Georgia: GOP Banks on Your Bigotry
And I thought the GOP hated gays! Well, they sorta do, at least in
public. In private, they’ll hire us to do their dirty work. But that
is not the point of this blog entry. During the last week, I have read
articles that expose the naked underbelly of hate and fear the GOP is
trying to spread across Georgia in an attempt to solidify their hold on
power.
First came former Rep. Bob Irvin’s screed
for Buckhead to join Milton County. The impetus for this plea
allegedly came from the GOTV call from Shirley Franklin, John Lewis,
and Andy Young on behalf of successful Fulton County Chair John Eaves.
That call claimed that if the GOP took over Fulton County’s commission,
the days of fire hoses and attack dogs would return, and civil rights
progress would be undone. A lot of my friends felt the ad was fine,
and it gave to the GOP as good as they ever give to us. That’s a good
point, but the ad made me uncomfortable. While I do think the GOP as a
whole wouldn’t mind undoing the work of Dr. King and the civil rights
movement, I’m not convinced the specific candidates for the Fulton
Commission were in that category. I also feel that as Democrats, we
should be better than the GOP in all respects. We need to find ways to
win without sinking to their level. Perhaps that’s not possible.
What
I did not interpret that add to be saying was that white people are
bad. The GOP claims that talking about "Republicans" is code for white
folk. So much for their "diversity" plan, huh? Last time I checked in
the mirror, I was a white guy AND a staunch Democrat. A good number of
my friends in the Young Democrat community are also white and in many
respects, more liberal than I am! So no, "Republican" doesn’t equate
to white. Republican equates to REPUBLICAN, whatever your color or
creed.
Anyway, ex-Rep. Irvin wants Atlanta city council areas to
be eligible to join the proposed resurrection of Milton County. After
all, the whole purpose of resurrecting Milton County is to stop rich
white people in Alpharetta from having their tax dollars potentially go
toward services for people whose skin is darker than theirs. That’s
why the cities of Johns Creek and Milton have been formed. That’s why
the GOP will propose a constitutional amendment in 2007 to resurrect
Milton County, thereby cutting of 46% of the value of the land of
Fulton County from the rest of the county that is south of the
Chattahoochee. All for the sake of their perception that their tax
dollars should only go to "deserving" white people.
The whole
reason Irvin wants the city council districts to vote is to get
Buckhead to join Milton, in a first move that he admittedly hopes will
lead to a "city of Buckhead". Well, shoot, Midtown seems to be
whitening up too, Bobby, so why not annex Midtown too? Segregration
worked SO WELL the first time we tried it, right? Why not give it a
second go?
Don’t be fooled. This whole citihood push for North
Fulton and Dunwoody and the resurrection of Milton County is all about
segregration. It’s all about walling yourself off from people who
don’t look like you or make the money you do. And it’s disgraceful.
Yet I fear all this separation will come to pass, which will throw
Fulton into a tailspin since no services will be affordable anymore.
Will it fall to the cities? Won’t that drive taxes way up? Of course
it will, but the GOP doesn’t care. They view this as hurting mostly
poor people who are brown. "Those people" won’t vote GOP, so what does
it matter?
The next article
was about Rep. Timothy Bearden of Villa Rica who is pushing a bill that
would prohibit all Georgia cities and counties from issuing documents
and forms in any language other than English. Bearden ckaims, "They
refuse to learn the language, they refuse to assimilate. And that’s a
very dangerous problem."
Ohhhhhh, it’s the ominous "they"!
They are here to rape your children, steal your women, and force you to
speak a strange tongue! They are here to burn Christians at the
stake! They, They, THEY! How scary "they" are! We must stop "them"
before "they" destroy us!
Bearden, he of "let’s vote back in the
Rebel flag" fame, also claims that English is the thread that unites
us. Perhaps it is, perhaps it is not. It’s telling though that the
idea of the week from www.georgiaspeaks.com, the GOP idea board, was:
"Public schools should be limited to kids who speak English as their
first language and whose parents speak English as their first
language." That was Dec. 5’s "creative conservative idea of the
week".
Immigration is a tough problem, and the system should
be overhauled, but it can only be overhauled by the national
government. Mean-spirited notions like the ones Bearden supports will
get us no where. It also sends a message loud and clear to Hispanics,
both legal and illegal, that they are NOT wanted here by the GOP. They
are NOT welcome here by the GOP, and they will NEVER be "real"
Americans in the GOP’s eyes.
The question that I have is: will
Georgians buy this? Will they allow themselves to be manipulated and
fear-mongered into slapping around people who have never done anything
to them? I used to have faith that the answer would be "no", but the
gay marriage amendment’s passage with 76% of the vote in 2004 changed
that for me. The GOP was listening then, and that’s why they are doing
these things now. At what point will it stop?
Will Georgia once again live up to its motto of Truth, Justice, and Moderation?
