Voters' Rights Under Siege

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
 -- Martin Luther King Jr.



I don't care what anybody says, those broad swipes at radically changing the voting rights by forcing people to provide state identification is a chilling effect on our basic rights. Supporters of this movement claim they're doing it because of potential voter fraud. Oh, they could never keep apathetic voters and others who already distrust the system from voting.

On this issue I'm sickened by the watchdogs -- gatekeepers -- who're seemingly sleeping on the job. They are the ones who keep eyes on government and hold the powerful accountable. We have all of this media, the Internet, and God knows there are enough bloggers and other gatekeepers to chime loudly about this injustice. Oh, if it's just to avert voter fraud, why now? We've never worried about that before and where's the crisis. For once public officials are proactive and not reactive about the urgent crisis. Really?

Voter identification is being rightly challenged, but that probably won't be resolved by election 2012. There's pollution floating, but, oh, where's the Tea Party, Occupied America and Republicans/Democrats who supposedly support freedom? Silence. Oh, that's exactly what I thought. They're not worried because they understand the clandestine agenda in these well-defined, oops, laws to take back the people's White House from those whose ancestors built it and from a president who won in a legitimate, fair election.

I feel dirty from all that floating pollution that assault my sensibilities when I hear these disruptions to overcome our national issues. Why aren't all of these people who claim to love their country rallying around the issue of freedom lost? Why don't we all work together rather than bicker and handicap voters? Of course, looks like it's their right to thwart  efforts to destroy voting rights by any means necessary  If you can't change the law, get around it.

Oh, how dare I suggest that supporters should be worried about basic rights or freedom for those left behind the privileged. Does anybody not understand this chilling effect of basic rights? If nobody rights this wrong, it doesn't mean it's right to move toward infringement of these rights, hiding behind presumed voter fraud when there's no wide chasms of illegality at work.

If this so-called election fraud movement stands without valid proof of its need, what next? Will we start asking people to touch their toes, write an essay about why they love America, write their name in beautiful cursive on unlined paper, name all of the presidents, or even recite the capital of all the states? We used to have rules that barred voting for fictitious reasons to bar black citizens from voting. What if we're trying to turn back the hands of time?

I've listened and watched this insidious plot without sufficient proof of necessity -- again -- rampant voter fraud? I've said this before, but it bears repeating because we have no rampant rage of pillaging of our most precious right. We have people sitting at home thinking they are once again being shuffled to the back of the bus. If that's the point, our levees are cracked and water is rushing toward break-down level.

Every time we chip away at a right, we lose more freedoms. Hint: The War on Drugs and The War on Terrorism (the airport fiasco, no-knock warrants, public body cavity searches with Milwaukee police officers under investigation, search and seizure without warrants, the no-knock police department laws. None of these laws have made us more secure, but rights have been lost every time a police officer ransack the home of innocent people or put under suspicious by driving while black or Latino profiling. Do-good citizens are targeted while the prison population for people of color has escalated to historic and disproportionate beyond white populations.

(Don't believe me? Call or check The Sentencing Project on the Internet)

If we value our freedom, it's important to fight for every slice of  equality under siege. If not, America won't be America as we know it -- the country where immigrants arrive, expecting the American Dream and the promise of full-fledged freedom.

Where's all this fraud in voting rights? We didn't rush to change the voting methods when President Bush's election cried loudly, clearly about voting problems -- no crisis though -- but eleven years later we're manufacturing an outrageous lie. Supporters know why, and so do I, know the urgency of this covert mission, but it won't  happen again. People aren't that dumb, and I hope their voices are loud publicly not just softly among themselves.