Discussion: Why The Alabama DMV Closures Struck A Nerve

Discussion for article #241342

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Struck a nerve with voting rights activists? No. Struck a nerve with every American who cares about fair play, equal opportunity, and civil rights.

How anyone, ANYONE, can defend such an action speaks volumes about the current racist iteration of the Republican party.

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The south will always remain the south: harassment of all minorities, justified by some dumb verse from some bible.

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Ok then, Let’s celebrate the Day of Jubilee, declared by the Justices of the Supreme Court…we don’t need no stinking laws to protect voting rights…

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"… the fact that people don’t get them, that’s not our fault.” Merrill said. Hey Merrill: The fact that people need to get voter IDs in order to vote – for no good reason other than suppressing their votes – that part IS your fault. Close the offices as budget requires. Repeal the voter ID law and save money on your stupid “mobile site” as well.

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Alabama, goddam!

(I´m sure Nina Simone wouldn´t mind the borrowing in this case.)

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Actually, it speaks to the rampant racism that has been an ugly fact of life here in the South for as long as the U.S. has existed. Vote suppression is just one of thousands of indignities rural Southern blacks endure on an ongoing basis. The people who engineer this crap simply do not see African Americans as being anywhere near their equals.

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Oh, stop with it just being the south. I do believe that the racism in, say, Chicago, doesn´t take a back seat to any town´s, IMHO.

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The south has a longer history BY FAR of the racism you claim to hate. You are really an Archie Bunker.

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You don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground. And where did you see the implication of a limit to the South in my comment?

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Old times there are not forgotten. I will visit Somalia before I visit Alabama and I will never visit Somalia.

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Claiming that the north has its share of racism doesn´t make me an ¨Archie Bunker". OTOH, claiming that racism is only a southern phenomenon does make you a smug northern liberal :wink:

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Thought no one would notice I see.DOJ were are you ?

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Lot of hostility for a post that´s directed to sufi66. (Pro-tip: look at the upper right hand corner of the post to see who the reply is to.)

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This is exactly by design and according to plan. Pass laws making government ID a requirement for voting, then remove the means to acquire that ID from your political opponents supporters. For Alabama officials to claim otherwise just shows that they have no fear that they’ll be called out and forced to change their plans.

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OK, then tell me, where do you see the notion of exclusivity in sufi66’s post? Full post: “The south will always remain the south: harassment of all minorities, justified by some dumb verse from some bible.” True statement, BTW, with nothing to suggest that racism doesn’t exist in other regions.

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People need to get rid of the GOP. It is increasingly racist and it is doing everything it can to try and stay relevant because no one is coming to the party anymore.

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“The criticism is strictly a liberal attempt from people who are not from here, and don’t understand what’s going on with our people or our budget situation, they’re trying to use that to bring attention to our state in a negative light,” Secretary of State John Merrill ®, Alabama’s top elections official, said in an interview with TPM last week.


When the third (1960’s) Civil Rights movement began, one of the New South’s earlier lines of defence usually was to resort to this type of quote.

Despite growing conflict over race and civil rights, Wallace wrote Martin that “we have never had a problem in the South except in a few very isolated instances and these have been the result of outside agitators.”

Though Merrill needs to choose his words a lot more carefully, when such a term like ‘people who aren’t from here’ is used to discuss a subject like voting rights, that term should be seen as a costumed attempt to see anyone who has issue with Alabama’s DMV closures, as a supposed ‘outside agitator’*.

*-You know a socialist or a Communist.

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Having lived in Chicago, Boston, Richmond and Atlanta, I do believe that you don’t know what you’re talking about. IMHO

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Christ on a stick: if you can´t see a suggestion in sufi66´s post that somehow southern racism is a singular thing, I can´t make you.

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