Is that Bubba from Forrest Gump? Alvin Greene: The Last Action Hero

Alvin Greene. Just the name alone should strike fear into the heart of all those who hear it uttered. The perfect representation of where Democracy is leading America, Greene is a veritable hero reminding anyone willing to pay attention what the Amendment allowing the direct election of senators wrought.

Though Black action figures are a rare find at the toy shelf (and commonly available at a steep discount), Greene has come up with a novel way to stand athwart the vocation crisis in South Carolina and yell, “Stop”:

Alvin Greene knows exactly how to create jobs in this struggling economy. “Make toys of me,” he says.

In an interview with The Guardian, the reliably eccentric South Carolina Senate candidate pitches his jobs plan, which involves creating a tiny army of Alvin Greene action figures.

“Little dolls. Me. Like maybe little action dolls. Me in an Army uniform, Air Force uniform, and me in my suit. They can make toys of me and my vehicle, especially for the holidays and Christmas for the kids,” the Palmetto State's accidental Democratic nominee says. “That's something that would create jobs.”

And really, Greene insists, he’s not kidding. “I think out of the box like that. It's not something a typical person would bring up,” he tells The Guardian. “That's something that could happen, that makes sense. It's not a joke."

Greene, who has a remarkable resemblance to Pvt. Benjamin Buford “Bubba” Blue from the film Forrest Gump, might just be the last action hero. It is our earnest hope that a Alvin Greene line of action figures becomes available, for in his first interview he uttered these lines:

"Let's reclaim our country from the terrorists and the communists," said Alvin Greene.

On Sunday night, Greene, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in South Carolina did something no one had ever seen before - he actually appeared in front of voters at an NAACP event on his hometown of Manning.

Terrorists and communists run our country, in the mind of Alvin Greene though he failed to elaborate on who these villains are and why their intentions must be stopped.

NPR provided excellent coverage of Greene’s speech here, showing that Disingenuous White Liberals are enthralled with a senatorial race that epitomizes the world they have created:

While singing and speeches by others slowly unfolded before Greene took the podium, the candidate occasionally fidgeted, wiped his brow and intently studied a black spiral notebook where he apparently wrote his remarks. The speech by the 32-year-old unemployed military veteran had very few of the long pauses that have marked his unprepared conversations with reporters.

He opened by joking that he was not only the best candidate for Senate, but also the best choice for one of next year's NAACP Image Awards. After that, he turned serious. Greene rattled off national job loss statistics, and he said the state needs to put more people to work adding more lanes to hurricane evacuation routes.

On education, he mentioned South Carolina's dismal rankings in standardized tests.

Indeed, watching the video of Greene’s speech grants the viewer an opportunity to view a car accident as it unfolds. The metaphorical accident takes place in the opening joke and subsequently, it just gets worse and worse for the Democratic nominee for South Carolina’s open U.S. Senate seat.

If an Alvin Greene action figure doll is produced, we at SBPDL have the feeling it would be received with the enthusiasm reserved for Turbo-Man’s faithful sidekick Booster in the Jingle All the Way film.

You have to feel bad for Alvin Greene, a gentleman who probably belongs on a shrimping boat with Forrest Gump, but instead is representing the fine people of South Carolina as the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. And he is a man who believes an action figure of his likeness would spur economic activity in a state.

The prospects for the state of South Carolina are not good, based on the test scores of its students and the individual Democrats have decided should represent their state in Congress:

DeMint leads among male voters by better than four-to-one and among women by a two-to-one margin. Yet while 90% of Republican voters back DeMint, Greene earns just 50% support in his own party. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of voters not affiliated with either party prefer the incumbent.

Greene, an African-American, captures 51% of the black vote, while 74% of whites favor DeMint.

Seventy-nine percent (79%) of conservatives in the state like DeMint, while moderate and liberal voters are more closely divided over the race.

In the June 8 Democratic Primary, Greene defeated retired judge Vic Rawl with nearly 60 percent of the vote in a contest in which it appears both men did little campaigning. Now some state Democrats are complaining about Greene’s victory, even charging that it may be a Republican dirty trick, and Rawl has asked the state party to investigate.

South Carolina consistently ranks last in scholastic achievement, as the test-takers in schools across the state routinely produce mediocre results on standardized test that even kids in 3^rd world countries outpace:

The results from this year’s “End of Course Examination” come as a hard blow to parents across South Carolina.

Instead of bolstering confidence after a year of low SAT scores, widening achievement gap, and increasing dropout rate; results from this latest round of testing only confirm to parents the desperate need for real education reform.

Even with improvements reported in English and Physical Science testing, overall scores indicate that huge numbers of students are not learning even the most basic skills in key subjects.

In English, nearly 49% of all students taking the test scored either a D or an F. Physical science scores are even more disheartening, with 63% of students scoring a D or an F.
Mathematics results are equally dismal. Over 45% of all students who tested received either a D or an F.

In fact, Algebra scores for black and white students have dropped since Rex took office in 2006.

Sadly, scores that are already shockingly low look even worse in light of the significant achievement gap between black and white students.

In Algebra testing, over 66% of white students scored a C or above, nearly double the percentage of black students who scored as well.
English test scores indicate that only 31.8% of black test takers scored a C or better, while over 65% of white test takers received a C or above.

For a state that already spends $11,000 per student, you have to ask yourself if the taxpayer is seeing any tangible benefit or return on investment from the speculation in providing free education to children who drop out of schools there to the tune of 158 a day.

Public education has always been a Ponzi scheme that Bernie Madoff would be hard-pressed to replicate, but in South Carolina the failed venture continues to receive funding despite the poor rate of return:

Here are some facts to wrap your head around: Just 55 percent of high schools students in South Carolina graduate on time. Statewide there were 167 public school students “lost” each day of the school year. Only 45 percent of African American students and 39 percent of Hispanic students earn a state diploma in four years. South Carolina continues to lag behind the national average of a 69 percent graduation rate - the state ranks 48th in the nation, ahead of just New Mexico and Nevada.

Alvin Greene is no action hero, just the culmination of Democracy in its inspiring finality. Demographically, South Carolina is a state in utter disrepair. One writer believes desegregation brought about the famed white-Black gap in education, and that this caused the term Acting White to gain popularity among Black high achievers.

If this writer is to be believed perhaps Alvin Greene – if elected – can enact a last ditch effort to permanently fill the gaping aperture between white and Black students by instituting a restoration of segregation.

To believe the living standards we currently enjoy can perpetuate into the future with high drop-out rates and an expanding population of individuals incapable of succeeding because they might be deemed traitors, personages who aspire to Act White, is to entertain absurdities of the highest folly.

Through it all, one can only smile when they hear that Alvin Greene wants to take the country back from “terrorists and communists” because he never elaborates on just who these enemies might be or what they represent.

In the vein of Mein Obama, Alvin Green represents a shining example of the vaunted Obama Effect in action. Unlike Forrest Gump’s ill-fated, shrimp boating best friend, Bubba, Alvin Greene is deluded with visions of grandeur that just might come to fruition.

He is the ultimate representative of the best and brightest of a rising generation of Americans that will be entrusted with maintaining the nation.

We do need a hero to combat the “terrorists and communists” and reclaim our nation as Mr. Greene so astutely pointed out. Alas, he is not that hero.

Instead, Alvin Greene is nothing more than a Bubba Blue look-a-like from Forrest Gump. As the era of American exceptionalism comes to a crashing end, can a better representative be found who personifies this breakdown?

Well, besides Hank Johnson that is?

Indeed, Alvin Greene is the last action hero.