We’ve been looking at Moral Mondays but Betsy in the comments on yesterday’s post tells me (in so many words! politely!) that I got it all wrong, so here’s what they’re actually doing now that the legislative session has ended. Here’s Betsy:
Great question! answer, no. Altho the legislature has concluded the session and gone home, the protests will continue, taking it to the road and to the districts of the state where the damage came from or is being done. Tomorrow’s Moral Monday is in Asheville.
This week’s Moral Monday protest in Raleigh, N.C. was the 13th and last of this year’s legislative session, which ended last week. It was also the biggest protest yet against the ultraconservative agenda of the Republican-controlled legislature, drawing as many as 10,000 people to the state capital’s downtown streets. Many of the participants were red-clad public schoolteachers and their supporters upset over education cuts and voucher schemes.
Though the legislature has adjourned, the anger that fueled the NAACP-led demonstrations and resulted in the arrests of over 900 people for nonviolent civil disobedience since late April continues to grow — and organizers are drawing on it to take the protests to communities across the state.
“Don’t make no mistake, North Carolina,” N.C. NAACP President Rev. William Barber said in a fiery speech delivered to Monday’s crowd. “This is no momentary hyperventilation, or momentary protest. This is a movement.”
The first action planned outside Raleigh will take place in Asheville on Aug. 5 and is being billed as Mountain Moral Monday, with Rev. Barber as a featured speaker. Organizers are not planning any civil disobedience but say they want to let Western North Carolina residents add their voices to the protests.
“This event will give people in our part of the state a chance to stand up for justice, democracy and moderation,” said Mountain Moral Monday spokesperson Valerie Hoh.
Asheville found itself a target of conservative lawmakers this year. Early in the session, Republicans introduced a bill amending the state’s indecent exposure law to expand the definition of “private parts” to include “the nipple, or any portion of the areola, or the female breast.” The bill — a response to topless rallies promoting women’s equality held in Asheville — did not pass.
But North Carolina lawmakers were successful in passing a bill that takes control of the municipal water system away from Asheville and hands it over to a state-chartered regional authority without compensating the city for the loss. The measure, which opponents say is theft by the state and would harm regional economic development efforts, is the subject of a lawsuit set to begin next month. Save Our Water WNC, a group opposed to the takeover, is among the organizers of Mountain Moral Monday.
There is also a Moral Monday protest planned for Charlotte on Aug. 19, and organizers are expected to announce actions in other communities across the state soon.
The protesters were targeted and smeared by Art Pope, who is a huge conservative donor and rich person but also a state employee. That’s right. A state actor is directly targeting individual, ordinary North Carolinians who oppose his policies. I’m still waiting for the free speech enthusiasts in media to muster up some outrage over this. Outrage over state actors engaging in attempts at speech suppression or “chilling” political speech seems to be content-based. It’s okay because this is liberal political speech that is being targeted?
The John W. Pope Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank based in Raleigh, N.C., has launched a database targeting people who’ve been arrested as part of the Moral Monday nonviolent protests at the state legislature.
The Civitas Institute was founded by conservative mega-donor and discount-retail mogul Art Pope, now the North Carolina budget director under Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, and it was named for Pope’s father. The nonprofit gets about 94 percent of its funding from the family foundation Pope chairs. That raises questions about the ethics of a public official who’s been a target of the protests being involved in an apparent effort to target the protesters for harassment — or worse.
The effort to intimidate the protesters was a big flop, because of course the Civitas Institute (Art Pope) couldn’t resist making shit up. The charge was that the protestors were “outside agitators” but they weren’t and aren’t. When the protesters were arrested, of course the arrest records included their (North Carolina) addresses, which the brilliant, highly paid think tank consultants at the Art Pope’s lobby shop apparently didn’t anticipate.
Thanks to both Summer and Betsy for letting us know.
hueyplong
Calling opponents “outside agitators” is probably so historically ingrained around here that the concept and then its implementation may have occurred without thought or question.
