Within the past year or so, Americans have heard the words “South Carolina” and “Representative” or “Congressperson” in the “Lieutenant governor” and “Governor” same sentence and phrasing.  Nothing really odd about the “Representative” or “Congressman” but really, we’ve been hearing a lot about South Carolina politics.  South Carolina state politics are like that of New Hampshire and Iowa, we only really hear about them in the caucuses and early presidential primaries once every four years.  But the fact that in the recent months the state of South Carolina and politics have reared its ugly head has caused me some concern and worry.

Let’s take a look at some of the likely suspects.

Governor Mark Sanford (GOP) — Just this past weekend, Sanford disappeared and turned a normal weekend into a three day vacation with no one where he was on Monday.  The governor’s office reported that he had merely extended his Father’s Day weekend.  Sanford became famous when last year he left the office without telling his Lieutenant Governor, Andre Bauer (who I’ll get to shortly).  It was initially reported that he went hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but it was found out that he was with a lover in Argentina.  He and his wife are summarily divorced.  The LA Times blog reports that Sanford and his Argentinian beau had a Floridian get away last month.

Lieutenant Gov. Andre Bauer (GOP) — In January of this year, during a town hall meeting, Bauer made the following statement:

My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals…You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”

Of course this was a typical response from a GOP party headed by head oompa-loompa (gobble-dee-goo) Michael Steele himself that is repeating this rhetoric about breaking the cycle of dependence on governmental aid.  Suffice it to say, the metaphor was an epic FAIL.  Comparing poor people to “animals” who “breed” should never go over well, and naturally no real consequences were experienced.  The news cycle of this story is over and soon to placed high on the closet shelves of our collective political memory only to yellow and collect dust like an old hat weathered by the sun day in and day out in grandmas old room.

U.S. Representative Joe Wilson (GOP) — Seriously, I shouldn’t even know Joe Wilson exists, nor should President of the United States, but Joe Wilson famously declared during a joint session of the Congress to the president “You lie!” prompting a formal rebuke from the House.  But past that no real consequences were meted out for such blatant disrespect toward a sitting president.  Honestly, I really think if anybody had done that while Bush was speaking that Bush would have laughed knowing that behind him Cheney would have pulled out a 12-gauge and aimed directly toward Joe Wilson and wouldn’t care how far the spray went–good ol’ collateral damage.

But, a quick Wikipedia search (“my father used to sell wikipedias”) shows that Wilson was an aide for the late Sen. Strom Thurmond and he was against Thurmond’s daughter Essie Mae Washington coming forward thinking that it would tarnish the image of Thurmond.  As if his image wasn’t already tarnished in the minds of many Americans. Knowing that Wilson used to work with Strom Thurmond, one can’t help but feel Jimmy Carter had a point when he said on MSNBC that Wilson’s response was “based on racism … [t]here is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.”

S.C. State Senator Jake Knotts (GOP) — This is the fool that referred to gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley as a “raghead” and the POTUS as a “raghead in office” as well.  This is his way of making disparaging remarks toward Haley, namely because he had thrown his support behind Andre Bauer.  I’m pretty sure he didn’t like women in office, let alone a non-white woman at that.  That this country is probably going to hell in a handbasket as well…you know all the good stuff.

Raghead?

Really sir?

Magically, the actual audio of these comments don’t exist.  They were made on some program that mostly does Podcasts, and Rep. Knotts dismissed the comments as a joke, of course, and described the talk show as a political SNL.

Really sir?

Gubernatorial Candidate Nikki Haley (GOP) — First of all, she’s not white, she’s Indian. Let’s start there.  She was born Nimrata Randhawa as a U.S. citizen in the state of South Carolina.  There was a clip from ABC World News Tonight that showed that overall, South Carolinian voters were willing to not let religion play a role in how they voted.  Now yes, Haley said that she was a Christian and although she had been born into a Sikh family, she was indeed “born again.”  Those in the Bauer camp were pressing her to use the word “Christ” and to answer as though she were in some confirmation class, or before a deaconate board of examiners, but nonetheless, she won the GOP nomination.

That’s all just fishy to me.

Sorry, I can’t help but be wary of someone who has this avowed religious past of being born to Indian parents (yes, here in the U.S.), being raised Sikh, but supported by the Tea Party and garnering endorsements from Mitt Romney and even Sarah Palin, BUT, this same group of Tea Partyers will NOT quit the discussion saying that Barack Obama was born overseas, and that he’s indeed a Muslim.  I mean I really wonder do these same people then in turn believe that Obama is a Christian and he was born in Hawai’i?

