Moral Monday came to Asheville on Monday, drawing thousands to the city’s center. The grassroots political protest of North Carolina’s far-right legislature and its cavalcade of repressive, mean-spirited laws, started in Raleigh during the General Assembly’s just-completed session. Now that the lawmakers have gone home, Moral Monday itself, led by the N.C. NAACP President Rev. William Barber, is “on tour.” Yesterday’s protesters in Asheville carried signs, sang songs and cheered on the speakers, who lambasted the GOP majority in the General Assembly for its litany of political sins. Those transgressions and atrocities include, but are not limited to: a law creating the most vote-suppressive electoral system in America; the denial of health coverage to a half-million impoverished North Carolinians; and the legislature’s odd, destructive overall antipathy toward public education; and modern conservatives’ favorite hobby, dictating women’s health decisions.
- Bill Rhodes, courtesy Flickr Creative Commons
- Moral Monday in Asheville
Asheville police Sgt. Dave Romick told that city’s daily newspaper that more than 5,000 people attended the rally. The general tenor of the protest was that the General Assembly had picked on the wrong groups of people and would suffer the consequences. Organizers plan to have Moral Monday protests in every North Carolina congressional district, part of a strategy of “following the legislators home.”
The first Charlotte Moral Monday protest is scheduled to take place August 19 at 5 p.m. in Marshall Park. Meanwhile, the North Carolina protests have garnered so much national publicity, they’ve inspired fed-up progressives elsewhere to get out of their chairs and couches and do something. Protests yesterday in Oakland, Calif., and Chicago were both named after N.C.’s Moral Monday movement.
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This article appears in Aug 7-13, 2013.
How is God looking at the state (conservative leadership) of NC? Surely, those that are trying to return to the past, are going straight to HELL! WAKE UP and clear the fear and prejudice from your minds. I had a friend tell me once that when the old conservative leadership was out of office that things would be better for all AMERICANS. Well, apparently, their ghosts are still haunting the halls of government.
there is no god
the spending has got to stop, the bills are due and the checkboook is empty. everyone needs to cut back. everyone needs to contribute to the tax rolls so they understand ther is “no free lunch”.
Gosh, Jimbob:
There didn’t seem to be an empty checkbook when Gov. McCrory gave huge raises to all the political patronage appointees in his administration. If the checkbook is truly empty, then is was pretty immoral to pass a half a billion dollar tax cut for his rich donors.
I don’t see these guys paying off any overdue bills, I see them, like a bunch of six year olds, just trying to find ways to annoy the Democrats.
JimBob, thanks for the comment. The trouble, though, is that there IS a free lunch for a certain crowd whenever Gov. McCookie is involved — it’s called rich businessmen. As pointed out in last week’s column, the GOP used the supposed “pay the bills” argument only when they wanted to cut something they’ve always been opposed to, such as environmental regulations, teacher pay, etc. But their budget included over $524 million in tax cuts for the rich and for businesses that are already profitable. If the checkbook is empty, it’s because they chose to give away a half billion bucks to those who needed it least, while screwing over nearly everyone else. Don’t let these liars pull the wool over your eyes – they use the old “we have to cut spending” argument, but rarely mention that they’re giving money away, hand over fist, to their pals.
5000 ? only if they carpool