Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue of North Carolina raised some eyebrows in the South when she not only lashed out at her own citizens for an anti-same-sex marriage ban but adding that the measure made the state “look like Mississippi.” People in Mississippi were understandably put out by the notion that they are now an interchangable synonym with “backward,” “prejudiced,” and “frighteningly homophobic.”
The marriage ban vote was not close in North Carolina — passing by an overwhelming 62-to-38 percentage points. Perdue proclaimed
“It’s wrong for North Carolina, clearly, clearly and simply . . . People around the country are watching us, and they’re really confused. To have been such a progressive, forward-thinking, economically driven state that invested in education and that stood up for the civil rights of people, including the civil rights marches back in the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s — folks are saying, ‘What in the world is going on in North Carolina?’ We look like Mississippi.”
That last comment did not go over well with Mississippians from both parties and frankly I thought was rather uncivil for a sister state. However, the defense from Ole Miss was almost as off-putting. It is notable that Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves did not try to defend his state as committed to equal rights of any kind. Instead, he insisted that Mississippi is better for business because “[w]e are creating an environment which encourages the private sector to invest capital in Mississippi, and I would invite any North Carolina-based company wanting to move to a lower-taxed, less-regulated state to look at our business-friendly opportunities.” That sounds a lot like, we come for the lack of equal rights but stay for the lack of environmental protections and taxes. Notably, Mississippi has the lowest per capita income of any state as well as the lowest level of health care protection for its citizens. It has secured the top spot for most obese state, however. Yet, Reeves wants people to know that the state is also a leader in lacking environmental protections for its citizens.
I am not sure which is worse: the comparison by Perdue or the defense by Reeves.
Source: New Observer
Some would contend, based on statistics*** of previous post-WW2 recessions, that somebody is dragging their feet on recovery.:
“As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman put it three weeks ago:
Consider, if you will, the current state of our nation. Despite hints of economic progress, we’re still in the midst of an immense disaster, in which unemployment and underemployment are devastating millions of American lives. And none of this need be happening! There has been no plague of locusts; we have not lost our technological know-how. Americans should be richer, not poorer, than they were five years ago. Yet economic policy across the board has become almost passive, has essentially accepted this disaster instead of trying to end it.” End quote.
Well, MS is MS, and has its own special handicaps.
But even it is effected by a common plan to use steering of the economy by corporations so as to achieve political goals,
And if there are any politicians not on board their trains, the convincing will be both brutal and effective. They will say to them: “We’re gonna bankrupt you, ruin you and your constituents. Whaddaya say?”
“Where do I sign?”, will be the reply.
MS is not alone in its miseries. And it’s together we have a chance to change things. So let’s take MS, it is acutely bad there, a miracle will be most apparent there.
***Want statistics, look here:
https://grayson.salsalabs.com/o/30019/images/PercentJobLossesPostWWIIRecessions.jpg
Source: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/
“The chart has been featured regularly at Daily Kos, but it comes from the Calculated Risk Blog. It graphs job losses during and following each post-WWII recession, month by month, as a percentage of total employment.
As you can see, the job losses in America since 2008 are not only the worst in postwar history, but also feature the weakest “recovery.” In every single other recession, employment returned to peak levels in less than four years. (In fact, leaving aside the Bush Recession of 2001, employment returned to peak levels in less than three years.) Yet here we are, four years after the Great Recession started, still almost four percentage points under peak employment.
Which is five million jobs. Five million people who can’t find work. Five million people with no income.”
Quote text sources: Alan Grayson email, 14 May 2012
Shano,
you wrote:
“In a civilized society all people have the same rights. Civil rights.”
I wish it were so, Shano. IMHO, rights were more egalitarian, ie equal, when there was a nomadic structure.
Or even better, when we were not even pastoral, but simple buthunter/gatherers, who owned practically nothing.
Don’t want to get off thread, but refer you in
f interested in study of the subject. Property rights, whether it be animals or land, and thus power and inevetibly inegalitarianism, has incrreased as we have advanced towards civilization. Civiliizatioon gave advances, you know them: labor specialization, a flexible work group who could be called upon on need, gathering of resources to clear ev. famine, and a HIERARCHY OF POWER. ARBITRARY POWER IN THE MAIN.
And there begins the problem: Giving/Seizing of power and its use is what we are still fighting about today.
I can give a horrific example by referring to Soviet Union in 1934. A top level power person said in reply to a statement saying that all people need health care, regardless of position. “And why should I be given the same care as a charwoman+ Ridiculous, I am much more valuable to the SU and deserve better care.
Our position today is chearly similar. We don’t have an egalitarian society. Society is so formed to favor the rich, not all equally, in terms of health care.
We have a clear split running through all parts of the American system, including the blindfolded justice system, where being rich means to have an advantage clearly visavis the poorer.
I sit in egalitarian paradise, where th idea is well-accepted, and well-practiced. but that’s another subject.
How long the rich can decide, although they are the one percent is up to all of the citizens.
And am glad you are working for the majority.
May I recommend the egalitarianism as to the life and liberty guarantees which is fought for by Malisha, a clear and excellent exponent. We don’t even need a constitution if we follow the spirit of those key concepts.
This is the same governor who seriously suggested that the forthcoming election be ‘cancelled’ to allow our law-makers to finish their jobs. The Governor’s Office quickly backtracked and said that Gov. Perdue was only joking. I’ve heard the audio of the comment, recorded at a Rotary Club meeting in Cary, NC, and my assessment is that Perdue’s comment was made in utter sincerity. I was going to actively work for her opponent in the forthcoming election, but she decided not to run again – I suppose because the people wouldn’t hand her an extra, unelected term. Good riddance.
After her comment in Cary, I cannot take seriously anything she says.
Given the demands placed upon diminishing natural resources by increasing population, an enlightened state would encourage same-sex marriages since they do not contribute to the overpopulation problem.
Given the likelihood that poor orphan children will not experience a loving home environment or receive a good education — thus leading to a less productive, if not an incarcerated life for them — an enlightened state would encourage same-sex marriages because these would increase the adoption of otherwise unwanted children.
An enlightened state would also encourage same-sex marriages because an enlightened state would cherish and defend each citizen as the equal of any other citizen — and would wish to prove it to the world.
On the other hand, we have that portion of America that wants no part of enlightened government, preferring instead a corporate oligarchy mixing updated versions of fascism and feudalism. Doubtless some citizens of Mississippi and North Carolina do not wish to live under such an unenlightened regime, but with President Obama disinclined to do anything to assist them, the homophobic majority of brownshirt serfs will probably carry the day. Too bad. When state majorities decide what rights minorities cannot have, then minorities will not have them.