Now *That's* Infuriational

Few journalists working today bring the rage at the level of Greg Palast. Few topics inspire anger and frustration like the disenfranchisement of African-American voters. Bring the two together and reach for the Tums.

The mere fact that officials can contemplate these shenanigans speaks volumes about the disengagement on the left, including the African-American community that just forty years ago spearheaded the greatest moral advance in the history of American civilization, the modern civil rights movement. But who will take the lead? I don't trust anyone whose instinct for self-promotion seems to eclipse their instinct for social justice, and sadly that seems to describe most of the aspirants to leadership in black America. He provided some entertaining moments during the campaign, but I still just can't stand Al Sharpton, and it goes beyond a history of misdeeds that includes slander, police informing and all manner of back-channel deals with the same right-wing scumbags he publicly rails against. Lenora Fulani's a kook with some unsavory associations of her own; Farrakhan and his associates are anti-Semites. Jesse Jackson actually has done some admirable things in a generally mixed career, but he probably destroyed whatever credibility he had left when the story of his illegitimate child came out. There are surviving heroes of the civil rights movement still on the scene, from my dream vice-presidential pick Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) to Julian Bond to (I think) Wyatt Tee Walker. But they don't seem to connect in mainstream culture. Hip-hop cultural icons like Chuck D don't seem to have big-picture aspirations (though I like Chuck's radio gig on Air America and it seems like he keeps busy speaking and organizing).

The point of all this is that there's a leadership void. The story Palast tells in this article should prompt rage in the streets: any budding Katherine Harris types out there should feel actual fear that if they pull this nonsense again, they're going to see tens of thousands of enraged citizens outside the front door (not to mention a small army of lawyers working to restore voting rights). Where is the King or Malcolm figure who will stand up and lead this effort? If this isn't worth fighting for, I honestly don't know what is.