People on their side won’t pay any attention to exposure of the attack as baseless anyway, for the same reason.
Ridnik Chrome
I’ve been reading about some of the economic legislation that the Moral Mondays movement is responding to, and it’s pretty damned appalling. It’s like the NC legislature is deliberately trying to promote poverty, instead of ending it.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Sadly, we both know the answer is yes, of course. Thanks for keeping these important topics front and center.
Kay
@hueyplong:
I feel as if the mug shots make them look less threatening than they were portrayed by the governor, actually.
How fucked up is it that they’re compiling a wanted list of their own citizens? The marketplace of ideas! What happened to that?
BGinCHI
Does Art Pope shit in the woods?
Can we please redistribute this guy’s wealth?
Seriously, I think this right wing overreach is going to do exactly what the voting restrictions did: raise consciousness and get people to push back hard against money and reactionary white supremacist politicians.
aimai
I’m confused about the phrase “state actors.” Do you mean “non-state actors?” Like “NGOs” are distinct from Government Organizations? Because Art Pope and his minions are definitively not state actors at all. They are sub state, or private citizens, or private organizations or something.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
In unrelated partisan news, some Hamilton County law enforcement folk registered to vote at their places of employment, rather than residentially. That’s against the rules! It was probably for security reasons (though LEOs can ask to have home addresses redacted from public records).
jenn
@aimai: Pope is the state budget director.
Linda Featheringill
Hats off to the good folks in North Carolina. Respect.
I’m pretty sure that this fight is not over yet. Hope it doesn’t get too rough.
Gin & Tonic
@aimai: But he is a state actor, as NC budget director.
Another Holocene Human
To be fair, I’d call him an “official”, not an “employee”. If a lowly employee was engaged in this kind of electioneering activity they’d probably be shitcanned. When it’s an elected official’s donor and powerful appointee, it’s the underlings who are all afraid of being shitcanned.
Another Holocene Human
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Don’t a lot of LEOs live outside the city where they are employed (while letting the city pay for gas to/from their remote location all the while)? Doesn’t this raise the specter of voting in their own bosses (to give them raises)?
Why are LEOs always justified in everything they do, but let any other public servant do the same and they’d be tarred and feathered?
Kay
@aimai:
He’s the budget director. His family institute is targeting people for political speech he doesn’t like.
Kay
@Linda Featheringill:
It’s funny, because the breadth of issues they’re representing seems to be a positive, rather than a negative.
They can’t demonize health care and education and civil rights and environmental issues all at the same time.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Maybe not, but it won’t stop them from trying.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Ridnik Chrome: Or run those poors out of the state.
Something that’s gotten very little coverage, and is now moot since we actually did get a budget-like thing passed, is this Continuing Budget Authority. Item 3 got a LOT of attention when it was circulated.
Comrade Jake
I’m reasonably certain Pope has connections back to the Koch brothers.
As a NC resident I’ve been a little mystified by the sentiment that the State will lose all sorts of talented, educated people in response to their recent legislative activity. For a purple state, this is precisely the wrong reaction. An infusion of progressives might just turn things around, whereas their leaving will not be helpful.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Right, but usually we’re all “focus on one thing!”
They’re insulated by how BROAD it is, the protestors.
That’s almost the denition of “overreach” politically. The voting rights piece is key to me, because limiting voting leaves only one peaceful response, which is speech. They couldn’t have encouraged people to come out more in opposition if they had tried.
jenn
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I suspect it’s pretty easy to make that mistake, so glad that’s how the Dem boardmembers treat it. Particularly if you move relatively often, but stay with the same job, I think it would be easy to think, ‘oh, this is a stable address, I’ll use this.’
@Another Holocene Human: is that common (living outside the communities they patrol)? It hasn’t been in the communities I’ve lived in, but maybe that’s just because I haven’t really lived in a place that had a lot of suburbs or housing shortages in town.
