Seriously? Over 760,000 Coloradans Still Want to Preserve Slavery - What Gives?

As I wrote in  the post on the Dem blue wave midterm  success, a majority of voters supported the ballot measure,  Amendment A,   to ban slavery in the state.    The bad news, 35 percent of Colorado voters did not. The question considered in this post:  Why the hell not?  The.formal ballot question as it appeared on our ballot was:

"Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado Constitution  that prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime and thereby prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude in all circumstances."

At first blush the question admittedly appeared preposterous, given as The Denver Post Voter's Guide put it  (in the case against):  "Slavery and involuntary servitude are already illegal so the change would be merely symbolic"   

Most people - not just Colorado citizens-  still believe the question was settled after the Civil War.  And despite the Post's  "meh" take, enormous loopholes remained in the language - enough to drive a metaphorical Mack Truck through.  While the 13th amendment of the U.S. Constitution  abolished most forms of slavery when ratified in 1865, it still left loopholes - namely for involuntary servitude.

 This was in the form of punishment as integrated into forced labor programs in the nation's penal institutions. It especially became useful as many private corporations realized they could save big bucks on labor by getting prison labor, i.e. slave labor for little or no pay. Or if you prefer, "indentured servitude".

Thus, such servitude was fully allowed provided "it serve as punishment for a crime, where the party shall have been duly convicted."  In other words, break the law and you could end up in a prison where you're either breaking rocks for eight to ten hours a day as a slave, or working for a corporation making mittens for 10 cents a day. Slave labor. Indentured servitude. 

Incredibly, with the final tally in, the results showed 766, 218  voters in our state still wanted slavery, vs.  1, 452, 806 who voted to abolish it by changing the language in the Constitution.    

Jumoke Emery, director of the campaign for ProgressNow, and creator of the 'Abolish Slavery'  Colorado campaign told the WSJ  4 weeks ago that most people are shocked when informed that the 13th amendment didn't outlaw slavery in every circumstance. He noted that:

"the language in both the state and U.S. constitutions are a remnant of a more painful time in the country's past."

According to Nathan Woodliff-Stanley, director of the ACLU of Colorado. the Amendment had broad bipartisan support, an hence the 65-35  "big win".    However, that still leaves us to account for the 35 percent of knuckle draggers and throwbacks in the state.

According to The Colorado Independent, many observers were "dismayed" but not surprised.  Just like other purple states, or ones that have recently swung blue, there are plenty of yahoos mainly in the less developed areas (which happens to be 26 counties where the voters wanted to keep the Amendment unchanged) . They insisted: "If ya do the crime, ya do the time". Time here meaning not only incarceration but working 12 hours a day for nothing,  or a pittance.

According to The Independent, quoting activist Hassan Latif:

“I think it says what a lot of the political landscape is echoing across the country.  And that is that some people are very comfortable with the way things are and not so much how they should be. … It’s part of people’s ignorance just reflected in their votes against (Amendment A), and it’s very unfortunate that we’re still dealing with the question in 2018.”

This is, again, nothing short of incredible given this is 2018, not 1918.  On the other hand, a primary reason the proposition passed this time as opposed to 2 years ago is likely because of many more Millennial voters who've moved to our state ('Exit Right, Please', Denver Post, Nov. 11. p. 1D)  which also helped set up the statewide "blue tsunami" that "showed scores of Republicans the door".   And may again, in 2020 if they keep banging the drum for Dotard.

Far more generous than many of us - who tend to write off the 'keep slavery' folk as uneducated yokels and mean spirited rednecks,  Jumoke Emery offers three theories:

1) Voters were confused about the language, unsure if it included community service and work release,

2) Genuine hard - assed knuckle draggers who just like punitive forms of indentured servitude and slavery,  or

3)  Those who desire to continue the institutionalization of slavery in any form 

Well,  could have fooled me. I thought the end vote would be at least 90-10 to change the language.   I also still believe there is no "language misunderstanding"  and the racist maggots that voted not to change the language are no better than KKK vermin who - during Obama's tenure-  put up images of Michelle Obama being a whipped slave, e.g.

