“you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”

To answer the question of why Dylan’s comment now? I was a child of that era, (I can quote this). For all of you out there who prescribe to your military service as a necessity to be citizen and complying to the draft or enlisting? I really do not believe you have to do so. You have to decide such though and there can be consequences.

For the record, I am a Vietnam era XMarine Sergeant. A lot of us went and a lot of us did what we thought was right to do. I do not begrudge you for your decisions. We were young then. None of us had much of a choice.

What is happening today in states? We are going backwards in the nations direction and beliefs which sprouted during that era. States with the help of a tilted Supreme Court are reversing what was necessary and needed during that time when states determined who could vote by making it difficult to qualify. And when they could vote the states drew voting district borders to limit the representation of people of color in state government. What could be two districts was made into one district by packing citizens of color into one majority district

“In April of this year, the Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in their Louisiana v. Callais decision, which protected voters of color from racial discrimination in congressional apportionment, or legislative mapmaking.

But the Callais decision was not made in a vacuum. It came after years of Supreme Court case law that gutted key protections. In June of 2013, the Supreme Court decided the landmark Shelby v. Holder, which dismantled a provision that prevented states and municipalities from implementing harmful electoral policies. Since Holder, 29 states have passed restrictive voting laws like strict photo ID policies and restrictions on mail-in voting. Holder and Callais administered a “death by 1,000 cuts” to the VRA, Cusick said.” The Frontline for Voting Rights Is the Rural South | The Daily Yonder

The effort by this court is to allow states to determine who can vote and who can not vote in a pattern of discrimination. The crowding of black citizens into one district is another measure of discrimination. And a supposed unbiased SCOTUS is supporting such efforts.

Voting rights historian Alexander Keyssar, Ph.D., of Harvard University, said that, although most voting legislation has historically been at the state level, the VRA was one of the first significant pieces of voting legislation at the federal level. 

“If you left the South on its own, it was not going to eliminate racial discrimination in voting,” Keyssar told the Daily Yonder in a phone interview. “You couldn’t assume that over time things would get better.”

With pressures both from home and abroad, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law five months after Bloody Sunday. The law has been reauthorized since its passage because certain provisions were time-limited. This occurred most recently in 2006 under President George W. Bush and a Republican-controlled Congress. But in recent years, in the landmark cases of Shelby v. Holder and Louisiana v. Callais, the Supreme Court has taken a sharp diversion from protecting voting rights for all Americans.

The court decision does not bode well for all Americans as too few of us have the power and funds to make decisions affecting the nation as a whole.

The Frontline for Voting Rights Is the Rural South | The Daily Yonder