between the Lt. Governor and his enemies. It produced much confusion right in the middle of the tax "reform" debate. This past week a 55 year old female GOP activist began sending emails to GOP legislators that were very critical of the Lt. Governor and his supporters. They engaged an Internet specialist, who discovered that the activist and the GOP Senate Majority Whip shared the same IP address. A number of searches turned up nothing under the name of the person, who had said she was leaving the state to take care of her sick mother. Apparently, the Majority Whip is either a cross dresser or has been posing as a female activist on line.
Tune in again soon, dear readers to follow the continuing saga of a group of children, posing as a political party. Can it get any more bizarre? Oh yes. Yes it can, and it will. Sadly the people of GA will pay and pay dearly because there is little chance in the current political climate that the voters of GA will elect honest, law abiding citizens of reasonable intelligence to political office. That option was there in the recent election and it was turned aside.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Oh, Miss Scarlett, We Must Fight the Kenyan and Secession is the Only Answer
Last night after a Civil War lecture an acquaintance told me afterward that we, presumably the South, should secede again. In fact, he said, it is almost inevitable. That state's rights thing, he mused. I had to laugh, and that did not set well with him. He had just heard about secession, as it took place in our local county. He heard the list of reasons for secession, but he settled on something he referred to as states rights and immediately equated 1861 with today. He completely missed the discussion of options open to the southern states in addition to secession. It didn't occur to him that secession might not have been the correct choice.
He had not taken into consideration the inevitable outcome of that conflict and the devastation it wrought upon his ancestors and his "beloved" south. He missed the two common denominators that fed the fire as they feed all wars: money and power. The South had a landed gentry that was caught up in the tragedy of slavery. Slavery gave that socio-economic class the two things it wanted most: money and power. The loss of slaves meant a loss of power, both political and economic. These power moguls whipped unsuspecting southerners into a frenzy of a devastating conflict that left thousands of dead on the battlefields of this country and ultimately destroyed that which they so desperately wanted to save.
Should modern day southerners fall prey to the rantings of right wing extremists, who clamour for power and money, the results would be the same. This time it would be even worse. Simply the loss of Federal assistance programs would devastate the south. Social Security, Medicare, federal funding for law enforcement, medical facilities, emergency services, roads, veterans benefits... The list goes on and on.
Then there are the parallels with 1861. Few raw materials and little manufacturing would place the South at the mercy of foreign imports, which in the modern U.S. would be virtually impossible to obtain. Then there is the inevitable military action. Imagine a military conflict where the states had to complete with the United States military. The lost of life would be unbelievable. It would be a very short lived conflict to be sure. I don't think most southerners for all of their bluster would have the stomach for it. There was a lot of bluster in 1861 as well. It did not take long for them to figure that it was not going to be the pushover their leaders had promised.
No, secession is a folly. As in 1861, there is no real reason for it. No one's human rights are being trampled on. We live in a very free society with with a lifestyle so far ahead of most of the world it would be total stupidity to destroy it at the whim of a few power brokers, who are so far out of touch with reality that they seen an enemy behind every tree. Then there is that African-American, Muslim, born in Kenya President. He is the nightmare many southerners have been fearing since they lost the Great War.
In 1861, when slavery was king and African-Americans were considered to be no more than a draft animal to be worked, sold, and used to maintain a lifestyle, there was a great fear that slaves would somehow gain control and wreak havoc on their captors. Southerners feared that day when the Federal Government would free them, and they fought a war, ostensibly, against that day. Now one of them is President, an inevitability that southerners have feared for generations. It is now time to throw off the chains of the African-American led U.S. Government and yearn for that day when cotton was king and Scarlett held court on the veranda with a mint julep in her hand and her gallant admirers gathered around her before they went off to save the Confederacy.
He had not taken into consideration the inevitable outcome of that conflict and the devastation it wrought upon his ancestors and his "beloved" south. He missed the two common denominators that fed the fire as they feed all wars: money and power. The South had a landed gentry that was caught up in the tragedy of slavery. Slavery gave that socio-economic class the two things it wanted most: money and power. The loss of slaves meant a loss of power, both political and economic. These power moguls whipped unsuspecting southerners into a frenzy of a devastating conflict that left thousands of dead on the battlefields of this country and ultimately destroyed that which they so desperately wanted to save.
