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VOTER-SUPPRESSION ON STEROIDS

Back in the bad old days, the Democratic Party-controlled Southern States were infamous for the Jim Crow roadblocks they would throw up to keep African Americans from voting. For those brave Nigras who ignored the subtle and overt KKK admonitions to avoid the polling places, there were weird and daunting hurdles for them to clear.

While White voters moved in and out the polling places unchallenged, in some cases, Black folk were required to read specified passages from the Constitution of the United States. (Wisely, they were not presented with the Declaration of Independence – one might linger a bit too long over passages such as, ...all men are created equal...) If they happened to be the uppity types who could read, just let them guess the number of jelly beans in that there bowl. That was then; this is now.

Now that our major political parties have switched poles, Lincoln’s former party presently is under the aegis of the former Democrats; whereas the erstwhile Southern segregationists and their fellow-travelers now comprise the Republican Party. As such, they now have taken their voting-suppression tactics nationwide. The GOP, finding it difficult to sell its mean-spirited ideas to the general populace, decided to expand on the voting-suppression acumen of its acquired constituency. So far, they have been successful.

By pre-election, qualification-prowling in only minority neighborhoods in Florida, the GOP was able to slice away just enough votes to allow the Supreme Court to give us George W. Bush. In Ohio, the same tactics, coupled with the strategic closing of polling places in minority districts – requiring some voters to queue up for all of a day – they were able to stymie John Kerry’s efforts to replace Dubya, thereby further altering history to the detriment of the U.S. and the world.

Thus far encouraged by the success of their extended Southern Strategy, the Republicans have decided to up the ante a notch or two. In the hubris of their legislative and gubernatorial victories in the last elections, GOP governors convened in a secret meeting. (Ask Gov. Rick Perry of Texas; he got caught when he lied, saying he was somewhere else.) Remember all the hullabaloo and demonstrations about draconian laws against unions? That was one result of that gubernatorial Star Chamber. Another – and far more ominous – is that cabal’s conspiracy blatantly to keep certain Democrats from voting. The resultant laws promulgated at that meeting are designed to inhibit the votes, not only of racial minorities, but also of certain white voters who may tend to vote Democratic, along with the students of all stripes who voted for Obama in large numbers.

One of the tactics, creatively, is to alter identification requirements at polling places. In some cases, it would require the acquisition of identification documentation that would create hardship or make it impossible for certain Democratic Party-designated voters to cast their votes. One obvious and politically significant example of this tactic, in Texas, is that school I.D. cards are invalid at the polls; whereas, National Rifle Association I.D. cards easily open the doors of any polling place.

Fortunately, Attorney General Eric Holder -- unbowed by his pillorying over the Fast and Furious international gun scandal – is girding for this civil right battle against these new voting rights oppressions being perpetrated by the Republican Party.

There was a poll-worker named Bilbo.

He maintained a friendship with Jim Crow.

In this new day,

They make friendship pay:

They’re G-O-P’s polling-place say-so.