So I put these backward CO voters in the same category, and also likely dedicated, semi-educated Trumpies.  (Trump in 2016: "I like the poorly educated!")  Hell, probably the vindictive oldsters I overhead at the BK the other morning were among this sorry lot.  Besides, the bastards actually acted out to terrify Mr. Emery. As reported in The Independent:

"On Monday afternoon, Election Day eve, he got a call from his wife, telling him to hurry home from work. Someone or some group, had set a bunch of pro-Amendment A brochures on fire on the front porch of the Emery home in Denver’s Hilltop neighborhood. It was still smoldering when his wife discovered it.Emery, who is black, likened the incident to a cross-burning.

“This brand of racialized terrorism, and the legacy of slavery and the fear campaigns that were run for decades and continue to be run, haven’t ended,” Emery said. “And it’s important that the nation sees that and understands that in the context of where we are in 2018.”

Police say they’re investigating the incident, though Emery claims the cops only seemed to take interest in the burnt brochures once local media started reporting on it."

This is the sad state the country is in right now, and it won't change until we fumigate it, starting with Trump.  As the blue wave continues to roll in, finding wins in states that Trump took two years ago (the latest being Jeff Flake's AZ state - now won by Kyrsten Sinema-  there is high hope that 2020 will be a banner year to return this nation to normal.

At that point, one can only hope the Trump Nationalist Interregnum was purely an aberration, and no further mutations will arise from its dust and ashes. 

Cliven Bundy a 'Patriot'? How About A Racist Idiot Scofflaw?

"I wanna tell yuh one more thing I know about the Nigras! Weren't they better off as slaves, pickin'  cotton  and havin' a family life  and doin' things or are they better off under government subsidies ? They didn't get no more freedom they got less freedom"  -  Cliven Bundy on Saturday

"They're not slaves no more but they seem to be slaves to the welfare system..." - Cliven Bundy in a press conference yesterday - trying to defend the earlier balderdash

In doing my earlier blog on Cliven Bundy and his clueless followers I was prepared to be generous and just grant that the man and his toadies were ignorant. They were ignorant of the Nevada state constitution which clearly sets out the purview of federal power, i.e. to act in concert with state law. This is in Article 1, Section 2 of the Nevada Constitution:

.....the Paramount Allegiance of every citizen is due to the Federal Government in the exercise of all its Constitutional powers as the same have been or may be defined by the Supreme Court of the United States; and no power exists in the people of this or any other State of the Federal Union to dissolve their connection therewith or perform any act tending to impair, subvert, or resist the Supreme Authority of the government of the United States.

Did any of Bundy's Bozos read this? I doubt it.  But now, rather than merely reinforce he's ignorant Cliven Bundy has opened his yap on Saturday (see quote above - from a  live Youtube recording - so it's his absolute words) proving he's a racist idiot and scofflaw to boot.

African Americans had it better as slaves?  Having "a family life and doin' things"  together? Are you fucking kidding me? What school did this asshole go to in order to learn that? There was NO family life,  you fucking moron! Families were often broken up - as when they first arrived for auction at the old slave market in New Orleans - with kids sent to different plantations while mom and dad - IF they were lucky- got sent to the same cotton plantation. Usually they weren't. Even if they did somehow get to the same plantation together, ol' Massah could have his way with the woman any time he wanted and her husband couldn't lift a hand!  (Let us bear in mind also that marriage was frowned upon by the slave masters, who considered it antithetical to the slave system - as Prof. Eric Dyson observed last night on Chris Hayes' 'All In'.)

Doing things? Yeah, when ol' Massah Whitey wanted some entertainment he'd use some subterfuge or excuse to take out his whip and flog one or more of the slaves while banjo music played. Or.....he'd  drag the slaves out from their crowded digs early in the morning to dance for him - again to banjo music. The slaves had no choice -  NONE as to what THEY would do, or how they'd entertain themselves.