Shakezula
NC is well on its way to creating an alliance between minorities and impoverished whites, something the bigots were once too smart to allow.
Please Proceed.
Mike in NC
In reality, Art Pope is running the NC government now and Pat McCrory is merely his faithful and well-compensated lapdog.
jenn
Kay or any of the other commenters – is there a way to filter posts here, so that I can just show Kay’s posts? I very much appreciate Kay’s fact-driven, non-hyperbolic posts – not that I don’t enjoy others’ posts, but I have no need to share them. I’d like to be able to share – for example – Kay’s posts on c
jenn
Argh. I hate commenting on this damn phone! Anyway, I’d like to be able to share Kay’s series on charter schools, without having to have someone scroll back through all the other stuff. Thanks!
Kay
@Mike in NC:
I watched a health care event on CSPAN. The governor was there. A physician was the speaker, and the governors asked questions at the end.
McCrory came off as clueless. He seemed to be excusing his own ignorance by claiming some vague “business” expertise but he really just sounded like a poorly-prepared dope.
feebog
I’m waiting to see if AG Holder lets the other shoe drop, the first shoe being Texas, and calls bullshit on the NC voting suppression scheme. I would love to see these Maroons defend their blatant voter suppression in a federal court.
Origuy
jenn, just click on “Posted by Kay” under the post title. That takes you to a page which has her posts.
In case it doesn’t work on your phone, here is the link
https://balloon-juice.com/author/kay/
Kay
@jenn:
If you’ll email me I’ll gather the links, because I think I started on that in 2010..
I should use a tag. I will from now on.
Teachers were out in force in NC, as usual :)
Villago Delenda Est
Yes.
SATSQ.
JustMe
@Comrade Jake: I’ve been a little mystified by the sentiment that the State will lose all sorts of talented, educated people in response to their recent legislative activity. For a purple state, this is precisely the wrong reaction. An infusion of progressives might just turn things around, whereas their leaving will not be helpful.
Talented, educated people do not move to states as a form of charity in the hopes that things might get better sometime in the indefinite future.
In fact, my guess is that NC specifically wants to alienate them in favor of a low-wage, low-infrastructure-oriented economy.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Sure they can. They just have to talk about evil, liberal, mommy state interfering with job creators, and they have all of those things covered.
JustMe
@jenn: Follow this link, and it will show only the posts of Kay.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
That’s why I love the “brain drain” argument they’re using in NC.
All the smart people will move!
How embarrasing is it to people like David Brooks that that’s a credible threat to conservative governors :)
JustMe
@Kay: They can’t demonize health care and education and civil rights and environmental issues all at the same time.
They’re completely missing the point of “wedge issues.” You’re supposed to pick a specific issue and use it as a wedge to divide political coalitions. You don’t attack every single thing all at the same time: if you do that, then the political coalitions stick together because they all have their own interest in defeating the opponent.
My only explanation is that they’re hoping to convert NC to a place that only cheap-labor conservatives would want to live in.
The Other Chuck
@Kay:
I’m not sure that sort of thing happens in any significant numbers. What does seem to be the case is that the knowledge workers (read: smart people) who aren’t already there are not at all inclined to go there now. Combine that with a high unemployment rate in the state and well, you can already hear the giant sucking sound.
Ben Cisco
Yes, Art Pope and his poodle have unleashed a force they definitely do NOT understand.
On a related note, here at *Snug ‘Em Up Inc., we had our yearly influx of interns on board for the summer. The two I had the chance to work with were 1) college-age students and 2) FURIOUS at what McCrory and his gang of NeoConfederate fascists have been up to. One female, one male, both children of senior members of company management, and there is no way in hell the GOP gets either of their votes.
*Name changed because duh.
Villago Delenda Est
OT, but “Vote for the worst Republican”?
They’d better have an “all of the above” option, because it would be like choosing between Darth Sidious and Lord Voldemort.