Should modern day southerners fall prey to the rantings of right wing extremists, who clamour for power and money, the results would be the same. This time it would be even worse. Simply the loss of Federal assistance programs would devastate the south. Social Security, Medicare, federal funding for law enforcement, medical facilities, emergency services, roads, veterans benefits... The list goes on and on.
Then there are the parallels with 1861. Few raw materials and little manufacturing would place the South at the mercy of foreign imports, which in the modern U.S. would be virtually impossible to obtain. Then there is the inevitable military action. Imagine a military conflict where the states had to complete with the United States military. The lost of life would be unbelievable. It would be a very short lived conflict to be sure. I don't think most southerners for all of their bluster would have the stomach for it. There was a lot of bluster in 1861 as well. It did not take long for them to figure that it was not going to be the pushover their leaders had promised.
No, secession is a folly. As in 1861, there is no real reason for it. No one's human rights are being trampled on. We live in a very free society with with a lifestyle so far ahead of most of the world it would be total stupidity to destroy it at the whim of a few power brokers, who are so far out of touch with reality that they seen an enemy behind every tree. Then there is that African-American, Muslim, born in Kenya President. He is the nightmare many southerners have been fearing since they lost the Great War.
In 1861, when slavery was king and African-Americans were considered to be no more than a draft animal to be worked, sold, and used to maintain a lifestyle, there was a great fear that slaves would somehow gain control and wreak havoc on their captors. Southerners feared that day when the Federal Government would free them, and they fought a war, ostensibly, against that day. Now one of them is President, an inevitability that southerners have feared for generations. It is now time to throw off the chains of the African-American led U.S. Government and yearn for that day when cotton was king and Scarlett held court on the veranda with a mint julep in her hand and her gallant admirers gathered around her before they went off to save the Confederacy.
Monday, February 21, 2011
The "God Language"
A friend posted the following on Facebook today:
It set me to thinking about something that has been bugging me for some time. The "God Language." It seems that we are besieged these days by God language. Everywhere I turn people are talking the "language." God does this and God does that. God causes this and God causes that. God saves this and God saves that. Athletes point at the sky and kneel after scoring a touchdown or riding a bull, or winning a game. Just yesterday young NASCAR driver, Trevor Bayne, thanked God for winning the Daytona 500. I have Facebook friends who never post anything but religious sayings, and their friends respond in a like manner with more God language. Everybody is praying for everybody. Kind of makes me wonder if they do anything else.
There is a siege afoot. It has reached epidemic proportions. Are all of these people really that good, or are they simply playing a game? Do they mean it, or has it become nothing more than a habit? Do they do it to fit in, or are they covering for some really bad behavior? In the case of politicians they do it to get votes, and they are often covering up some nasty habits. My guess is that it works the same with the average person. Some are very sincere and it shows. Others are simply playing a game. My late mother used to say that people who wear their religion on their sleeves "made her tired." I agree Mom. They make me tired as well, and I am getting very, very fatigued.
It set me to thinking about something that has been bugging me for some time. The "God Language." It seems that we are besieged these days by God language. Everywhere I turn people are talking the "language." God does this and God does that. God causes this and God causes that. God saves this and God saves that. Athletes point at the sky and kneel after scoring a touchdown or riding a bull, or winning a game. Just yesterday young NASCAR driver, Trevor Bayne, thanked God for winning the Daytona 500. I have Facebook friends who never post anything but religious sayings, and their friends respond in a like manner with more God language. Everybody is praying for everybody. Kind of makes me wonder if they do anything else.
There is a siege afoot. It has reached epidemic proportions. Are all of these people really that good, or are they simply playing a game? Do they mean it, or has it become nothing more than a habit? Do they do it to fit in, or are they covering for some really bad behavior? In the case of politicians they do it to get votes, and they are often covering up some nasty habits. My guess is that it works the same with the average person. Some are very sincere and it shows. Others are simply playing a game. My late mother used to say that people who wear their religion on their sleeves "made her tired." I agree Mom. They make me tired as well, and I am getting very, very fatigued.
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