Alabama in the News

[Auburnwine]

In answer to Botofogo's query: out-of-state timber companies (such as John Hancock) own millions of acres of Alabama and pay virtually no taxes. Their tax rates could be tripled and they would still be the lowest in the U.S.

They, along with the corporate chicken farmers, have done a masterful job of institutionalizing their protected position -- it's written into the state constitution. Proposed changes, supported by teachers and even the Business Council of Alabama, are being battled by the Alabama Christian Coalition, which is openly funded by the big land-owners groups.

(I'll note that we do have a very regressive sales tax which taxes poor folks buying loaves and fishes up to 10% -- a literal tithe.)

There is some indication that Roy Moore, the Christian Coalition, and their allies are using this whole 10 Commandments thing as a smoke-screen to distract from the current drive to make lawmakers more accountable for spending and to have a less regressive tax structure. THAT should be the lead story in the news.

Roy Moore is NOT doing this out of idealism. He is a one-note opportunist who was a Circuit Judge in a rural county and has already ridden this to election as the highest judicial post in the state -- and the highest-paid state judicial post in the nation.

He snuck the washing-machine-sized graven image into the courthouse in the middle of the night, witnessed only by a film crew from Coral Ridge Ministries.

Now the Christian Coalition has brought in these hired guns from something called the Christian Defense Council to keep the matter stirred up.

Personally, I'm as religious as anybody (not bragging). I sing in the choir, have taught Sunday School, and serve on my church board of directors. Matters of faith are very important to me -- but they are also very personal.

I have to howl whenever Roy Moore claims to be channeling both Jehovah AND the founding fathers. Jefferson, Franklin and Adams would find that his brains are filled with pudding, and his intent and manners are base.

I think that he is recreating the strategy of George Wallace, who made a very successful career out of appealing to the basest fears of the least-educated and most-fearful people.

I have my own private fears for the state of Alabama's collective soul: there are enslaved Chinese and Thai girls at massages on the interstate; popular culture is becoming more of a cesspool; and our little corner of the Bible belt has some of the highest rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, and STD's in the civilized world.

Uh, oh ... I've climbed on my soap box. But, you can understand why I am starting to rant.