The only good Republican is a dead one.
catclub
@feebog: Me too. BAIL-IN! You earned it.
piratedan
@The Other Chuck: i’ve turned down opportunities to relocate to Texas (I work on the tech side of health care) simply because I find the politics there loathsome (not that it’s much better in AZ, but we’re seeing progress). Young savvy techies looking to start families probably aren’t flocking to states that are pushing creationism as part of their educational agenda.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Villago Delenda Est: Huh?
I have done some ratfucking along those lines, certainly. The local GOP was quite nonplussed when what emerged from their primary was a guy who thinks he’s the Messiah.
But who’s bringing this up now?
Villago Delenda Est
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
You must be missing the ads on the site from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Gives you various unsavory choices: Ryan vs. Boner, Yertle vs. Cantor, Cantor vs. Bachmann…
Ben Cisco
@feebog: Yes!
As embarrassing as it would be to have the ENTIRE state (as opposed to 40 counties before) subjected to 10 years of pre-clearance, that’s what these goobers deserve. Rub their faces in it.
jenn
@JustMe: THANK YOU! I think you can do that (I mean select Kay’s name on the byline) on the regular site, but not on the mobile – at least I tried to do that on the mobile site before I commented earlier, and failed, and just now on my “real” computer, succeeded.
ETA: thanks Origuy and Kay, too :)
jenn
@The Other Chuck: Which is a shame, because as someone was mentioning above, NC is on the tipping point right now, and an influx of blue-leaning folks could make a real difference. But at the same time – if I were planning on moving, NC wouldn’t make my list!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Villago Delenda Est: Aha. I block most ads because they are a virus vector.
ericblair
@JustMe:
That’s probably giving them too much credit for thinking these things through in a logical way. What the goopers are up to is pure tribalism and dominance. They’re sticking it to the blahs and libs, and if they get run off things will get better because Everybody Knows they’re a bunch of moochers and criminals. They’re sticking it to the wimmens because all the uppityness is causing trouble and everybody will be better off when they just Know Their Place.
JD_Rhoades
But at the same time – if I were planning on moving, NC wouldn’t make my list!
For the first time in my life, I’m seriously thinking about moving. And I’ve lived in NC for 52 years.
scav
OT Is somebody desparate for funding or are the traditional lack of hinges looser than usual? Right-wing radio host says Apple are the Republican party of the tech world. Furthermore, “alternative media lacks conservative voices.”
?
eldorado
keep writing kay. it’s invaluable for us.
PeakVT
@scav: He’s just trying to appropriate some cool for a movement that has none.
MattR
Surprised that no one mentioned that Bill Maher highlighted Art Pope’s actions in his most recent “New Rules” (we’ll see how long that youtube link survives before hbo has it taken down). Bill didn’t come right out and say it, but IMO the Citizen’s United ruling had, and will continue to have, a much bigger influence at the local level than in national races.
(Transcript at the GOS for those who prefer that method)
Comrade Jake
@JustMe:
Please. I didn’t suggest that they do so. Only that it doesn’t make sense for such folks to leave the state in response to what’s been happening.
There are plenty of reasons to move to NC. It’s a beautiful state, the cost of living is relatively low, and the research-triangle park has the second-highest concentration of PhDs in the country.
J R in WV
We bought property and built a small winter house in SE Arizona, project started before the really bat-shit crazy erupted in the statehouse. While we’re far enough out in the country for the majority of the crazy not to affect us, it’s still hard to handle.
Maybe if there’s another real-estate balloon, we can sell out at a small profit…
Or if world catastrophe seems nigh, we’re far enough out and off the grid that the place would appeal to someone looking for a retreat to hide in.
I’ve known that North Caroline was full of wierdos ever since the first time we visited friends who moved there are finishing their degrees. We went for a walk in the woods behind their house and were accosted by a pair of losers in camo with camo assault rifles, who told us to get out of their woods.
Very much doubt it was “their woods” but whose gonna argue with bat-shit crazies with guns?
