Posted on by John McWilliam

REPUBLICANS: YOUR MASTERS ARE NOT HAPPY WITH YOU BUT PHIL ROBERTSON LOVES YOU.

In case you missed it, my fellow freedom-fighters, last Wednesday, the Tea Party leadership in the North Carolina Legislature called a special session of the General Assembly at a cost of about $42,000.00 of North Carolina tax-payer money.  What crisis, you may inquire; what dire eventuality must we forestall, you may ask, that would require all of the State’s legislators to drop everything and rush back to Raleigh?  An impending terrorist attack?  An epidemic?  The threat, perhaps, that dozens of companies as well as the NCAA and the NBA will stop doing business with our State?   No. The Republicans called this special setting of the General Assembly all for the purpose of telling Charlotte that it can’t enact an anti-discrimination ordinance, due to go into effect on April 1. That’s right, the State’s government had to convene an emergency setting to prevent a city’s democratically-elected officials doing their job.  Charlotte’s ordinance among other things, would have allowed transgender people to use public bathrooms that reflected their new gender or the gender with which they identify.  (I saw a picture on Twitter of a guy with a beard and wearing a baseball hat who will now have to use women’s bathrooms).

This law, HB2, that the State House passed with some pathetic Democrats  (I name-shame them on Twitter) joining, and which the Senate passed after all the Democrats in that chamber walked out, and which Governor Pat McCrory immediately signed into law – this law – not only banned Charlotte’s attempt to protect people from discrimination but banned all cities, towns and municipalities in the State from enacting such local legislation; and, for good measure, threw in a provision that forbids local governments from establishing a minimum wage above the current federal slave-wage. Thank you so much, NC law-makers, for coming together, addressing and rectifying this vile assault on our values…or whatever.

The bathroom police, these stalwarts of less government, bullied their way into the realm of local governance – a rock in the foundation of right wing politics – and stripped North Carolinians of their right to live in an environment that reflects their values…or whatever.  Remember, Mecklenburg County (Charlotte’s county), was one of only six of North Carolina’s 100 counties that voted in 2011 against the “marriage amendment” to the State Constitution that declared marriage to be a union between a man and a woman, and which was ultimately struck down by the US Supreme Court.

Once again, the Duck Dynasty “values” of our rural counties are forced on the rest of us – Wilmington, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Asheville, Boone.  And what’s the common denominator among these places?  Well, let’s  look at the rest of our State: what’s the common denominator in the 91 counties that are not New Hanover, Wake, Durham, Orange, Guilford, Forsyth, Mecklenburg, Buncombe, Watauga. Not to put too fine a point on it, it benefits Republicans to keep people uneducated, ignorant, divided and poor.  And for as long as this, their base, continues to buy into their lies and to vote against their self-interest, the GOP can continue to rip us off and give tax breaks to their rich, corporate backers.

But wait…

Hey, Republicans: Welcome to the law of unintended consequences, you fucking morons.  You didn’t just fuck us; you fucked yourselves too.

Thanks to the Tea Baggers’ ugly, mean-spirited, unnecessary, molly coddling of their “base,” they forgot who their true masters are.  And their true masters don’t want any part of this sort of stupidity.  Their masters know that if they don’t condemn a law so unashamedly bigoted and discriminatory their shareholders will not be happy about the loss in profit.  So their true masters – IBM, Dow, AA, Bank of America, Duke, Wells Fargo (to name just a fraction of the capitalist class that has weighed in), the NBA for fuck’s sake ( Chalotte’s supposed to host the All Star game in 2017 and the NBA’s talking about pulling out!), even the NCAA all condemn this law and are threatening to do the very thing our legislature ought to convene a special setting to prevent – taking their business elsewhere (#boycottNC is a thing)

At least Georgia, whose tea bag legislature tried to do something similar, had the sense (or maybe it just worked out this way) to allow some time between the passing of their bill and the Governor signing it. By the time the bill arrived on the Governor’s desk, he had seen the public and corporate revulsion, and found himself in the oh-so-enviable position of being able to veto the law on moral grounds.  NC, on the other hand, has overplayed its hand. By having their lapdog governor, McCrory, lurk in the shadows, pen in hand, to sign the bill into law, they’ve left themselves no way out.  How do they gracefully bow out and avoid the massive loss of revenue to our State by the corporate boycott?

Well done Rethuglicans.  You fucked us again.