Now look at Bundy's words above (I still wonder if he's related to Ted Bundy the mass murderer), and ask yourselves this:

Suppose you're an African-American living in this country, paid at the lowest wage scale or not hired at all, with  the Neoliberal capitalist system considering you only for prison labor  (25 cents an hour to make rugs) - would you rather accept welfare to at least survive and feed your kids? Or, would you rather be sent back to a Louisiana plantation in a time slip where you can be whipped at will, your wife can be raped by White Massah at his pleasure, and your kids dispatched to any other plantation the Massah wants?

C'mon - give an answer here! You have uh.....five nanoseconds!

In the wake of Bundy's asinine remarks, it's no surprise that many of his high profile media and political supporters have exited stage right from this fool, including FOX's Sean Hannity ("that was despicable"), Nevada senator Dean Heller, and Tea Party favorite, Rand Paul.  Hannity, let us recall, was among the main bloviators to jump on Bundy's Bandwagon posing idiotic questions that pandered to the massive FOX audience's ignorance, including (with the rational, informed responses):

“Since when does the government send armed officers to collect a debt?”

Actually, many repossession and foreclosure actions often involve a sheriff or other armed officials, and confiscation of property is an ordinary means by which a government resolves a debt.  For example, if you accumulate 20 years of unpaid parking tickets, a court will order that your car be booted and towed until you pay. And if you point a rifle at the cop or otherwise assault him, you might get shot (or tased). The same applies if the IRS dispatches armed agents to your domicile after you've ignored paying taxes for years or have committed massive tax fraud. In addition, here in Colorado if you owe property taxes that have been unpaid for years, a lien can be placed on the property - it can then be purchased by a collection agency, and the home foreclosed. Armed agents will kick your ass out if you don't cooperate.

“Nobody has seen any bill for $1.1 million. It doesn’t exist.

Michelle Fiore, R-Nevada Assembly, bloviated this (while a guest on MSNBC).  Bundy says he has “never been sent a bill” but also says he never opens mail from the U.S. government because he does not recognize the U.S. government’s existence.   This is as fucking dumb as a homeowner who receives mortgage or credit card bills but refuses to open the mail. Can you say STUPID?

In the Bundy case, a court had ordered him to pay a debt of $1.1 million in accumulated fines and fees for having put greater than his allowed quota of cattle on federally protected tortoise habitat. Meanwhile, lawful citizens who are Bundy's neighbors are fed up with this millionaire asshole acting like a dead beat while they pay their legitimate fees for cattle grazing. As one observer -neighbor put it: "If that isn't leeching off welfare, I don't know what is!"

"The BLM provoked, escalated this controversy.”  

Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas, made this accusation, as have numerous others. If an armed resistance is put up against an asset seizure by law enforcement officials who are acting under a court order, the provocation is exclusively the work of those who have chosen to threaten the lawmen with violence.  If the IRS sends armed agents to confiscate your property for unpaid taxes you better damned well not pull out your Glock unless you want to see an early grave!

 The land is not being used — it’s not like they want to build a school, road or hospital on it.”  

This was put out by Hannity who doesn't seem to understand that how federal land is used is determined by federal law. No citizen gets to decide for himself whether the land should remain vacant or grazed, or whether something should be built on it. Not if it is federal land, which it is.

“How could a cow possibly eat $1.1 million of grass?”

This one was trotted out by Bundy’s  equally clueless daughter, Stetsy Bundy. She doesn't get that whether  cows can eat a million bucks worth of grass is neither here nor there. Grazing fees are not assessed by weighing the amount of tonnage that a cow eats. It is a per-animal-unit, per-month fee, and it adds up over 20 years. Furthermore, Bundy’s liability is as much  for fines for illegal trespass as it is for fees.

  “Bundy has rights to the land because his ancestors worked the land prior to formation of BLM.”  

Bundy - predictably -  has made this argument himself and others have parroted it.  Even if Bundy’s ancestors did work the land (and we only have his word that they did, and he is notoriously dishonest), with the passage of the Taylor Act in 1934 they would have had to pay grazing fees. And it was never private land.  The parcel that Bundy is trespassing has been owned by the U.S. government ever since it was purchased and/or won from Mexico or Spain.