The beaches are OK, and Asheville is nice too, but the middle of the state… not so good. There are islands of calm where Quakers settled years ago, but mainly right-wing nut-jobdom flourishes.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Comrade Jake: And the RTP economic miracle has been on the wane for years now, and the more the GA strips education, the less likely that new jobs will move here, so if you’re in one of the pink-slipped groups from, say, IBM, you have no real reason to stay instead of moving to follow the jobs.
Roger Moore
@ericblair:
My gut feeling is that the ones at the top know damn well what they’re doing. They want a system that’s set up to produce a lot of cheap labor because they’re employers and because they’re assholes who want to control the people working for them. They really don’t care if it turns the state into a hellhole for everyone else; they’re good either way.
scav
@PeakVT: possibly, but isn’t his demographic more the plug and play ease generation and not the edgy-techster bleeding-edge chic one? The downtrodden but virtuous underdog spin would have worked better before Obama vetoing that sales ban or whatever. Wrong errant knight riding to the rescue of the oppressed. Not that mere reality and facts on the ground matter.
Mike E
@JD_Rhoades: Ditto, 25 years for me.
Apart from all this needless psychodrama, NC is a breath-takingly beautiful state that can boast features other states can only dream about. I will be sad to leave the birthplace of my daughter, should the opportunity arise.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Roger Moore: Art Pope is an Ayn Rand fanboy. Need I say more?
SIA
@eldorado: Seconded. I rarely comment on Kay’s posts, but read every single one. Thanks Kay.
SIA
@MattR: I saw that. I was very glad he called Pope out by name. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Roger Moore
@SIA:
I’ll take an autoclave, TYVM. Can we stick Pope in one of those?
KateinMD
This New Yorker article by Jane Mayer brilliantly connects Art Pope to the Kochs and Citizens United…may they all DIAF.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_mayer
c
@J R in WV:NC, “calm where Quakers settled years ago”
Moravians? Oh, right, Guilford College. nevermind
Comrade Jake
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I haven’t seen any data that suggests the RTP growth is waning or even declining, but if you have links to studies I’d be curious to see them.
The GA moves on education are deplorable. Nobody disputes that. Hopefully we can get those things turned around. But it’s going to require solid Democratic turnout at the next election and so forth.
People following jobs applies to any state. My point is that there are plenty of good reasons for people to choose NC, assuming of course that they have a job offer in the state. I’m sorry you feel otherwise.
johnny aquitard
@JustMe: I’m inclined to think alienating educated people, who tend to vote Dem, to the point where few see NC as an attractive place to live is an intentional feature, not an incidental bug.
There weren’t enough of Those People to swing the state blue in a presidential election before. Now with the educated white immigration, they can.
Conservatives think they have a strategy to deal with both the uppity voting negros and the smarty-pants carpetbaggers as well.
Please proceed, neo-confederates.
hoodie
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: That’s a bit exaggerated. RTP really declined about a decade ago when Ericsson and Nortel cratered in the tech bust. It’s somewhat stabilized at a lower level now. Raleigh has taken off in the last 5 years or so, as what had been a moribund downtown is now full of activity most nights and has seen a small software core established (Redhat and Citrix). There have been relocations of some financial services operations to the area. The thing that’s killing NC is that big chunks of the state outside of the bigger cities are economic basket cases because of the decline in furniture, textiles, tobacco and other manufacturing that has gone offshore. Over the past decade or so, NC lost out on some new manufacturing developments to neighboring states like SC and GA. The wingnuts are somewhat correct that this is in part because of a fucked up corporate tax structure, but a lot of it has to do with incentives and infrastructure. Their “fixes” to the tax structure are mostly an excuse to screw the poor and public sector workers and reward wealthy individuals that line the pockets of the governor and GOP legislators. Pope ultimately cares less about high end corporate investment in NC than he does about he and his cronies getting a state that works like a plantation with themselves at the top.
