Rick Perry is the epitome of digression
Written by Tamu Harper
Sometimes I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone after I listen to most of the Republicans that hope to conquer Barack Obama in the battle for the White House. The only one that should be taken seriously is Jon Huntsman. He speaks Mandarin & is more than knowledgeable about the country that holds a large part of our debt. Herman Cain,after all, didn't know that China already has nuclear capabilities. Mitt Romney does not seem like a steady, consistent man when it comes to his convictions. He seems like a cold-hearted politician who says things like "corporations are people" & " let the foreclosure process happen." Does that sound like a man of the people? Not unless those people are corporations or "job creators." Because it sure seems like the hard-working & the unemployed are not being represented by any of these politicians.
But, like Rick Perry, I digressed. Back to the man that for me is quite scary & that would be Gov. Rick Perry. Not only does he ramble like the town drunk whenever he utters a word, he has some extremely regressive views as well. Here's more on what Gov. Rick Perry has done for minorities in the great state of Texas from BET News:
"An alliance of civil rights organizations plan to file a complaint with the Department of Justice on Wednesday alleging that a voter ID law signed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is currently the Republican presidential frontrunner, intentionally discriminates against African-American and Latino voters. The law requires voters to show driver’s licenses, passports or other government-issued identification. Under the old law, voters could present documents like utility bills.
In a 31-page letter sent to DOJ, the Advancement Project, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Asian American Justice Center and the Southwest Workers Union say the state of Texas has failed to prove that the law was enacted for a non-discriminatory purpose and that it won’t have a discriminatory effect on minority voting strength. They also are asking the department to deny the state the preclearance that states with a history of discrimination must seek before implementing new voting laws.
“This law is a part of the largest legislative effort to turn back the clock on voting rights in our nation in over a century,” Advancement Project co-director Judith Browne Dianis said in a statement, Talking Points Memoreports. “If this bill is allowed to stand it will undermine the basic fabric of our nation’s democracy.
When Perry signed the bill in May he claimed it was an “emergency item” so that the state’s legislature could pass the bill swiftly. But according to the civil rights groups opposing the bill, there is no documented evidence of anyone being accused of in-person voter fraud.(Read more here.)
And remember the "Niggerhead" sign that was posted at his hunting camp:
Here's more on that from Forbes:
"Perry is insisting that the sign was painted over when his family took over the lease of the camp. At this point it’s largely a matter of whose opinion you trust. In Perry’s defense, there is little to suggest that he is a racist and no reason to believe otherwise. The accounts of eyewitnesses from twenty or thirty years ago hardly prove anything.
Either way, this is hardly damning evidence that Rick Perry had anything to do with or in any way supported the racist name of the camp which was named years before he or his family had anything to do with it. Like Doug Mataconis, I’m no Perry fan but “this story strikes me as much ado about nothing.”
It should, however, raise the specter of past segregation in the United States and in Texas. That specter should haunt us as a nation, and this is a good opportunity to delve into that horror, especially given the virulent racism that’s been flung at the current president over the past couple years. The history of segregation, slavery, lynchings and other violence toward black people in this country is bloody and terrifying.
In 1860 Texas saw the bloodiest lynching in that state’s history during a slave insurrection referred to as the “Texas Troubles.” A series of unexplained fires led to widespread fear that slaves were forming an uprising. Some Texas lawmakers worried that the Wide Awakes, a group of paramilitary abolitionists, were behind the fire. White Texans formed so-called ‘vigilance committees’ that acted as a sort of inquisition throughout Texas, procuring false testimony from slaves and sympathetic whites often through force and torture. Southerners responded to the threat posed by rumors of the Wide Awakes by forming their own militias called Minute Men (groups with the same name now range the borders looking for Mexicans crossing illegally into the United States.)
The 1860 slave insurrection culminated in the lynching of dozens of black slaves and upwards of twenty whites, making it the deadliest pre-Civil War lynching in Texas state history. After the civil war the vigilance committees and Minute Men were largely replaced by the Ku Klux Klan.
Rick Perry may indeed be innocent of the “Niggerhead” sign at his family’s hunting camp, but that sign has deeper implications about where we are and where we’ve been as a nation. That we have a black president finally in the White House is a historical achievement that is nothing short of astonishing. Whether or not you take Herman Cain seriously as a candidate, it’s similarly remarkable that one of the conservative front-runners in the GOP race is also black." (END OF EXCERPT) Read the article in its entirety here.
Like I said, a President Rick Perry would be more than scary.
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