When Clinton was in office, I believed that the Republicans and conservatives who were crowing about the low moral of the war fighters, "because of Bill Clinton", was taking things too far. In the case of Clinton, it was another case of the "opposition" going too far.
Now, we have this statement by Rep. John Murtha:
Most U.S. troops will leave Iraq within a year because the Army is "broken, worn out" and "living hand to mouth," Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record) told a civic group.
I thought in the past, and I think now, that the enemies of the U.S. read and view our news media. Statements like that quoted, does nothing but give strength to our enemies as well has hurt the moral of our war fighters.
Murtha should know better.
This one has been swirling around in my mind for a bit. It's not formulated completely, but I just want to put it out there.
Michael Steele is getting support from the national Republican party because he is a Black Republican. He's getting help from Karl Rove, the president, and national conservative talk shows.
Michael Steele is the man.
Michael Steele is running his U.S. Senate for Maryland race, not as a Republican, but as an individual. His campaign is saying, forget the party labels and look at the man and the issues.
Now, he could be said that he is doing that so that Blacks "forget" he is a Republican and vote for him. But that is not the case.
Indeed, his campaign is looking at the Maryland demographics, 2:1 registered Democrats to Republicans, and see that in a state wide race, there is no other way to run.
His campaign, which has started, has already putting out that he should be considered independent of his party and the president.
Now it appears that Bush is "fighting back" against the people who say the Bush administration lied about the reason the U.S. went to war against Iraq.
President Bush on Friday shot back at critics claiming his administration misconstrued or lied about pre-war intelligence showing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, saying "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began."
Frankly, I think it is the Bush administration that is deeply irresponsible.
The Bush administration said the reason for the action against Iraq was because of WMDs. They then said it was because of violations of U.N. sanctions. They then said it was because of Saadam's treatment of Iraq citizens. Then it was said the seed of Democracy in the country would be good for the Middle East.
At one point, the president was saying that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11/2001 attacks, but the vice-president was saying that Iraq was involved.
Did the Bush administration communicate a clear and consistent story for the action against Iraq?
No.
In fact, the most consistent and supportive reasons for action against Iraq came not from the Bush administration, but from commentators and pundits who backed the administration.
Men and women of our country were sent to fight in a foreign country, yet the President of the United States, seemingly, can't give a straight answer on why we are there.
In short, the Bush administration can't communicate worth jack!
So, when the opposition takes advantage of this lack of communication, the supporters of the president say the opposition is working against the interests of the U.S.
I have a question about working against the interests of the U.S.
Was it working against the interest of the U.S. when the opposition called the sitting president "white trash"?
Was it working against the interest of the U.S. when the opposition said the president was guilty of having fathered the son of a Black prostitute?
Was it working against the interest of the U.S. when the opposition said the president was the cause of low morale in the service?
Was it working against the interest of the U.S. when the opposition pushed story after story of enlisted military people who wanted to leave the service?
Was it working against the interest of the U.S. when the opposition started writing articles of impeachment after the president was re-elected, but before any revelations of sexual misconduct and perjury?
Was it working against the interest of the U.S. when the opposition stated a military action was done to cover up a situation concerning sexual misconduct?
Was it working against the interest of the U.S. when the opposition stated agencies tasked with defending the U.S. are not supported by the administration in power?
In the end, it comes down to partisanship and power. People want their party to be in power so they will have some power to do what they want to do; health and security of the U.S. be damned.
The men and women in the military deserve better. The people of the U.S. deserve better.
Tom Delay is hittin' the pipe or maybe he's doing meth. Either way, he's on something GOOD to say this:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said yesterday that Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an "ongoing victory," and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget.
Mr. DeLay was defending Republicans' choice to borrow money and add to this year's expected $331 billion deficit to pay for Hurricane Katrina relief. Some Republicans have said Congress should make cuts in other areas, but Mr. DeLay said that doesn't seem possible.
"My answer to those that want to offset the spending is sure, bring me the offsets, I'll be glad to do it. But nobody has been able to come up with any yet," the Texas Republican told reporters at his weekly briefing.
