Please Make It Stop!
My Mother has television and has it on when she is crocheting, knitting, etc. Lately when I have been at her house there have been political ads on for the Republican primary for governor of Alabama. They are torture.
There is a guy named Bradley Byrne who is being attacked for voting for strong consumer protection laws, believing in evolution, and not accepting that every word in the Bible is true.
For his part, Byrne claims to have cleaned up Alabama’s two year college system, when the system was cleaned up by a Federal investigation and prosecution while he headed it. I admit that it was remarkable that he hadn’t done anything worthy of an indictment.
Then you have Tim James claiming that “we speak English in Alabama” which is probably a mostly true statement these days, although Alabama was originally a French colony. At least he didn’t claim that Alabamans can read English, which would be a bit more of a problem.
And lets not forget “Judge” Roy Moore and his magic rocks. He is the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who installed the granite Ten Commandments monument in Alabama’s supreme court building, and refused to comply with a court order to remove it. He and they were removed from the building.
Ol’ Roy is running for governor seemingly claiming he is to the right and more righteous than Moses, but I’m waiting for him to part the waters of Mobile Bay.
4 comments
They speak English in Alabama? You would never know that by listening to Senators Sessions and Shelby!
The biblical literalism is not a sure sign of Republican voting. One of Stella’s best friends will tell you flat out: “I believe that every word in the Bible is true.” But she is a liberal Democrat in all matters that do not have to do with religion. Go figure.
If Judge Roy is going to do any parting of waters, how about the waters around Deepwater Horizon? It might make the work easier…
Actually, it is “a mostly true statement”, as in, it is more closely associated with English than any other language.
As I have never met anyone down here who made the claim about the inerrancy of the Bible who eschews pork products or shellfish, I don’t put much weight on that claim. The excuses for making the claim while eating shrimp ring hollow.
There was an election about to happen when I first moved to the Gulf Coast almost two decades ago. We had cable TV installed a few days before Election Day. I couldn’t believe the political ads on the Mobile TV stations! An incumbent judge was running for reelection and his opponent had ads that showing him, first, in his robes on the bench with this voice-over: “Judge so-and-so doesn’t belong here…” and then you suddenly saw the bars of a jail cell clanking shut: “… he belongs in here.”
I had never before seen such slime. I once was shown similarly scurrilous print ads from Texas, accusing a rather moderate Democrat of being a “Red” and a “Traitor,” etc. etc. I assumed it was just a Texas thing. Turns out, it must be a Southern Republican thing.
Apropos of all of this, I recommend getting your hands on a copy of Carl Oglesby’s “The Yankee and Cowboy War” some time.
http://www.amazon.com/yankee-cowboy-war-Conspiracies-Watergate/dp/0836206800
It’s a little over-drawn, but as I remember it there are a number of really hair-raising Texas election stories in it. Candidates in Texas even shoot each other!
John, dueling never really died out in the South, and political murders tend to be portrayed as duels, even when the victim was unarmed and shot in the back. It’s part of the “code of honor”.
These days everyone is trying to out “conservative” their opponent. They are all “business friendly” and “no tax increases”. As long as the voters are dumb enough to think it is the way things should be, despite the Wall Street meltdown, that’s how you get elected.
When the Alabama Congressional delegation is in Washington, the average IQ of the state jumps up at least 10%. There are a lot of stupid, mean, people elected in the South.