Politics, Arizona Style

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist


Arizona is, by many measures, a mighty stupid state.  A majority of the goobers who call that sandpit home are intellectually challenged and proud of it.  They are racist, homophobic. gun-toting morons who have only recently swung down from the trees and learned to walk upright.  But that is only the loud and obnoxious majority - the folks who think of Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio as gods.

There are also many good folks living in Arizona.  Most are in hiding out of fear of their beer-belching, ass-scratching neighbors, but a few have risen to positions of prominence making them easy targets.  Somehow people in Arizona have managed to elect Democrats to five of their nine seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, something that the state's rabid teabaggers and other mongrels are vowing to change - apparently one way or another.

The right-wingers are foaming at the mouth in their eagerness to remove two of these Congress People in particular.  Representative Gabrielle Giffords of the 8th District (the southeast corner of the state) is in their sights because she is progressive, intelligent, and a woman - three strikes!   John McCain, who isn't smart enough to wash Gabby Giffords' car, is contributing cash and his voice to the campaign against her.

The other Democratic Congressman who really irks the right is Raul Grijalva of the 7th District (most of southwest corner of the state).  Giffords and Grijalva are both headquartered in Tucson,  the city that is split by their districts.

Today Congressman Grijalva, a fierce advocate of immigrant rights, received a package at his Tucson office. It was decorated in swastikas (the Arizona state bird) and contained a toxic white powder.  The Congressman wasn't in the office when the package arrived.  The place had to be shut down and the police were called.  Congressman Grijalva has been the subject of at least one prior death threat.

I have no idea who sent that envelope full of white powder to the congressman - nor why the post office let it get as far as being delivered - but I do know who some of the people are responsible for this domestic terrorism.  They are the people who seek their political strength through fear-mongering and hate.  People like Jan Brewer and Joe Arpaio have carefully and intentionally cultivated the climate of hatred that leads to this type of terroristic activity.  State Senator Russell Pearce and neo-nazi J.T. Ready have helped to inflame the passions of the state's poor, white underclass.  State Superintendent of Education Tom Horne is proud of his work to eliminate Women's and Ethnic studies in Arizona schools, helping to marginalize those folks who didn't have the good sense to be born white and male.

Yes, Arizona is a stupid state - and the people who gain their political strength through making and keeping it stupid are shameless!