I’ve always wondered why non-Rightwing Christians have allowed Rightwingers to take “God” and “Jesus” as their own, particularly since progressive principles are far more in line with those said to be the teachings of Jesus.
The folks in North Carolina — who are now under siege by Republican control of both congressional houses and the governorship for the first time in 150 years — have been going about reclaiming the moral high ground with a series of massive (and growing larger) “Moral Monday” protests at the state house, so far resulting in about 900 arrests for civil disobedience as of this week’s twelfth consecutive Monday protest.
The protests are being held by a wide coalition of groups in response to the radical Republican legislation — much of it written out of state by the Koch-funded corporatist lobby, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — meant to see the state government shut down women’s health clinics, cut education funding and, of particular note, suppress voters by truncating early voting, ending Sunday voting, banning NC’s successful Election Day registration program, instituting tax penalties to parents whose children vote at their college residences, and by putting in place draconian polling place Photo ID restrictions. (See Ari Berman today at The Nation for more on the NC Republican’s attempt to institute all of these “extreme voter suppression measures”.)
At Salon, Kristin Rawls explains that the “Moral Monday” protests in NC, “that include support for LGBT and abortion rights”, seem to be “confounding to the Tea Party”, but not to the many groups of faith (as well as “atheists, agnostics and members of other faiths in attendance every week”) who are finally taking back the moral high ground from the Rightwing hypocrites who have claimed it, but never earned it, for so much of the past decade.
It’s an interesting read, and an interesting phenomenon that, Rawls notes, “is supported by a 150-organization coalition spearheaded by the NC-NAACP that includes everything from Occupy Raleigh to Planned Parenthood-NC to the NC Association of Educators.”
Her point about why the voter suppression laws Republicans are now trying to pass are so important for the NC GOP radicals, is explained in this key passage…
It isn’t playing well with the public, either, which remains as moderate as ever — but is now contending with one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. Since April, tens of thousands of people from throughout the state have come to the NC legislative building to voice concerns about the far-right ALEC-dictated agenda of the people in charge. As of July 22, nearly 900 have been arrested in the course of entering the building to commit civil disobedience. This Monday, an impromptu sit-in is thwarted almost as soon as protesters take their seats – more than 70 are arrested and police lock the building doors on all sides.
Moral Monday protesters led by the NC-NAACP now enjoy a higher statewide approval rating than the General Assembly, which has bottomed out at less than 20 percent. Republicans in the state legislature have not even held on to the majority support of registered Republican residents. This explains the leadership’s interest in more and more voter restriction laws – and why they recently targeted college students. They will need to suppress the vote considerably to stay in power. Free and fair elections, a cornerstone of the democratic process, are a thing of the past, and district lines can’t be redrawn for nearly another decade.
These GOP tactics seem remarkably desperate, in truth. They also seem to be unsustainable and short-sighted. While they may (and, indeed, have) worked to a certain extent, the backlash against them will, eventually, be quite harsh one would think.
That, of course, is why it remains so important to not just fight for access to the ballot box, but for the transparency that citizens need to be able to oversee the tabulation of their own election results!
If Republicans like those in NC are willing to go to these extreme measures to keep their fellow citizens from even being able to cast a vote, what wouldn’t they do to game election results if that was the only way they felt they’d be able to retain power?
God-forbid they actually, ya know, just decide to support legislation that is both popular and moral. Easier for the Republicans in these places, I guess, to try and game the system instead.
So, keep up the good work, and hell-raising, North Carolinians! And, yes, God bless you for that.
Thanks for covering Moral Mondays in NC.
Moral Mondays uses peaceful civil disobedience as a form of democracy. It seems to pick up steam each week.
Love your intro to the story. Well done!
Hello Brad Friedman,
I hope that they defeat the TeaThugs. Even if they do the backup plan is controlling the counting of the votes. Just like it is easiest way to steal money from a bank it to own it the easiest way to steal an election is to own and program the voting machines to get the results you want. Joseph Stalin was way ahead of everyone when he said (paraphrasing) the casting of ballots doesn’t matter only who counts the ballots. They will not stop trying to control all the governments of the US (local, state and federal). The damage they are doing and will continue to do in the future can only bring the US down to less than a 3 rate country.
“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
~ Paul M. Weyrich (October 7, 1942 – December 18, 2008)[1][2][3][4] was an American religious conservative political activist and commentator, most notable as a figurehead of the New Right. He co-founded the Heritage Foundation,[5] a conservative think tank, the Free Congress Foundation, another conservative think tank, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). He switched from the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church to that of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church and was ordained protodeacon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Weyrich
I am proud to belong to a Christian denomination that actively counters the rightwing political propaganda that tries to pass itself off as Christianity. Our United Church of Christ congregation in Massachusetts is an “open and affirming” church. We were among the first to perform same-sex marriages, which we embrace as a expression of our Christian values. We have a vibrant, growing membership, our ranks swelled by refuges from denominations they have left because they soured on the hate-speech being passed off as Christianity. I was one such refugee, until I found this spiritual home. Personally, I would prefer to practice my religion rather than talk about it, but I recognize the responsibility to model a Christian message based on love rather than huckster-hate.
The Republicans took control of the North Carolina Governorship and legislature.
How? I believe the computer program was written whereby each straight Democratic vote became a Republican vote. I voted a straight D ticket and on review it was R. It is not hard to write a program
to do that. Any others note same problem?