As the McClatchy article notes, the Rapeublicons have turned the civil rights laws on their head, using statutes designed to protect voters into methods to PREVENT voting. It’s typical of the Orwellian approach they have to everything: “occupation is liberation,” black is white, slavery is freedom…

Ernest, I’ve told Aussies about the “caging” that Palast has detailed in his “Armed Madhouse” book and on numerous liberal radio talk shows. Aussies can’t believe it! Here, voting is MANDATORY (except for me, because I’m not a citizen.) You don’t show up at the polls, the authorities come looking for you. The person who rented out house before we moved in went to another state before last year’s local parliamentary elections, and a couple of months ago we got a letter demanding that they explain why or they would be fined. So when I tell Australians that the game by American officials is to make sure that people CANNOT vote, they’re stunned. Then again, they’re still operating under the assumption that America is a democracy…

As for that swimming pool, racists would consider it “integrated” if they swam in the same water that blacks used. Hell, it touched their skin, didn’t it? Unless they emptied the entire pool inbetween sessions. Which I wouldn’t put past certain communities…

Scruff, am I missing something?  How can a public swimming pool be “intergrated” if “whites” and “coloreds” had to use it at different times of the day?

Oh those racists do come up with some remarkable language, don’t they.

mlevass asks, “How about the disenfranchisement of the men and women service members in the last two presidential elections?  Care to tackle that?”

Well, mlevass.  Someone has.  He is an American investigative reporter who works in Britain.  His name is Greg Palast.  Palast is in possession of more than 500 of the e-mails sent by Rove’s boys at the White House over RNC servers.  They reveal that the RNC engaged in a massive “caging” effort directed at minority voters.  “Caging” is a direct mail term and before Rove latched onto Bush he operated Rove & Co., a direct mail company.

What they do is send certified mail to specified voters on the list—you might say those who are of a different color than Rove and his buddies.  If the letter is not deliverable at that address, which most often occurs when the minority voter is in uniform, serving overseas, your Republican friends would then use that to challenge them at the polls.  This tactic is illegal.  It entails not only a violation of the Voting Rights Act but a violation of a 1986 consent decree which was issued against the Republican Party by a federal court in New Jersey as a result of past “caging” efforts.  The use of RNC servers by White House employees in order to hide this activity probably also violates both the Hatch Act and the Presidential Records Act.

Both this account and an extended interview of Captain Inglesias, whose real life experience was portrayed by actor Tom Cruise in “A Few Good Men” can be found at

http://democracynow.org/article/pl?sid=07/05/14/142654&mode=thread&tid=25

How about the disenfranchisement of the men and women service members in the last 2 presidential elections?

Care to tackle that?

“#83063 by GW=MCHammered on 7/01 at 11:05 pm
(Unregistered commenter)
So other than perpetuating societal woes and taxes, what does our government exist for again?”

I can tell you what it is supposed to exist for. It’s job is to uphold the laws of the constitution, and to protect the freedom of the people. Unfortunately, a government of the people requires that the people be active and involved in the political process. Unfortunately the American has been dumbed down by the mass media for the past 70 years, and now only cares about whats happening in his own backyard. Until the majority of Americans start to get involved again, we will continue to be used and abused by those in office.

brandon
http://www.actforyourself.org

It would appear that all the “smart” operators and operatives make a major mistake in taking on someone like David Iglesias. Somehow Mr. Iglesias managed to hold onto his integrity while being Republican. Therefore his anger appears more honest that partisan sniping. Thought the Republicans were all supposed to be so much smarter than the Democrats?

#83042 by Enemy of State on 7/01 at 8:17 pm

Enemy…you were reading my mind.

...“The Repubs have been doing this for a number of years. Basically any group that tends to vote against their interests is considered to be not worthy of voting rights. It looks like it has now become too blatant to be overlooked anymore. This isn’t likely to be just a few bad apples led by Rove, but I think this mentality has spread a lot deeper. It was obvious that wingnut talk radio hosts share the disenfranchisement agenda.”

And, ya know what’s so creepy and surreal, is that we really HAVE been watching this, for a long time now, because Katrina also shed some light on a horrible situation that certainly didn’t become that way overnight. There was no reason why the USA, should not have been able to maintain levees, in this, the alledgedly wealthiest nation on the planet.

Oddly enough, (but probably not) within a week of the Katrina disaster, if not sooner, the Black Commentator had a story titled: “Will the New New Orleans Be Black”? It was prescient, because we pretty much knew the answer to that at the time.

Then, just yesterday, I read an excellent piece by Bill Quigley, “How to Destroy an African-American City in Thirty-Three Steps-Lessons from Katrina”

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062907N.shtml

It gave me goosebumps, because it is exactly what we’ve known was happening, for nearly 2 years now. But, it was extra creepy, but it could be applied to exactly how we’ve destroyed Iraq, (nearly all of the same “condidtions”) and of course I’m sure countless other cities here at home by now, even though we may not be aware of all of them, just because of the way the whole decline has been sort of fuzzed out, so that nobody else really knows what’s going on across the street, let alone across the country.

Anyway, it’s an excellent article. A little bit lengthy, but he certainly lays it out. We know exactly what to look for, as this pattern is repeated over and over again.

The Repubs have been doing this for a number of years. Basically any group that tends to vote against their interests is considered to be not worthy of voting rights. It looks like it has now become too blatant to be overlooked anymore. This isn’t likely to be just a few bad apples led by Rove, but I think this mentality has spread a lot deeper. It was obvious that wingnut talk radio hosts share the disenfranchisement agenda.

A bunch of SOBs !