Confederate ghosts in the South's attic

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Thursday April 08, 2010 · 11:35 AM PDT

2010/04/08 · 11:35

Also posted at Facing South: A New Voice for a Changing South

When Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell declared April as the state's Confederate History Month, Republican operatives likely thought it was a safe and symbolic gesture that would please the state's older conservatives.

Instead, it's exploded into a national news story, raising sharp questions about how race is used in politics -- and how the South's Confederate past still haunts its political present.

ProgressiveSouth

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Thursday April 01, 2010 · 12:27 PM PDT

2010/04/01 · 12:27

Today is Census Day. Yes, it's also April Fool's Day (whose bright idea was that?), but the 2010 Census count is serious business.

Why? For one, the economy. Communities simply can't afford not to be counted in the 2010 Census -- especially in the wake of the Great Recession.

As the Census Bureau has taken pains to point out, each year over $400 billion from 215 federal programs flows to states based on Census data. That's money that goes to roads, schools, hospitals and other critical community needs.

This is especially important to areas still reeling from lost jobs, shuttered homes and lost tax revenue from the economic downturn. Losing their fair share of federal funds would plunge local budgets deeper into the red and make a tough economic situation even worse.

ProgressiveSouth

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Monday March 29, 2010 · 8:49 AM PDT

2010/03/29 · 08:49

As we head towards April 1, 2010 Census Day (sidenote: whose bright idea was it to put it on April Fool's Day?!), the Census Bureau has launched a nifty mapping tool so you can see how many people in your area are mailing back their Census forms.

The national "mail participation rate" as of today is 34 percent. What does that mean? Out of the millions of forms the Census Bureau mailed out earlier this month and were not returned (because of vacancy, wrong address, etc.), that's the percentage of households that returned a completed form.

So how is your state doing so far?

ProgressiveSouth

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Thursday March 25, 2010 · 10:02 AM PDT

2010/03/25 · 10:02

This afternoon, the Senate will take a final vote on the health reform bill before sending it back to the House for several minor fixes. Two Democratic U.S. senators are expected to vote "nay" on the reconciliation bill -- although their opposition will only be partially due to health reform.

Sens. Ben Nelson (NE) and Blanche Lincoln (AR) are also opposed to the bill due to a largely overshadowed, but just as important, measure that would dramatically reform the student loan industry.

ProgressiveSouth

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Wednesday March 24, 2010 · 8:36 AM PDT

2010/03/24 · 08:36

Democrats called it "historic," Republicans called it "armageddon," and Vice President Biden was caught whispering to President Obama that, in his estimation, it was "a big f***ing deal."

But to over a dozen newspapers around the country, the House's passage of a landmark health bill on Sunday was barely a blip on their radar -- and definitely had little news value compared to local Boy Scout awards, brewing debates over seat belts on buses, or the dreaded prospect of snow flurries.

ProgressiveSouth

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Monday March 22, 2010 · 7:50 AM PDT

2010/03/22 · 07:50

Also posted at Facing South

Sunday afternoon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi marched to the capitol arm-in-arm with Rep. John Lewis of Georgia for the health care vote -- a bit of political theater designed to draw parallels between health reform and the landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

Tea party protesters unwittingly helped make the connection when they shouted "nigger" at Lewis during a Saturday rally. But whether or not HR 3590 should be put on the same level as, say, the Civil Rights Act, one point is indisputable: Yesterday, as in 1964, the South once again found itself on the losing side of history.

ProgressiveSouth

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Saturday March 20, 2010 · 12:16 PM PDT

2010/03/20 · 12:16

With only 24 hours to go before the big health reform vote, the White House and Dem leaders say they're within striking distance of the magic 216 needed to pass it in the House vote on Sunday.

Making Obama's job a lot harder is the stubborn opposition -- or vacillation -- of Southern Democrats. So far, 13 of the 26 Democrats who are expected to vote against the bill tomorrow hail from Southern states.

ProgressiveSouth

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Wednesday March 17, 2010 · 8:59 AM PDT

2010/03/17 · 08:59

Locking people up in jails and prisons is expensive. State officials know this all too well: In a country that puts more people behind bars than any other -- the U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population, but 25% of its prisoners -- over 91% of the incarcerated are under state or local supervision.

The lock-'em-up approach to criminal justice that took off in the 1980s and '90s may have helped a few political careers, but it has crushed state budgets: By 2008, states were spending over $50 billion a year on incarceration.

But as Facing South has been reporting (see here and here), the Great Recession helped change that, pushing states to explore less expensive (and often more effective) options like alternative sentences for non-violent offenders and streamlining probation and parole.

ProgressiveSouth

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Monday February 08, 2010 · 12:24 PM PST

2010/02/08 · 12:24

Also posted at Facing South

With the Saints en route to a dazzling Super Bowl victory and Mardi Gras celebrations ramping up towards Fat Tuesday, in New Orleans it was almost an afterthought that they were electing a mayor this weekend.

But in many ways, Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu's landslide victory in the mayoral race was just as eye-opening as a Terry Porter interception or a shiny Shangri-La krewe float.

ProgressiveSouth

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Wednesday February 03, 2010 · 1:28 PM PST

2010/02/03 · 13:28

This week, DailyKos released the eye-opening results of a poll of 2,000 Republicans across the country, which found that astonishingly large numbers of GOP voters believe President Obama is racist, a socialist, and a non-citizen -- views that have become staples of far-right radio and TV pundits.

As Sam Stein of the Huffington Post says:

[The poll] illustrates the incredible paranoia enveloping the party and the intense pressure drawing lawmakers further and further away from political moderation.

But the poll has one big flaw:

ProgressiveSouth

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Friday January 29, 2010 · 8:45 AM PST

2010/01/29 · 08:45

When President Obama announced $8 billion in federal grants for high-speed rail this week, Republicans and conservatives responded with bellows of outrage.

Actually, the heckling started after Democrats passed the stimulus bill last year, which included earmarks for intercity train lines. The Washington Post's Robert Samuelson was typical in warning last August of "a rail boondoggle, moving at high speed."

ProgressiveSouth

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Thursday January 28, 2010 · 9:27 AM PST

2010/01/28 · 09:27

Originally posted at Facing South

Howard Zinn, the noted American historian and professor emeritus in the political science department at Boston University, died yesterday in California. He was 87. The child of Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn and a veteran of World War Two, Zinn went on to become an activist in the people's movements for civil rights, civil liberties and peace, and he wrote extensively about all of those subjects.

In 1956, Zinn was appointed chairman of the department of history and social sciences at Spelman College in Atlanta, a historically black women's school. There he participated in the civil rights movement and lobbied to get the Southern Historical Association to stop holding its meetings at segregated hotels.

Although Zinn was a tenured professor, he was dismissed from Spelman in June of 1963 after siding with students agitating to change the school's traditional emphasis on turning out "young ladies" rather than fighters for black freedom. Five years ago, Spelman invited Zinn to return to campus and deliver the commencement address. The following is the text of that speech, given on May 15, 2005.

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Confederate ghosts in the South's attic

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CENSUS WEEK: Where does your state stand?

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The 15 newspapers that said "What health care reform?"

The South and health reform: On wrong side of history, again

SOUTHERN BLOC(K)? Dixie Dems and the whip count (updated!)

Tide turns: State prison population down, 1st time in 38 years

Who Dat? Why the New Orleans mayor race is so important

Southern Republicans drive right wing of the GOP

High-Speed Hypocrisy: Obama attacked for GOP-backed rail plan

A message of hope from Howard Zinn