Even With #ALpolitics @ALGOP & @GovernorBentley’s Iron-Fisted Control, Alabama STILL Thanks God for Mississippi
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Fraud, waste, and abuse are rampant in Sweet Home, and it’s KILLING the state.
Cronyism and corruption remains alive and well, despite claims to the contrary as asserted by the GOP, which now rules Alabama with an Iron Fist.
If it could be said that states have personalities, Alabama’s would be bipolar, and schizophrenic. Reeling from fear – though they deny it – they continue to perpetuate and indeed, cultivate the very worst of the very worst in human behavior.
It’s not that Alabama or its people are bad, it’s that fear rules their hearts, and fearing that want and poverty will overtake them (ALERT! It already has.), they continue to elect those who pander to their fears. As a result, they get what they deserve.
It’s HIGH TIME – as was said in the Star Trek television series – “to BOLDLY go where no man has gone before!”
No one praises cowards, or cowardice. And yet, so many praise Alabama’s politicians, who are veritable Cowardly Lions.
Alabama has had – and continues to have – wonderful people with equally wonderful ideas. Take the Alabama Reading Initiative as a case in point. It was adopted by many other states after it was conclusively demonstrated to RAISE the reading level (and therefore intelligence) of young school-aged children. However, as is par for the Alabama course, the state’s politicians cut off funding for it, and wonder why the illiteracy, poverty, and drop-out rate is among the highest in the nation.
Stupid is as stupid does.
It’s true what Washington Post writer Michael Weisskopf wrote in 1993 of the so-called evangelicals (followers of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell whom largely populate the Southern states) – that they are
“largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”
With
• A nearly 20% poverty rate [18.6% Below Poverty Rate 2009-2013, United States Census Bureau],
• One of the lowest rates of higher education in the nation [22.6% – United States Census Bureau, 2014 estimates]
• Highest illiteracy rates [15% U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy],
• Highest high school drop-out rates (9th lowest from the bottom) [see also Consolidated State Performance Reports by the U.S. Department of Education], and
• Lowest wages [Annual Mean Wage of $41,260 May 2014 State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates
Alabama, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics],
NO ONE can prove him wrong.
They only got mad because he told the truth.
Sadly, they didn’t get mad enough to change… lazy, self-content bastards that they are.
Warm Southern Breeze 
Jim Bunch said
WSB, thanks for the post. I have only spent 4 months last winter in Alabama, as a campground volunteer, and I found the people to be very warm and friendly. I look forward to going back again soon.
I just wonder why so many hateful people post profanity, name calling, and threats on your site when someone posts opposing views. I am referring to the recent story on congresswoman Roby. I was called low intelligence, stupid, and other names when I quoted directly from the bill. WHY?
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Warm Southern Breeze said
Jim, thanks for reading, and even more, for sharing your thoughts! I wish I had an answer for you, one that imparted some level of understanding to your question. Answers to the difficult questions of human behavior often escape us all. Rest assured, yours is a bewilderment shared by many. Were I to suppose why there is an increase in incivility and gross tenor of reactions in political discussion, it would be due in part to a very real sense of alienation, isolation and powerlessness against powerful forces whose influence in government is largely outside their (and our) direct locus of control. When confronted with the ideal that ours is a democratic republic formed by the ideals of equality (though often struggling against the imperfections), and that we as a free people are given participatory rights ensconced in law, and when powerful big moneyed interests usurp that power, it would, I think, frustrate anyone. How one responds, however, more often says something about the individual rather than the idea being debated. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
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Jim Bunch said
Breeze, thanks for the reply. I am a big boy that can take the uncivil responces. In the future, I will try to ignore the uncivil comments that do not contribute to the discussion.😀
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