Summer
I have no idea what the Governor and General Assembly are thinking, but I do think the Pope/Ayn Rand connection provides the ideological rhetorical rationale — they’re not creating a low-wage paradise but Galt’s Gulch.
I’m really looking forward to meeting those of you from NC who are coming tonight. I haven’t been active in state politics and this has mobilized me to become so. I thought I’d read that the name-taking had been shamed to the point that Civitas wasn’t doing it anymore and had publicly disavowed, but a quick google search shows that was just a pleasant dream I must have had.
The point about wedge issues is key, and maybe if there’s enough of a coalition created against the monied interests there might be an effective movement for campaign finance reform, which is the heart of all of this?
Or is that just a pleasant dream as well?
sparrow
@piratedan: Yeah I am doubtful that many people can just up and *leave* a state like NC, but they will find people choosing “other options”… if I ever get down to the point of looking at faculty jobs in the South, I’ll probably opt to go into science policy instead and stay on the East Coast.
It helps that red states have serious quality-of-life issues. Most of them are damned boring places to live.
shell
As Charlie Pierce call him, ‘Obvious anagram Reince Priebus’ get’s tough.
Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus on Monday called on both NBC and CNN to drop their planned film productions of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or face losing their partnerships with the RNC for 2016 presidential primary debates.
***********
You mean we’d be spared Santorum’s goofball face on our TV? Oh, please.
raven
@sparrow: What a crock of horseshit. Stay right where you are.
JustMe
If I’m a well paid knowledge worker thinking of which state I want to move to, I’m going to prioritize on good jobs, high quality high schools and a high quality state university, and an open social and political culture that I feel I can participate in. Take all those away, and I’ll instead opt for the “high cost/high performance” states elsewhere.
There’s nothing that NC can offer that MD and VA do not also provide. If NC decides that it wants its economy and culture to be less like MD’s and (northern) VA’s and more like SC’s, then that’s their choice to make.
Comrade Jake
@hoodie: downtown Raleigh really has transformed significantly over the past five years. We had a large meeting at the new convention center downtown a few weeks ago – beautiful facility. The new R-Line is pretty cool as well.
Downtown Durham is like a completely different universe compared to what it was a decade ago. The number of new excellent restaurants is kind of ridiculous.
raven
@hoodie: Hmm, what manufacturing has North Carolina lost to Georgia?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Comrade Jake: Comrade Jake, meet hoodie, who has a pretty good summary. I’m more plugged into the tech side than the financial, and I’ve seen people laid off, pick up, and move out at a pretty constant stream since Nortel collapsed, and pretty much no one moving in. Stabilized is not an economic miracle; growth is.
Job availability was my entire point. Unemployment is high enough, job growth is slow enough, that there’s no reason to stay and expect to find another job after being laid off.
@johnny aquitard:
Bingo. I moved here thirty years ago, in the height of RTP’s expansion, and the stories I could tell you about the way the natives reacted…. There are stores I haven’t set foot in since those first few months because of it.
Comrade Jake
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I saw hoodie’s summary, and he/she basically stated that your statement wasn’t fair. Here’s a graph indicating that new firms continue to locate to the RTP. Looks like growth to me. Probably what we haven’t had are lots of very large companies move in en masse, so the loss of Nortel still hurts.
It’s interesting that your perspective is clearly so different from mine. I’m sorry that’s the case, because the impression I get is that you’re not all that happy to be living here. Really for me it’s the complete opposite. I’ve only seen things gradually improve (minus the GA’s recent antics, of course).
I thought it was pretty remarkable the state voted for Obama in 2008, and well we’ve backslid since then, I’d like to think our trajectory in the long run is to be more purple than red.
Ben Cisco
@Mike E: This will be year 20 for me, and I’m not going anywhere. This is my home, dammit; – it’s these assholes (both homegrown like McCrory and carpetbaggers like Bob Rucho) that need to GTFO.
hoodie
@raven: Caterpillar, which decided to open its new plant in Athens.