It’s an odd pill to swallow that in a state where issues of the Confederate flag flying at the state house are pertinent issues of the day that this lady, running fourth early on, and an unknown was able to come in and grab the nomination.  For some reason, I think voters closed their eyes, squinted enough and made her look like Sarah Palin in their own image and was able to vote for her regardless.

I’m just sayin.

U.S. Senate Candidate Alvin Greene (Dem.) — Seriously, this man is a joke. No joke. Real talk, this man can’t put together a coherent sentence.  The now famous Keith Olbermann interview explains it all.

I’m sure you’ve seen it by now, but it’s sheer comedy, I love it.

Tons of blogs, newspaper articles and members of the mainstream media are all left scratching their heads asking “who is this man? and where did they find him?”  Some reports have it that this guy was a plant by the GOP party to offset  the vote  in the general election in the fall with GOP voters voting across party lines for the sake of sabotage and others have alleged he did better in the white communities than the blacks, yet again more sabotage.

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn (Dem.) and House Majority Whip has alleged Greene was a plant , as have been other plants in the past.  There’s even been the fact that other’s thought he was Al Green, you know the singer?

Right.

What’s at big play is where is getting campaign money from?  Honestly, the fact that it hasn’t come out yet makes me really wonder what the hell are they doing down in South Carolina.  The South Carolina Democratic Party can find no way to invalidate the election results which Greene won by 59% of the votes between him and his only opponent, Vic Rawls (who will sadly be a footnote to a footnote in the annals of history).  I mean, no one can even verify where the hell he got the money to pay the $10,000 filing fee, but he has to have a public defender to fight obscenity charges.

This man makes Sarah Palin look like a true college grad.

Betwixt obscenity charges and signs of illiteracy and evidence of not being a resident of this planet and time-space continuum (I mean honestly, this is a TRUE space cadet we’re dealing with) I just really don’t have words for this man, and why South Carolina seems powerless to do anything about it, I can’t imagine.

And there you have it, South Carolina politics.

Honestly, I’ve never heard South Carolina talked about so much in the public media.  But lets be honest, when the prejudicial and bigoted remarks of both State Sen. Knotts and Lt. Gov. Bauer reach international airwaves, it causes yet another nick in the pillars of justice  that teeter so precipitously on the foundations of righteousness and morality.  If nothing else, it just doesn’t look good and it sends the wrong message.  This anger is compounded both and home and abroad when we watch “members from their own party” who essentially stand aside and say nothing and do nothing.

Hell, in professional sports members are fined for their off the court behavior that is not considered becoming.  NBA players catch a technical foul for bad language and the famous “unsportsman-like playing.”  Now without going into the interesting dynamic of David Stern and the NBA, players can get suspended for racking up enough technical fouls.  Understandably, we’re a democratic-republic and our officials are elected, and without someone filling their seat, a certain citizenry is not represented fairly, but when we, as an electorate rarely hold our elected politician accountable for their actions, its an indictment against us, not them.

I’m sure Joe Wilson isn’t worried too much about re-election.  And even if he lost, he has a platform and he’ll never have to worry about where his next meal is going to come from.

We, specifically speaking about African Americans, don’t like them because they put up with this bullcrap. Notice a pattern in the names that I listed.  Aside from Al Greene (just sounds better than Alvin Greene) all of those person are associated with the Republican Party.

I swear I didn’t make that up.

Contrary to popular opinion, this isn’t playing a perpetual role as a victim, but calling out B.S. where it is.  We need to just be honest as say the actions of all of these persons are all symptomatic of hegemonic thought that this country breeds. It fully embraces the Descartesian ideal of “I think, therefore I am” which makes one highly egocentric at the expense of the larger community.  The comments and actions of the elected officials are spoken with impunity because they know that they are never truly going to have to atone for such comments.

Sanford got a divorce, but is still with his mistress and going on vacations in Florida.

Bauer, Wilson and Knotts both got the equivalents of slaps on the wrists, nothing that tarnished their image.

Nikki Haley, nee Nimrata Randhawa, bought into the American ideal that she “Americanized” her name for simple and daily use like a kitchen appliance  “as seen on TV” which means, yes, I’ll say it, it’s a form of “selling out” and a definite assimilation and acculturation.

As far as Al Greene, well, only God knows what that’s about.

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL