The GOP’s Utopia: Here’s To The State of Mississippi!M-I-SS-I-PP-I, sing it with me...
The land where the GOP got exactly what they wanted. All their policies are in place. The result? Lowest wages in the nation, lowest per capita income, worst healthcare, including children's health. Oh, and there's that huge oil spill...
Ohio-born folk singer Phil Ochs put a song on his breakthrough 1965 album called “Here’s to the State of Mississippi” whose verses rail against segregation, police brutality, corrupt judges, murders of Civil Rights activists and preachers whose
“Cross of silver now has turned to rust, and heaven only knows in which God they can trust”
because they are using scripture to justify an unacceptable status quo of hatred and violence. Mississippi has progressed since then: the schools are integrated (at least on paper,) the state signed on to the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery in 1995 and helped elect the first African American President by sending him their delegates in the 2008 Democratic primaries. Sure, their flag still has the confederate stars and bars (see photo above,) but now that doesn’t stand for white supremacy or slavery anymore, right? RIGHT?!
The Mississippi of 2015 is the embodiment of everything the Republican Party currently stands for. Taxes are low, regulation of business is lax and the state’s rate of union membership is near the lowest in the United States. So, to see how well that’s working out for the people of Mississippi, here are some facts about the GOP’s ideal world written to the tune of the classic song from half a century ago:
“Here’s to the state of Mississippi, where you can have a baby but it may not live too long, ‘cause our shocking lack of health care isn’t helping them grow strong”
Mississippi ranks 50th out of the 50 states for children’s health. This is attributable to several factors: obesity, high rates of secondhand smoke, a low ratio of doctors to residents and the debilitating effects of poverty. If only there was a program to provide health insurance to poor Americans, and if only we had a President who would offer to increase the benefits of such a program for people who can’t afford insurance on their own. Oh, wait…
“Here’s to the state of Mississippi, where the incomes are so low, and there’s no one in the state house passing laws to make them grow”
Mississippi ranks 50th in per capita income, absolutely dead last, which is quite a feat considering all the competition in the current Tea Party GOP-driven economic race to the bottom. The state’s minimum wage only matched the inadequate $7.25 an hour federal standard, Mississippi is of course a “right to work” state with only a 5.3 percent rate of union membership, which isn’t helping to push wages any higher.
“Here’s to the state of Mississippi, where our schools had to integrate, but now we barely fund them and a lot don’t graduate”
Mississippi teacher salaries declined by more than six percent in recent years. Even the ultraconservative ALEC foundation ranks Mississippi schools 43rd in the nation, though their solution is to privatize not to fix existing problems. The state’s 75.5% graduation rate ranks near the bottom, Six decades after Brown v. Board, schools across Mississippi remain in a state of de facto segregation with unequal funding and poor facilities that lead to many well to do white folks putting their kids in private school, keeping a vicious cycle going for the state’s poor.
“Here’s to the state of Mississippi, where we suffered an oil spill; but now all our leaders do is shout Drill, Baby, Drill”
Roger Wicker, who replaced Trent Lott, was the only Senator to vote ‘no’ on an amendment declaring that climate change is real. He also voted no on banning the offshore drilling that tragically resulted in the 2010 BP Spill. Mississippi’s other Senator, Thad Cochran, has similarly voted pro oil and against renewable energy. The people of our nation’s poorest state get no benefit from these policies, but those people aren’t the ones writing the checks to fund the campaigns so they don’t count when the votes are cast.
So there you have it, folks: if you love the GOP and its policies, move to the state that has embraced the most, Old Mississippi. If not, help the people of one of our most beleaguered states to climb out of poverty and deprivation and support policies that will help the rest of the nation from going the way of Ole Miss.
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