One thing that has long interested me is how the American South strongly supported Franklin Roosevelt of New York in all four of his Presidential races. 

On the top left you see Roosevelt's big win over Herbert Hoover in 1932. The South was solid for Roosevelt. 

You could say that voters in 1932 were voting in reaction to the Great Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression.

But then we see that Roosevelt also swept the South in 1936, 40 & 44.   

1936 is the top right map. 1940 is bottom left. 1944 is bottom right.

You'd think the region of states rights would have rejected and resisted a New Yorker who led the way to an expansion of federal government power such as the New Deal.  

Voters in the South were happy to take the benefits and relief offered by the New Deal and by the expansion of federal power in the Roosevelt years.

What really seemed to sour white voters in the South about so-called big government were the Civil Rights advances of the 1960's.

Nest time you here about states rights and a grasping federal government and all that, consider how voters in the Jim Crow South were perfectly happy with Franklin Roosevelt and New Deal and ask yourself what the real issue in 2014 in the time of President Barack Obama.  

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Former Congressman James Traficant of Youngstown, Ohio died recently.

Mr. Traficant was known for his speeches on the floor of the House and for his hair.

Mr. Traficant was expelled from the House of Representatives in 2002 and spent seven years in jail after a conviction for soliciting bribes in exchange for government favors.  

Mr. Traficant may not have been the most honest soul, but at least he served his time.

Serving time is more than happened to the folks who deregulated our financial sector to help cause our never-ending recession, or to the folks who lied about why we went to war in Iraq. 

If you are a big time power broker, you can get away with anything in America.

If you are some clownish small-time Congressman, you might or might not get jail for stealing.

And if you are poor or of color, we are building more and more jails to keep you locked up for as long as we can. 

There are two things Jim Traficant accomplished that most politicians don't achieve---He put on a good show and he paid the price for wrong deeds.

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Below are observations about ongoing events in Ferguson, Missouri as our militarized police attack people protesting yet another police killing of an unarmed Black person. 

Above is a picture of the militarized police in Ferguson. 

1. Offering people health care is government tyranny that will lead to death panels, but camoflaugedmilitarized police with war weapons blocking off an American city is law and order. 

2. The conduct of the militarized camouflage-wearing police in Ferguson, Missouri along with the silence of the government bashers over such conduct is enough to make a loyal American liberal consider buying a gun for simple self-defense. And then also is the silence of so many fellow liberals.

3. The silence of libertarians about the militarized camouflage-wearing police in Ferguson, Missouri clues you into the fact that they are the very same racist states-rights disloyal folks you imagined they were.And that is damned well what Rand Paul is as well.

4. Hillary Clinton can play off the animus towards our Black President by criticizing him on the central issues of the day, but she can't say a word about events in Ferguson, Missouri that are of such import to the most loyal Democrats of all?

5. Race remains the central issue in American political and social life as it has been since the first time a European met a Native American.

6. Here is the Twitter feed from Ferguson, Missouri tonight detailing the actions of our violent militarized police in a state with a Democratic Governor.  

Read about it all for yourself. 

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Why would a country like the United States which had the transmission of smallpox to Native Americans as a founding act, be concerned about a few falsely rumored cases of ebola in the United States?   

Even if the smallpox epidemic of early America was at first unintended, Indian removal and extermination was time and time again seen as God's will and as indicative of American Manifest Destiny. 

I hope the ebola outbreak in the world ends soon.  

But we should take the current outbreak as a chance to remind ourselves of our own history, and of the fact we so often seem to care a lot more for people we see as like ourselves rather than for people who seem different or who are somehow inconvenient to have around.      

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