Daily Archives: January 29, 2008

Book on Strom a must-read

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I just finished reading the only honest book ever written about South Carolina politics. I had avoided it like the plague because I had mistakenly thought since 1998 that the authors were paying homage to an aging Strom Thurmond. Boy was I wrong! Ol’ Strom by Jack Bass and Marilyn Thompson is an unvarnished expose of every politician of any importance in SC since 1876…in a single context…as they related to the life of Strom Thurmond. It is at once shocking, fascinating, embarrassing and laugh-out-loud funny as Bass and Thompson connect all the political dots of South Carolina’s last century.

I actually felt personally cleansed after reading the second half of the book…mostly because at 10:15 PM I realized that I had been sitting in the Jacuzzi for six hours riveted to this book! I highly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in South Carolina history or politics. It’s a great read.

Charlie Smith, Charleston

Sign petition urging GOP to support clean elections

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By David Donnelly
Director, Campaign Money Watch

Last night as I was watching President Bush’s final State of the Union address I was struck by his unwillingness to recognize the need for change in this country. War profiteering, global warming, poor health care—nothing’s changed. He promoted a weak version of earmark reform, but it’s too little, too late, and doesn’t address the real problem.

Last week 5,000 people signed a petition asking the Republican presidential candidates to support full public financing of elections like the three leading Democratic candidates.

Will you join us? Sign our petition today!

Once we collect signatures for this petition, we’ll fax the Republican presidential candidates a letter the day before Super Tuesday, February 5th, to urge them to support full public financing of elections.

From big campaign contributions to the influence of bundlers and lobbyists, the role of campaign cash in our electoral process has gotten worse. The Republicans are pretending the problem doesn’t exist. They need to hear from people like you that you demand real change in Washington.

Let’s tell the Republican presidential candidates that Washington needs full public financing of elections.

We need to end the status quo in Washington. Thanks for your help.

The beginning of the end

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By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
– Revelations 8:1, King James Bible

George W. Bush’s State of the Union (SOTU) speeches have been the basis for a new kind of drinking game for several years now, basically because the things have always needed some kind of actual substance from somewhere, and because it was a good way to dull the pain of it all. The rules: 1. When he says the word “terra” or “terra-ists,” take a drink. 2. When he says “tax cuts,” take a drink. 3. When he says “Iraq,” take a drink. 4. When he says “nook-yuh-lerr,” take a drink and a shot and a good swift kick to the head. Et cetera.

But that’s just one night out of the year. Reality has proven to be far more alcoholic in nature. For seven years now, the whole phenomenon of this government has been one long drinking game played out each and every day. The rules of this game? 1. Say the words, “George W. Bush is in charge of the country.” 2. Turn off the TV. 3. Just drink.

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The true worth of South Carolina’s primary

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By Elizabeth G. Hines
The Women’s Media Center

I’ve been giving thanks quite a lot this election season: thanks that the field of candidates looks different from ever before; that we who are not white men can believe that our nation has a place for us in its leadership, too. And I’ve been giving thanks that the advent of this diverse slate of candidates has created just a little space in which we Americans can begin to address, on a national level, the issues of race and gender that have plagued us since our very beginnings as a country. We may not yet be good at talking about those issues, but at least now we’re trying.

Today, however, I am here to admit that my greatest measure of thankfulness has recently settled on nothing so predictable, for a black woman, as seeing Clinton and Obama’s faces plastered across every newspaper and television screen from here to Tallahassee. No, today I want to give thanks for the state of South Carolina.

That’s right, South Carolina. The first state to secede from the Union when that pesky “War of Northern Aggression” became inevitable. Hotbed of slaveholding activities as late as 1860, with 45.8 percent of all white families holding slaves – the highest rate in the nation. Home to legendary states rights leader and segregationist presidential candidate Strom Thurman. And the last place in the USA where the Confederate flag was allowed to retain its place of so-called honor, flying atop the State House dome until the year 2000 – 135 years after the abolition of slavery, in case you’re counting.

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