“Put Y’all back in chains!”
It has been an interesting week in politics, this past week! For those who did not realize that the Olympics had ended, there was the supposed “gaffe” that Vice President Joe Biden made out in Virginia when he told an audience made up of both whites and blacks that the Republicans would put “Y’all back in chains!” The full quote was that the Republicans wanted to unshackle the big banks by ending regulations put upon them after Barack Obama came into office in 2009 and let them regulate themselves, and, then, Biden made the comment that has been labeled by so much of the media about chains and the black perspective on that. A couple of black politicians who are now out of office came on CNN to confirm for everyone who was listening to them that this was indeed an over the top comment that had been ment to further divide the nation. Some even suggested that Biden should be replaced on the national Democrat ticket by the erstwhile Hilary Clinton.
The Biden comment had been preceded on CNN by a report that the state of Pennsylvania has been allowed by the state courts to precede with its plan to require voters to provide photo identification when they come to the polls before they are allowed to officially vote. By Pennsylvania’s own estimates, there are 760,000 of the states residents who do not have said photo id. In this same piece, there was a clip of a Republican state representative claiming that this law would allow Pennsylvania to go for Mitt Romney in the November elections said right on the legislative floor of the Pennsylvania house. Across the nation, since 2010 when the Republicans came to power in the wake of the elections held that fall, there have been numerous laws such as Pennsylvania’s proposed and enacted, particularly in the red state south. This activity, and Biden’s comments, have brought out an interesting response for some of the media, when they have stated that there is no right to vote in this nation. This has raised many eyebrows in view of the fact that there are numerous statements in the United Stated constitution that are contrary to that fact. Those statements include the fact that, in the original constitution, the right to vote was guaranteed to all white males who own land. This has, subsequently, been expanded by an amendment to the constitution to include women and all people over the age of eighteen, regardless of whether they own land or not. This does not count the amendments to the constitution enacted after the civil war that protect the rights of blacks in this nation against discrimination.
Still yet, a nation cannot really legislate against discrimination in all of its many and insidious defacto forms. The fact that Joe Biden singled out a group in his audience as being subject to that discrimination when it has been going on for centuries now is, in effect, killing the messenger instead of listening to the very real and imminent message that is being broadcast. When a state singles out those of a different color or name for special attention, that, is discrimination. When a political party begins to align itself with these tactics, one can safely say that it is a party that discriminates. When broad strokes of the nations media begin to criticize a person who points out this sort of activity to his fellow citizens, then that is tacit complicity in this discrimination just as well. In a segment on CNN’s the Cafferty File, the very biased Jack Cafferty asked his cultish group of writing followers to respond to Biden’s comments. The only writer in this group who disagreed with his premise about Biden was a self described black man from South Carolina who pointed out that such discrimination actually does exist.
We were brought up in the southern part of the northern industrial state of Illinois back in the 1950’s and we have seen discrimination in its many forms and some of the suffering that black people have had to endure. We saw them burned out of their homes in 1954 after the actions of a couple of their younger members enflamed a community to take actions that we still wonder if some of them have ever regretted. We saw poor black families brought into a justice of the peace’s office and, because of supposed speeding charges back before radar guns were even thought of, were so often deprived of their only real possession, their automobile, because they could not come up with fines that would be considered exorbitant even in 2012 America. These were black families trying to reach the safety, promise and potential prosperity of northern industrial America whose lives were shattered by the actions of a bigoted population that they had to travel through to reach their promised land. These things took place not yet sixty years ago and it would appear to us that we might rapidly be returning to times that we thought had long ago passed us by. These states who are discriminating against their citizens might just as well institute an exorbitant poll tax as to require something that so many cannot come up with to deprive those who are just as interested in and probably far more so in some cases, the freedom and the free action to vote. As we look back on the actions of those down in southern Illinois back in 1954 against those that they considered to be inferior to themselves, we are sure that the unstated did more than enough to insure that these people never even came forward to vote. Coming up with rules and regulations aimed at a specific segment of the population will have that chilling effect again before time goes much further. And, if the Romney/Ryan ticket is elected and they take over control of the federal justice department, we can see a rapid rollback of what has been considered especially dear to a part of this population who can remember a time when it was not available at all.
Martin Luther King once stated that he thought that the civil rights movement and blacks in particular might have to become the conscious of this nation. It is sad to see black people such as Doug Wilder of Virginia criticize a man who can himself remember times when the right to vote might cost a person their very life and limb. Joe Biden was not being gaffe prone when he made the comments that he made. He was addressing the very real concerns that an entire nation should be grappling with at a time when we thought that these things were far, far behind us. There are many forms of chains available to those who wish to use them in this day and age, and, the chains of fear and embarrassment and being singled out for special attention at a polling place in front of ones peers are but a few of the things available to those with the kind of minds to want their use. Of course, when one looks at the state of Pennsylvania in particular and what their state university is going through in the wake of child sex scandals and the complicity of a once revered coach, what can one expect?
The bottom line is the simple fact that no matter how much progress we think that we have made as a nation and a people supposedly united, the forces of division and hate are never really all that far away. The generation that fought and so often died for the things that we take so much for granted is quickly aging and passing away. It has been said that we have the best educated sixty plus year olds in the world and the most mediocre educated thirty year olds on this planet. And, that is the fertile ground where so many horrible things can, once again, come to pass. Isolation by education or the lack of it is where things like bigotry and hatred of all things that we once considered real and sacred comes to pass. The inability to think critically destroys a nations freedoms as they are replaced by things that are almost too horrible to contemplate but are living among us as we speak. We are just bidding farewell to the greatest generation and the evils that they fought as we contemplate what may replace them. When the vice president of the United States feels the need to make the comments that he did, we can simply take that as a warning of horrible things to come. It is interesting to note that Biden was accused of dividing the nation when those who are his accusers are dividing it along lines of race, gender and age. And we believe it might have been someone from the early twentieth century who made this statement: If you are going to lie, make sure that they are big lies because people will not believe anything else!
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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