SC Prog Blog

Obama as “radical muslim”
By Ed Madden, Columbia

I ran into a friend in the grocery store, and we started talking about politics.

“I hope you’re not planning to vote for that Obama,” he said.

Why? “You know he’s a Muslim.”

Living in South Carolina, you get used to hearing the national news talk about the nasty politics of our state. We are the land of push polls and Lee Atwater—the state that famously spread false rumors about McCain’s child in the last election, the state that saw religious prejudice alive and well in fake Christmas cards sent out last month to attack Romney. It’s become the standard intro to national stories about the Republican primary here—as predictable as the inevitable Confederate flag question at the debates.

But here I was, talking with a friend in Kroger—a friend whose opinion I valued—hearing that Barak Obama was a radical Muslim who refused to put his hand on the Bible when he was sworn in. “He won’t put his hand on the Bible,” he repeated.

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A paper towel may be used as a valid ballot if the voting machine fails you when you’re at the polls, advises SC State Election Commission spokesperson Chris Whitmire.

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The South Carolina Progressive Network held a press conference yesterday to address voting irregularities in last weekend’s Republican presidential primary here. Problems were reported in Horry and Florence counties with voting machines that were not prepped properly. As a result, the touch-screen computers were not working when voters showed up at over 300 precincts in Horry County. Machines in both counties were programmed with the wrong date, and wouldn’t close at the end of the day. Hard numbers are unavailable, but reports indicate that at least some early voters were turned away in several precincts.

The problems at the polls were further exacerbated by election workers’ failure to have the requisite number of emergency ballots on hand.

The Network held the press conference on Jan. 23 to alert the public to potential problems in this Saturday’s Democratic primary, and to urge those going to the polls to be prepared, if the machines malfunction, to vote on paper. Any paper will do, including “paper towels,” according to the state Election Commission’s Chris Whitmire.

Also, if voters encounter problems at the polls they are urged to call the Network at 800-849-1803 or 803-808-3384 to seek help and to lodge a report.

Here are some clips from yesterday’s press conference. Speakers are Network Director Brett Bursey (left) and state Sen. Phil Leventis (D-Sumter). In the background are (on left) Donna Dewitt, Network Co-chair and SC AFL-CIO president, and Liz Deas of the SC Voter Education Project.

Below are links to news stories published after the press event.

Columbia’s Fox News

The State

Associated Press

Legislators and civic groups to call for adequate paper ballots for Democratic Primary

Legislators and civic organizations will hold a press conference on Wednesday, Jan. 23, at 1pm in the State House lobby to urge all county election commissions to have adequate emergency paper ballots for Saturday’s Democratic presidential primary.

Sen. Phil Leventis (D-Sumter), in a Jan. 7 press release, urged the use of paper ballots in the presidential primaries. “The problems with the Horry County electronic voting machines last Saturday illustrate why we need a paper-based voting system,” Leventis said. “Our state’s reliance on computer-based voting, with no adequate paper backup, is undermining our citizens’ confidence in our elections.”

According to the Myrtle Beach Sun News, “As many as 90 percent of the electronic voting machines in Horry County did not work correctly when polls opened in Saturday morning’s Republican primary. Most were up and running by noon,” county spokeswoman Lisa Bourcier said, “and the last were fixed by 5:30 PM”

“The problems with the electronic voting machines aside, the supposed safety net of emergency paper ballots failed,” said said SC Progressive Network Director Brett Bursey.

State law requires that each precinct have emergency paper ballots for 10 percent of its registered voters. In Horry County’s Republican presidential primary, emergency paper ballots were distributed prior to the polls opening, but County Election Director Sandy Martin said that they gave only 50 ballots to the smaller precincts and 100 to the larger ones, retaining the balance in the office. Fifty-one precincts required more than 100 emergency ballots to meet the law’s requirements, with 10 precincts needing more than 200 and two precincts requiring more than 300.

Voters were turned away from many precincts that had run out of emergency paper ballots. “Under no circumstances should an eligible voter be turner away from a voting place without being given the opportunity to vote,” said Chris Whitmire, spokesperson for the State Election Commission. Any piece of paper can be used in an emergency, said Whitmire, “even paper towels.”

Below the Belt: a biweekly column by NOW President Kim Gandy

With Super Tuesday only a few weeks away, it’s hard to have a conversation that doesn’t work its way around to the 2008 elections. The Bush administration, thankfully, is in its final days. Voting registration and involvement among young people is on the rise. And the two most electable candidates for the Democratic nomination are panning out to be a woman and an African American.

With all this excitement, why is it that we seem unable to move beyond the obvious – for those of you who haven’t noticed, Barack Obama is black and Hillary Clinton is female.

