Ethiopia And America

       In the BBC email this morning there's an article that tells about a region in Ethiopia called the Low Lands where a group of tribes raise cattle, the 'ancient' way. That's fine and if that were all there were, the article would not have been written. But that's not the whole story. See, the government of Ethiopia decided they wanted to convert this pastoral scene into a region for agribusiness to grow sugar and palm oil. The government has decided that the Mursi people are a backward people living a backward lifestyle. Of course the 'agribusiness' group is not a homegrown industry, it's foreign owned and run.
       This is not the usual kind of story I write about, but the reason I mentioned it is because it has some similarities to America. No, I'm not suggesting we raise cattle the ancient way, nor am I suggesting that our government is forcing us out of our ancestral homelands. What I am suggesting, in  fact accusing many of our state governments of doing is stealing our rights with state laws that make it almost impossible for some folks to vote, simply because they're likely to vote for the 'wrong' party.
       Of course it's not exactly the same as taking lands from the Mursi people. No, instead it's taking away our rights. Which make those affected, less than citizens of the country they were born in and have lived their entire lives in. All in the name of protecting our electoral system from fraudulent voting. Now I suppose it would be fair to do that, if in fact there was any evidence of any fraudulent voting. The problem is, there is virtually no instances in which these laws would protect the system from any fraud. How do I know that? Because in trials defending the laws, the various states have not been able to produce any such evidence. That isn't stopping some states.
       I suspect that these states' legislatures who voted those laws in, consider the folks they're depriving of the voting privilege, of being somehow backwards and unworthy of citizenship. So the real question in America's case is; do the various states' governments have the right to deprive it's citizens of the voting privilege simply because they're likely to vote for the wrong guy? As for Ethiopia, I suspect they've been bought by agribusiness.