A progressive Southern news report
August 26, 2004 - Issue 87 Facing South is published 40 times a year by the Institute for Southern Studies and Southern Exposure magazine. Support the progressive voice of the South -- contribute to the Institute's Sizzling Summer Fundraising Drive at www.southernstudies.org today! _____
INSTITUTE INDEX - The Elections Business DATELINE: THE SOUTH - Top Stories Around the Region PERSPECTIVE: JULIAN BOND - Defend Democracy INSTITUTE NEWS - Voting Rights in N.C. + We're Still Sizzling!
_____ INSTITUTE INDEX - The Elections Business Amount of political contributions given by top four voting machine companies since 2001: $485,870 Percent of that given to Republicans: 90 Amount given by employees of CIBER Inc., the leading company contracted to verify results of touch-screen voting machines: $75,000 Percent given to Republicans: 96 Percent of contributions to Republicans by Accenture, the group which created Florida's 2004 "purge list" of supposed felons, eventually abandoned: 62 Sources on file at the Institute for Southern Studies. _____ DATELINE: THE SOUTH - Top Stories Around the Region RANKS OF POOR, UNINSURED GREW LAST YEAR The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. It was the third straight annual increase for both categories. The South topped both lists, with over 14% of the population in poverty, and 18% without health insurance. (Associated Press, 8/26) http://tinyurl.com/4wuou SOUTH CAROLINA BEARS EXCESSIVE SHARE OF WAR BURDEN While the whole nation is at war, troops from small towns in South Carolina disproportionately are doing the dying. The war's death rate for South Carolina - the 26th-largest state - is eighth in the United States at almost one death per 200,000 residents. That's 50 percent above the national average. (The State, 8/22) http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/9464357.htm FELONS HAVING HARD TIME GETTING VOTING RIGHTS RESTORED Convicted felons who want to have their voting rights restored after leaving prison are encountering problems with election officials who don't always interpret requirements correctly, political scientists and prisoner advocates say. Roadblocks have cropped up most recently in Ohio, Florida and New York state. (Associated Press, 8/20) http://tinyurl.com/577fm ONE THIRD OF NATION'S LAKES CONTAIN POLLUTED FISH More than one-third of the nation's lakes and nearly one-fourth of its rivers contain fish that may be contaminated with mercury, dioxin, PCB and pesticide pollution, the Environmental Protection Agency says. The EPA national list for 2003 shows 48 states issued 3,094 advisories - up from 2,800 the previous year - because of polluted fish. (Associated Press, 8/24) http://tinyurl.com/3kb8e HUNTERS AND ANGLERS DISAGREE WITH BUSH ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY A new poll by the National Wildlife Fund of hunters and anglers - who are overwhelmingly white, male and conservative - finds sharp disagreement with current administration policies on the environment. Over 65% of respondants felt that issues such as loss of wildlife habitat, loss of streams/wetlands, and pollution were "top issues." (NWF, 6/04) http://tinyurl.com/4v3zw DEFENDING JOHNNY CASH The songs of Johnny Cash were beacons of light for those who were unjustly locked up, kicked down, and knocked around. He sang from his heart for the poor, the imprisoned, and the oppressed. That's why progressives say they are protesting plans by the American Gas Association, a network of 154 utility multinationals, to host an exclusive "celebration" of Cash during the Republican National Convention in New York, inside the elite corridors of Sotheby's auction house. (The Nation, 8/24) http://www.thenation.com/actnow/index.mhtml?bid=4 _____ PERSPECTIVE: Protect Our Democracy By JULIAN BOND August 26, 2004 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the People for the American Way Foundation (PFAWF) released a report this week that documents decade after decade of race-based efforts to deter minority voters-African Americans, Latinos, Indians-from casting their votes. While American history-especially Southern history-is full of horror stories about minority voter intimidation, many of the documented instances of targeting racial groups to keep them from casting votes are current-day events. They aren't happening in long-ago Selma, Alabama; instead, they occur today in Michigan, Kentucky, South Dakota and Pennsylvania-as well as in the heavily black counties of the South. Ironically, it was the country's most successful civil rights law-the 1965 Voting Right Act, passed in the aftermath of Selma's Bloody Sunday-that eliminated harsh measures and ushered in today's more polite discrimination. When the 