LIBERADIO(!)

So, Eric Crafton’s a good guy. A smart guy. He’s just a little too “alarmingly left-brained” to understand that learning a foreign language with the “full backing and resources of the American Navy…is so removed from the life of your average Nashville non-native speaker that it might as well take place on another planet.” He’s a no-nonsense, black or white, right or wrong, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps family man. According to those who know him best, his colleagues on the Metro Council, he’s not a bad guy.

Let’s say, for argument sake, that all of the above is true. If so, then Crafton is also a little too “alarmingly left-brained” and a little too driven by his ideals to see that he’s being manipulated by Jon Crisp, his “friend” and former head of the Davidson County GOP.

Because Crisp, in this week’s Nashville Scene cover story, let the singular purpose of the “English Only” Amendment slip:

Crafton certainly saw no gray in English Only when he and his friend and adviser Jon Crisp devised it a couple of years ago. Crisp says that English Only came to be during one of his and Crafton’s regular spitball sessions.

“Eric and I pick up on topics that we think are timely,” he says. “And you know as well as I do that any given day I can make an issue out of illegal immigration.”

Yes. We know. You’re, uh, doing it right now. You topic is “timely” because since 2004, when then-Senator Majority leader Bill Frist first introduced immigration as a problem, the unholy alliance of right-wing cable TV anouncers, talk radio hosts, and Fox News have increasingly inflamed nativist sentiment. Nashville’s version of the cookie cutter “English First” website may say that having English as the official language is “truly inclusive” and “essential to unifying our increasingly diverse population,” but Crisp’s transparent words say “purposefully exclusionary” and “essential to dividing in order to conquer.”

The well-being of the city and people of Nashville may be part of the Crafton/Crisp (aka Crispton) official talking points, but the truth is that they could really care less. My thanks to Crisp for finally admitting it.