It’s got to suck being a Mississippi voter, right now. They’ve got to either look in the mirror and realize they’re a garbage-human, or that a majority of their friends and neighbors are.
I’m particularly disgusted by the attempts to “retcon” Cindy Hyde-Smith’s comments, such as: [nw]
Republican state senator Charles Younger told Mississippi Today that reviving public hangings “would deter a lot of crime” and restated claims from Hyde-Smith’s campaign that the comments were made as a joke.
Oh, make up your mind, you floppy blancmange. Did what she said matter, or didn’t it? If it was a joke, then you don’t need to struggle to justify it. And if you can justify it, then don’t dismiss it as a joke. Younger has just showed that he’s a nihilist: truth means nothing, only power. Also: it shows he doesn’t understand how to keep order in a society – many countries had public executions for hundreds of years yet they still had plenty of crime. Criminality has more to do with economics than deterrence, anyone who’s qualified to govern ought to know that.
By the way, this business of avoiding ableist slurs and classism is really difficult – thank you Mississippi. Normally it’s not a problem but, for fuck’s sake, you’ve backed a candidate that’s a shit-spitting dog-whistling coward from the Roy Moore school.
I’ve also been particularly disappointed in the media’s reporting of Google, Facebook, MLB, WAL-MART, AT&T and Pfizer asking for their campaign donations back, as if that’s a noble gesture and not mere corporatism. Why did they give her campaign money in the first place? Stay standing up and be counted, it’s too late to grow a bunch of ethics, now. Next you’re going to be telling us we shouldn’t curl our lip and spit when we hear of Mississippi. But don’t you know that’s an acceptable part of the political discourse, too? If the dixiecrats were lined up against a wall for a firing squad, I’d want to check and make sure the wall wasn’t on the historic register; the bullets might damage it – otherwise? Whatever.
Sadly, I keep remembering what Howard Zinn said in his talk on The Southern Influence in American Politics.
Racism is not a southern characteristic, it’s a national characteristic. Racism is not a southern problem, it’s a national problem.
This has been a very easy way to dispose of the situation; we’ve done it all the time. This nation, historically, has been – for most of its existence – a slave nation. Well, I’m counting its existence from the 17th Century – and we have been slave longer than we have been free. And if you count our existence from the Declaration of Independence the years that we’ve been a slave nation and the years that we’ve been a free nation are pretty close to equal. It is not a matter of North of South, and we find this out when negroes move North. Negroes leave the South and they go up North to New York City and they’re put on the express train that doesn’t stop until it gets to Harlem.
[…]
The South has been treating the negro like a dog, because the nation has allowed it.
Elsewhere, Zinn comments:
The worst senators come from the South. In fact, I could go further and say they come from Georgia. But there are people here from Mississippi and we’d have to argue about that.
[this version has been cleaned up and edited]
That is exactly what I thought when I heard about Walmart asking for a refund on their
bribecampaign contribution.To quote and cheesy 1960s sexist and sub-orderist song “You knew I was I snake before you took me in.”
Racism isn’t just a southern thing. But the configuration of the racism might be regional.
In the south, particularly areas with strong, often quite dominate, family lines things are much more tribal. It isn’t just race. Certain lineages are favored and protected by an interlocking series of connections and transactional arrangements.
Even major national corporations understand that they are vulnerable to the failure of the locals to cooperate. That to maximize profits in certain counties you need to keep a few prominent families happy. A few thousand dollars contributed to the right campaign can go a long way to making sure things operate smoothly and more profitably.
lorn@#2:
Even major national corporations understand that they are vulnerable to the failure of the locals to cooperate. That to maximize profits in certain counties you need to keep a few prominent families happy. A few thousand dollars contributed to the right campaign can go a long way to making sure things operate smoothly and more profitably.
You’re allowed to use the words “systemic corruption” here. I know that’s indistinguishable from “how things are done” far too often, but let’s be accurate.
Political money-pumping often sounds to me like that scene in Woody Allen’s Bananas where the CIA guy explains that they have assets on both sides of the revolution so they have everything covered no matter who wins.
Why couldn’t Nina Simone have just been more civil?
Turns out the largest owner of the SF Giants baseball team has been a firm monetary supporter of the Belle from Mississippi. There has been a bit of a tempest in the local media over this.