Voter Suppression = Oligarchy of Bigots During my sophomore year at UGA in 1973, I and a merry band of men and women undergraduates and law students founded a new campus organization, Young Democrats of UGA. (Or maybe it was Young Democrats of Clarke County. Or Athens. I forget as that was in the last century and Millenium.) Being the idealistic19 year old fool that I was, I threw my hat in the ring for a seat on the executive committee. In fact, I think I ran for president. However, the election was hijacked by a white supremacist group on campus by the name of (I think) People for the American Way. This bunch of bigots regularly called for the UGA Adminstration to dismiss the universitys director of the Redcoat Band, a principled musician named Roger Dancz, because he refused to allow the band to play Dixie at UGAs home football games, as well as when the team was on the road. Play Dixie, fire Dancz! was the chant of these redneck racists all during the fall semester. When they ventured out of their agricultural classes and dormitories on the south campus. (Sorry folks, my grandfather, whom I always loved and looked up to, was a farmer, but in the early to mid 1970s, the UGA Ag students did not, for the most part, display admirable traits.) So what did these fellers do? The night or perhaps even the afternoon of the scheduled election, those known liberal Democrat founders of our political party received telephone calls advising them that the election had been postponed to another date. And they bought the lie. Except for me, who was admittedly a gullible sort, because I didnt get a phone call. (Probably because I was at T.K. Hartys Saloon.) Thus, I did appear for the election, and I was given a few minutes before the vote to state my platform and answer random questions. The one question I was asked that Ill never forget was, Would you support Lester Maddox if he is the Democratic Partys nominee for ________ (fill in the blank with Governor, Lieutenant Governor, or President.) Of course, I answered with a resounding, Hell no! And that spelled doom for my candidacy. A blessing, perhaps, given my studies and other extracurricular activities, but it was clearly a case of theft by election; a win by People for the American Way obtained by cheating. Why am I reminiscing about this 41 years later? Because in the real world today, the same crimes are being committed, and maybe even by some of the same radical rightwing types who attempted to terrorize the UGA Redcoat Band Director and players. There is an alarming movement, spread across the continental United States, by conservatives who claim to be Tea-patriots, to suppress the right of minorities to vote through cheating. Drumming up false claims of voter fraud, they have instituted voter id requirements that in some cases are so onerous that they are akin to literacy tests administered to poor black citizens in Alabama in the first half of the twentieth century and poll taxes imposed upon those same folks, who simply wanted a say in who would be governing them. The reason for this is that Republicans have run out of outmoded ideas to pander to the public, and realizing they are viewed as modern day dinosaurs, their only hope for victory is to steal elections. Just like they did for good ole silver spoon in the mouth George W. Bush in 2000. Al Gore WON that election. W did not. Larceny by trick did the trick for a presidential candidate not unlike Tricky Dick. Except Tricky Dick was cunning, whereas Ws crooks were only good at dunning. Alarmingly for you and me -- and your children, should they choose to grow up in Georgia and remain here -- the most egregious, outrageous GOP cheating is taking place here, where our Republican Secretary of State, who oversees elections, has unabashedly launched an investigation into alleged voter fraud by a Democratic state legislator motivated to go into areas and churches heavily populated by African Americans and register them to vote. Everyone knows that these folks, who along with their ancestors have lived through centuries of racial discrimination, tend to cast their ballots for Democratic candidates, and a groundswell in registration by these voters could swing the gubernatorial and senatorial elections this fall in favor of the blue candidates, Jason Carter and Michelle Nunn, respectively. And the only way to stop this from happening, less than a month before the election, is for Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who should be a nonpartisan official, to conveniently fail to process the new voter registration applications by the registration deadline. Which Mr. Kemp tried to do. But it appears that he failed in his sickeningly partisan GOP mission, as some 212,000 new Georgia voters did make it onto the rolls. So democracy may survive in Georgia after all, rather than being supplanted by a government of oligarchical collectivism whose leaders are nothing more than rich bigots. Of course, it remains to be seen what will happen in other states this fall, where similar Tricky Dick (Nixon and Cheney) burglary and theft election tactics are being employed. Governor Scott Walker may avoid being toppled from his Humpty Dumpty perch in Wisconsin because he got away with suppressing early absentee voting. Texas State Senator Wendy Davis may not be able to succeed Rick Cant remember those branches of government Perry in the governors office in Austin, due to voter intimidation by Greg Abbotts hot air balloon minders that is so slick, we havent even heard about it. Lets not allow the 2014 elections in Georgia to be stolen by thieves in the night, though. My fellow Democrats, there are too many of us now to be bullied by stingy GOP gangbangers. We must show up at the polls on Tuesday, November 4 or before, wherever possible. Vote early! Vote often!
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 06:55:26 +0000
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