1965 Act eliminated literacy tests, poll taxes and gave the federal government added tools to punish anti-voting terrorists and protect access to the franchise, the enemies of democracy turned to other means. With the whip, dynamite, torch and burning cross no longer effective weapons, they turned to more sophisticated tools. They posted armed guards and real and make-believe policemen at the polls. They told voters they could cast their votes on alternative days, even after the actual election was over. They demanded forms of identification not required by law. They told voters outstanding warrants or utility bills would prevent them from voting. They said immigration officials would haunt the polls, checking on voters' immigration status. They constructed phony voter purge lists which included names of longtime legitimate voters. They loosed the FBI and State Police on elderly voters. They videotaped voters approaching polling places. They set-up so called "ballot security" and "ballot integrity" programs, based on the racist presumption that minority voters are inveterate election-day cheaters, and they harassed and intimated those voters at will. And when they were caught, and their illegal practices proved in a court of law, they promised to never, ever to it again. And then they did it again. And again. And again. In the pre-1965 one-party South, intimidation, often fatal, was the exclusive handiwork of the nearly all-white Democratic Party. When he signed the Voting Rights Act into law, Present Lyndon Johnson was prescient when he told an aide: "We are delivering the South to the Republicans for a generation." After 1965 and the Voting Rights Act, as resistant whites fled the Democrats and found a sympathetic home in the Republican Party and newly franchised blacks joined the Democrats, these menacing and threatening practices have increasingly become the province of Republicans. That they continue at all, under any sponsorship, is a continuing blot on our democracy. PFAWF, the NAACP and our coalition partners intend to field an army of 25,000 volunteers, including 5,000 lawyers, to monitor precincts in 17 states. But private citizens should not have to guard the public's polls. We are calling on Attorney General John Ashcroft, all state attorneys general, political parties and their state divisions and election officials everywhere to condemn and halt these evil schemes, to closely monitor groups in their communities with a history of voter suppression, and to send a clear message that America guarantees that every voter can cast his or her vote without running a gauntlet of hostile forces or dirty tricks, and that every vote will be fairly counted. Bigots cannot be allowed to continue frustrating our democracy. ### Julian Bond is Chairman of the Board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was a founder of the Institute for Southern Studies. _____ INSTITUTE NEWS: Protect the Right to Vote in Battleground North Carolina! In the 2000 elections, millions of Americans were wrongfully denied their right to vote due to faulty voting machines, being turned away at the polls, and other election problems - not just in Florida, but across the country. In this tight election year, where every vote will count, this can't be allowed to happen again. Focusing on the key battleground state of North Carolina, this November the Voting Rights Project of the Institute for Southern Studies is organizing an Election Protection Program to educate 50,000 voters in target communities about their rights, and mobilize legal response teams to make sure no voters are turned away at the polls. If you'd like to help defend democracy in North Carolina, visit www.southernstudies.org or email Tara Purohit at the Voting Rights Project at tara@southernstudies.org or (919) 419-8311 x25. You can also make a contribution to help the Voting Rights Project expand its efforts to defend democracy at www.southernstudies.org today! _____ WE'RE STILL SIZZLING! - Summer is almost over, but the Institute's Sizzling Summer Fundraising Drive is still cooking! Thank you to all those who have made a constribution to support our award-winning investigative reporting and action projects, like the Campaign to Stop the War Profiteers and the Voting Rights Project. If you haven't donated yet, THERE'S STILL TIME! Just visit www.southernstudies.org and make a secure, tax-deductible contribution today! (You can also print and mail the form below) Thank you for your support! _____ HOW DID I GET ON THIS LIST? - Either you signed up for Facing South, or a friend recommended we send it to you. If you want to be taken off the list, just let us know at facingsouth@southernstudies.org. 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