Roger Moore
@shell:
RNC PR BS looks for any excuse to keep the crazy hidden from the general public.
raven
@hoodie: I guess maybe NC was in the running, I didn’t see that in the local paper as the negotiations went on. We and the adjacent county did give a ton of incentives. I do like the new traffic signal it brought!
hoodie
@Comrade Jake: The perspective is not completely unfair if you limit it to tech and focus solely on employment levels. In the 1990s, RTP was a big time telecom innovation center, a lot of the 4G stuff we use now was developed at that time and IBM was still in the business of making stuff instead of just propping up share prices. IBM sold off its hardware businesses and became a consulting business that offshores (and, recently, inshores to low-wage workers in places like Detroit) most of the tech work. Nortel imploded and Ericsson shrank and pulled back to Sweden. There are, however, some local success stories that balance some of that out, like CREE and Red Hat, but those don’t have quite the heft that the early big employers had in terms of numbers of employees (e.g., Nortel had several thousand well paid employees). In some ways, these newer companies are better because they are more invested in the community than multinational corporate employers like IBM. I’m concerned that we’ll lose the momentum that led to development of such companies as the GA continues to cut both lower and higher ed (NC State has been deeply hit with budget cuts, and the schools are being beggared), which may alienate people looking to grow companies here. That’s without getting into any of the retrograde cultural stuff. Getting entrepeneurs to take a chance and chose NC over places like Silicon Valley and Seattle was hard enough considering that the NC Piedmont ain’t exactly the most happenin’ place to begin with.
Guy
@Ben Cisco:
I am of the same mind. I am willing to fight these guys for a couple of election cycles before I would think about bailing out. I can’t speak for the rest of the state, but here in Charlotte even a lot of the more moderate conservative types are pissed off. I am in both Rucho’s and Samuelson’s districts. I have never been politically active aside from voting, but I will do whatever I can to help get those two out.
raven
@hoodie:
Comrade Jake
@hoodie:
Sure, everyone’s concerned about this. I’m just more inclined to stay and fight than to up and leave. I don’t view leaving as being particularly helpful, but I appreciate that not everyone has a real choice.
Mr Stagger Lee
Where have you gone Governor Sanford?
NC casts it’s lonely eyes to you
What did you say Mr Art Pope?
Gov. Sanford has left and gone away.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Comrade Jake: I’m not sure that graphic says what you think it says. Got the underlying data? Because my first thought is that there are a lot of very small firms being started by people who have been laid off and have other reasons to stay in the area.
Roger Moore
@Mr Stagger Lee:
The House of Representatives. HTH.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Roger Moore: Actually I meant Terry Sanford But I get your snark :-) I think.
Mike in NC
Unfortunately, NC’s unemployment rate is something like 5th highest in the country. Governor McCrony’s solution is to shut down about 40 Employment Security Commission offices, because they’re unable to put people back to work. Seriously! That’ll really turn things around.
Betsy
Kay, you rock!! Thank you so much for front-paging this. The protests make me so proud of N.C. and they are most definitely not momentary.
Betsy
@Kay: Word. When Hapless Pat opens his mouth, it is really a question of which foot, (or will both?), go in.
The man does not seem able to answer a straight question without
a) screwing it up,
b) claiming ignorance, or
c) resorting to several days worth of consultation with his handlers before issuing a bland, spin-doctored semi-response.
I have seen many frighteningly glib conservatives, but McCrory is not one of them.
gene108
@johnny aquitard:
A lot of people, who moved to NC over the last 20 years are (a) Latinos who work in agriculture and trades and (b) people, who started reading about Raleigh/RTP being among the top rated places to live in several publications and decided, if they want to make a new start, why not go to a place that’s rated very highly.
There’s a large segment of the population that immigrated to NC who are not highly educated, but came because the state had good low-cost colleges to back to school or for their children, reasonable cost of living and relatively low crime rates.
