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talkpoliticsWhy wouldn't they? It worked in 2000.
Via Crooks and Liars
The last time, the target was black voters and the rationale for removing names was the voters were convicted felons. This time the target is Hispanic voters and the rationale offered that they are “illegal immigrants”:
A list of “suspect voters?” Matching names to voter rolls? Anyone who remembers the 2000 presidential election, and is up on what happened in Florida is going to find this nastily familiar.
This news story was aired in Great Britain in the wake of the last election. It goes into devastating and well-documented detail about how the election was stolen in Florida. But one of the most telling moments, one that helps explain the mystifying inertia of Democratic leadership in the wake of that fiasco, comes near the end, at about the 11:35 mark, when reporter Greg Palast talks to Democrats at a $5,000 a plate fundraiser.
The Democratic Party Chairman, Bob Poe, who was apparently attending that fundraiser, does bitterly denounce the disenfranchisement of voters in this clip. But here in 2012, with our greater awareness of the divide between rich and poor, that unnamed Democratic fat cat whispering his contempt for the vote resonates painfully. For many Democrats back then, it was a shock to discover how little the integrity of the vote mattered to the people in power, Democrat or Republican. Those of us (like the Black Caucus) who objected too loudly and too persistently were essentially told to sit down and shut up. It was an sign of just how much big money had come to matter, and how little the rest of us did.
The Republicans plainly haven’t changed. Have the Democrats?
We’ll see.
Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes
Via Crooks and Liars
The last time, the target was black voters and the rationale for removing names was the voters were convicted felons. This time the target is Hispanic voters and the rationale offered that they are “illegal immigrants”:
The full universe of potentially ineligible voters that state elections officials plan to check for possible removal from the roles is about 180,000, a spokesman for the Division of Elections said Friday, reports David Royse of the News Service of Florida.
Elections spokesman Chris Cate told the News Service that in all, when matching voter rolls against newly available citizenship data from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, officials found that number of possible matches, and began further investigating each one to see if they were likely to be wrongly registered to vote…
But earlier this week it wasn’t clear how many more names might eventually be checked. On Friday, Cate said the larger number was the total identified so far, but that it will take some time to further cull through that list to determine which names are most likely accurately identified as non-citizens.
(Emphasis added)
A list of “suspect voters?” Matching names to voter rolls? Anyone who remembers the 2000 presidential election, and is up on what happened in Florida is going to find this nastily familiar.
This news story was aired in Great Britain in the wake of the last election. It goes into devastating and well-documented detail about how the election was stolen in Florida. But one of the most telling moments, one that helps explain the mystifying inertia of Democratic leadership in the wake of that fiasco, comes near the end, at about the 11:35 mark, when reporter Greg Palast talks to Democrats at a $5,000 a plate fundraiser.
It’s back to champagne politics as usual. One Democrat, a big shot at the soiree, whispered they would have done the same as Katherine Harris [Florida Elections official who oversaw the purging of thousands of legal Democratic voters from the rolls] if they had the chance.
The Democratic Party Chairman, Bob Poe, who was apparently attending that fundraiser, does bitterly denounce the disenfranchisement of voters in this clip. But here in 2012, with our greater awareness of the divide between rich and poor, that unnamed Democratic fat cat whispering his contempt for the vote resonates painfully. For many Democrats back then, it was a shock to discover how little the integrity of the vote mattered to the people in power, Democrat or Republican. Those of us (like the Black Caucus) who objected too loudly and too persistently were essentially told to sit down and shut up. It was an sign of just how much big money had come to matter, and how little the rest of us did.
The Republicans plainly haven’t changed. Have the Democrats?
We’ll see.
Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes
(no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 21:32 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 21:33 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 21:36 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 21:38 (UTC)It only has the power that YOU give to it.
That extends beyond just the individual person on the other end of the internet, but to all the "you"'s who hear it.
Laws don't mean SHIT until certain people decide to reify them.
I am not going to reify any law I dislike.
(no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 21:41 (UTC)It only has the power that YOU give to it.
Actually those guys called police officers and judges and lawyers do have power to compel you to follow the law.
We are a nation of laws, not feelings.
Again, work to change the law if you don't like it.
(no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 21:43 (UTC)Are you familiar with reification? LJ's spell check isn't but the rest of the internet is.
Individuals have the power to control their bodies; they may choose to enlist their bodies in a particular cause or purpose. That does not make the specific stringing together of words any more or any less powerful or important than any other string of words just because there is a cult of followers.
Police have put me behind bars for sitting on a fucking sidewalk. You'll excuse me for not taking them to be exemplars of the good life.
(no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 21:43 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 21:57 (UTC)Well, politicians make laws... everyone else either executes them or interprets them... but I'm sure you learned that in H.S civics.
I'm not really sure what you are going on about, but for the third time, if you don't like a law, either leave the rest of us and go into the woods like Thoreau did or go through the government for redress.
(no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 22:51 (UTC)that's what I'm getting at.
For whatever absurd reason you are clinging to laws like they MEAN something.
(no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 22:56 (UTC)If you don't want to live in a country that respects the rule of law, there's a country on the Horn of Africa that I'm sure you'd love.
(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 22:59 (UTC)Guess you put all your points in constitution.
(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 14/5/12 23:56 (UTC)(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 00:06 (UTC)now crawl back into your libertarian shithole of a reality. i'm fucking done.
(frozen) (no subject)
From:(frozen) (no subject)
From:(frozen) (no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 01:47 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 00:02 (UTC)I like French horns!
(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 01:44 (UTC)This is not the horn you are looking for, but it is faaaaaaaabulous!
(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 01:51 (UTC)Thanks but I like baroque horns mo' better! They're harder to play, but much nicer sound than their more modern cousins.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 00:33 (UTC)Without the rule of law all you have is the tyranny of the strong over the week. I would have expected a liberal to understand this.
(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 00:36 (UTC)"it is illegal, for any man, rich or poor, to sleep in the gutter"
That sort of law, while it may indeed be true that it's a crime for rich or poor to do it, is an example of how laws don't necessarily prevent it from being a tyranny of the strong over the weak. [not WEEK, mind you]
I have not decided that immigration laws mean SHIT to me.
(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 00:44 (UTC)Of course not, but that was not what I said.
If you remove the rule of law, what prevents the strong from preying on the weak?
(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 00:50 (UTC)9 days of suspension without pay. That's what NYPD Officer Tony Bologna got for pepper spraying two women who he did not have justification to pepper spray.
What happens to me if I go pepper spray two women without justification?
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 01:44 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 01:51 (UTC)fuck 'em overtake a moral stand.(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 02:00 (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 15/5/12 01:45 (UTC)