Again, Bundy merely shows he's a scofflaw as well as a deadbeat and racist idiot. Those who still defend him are no better. The "militias"  that trot around  his place with automatic weapons at the ready are really cowards at heart. They are bold and ready to pull out their weapons and fire at some little BLM guys with tasers in Nevada, but you won't see any of them squaring off against the U.S. Army in Pinon Canyon here in Colorado. Say to defend the rights of the ranchers here whose land stands to be seized for specious reasons (e.g. the Army testing of Predator drones).

Why? Because they know they'd face real, serious opposition with the likelihood they'd get shot at and wounded, not just tased. Hence, it's much easier for them to sashay around,  posturing with Bundy in Nevada than to stand up for ranchers' rights against the Army in Colorado. Bullies, posturing paper patriots and gun toting pseudo-toughs always seem to find out their bravado limits in a hurry when confronted by a formidable opposition- even one based in the federal gov't they "hate".

Why did so many line up with this misfit and racist? Because the indiscriminate anti-government meme is so powerful among right wing circles that it only takes one asshole to blow an anti-fed/  "Patriot"  dog whistle to get all the loonies to come running. But what this episode discloses is that those eager to be seen as "anti-government patriots", need to take more care with whom they align themselves.  Newsflash: it isn't with the likes of  racists like Bundy.

As for Bundy, any dunderhead who still defends him after the racist revelations is no better than he is. If they have a grain of sense they will abandon this idiot bigot like his former political allies have. Again, if they want a REAL cause they will stand with the ranchers of Pinon Canyon, Colorado against the U.S. Army instead!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jaime-oneill/55615/dimwitted-patriots-and-phony-cowboys

Did the South Finally Win The Civil War? Maybe!

Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen often raises hackles and eyebrows with his provocative columns, but he may have outdone himself with his latest one (How the South Finally Won, April 18), which more or less takes off where Joshua Zeitz' Dixie's Victory(American Heritage, Sept. 2002) ends. Quillen writes:

"The sesquicentennial commemoration of the American Civil War began last week with the 150th anniversary of the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina, and the observations will continue for the next four years through the defeat of the Confederacy as its generals surrendered to Union commanders in 1865.

But one might make the argument that if you take the long view, the Confederacy actually triumphed. We can start with the Republican Party, founded in 1854 to oppose the Dixie way of life, but now a reflection of Southern attitudes. In capturing the Republican Party, the political descendants of the Confederates are accomplishing through politics what their ideological ancestors failed to accomplish on the battlefield."

This is true and more or less follows the line of reasoning of Zeitz. Though the latter doesn't go into the R-party inverting itself like Quillen does. Neither, however, explains how or why this political inversion occurred, or how the party that originally fought against slavery became the political descendants of those it fought against.

The reasons aren't hard to parse, and most historians trace them to the fall of 1963, when President John F. Kennedy enforced integration in Alabama and Mississippi by federalizing their state National Guards. Many Southerners, then white Democrats, became so outraged they switched allegiance to the Repukes...errr....Republicans after seeing their Jim Crow-based segregation shattered. The final cut was LBJ's Civil Rights legislation in 1965, which finalized the shift. It then became a matter of record when Richard Milhous Nixon deliberately used "the Southern strategy" to rack up huge electoral numbers in the South toward his 1968 victory over Hubert Humphrey.

Quillen is also spot on in observing:

"To be sure, chattel slavery has long been abolished in this nation. But you could consider slavery a form of cheap labor with no legal protections for the laborers. Now consider the GOP current efforts to bust unions, cut wages and benefits, and reduce workplace safety regulations.

In other words, one essence of the antebellum South's economic system is becoming part of the national economic system."

True, and we've beheld this in Wisconsin (with Scott Walker) as well as Ohio (with John Kasich) and Indiana. In each case gutting union power to make public workers de facto slaves. In the antebellum South this took the form of then freed slaves being kept on to work as sharecroppers, but having most of their meager wages garnished for boarding. Today's public worker slaves, are having large portions of their wages garnished to pay for benefits and health care, leaving them with little disposable income for mortgage payments, groceries or fuel.