A lot of the economic growth in North Carolina has been driven by increased population, especially in real estate as more and more areas need to be developed to accommodate this increasing population.
I do wonder what the impact will be on relatively conservative business interests like real estate developers, because as much as people moved to NC because of good publicity, I conversely do not expect people to want to move to a state that’s getting mocked for its zealous right-wing legislature.
Betsy
@jenn: North Carolina has always been a purple state. First state university, first state art museum, first state orchestra in the nation. Research, universities, infrastructure, and good people.
This is a purple state. Trending blue.
The Tea Takeover is an anomaly, brought to you by Citizens United.
Betsy
@johnny aquitard: I have to tell you that a lot of the neo-confederates in N.C. came from New Jersey.
Betsy
@Guy: My clients in rural places throughout the state are thoroughly disgusted with the doings … and they are mostly white men, so that’s saying something.
hoodie
@Betsy: Some of the leaders (Rucho, Tillis, Berger) definitely are carpetbaggers. There is also a kind of self-selection that has gone on in parts of the south, as people who moved here often have a grudge against the more liberal, higher-cost places they moved from and have taken on a confederate mantle without any real connection to it or understanding of it. They and there supporters often have this kitschy, romanticized idea of the South (the equivalent of Paula Deen’s garbage cuisine), which shows they don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. They have no understanding of legacy costs. My ancestors grew up coal mining and farming on the Cumberland Plateau in TN, and it was pretty third world until Roosevelt came in and created the TVA and other programs that made their lives passable. The progressive tradition in NC was in that vein, lifting a dirt poor (white) population out of poverty and ignorance. Other states in the South had that experience, but it’s gone down the memory hole. Now, poor people are viewed as being lazy moochers (with the wrong skin tone and accent) lounging in the safety hammock.
Betsy
@hoodie: agree, thanks for these excellent observations. Plus jerks like Tedesco came down here,were shocked at the large number of black kids in the schools, and so they set out to re-create the “neighborhood schools” of their lily-white townships in NewJersey. I’ve lived up there, I know how that mess works.
In any case, racism know no geographic boundaries and must be fought wherever it is.
Gene108
@Betsy:
I went to Wake Co. schools and live in NJ now.
NJ has issues consolidating any damn service beyond a township level. It is not just the schools. Money could be saved by pooling municipal resources for sewer, parks, etc. but townships here just do not want to do that.
It is the deep rooted culture here, so you live with it.
It is not something that easily exports out of state because so many cities have figured out consolidating services across a county saves money.
Timothy Tyson
@JD_Rhoades: While it is true that the GOP “super-majority” in the legislature is a toolbox for ALEC, mean as a bag of snakes, and divided between lunatics and mediocrities, North Carolina is not in bad shape politically. Quite the contrary. Our ship is not sinking; the old ship has sunk, the creaky, leaky slave ship to the past is settling beneath the waves. That its captain and crew don’t all know this is almost touching. But here in North Carolina, a movement that had been organizing a statewide coalition for seven or eight years has launched these Moral Monday protests that have brought people from all walks of life together. The civil rights movement on its best day, in it highest dreams for itself, was never this interracial, this eclectic, this committed to a common vision. Rev. William J. Barber, president of the NC NAACP, is the most important moral and political leader the state has seen in a century or more. And it is not just the good reverend but a far-flung and remarkable network of religious, civil rights,LGBT, labor, feminist, environmental, and other groups across the state. I am a historian of North Carolina, and what is happening here goes beyond even the most powerful social movements of the past: for example, Populism, the Fusion coalition of the 1890s, the huge labor battles of the 1920s and 1930s, the civil rights movement, and the large, interracial environmental movements of the 1980s, for example, all of them enormously important, but none of them as successful at pulling together a diverse coalition across all social lines. It’s a great time to be in North Carolina and to move here, for that matter. The Pope puppet show in Raleigh, for all their money and power, are shaking in their shoes, with good reason. Just watch.