As the leader of an organization that champions gender equality, promoting diversity, and ending racism among our top priority issues, in a sense, I am grateful we are finally talking openly about gender and race – topics we generally skirt, so to speak. Something about equality issues makes men and majority populations feel threatened, so what about the rest of the issues at stake?

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CNN is reporting that voting machines malfunctioned in Horry County this morning and that some voters were turned away. Poll workers said the machines have been down since polls opened and that they are not reading activation cards. All of the county’s 100 precincts are reportedly affected.

Read the full story here.

And in The State.

By Daniel Koffler
The Guardian Unlimited UK

When given an opportunity to take a stand against the US military’s discriminatory practices, the Democratic candidates demured.

Tuesday night’s Democratic primary debate in Nevada was as insubstantial as it was soporific - with one exception. Moderator Tim Russert put the following question to all three candidates:

There’s a federal statute on the books which says that, if a college or university does not provide space for military recruiters or provide a ROTC program for its students, it can lose its federal funding.
Will you vigorously enforce that statute?

Posing the question in these terms is tantamount to asking the candidates if they support literacy for children, adoption of stray puppies, apple pie and motherhood. Naturally, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards each took the bait and pledged to enforce the law - before changing the subject and ticking off each item in a litany of (justified) complaints about how the Bush administration has mistreated American war veterans.

Anyone watching the debate who did not know the subtext of Russert’s question would have been utterly baffled as to how such seemingly inarguable legislation could even be opposed, let alone allowed to go unenforced. Presumably, however, the Democratic candidates did know what lay behind the question - the issue of gay rights - which is precisely why they moved on as quickly as possible to unrelated talking points.

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As one of the midwives who helped birth the South Carolina feminist organization the Grimke Sisters in 2002, it was a kick to stumble on this funky little video celebrating these exceptional women - Sarah and Angelina Grimke - homegirls from Charleston who made history by thinking big and living large.

The women who so inspired us that we named our group for them deserve a monument on our State House lawn, littered as it is with statuary dedicated to our state’s historical figures (sadly, without regard to their humanitarian records). That’s not bloody likely, but we can remember the Grimke sisters here.

And if you want to join the Grimke Sisters group online, you can subscribe to the listserv by sending e-mail to GrimkeSisters-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Becci Robbins

“New Democrats” Pessimistic About Future, Concerned About Economy

With 30% of the vote, Sen. Barack Obama won the South Carolina New Democrats’ e-poll with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards tied at 26% each and with 17% undecided. Results of the statewide e-poll were released today and offer a glimpse of what might be in store for 2008 South Carolina Democratic Presidential Primary. The e-poll was conducted completely online via e-mail and the SC New Democrats’ website, thus showcasing how technology can be used to open up the political process and give every citizen a chance to have their opinions and ideas heard.

“Technology is changing every part of our lives and we need to find new ways to use the technology to give more people a voice in the political process. With over a thousand people taking part, clearly this is a good way for people to have their voices heard,” said Phil Noble, President of the SC New Democrats.

As part of the e-poll, people were asked to suggest questions that they would like to see asked of each of the candidates during the Democratic Presidential Debate to be help in Myrtle Beach. Over 2,200 questions were submitted and will be given to the organizers of the debate.

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By the Rev. Dr. Bennie Colclough
Co-Chair of the SC Progressive Network

The African-American community should pay close attention to what Sen. Barack Obama has said about equality for gay and lesbian Americans and the correlation of religion-based bigotry and discrimination against African-Americans.

The struggle for justice, equality, and dignity for gay and lesbian Americans continues and Sen. Obama and other leaders have engaged the African-American faith community on this issue.

Are we listening?

As an African-American minister, I many years ago heard the call for change on this issue and it is still my resolve today to be a missionary for justice and equality, to be courageous, true to my faith, and challenge the African-American faith community, to love God with our whole heart and our neighbors as ourselves.

The African-American faith community must defend the human dignity of all people as distinguished leaders in our community are calling us to this task.

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By Kevin Alexander Gray
Columbia

I hesitantly step into the Hillary Clinton - Barack Obama family scuffle over South Carolina’s black vote. Both candidates are products of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. Clinton is a DLC star, chair of its American Dream Initiative touting free markets, balanced budgets and middle-class know-how, while Obama’s political action committee, the Hope Fund, has raised money for half of the DLC’s representatives in the Senate. This is how America measures progress: the DLC, founded as a vehicle for pro-business Southern white men, is now the arena advancing a black man and a white woman who talk as if the more populist Southern white man in the race were invisible.

The “controversy” over Clinton’s Martin Luther King comment (”it took a president to make the dream a reality”) was, if anything, a set up to push Obama to talk race, something he has taken pains to avoid beyond the occasional King quote he tosses into the mix. Talking race in a white media echo chamber works to Clinton’s advantage. First, it is a subtle nod to subconscious and not so subconscious racism. Secondly, it gives her the chance to expound upon the Clintons’ fictional race history with blacks.

