The eastern part of our state is plagued by hog pollution. The problem has lingered for years, and we need stricter rules to mitigate it. But Republicans see things differently. A new bill casts the polluters as victims and seeks to protect them from powerless neighbors. This is happening for reasons that run deeper than simple venality. Indeed, the episode reflects one of the core problems with GOP rule.
Rep. Jimmy Dixon is clearly in bed with special interests. During his brief career, he’s taken a staggering $115,000 from pork concerns. His individual motivations are clear enough. But in a broadly functional party, there would be powers to push back against him. No such people exist in the Republican caucus.
That’s because the NCGOP has no representation from groups that view agricultural issues from a different perspective. The House GOP caucus is exclusively Caucasian. This stifles the concerns of African-American landowners who are the main victims of hog refuse. And the heavily white caucus is dominated by rural conservatives of a corporate bent, the people least inclined to question agribusiness. Such a unified perspective is what allowed Speaker Tim Moore to rush the bill through with no dissent.
The benefits of a diverse government stretch well beyond issues of identity and culture. All issues of the public interest affect the entire public. People who live in different places will have different views of natural resource use; people who think differently about the world add another angle to the debate. Demographic and ideological diversity ensure that proposals will be thoroughly interrogated. The Republican Party’s homogeneous composition not only threatens them politically, it threatens the health and welfare of all of their constituents.
Especially those unwelcome in the elephants’ tent.
Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.
“But in a broadly functional party, there would be powers to push back against him. No such people exist in the Republican caucus.
That’s because the NCGOP has no representation from groups that view agricultural issues from a different perspective. ”
This part is very omissive if not outright false. There ARE intra-party powers pushing back and it’s the second most powerful Rep-leaning bloc (after the anti-toll road people) responsible for Pat McCrory being shown the door last year. Commercial hog farmers are a threat to the already besieged commercial fishing industry. Unlike “Big AG”, commercial fishermen are not corporate nor foreign-owned and they represent thousands of families working to wrest a living from the sea. When McCrory screwed them, they voted with their feet and left him. People all over the east whom are not economically connected to hog farming are up in arms about this issue, not just African-Americans, and because of that outcry, the House committee has suddenly (and probably temporarily) delayed a vote on HB467.
It is journalistic malpractice to cast this as just a racial issue or as being demonstrative of a diversity problem within the Rep’s caucus when people all over the east are rising up against this bill. As they very well should, because depriving the neighbors of hog farms of the legal right to seek damages is a textbook example of corporate fascism in action.
“But Republicans see things differently. A new bill casts the polluters as victims and seeks to protect them…”
This is part of rampant epidemic that has infected the GOP nationwide. It is a form of psychological projection (a defense mechanism used to displace responsibility for one’s negative actions or traits by attributing them to an opponent), In the collective GOP mind, perpetrators have become victims to be protected, and victims have become perpetrators to be oppressed, denied, or arrested.
From red state Republicans wanting more “business-friendly” environmental regs for the private sector, to their pushing to “protect” their righteous Christian base from anything or anybody that might upset their skewed theological/biblical view of god, country, and the world, to civil protesters no longer being viewed as Americans expressing their 1st amendment right to free speech, but rather being strictly scrutinized (and then charged) for any damages (even the inadvertent kind) to public or private property during demonstrations.
Other examples: the magistrates recusal law and the new HB142 law allow those holding sincerely-held beliefs to either discriminate, o be protected, or to have better standing in related state court cases. Both were enacted to protect so-called “victims” from concepts they do not agree with or just don’t want to deal with.
It’s just another sector within GOP Bizarro World, where the lines between good and evil, right and wrong, guilty and innocent are all being blurred, all to advance the interests of the haves over those of the have-nots.
This law is an affront to anyone left in NC who has a moral compass. Having been involved in this issue since the beginning and having observed the hardships industrial hog farms have on their neighbors, this act is unconscionable. To favor a Chinese company (Smithfield) over poor North Carolinians shows a blatant disregard for citizen rights and a total disregard for human rights. Is the NCGA for sale on any issue including their souls?
There is a very simply answer to your question – YES
David, sadly I think the answer to you question is ‘yes.” I know what hogs smell like in small quantity. I cannot imagine the impact of an industrial hog farm next door. Racism and sheer indifference to humans versus money for campaigns rules the NC GOP legislators.