Quillen's next point is also salient:

"One might also ponder income distribution in pre-war Dixie. It was extremely skewed with a few rich folks, mostly planters, sitting on most of the wealth, and outside of their slaves, lots of "poor white trash" scrounging for a meager livelihood at the bottom. It was close to feudal, sort of like the country you get with continued tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, ensuring there isn't much for the folks further down the ladder, especially after you privatize Medicare and cut Social Security."

True, and few people know this. One had an extremely inequitable society defined by tremendous disparity in access to resources. Even most whites lived at the level of indentured servants, though the racial clarion calls of the plantation owners were deft enough to entice them to forego their own interests and fight for the Confederacy (which regarded them as little better than expendable cannon fodder). Renunciation of the government was part and parcel of this mentality, and expressed itself not only in rejection of higher taxes but in opposing any external government injunctions. Thus, the infamous reply of one Georgia Senator to Stonewall Jackson's plea to have powers equal to Lincoln: "Ah will remain a Rebel even in this Confederacy!"

Quillen again:

"Lincoln and the Republicans of 1861 supported protective tariffs, not just to help finance the federal government, but also to support domestic industry and raise wages. The South supported free trade — South Carolina's first secession threat came in 1832 in opposition to "the tariff of abominations" — and today's GOP is a big supporter of free trade."

This is also key! And like the Confederates of old, the Repukes disdain any intake of money to pay for their wars or occupations. Already, even before Obama entered, they'd squandered over $3 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan and didn't offer to hike taxes one red cent and indeed, added insult to injury by tacking on tax CUTS in so-called wartime. (Which makes a mockery of the claim that it is "wartime")

And further:

"The Old South also opposed federal spending on "internal improvements" — canals, railroads, turnpikes and the like — in the first part of the 19th century. That is, investment in national infrastructure, and where does the anti-investment rhetoric come from today if not the GOP?"

Absolutely! And ever since the illegitimate ascension of Dumbya Bush to power (in 2001), stoking people to buy, buy, buy...despite starting a "war" ...not one damned thing was done to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. Like the Old South, which blamed its decay on 'carpetbaggers' and liberated black slaves, today's repukes blame it on liberals or "socialists" when they wouldn't recognize one of the latter if it bit them in the ass.

Quillen once again:

"Nor was the South big on spending for education. Southern senators and representatives blocked early efforts to establish state land-grant colleges. As for the local common schools, the illiteracy rate in Dixie, even among whites, was much higher than in the North, which supported public education. The Southern heritage of poorly funding public education is now a national Republican policy, which also involves taking money from the public coffers to support private religious schools."

Exactly so, and we know the whole voucher ruse is an elaborate bait and switch designed to defund public schools while not really helping those kids who go to alternatives via vouchers. Analysis of many voucher programs, including in Washington, DC and Milwaukee has shown they don't fulfill expectations, and scores attained on standardized tests are up to a standard deviation below the means expected in normal public schooling.

Quillen penultimately notes:

"When it comes to foreign policy, the South was expansionist and imperialistic, with designs for a "Golden Circle" of a slave-holder republic surrounding the Caribbean after the acquisition of Cuba and the rest of Mexico. The idea was to control their resources and bring "the blessings of republican government" to an unruly part of the world."

Indeed! And we now find this writ large as overall empire-building by the nation. Thus, the imperialistic aims of the Confederate South have now become endemic policy as this country is stretched across the globe in imperialist military occupations and commitments, from Korea to Germany, to the Philippines and Iraq, Afghanistan et al, all at a cost of hundreds of billions a year. (See the latest TIME, April 25, for how the military budget can easily be cut by $1 trillion or more).

And I save Quillen's best for last:

"When you look at contemporary culture, those who fly the stars and bars and esteem Nathan Bedford Forrest are somehow considered patriotic, rather than admirers of treason. Add all this up, and there's a strong argument that the Confederacy actually won the Civil War — not by force of arms, but by taking over the political party that had once been dedicated to its destruction.

Need I say more?