What Bill knows, Hill knows. And Southern politician Bill Clinton has always played race politics to perfection. Many have perhaps forgotten about Bill, speaking in the last pulpit King stood in, telling blacks in 1993 how disappointed “Dr. King would be [in them] if he were alive today”, because of black on black crime. “Crime” has long been a white politician’s code to signal, “I can stick it to blacks.” In his first presidential race Governor Clinton supported the death penalty at a time when the country was split almost down the middle on the issue. For good measure, he made sure to oversee the execution of convicted killer Ricky Ray Rector, a brain-damaged black man, in the heat of the primaries.

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Today SC state senators debated S. 360 in a House Agricultural and Natural Resources Subcommittee. It was surreal.

The committee met to consider the bill that defines “renewable resources” in our state energy policy. The bill references solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal, biomass, renewable hydrogen and nuclear power as renewable resources.

Nuclear power?

Since when, in any corporate lobbyist’s wildest dreams, has nuclear power been considered a renewable resource?

Nowhere. Ever.

South Carolina could be the first in making this exciting discovery.

The industry lobbyist was quite clear that if we don’t include clean coal and nuclear power in our future, we might as well hang out a “going out of business” sign at the state borders.

The notion that nuclear power plants provide renewable energy is only slightly less ridiculous than the fact the the state Senate passed this bill last year (S-360). Being listed as a renewable resource would entitle nuclear energy providers to the tax breaks offered to honestly renewable resources.

Faced with the obvious, that nuclear energy is not renewable, the committee adopted an amendment to change the context of the original bill from “renewable” to “clean” energy, thereby establishing a questionable rationale for including nuclear into the state’s energy policy.

The committee unanimously passed the amended “clean energy” bill that will be sent back to the Senate for concurrence.

We can only hope that the Senate refuses, and comes up with a rational definition of “renewable resources” for our state’s energy policy.

Poor early outcomes raise red flags: only private insurers profit
Physicians for a National Health Program

Over 250 Massachusetts doctors have signed an open letter to the country warning that the health reform model enacted by Massachusetts is failing and that a single payer program is the only alternative.

“It is urgent that the rest of the country know that Massachusetts is a living laboratory for the health care reforms being pushed in California and by the Obama/Clinton/Edwards campaigns. Right now the Gov. Romney/Massachusetts’ plan gets a failing grade on the ground,” said Dr.Rachel Nardin, Assistant Professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.

We write to alert colleagues and the nation to the disturbing early outcomes of Massachusetts’ widely heralded approach to health care reform. Although we wish that the current reform could secure health insurance for all, its failings reinforce our conviction that only a single payer program can assure patients the care they need.

In 2006, our state enacted a law designed to extend health coverage to virtually all state residents. Political leaders in other states, as well as several Democratic presidential candidates, have embraced this model.

Massachusetts’ law mandates that uninsured individuals must purchase private insurance or pay a fine. The law established a new state agency to ensure that affordable plans were available; offered low income residents subsidies to help them buy coverage; and expanded Medicaid coverage for the very poor. (Immigrants are mostly excluded from these subsidized programs.) Moneys that previously funded free care for the uninsured were shifted to the new insurance program, along with revenues from new fines on employers who fail to offer health benefits to their workers. In addition, the federal government provided extra funds for the program’s first two years.

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Michael O’McCarthy, Greenville

Social revolutionaries and “progressives” have now come to a point more important in time other than perhaps the “War for Southern Independence,” as called by the Southern revisionists. We are now challenged to make a very difficult choice. The choice is between principles and personalities – between the principles that demand a major, structural social change vs. corporate state politics; of those candidates and democratic activists who scream “electability” which is a clarion call for yet another form of “Lesser Evilism.” That strategy may had value in choosing between capitalism and Nazism, democratic socialism and the varying brands of Stalinism, but offers no discernible hope for the change needed in this country.

There were difficult theoretical as well as practical issues in that time and of course the Lesser Evil was capitalism. Today there really is no difficulty. While the political ideologues of the corporate state would have us believe that we are either on their side, as Bush and Cheney have raved, or on the side of the hordes, (represented by the terrorists,) the real choice is between the State and the people. I choose in the interest of the people of the world.

Indeed, like no other time in modern history, we have little ideological structure or international support for either our analysis or our struggle. We are left herein to our own devices. We do so under a national government that has only contempt for the people and little other purpose than of exploiting or destroying the rest of the world.

Thus, the Duopoly and its vehicle of “globalization” and its military imperialism now face us with the consolidation of corporate state rule, not democracy. This Lesser Evilism is no longer a valid choice for those of us who know the need for fundamental social change if democracy is to survive. In fact it is a continuing path to Hell.

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