Asked if that meant the government was running at peak efficiency, Mr. DeLay said, "Yes, after 11 years of Republican majority we've pared it down pretty good."
The way President Bush detailed the programs to be used to help out the Katrina Hurricane victims were all the way Republicans have tried to address certain issues.
So, in one way I don't see why conservatives are not happy. Bush wants to use government to address ills in the way Republicans want to use government, not the way Democrats want to use the government.
Oh...
Wait....
The costs associated with the programs?
Who cares about the costs?
After all, look at the amount of pork in the current highway spending.
There is a new person getting into the primary Democratic race for the chance to run for in teh general election for the U.S. Senate.
The person is white. I heard him on a radio talk show today. When explaining why he should be the person to get the Democratic nomination, he mentioned the other white candidate, Ben Cardin, by name. But he NEVER mentioned Mfume, as if Mfume is a non-factor.
This is what some white Democratic pundits in Maryland feared. The reason being is that whites will split their vote and Mfume will get to run in the general election. But this is the situation that Republicans like because they believe that the Republican candidate, Michael Steele, will wipe up the floor with Mfume.
Stay tuned...
So, I'm home a little early from work, stretched out on the bed, with my headphones on, listening to sometimes talk radio. (The kid is asleep at the head of the bed, I'm at the foot of the bed).
I wake up from a catnap to hear Black people talking about the Republican vs. Democratic party thing.
One person gets his facts twisted and states "Republicans" when it should be "Democrats". The Republicans in the discussion jump on him.
Should I mention this was an all Black panel?
Anyway...
What got me is one person said that parties don't matter, it's the policies that matter.
That's where I'm at in this stage of my life.
To hell with the party labels, I'm going to support the PERSON who is saying things that most align with my views.
Alan Keyes and Michael Steele and Olympia Snowe are all in the same party. (Shouldn't Keyes be pissed about the GOP pushing Steele as a star?)
Mfume, Ford, Teddy Kennedy and Zell Miller are all in the same party.
Screw the labels, I'm staying independent and will support the person not the party.
Footnote: I find it a damn shame that some people can't handle a person being critical of a party but that not meaning that a person supports the opposition party. How many people realize that the U.S. political system is not a 2 party system, but a multi-party system with the 2 primary parties rigging the game against all other parties?
OK, this is just foul.
From the Drudge Report:
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU AUG 04, 2005 11:35:09 ET XXXXX
NY TIMES INVESTIGATES ADOPTION RECORDS OF SUPREME COURT NOMINEE'S CHILDREN
**Exclusive**
The NEW YORK TIMES is looking into the adoption records of the children of Supreme Court Nominee John G. Roberts, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
The TIMES has investigative reporter Glen Justice hot on the case to investigate the status of adoption records of Judge Roberts’ two young children, Josie age 5 and Jack age 4, a top source reveals.
Judge Roberts and his wife Jane adopted the children when they each were infants.
Both children were adopted from Latin America.
A TIMES insider claims the look into the adoption papers are part of the paper's "standard background check."
That. Is. Just. Wrong.
So we have the Republican Party chair saying this:
Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman attended the NAACP convention in Milwaukee Thursday. He planned to express regrets for Republican attitudes toward blacks in the past.
"Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization," Mehlman said in remarks prepared for delivery. "I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."
Now, I've been saying for some time that it isn't entirely "the fault" of Black voters that Blacks vote Dem in such high numbers, and that Repubs have to carry a lot of "the blame".
And I've said that if that was acknowledged and proceed from there, things would be different. That is the path that Michael Steele uses when he says his party was wrong to support strategies that divide and that it was wrong for Repubs to "turn away" from Blacks who used to support the party so strongly.
But coming from a non-Repub, which doesn't mean a Dem, I always catch a lot of heat for it. Even when I provided supporting information from white and Black Repubs.
Now I want to see how Republicans respond to Mehlman.
Next, is this from the same article:
Bush told the Indiana Black Expo that he believes in an America where all people, including blacks, have the chance to own homes and businesses and share in the country's prosperity.
In discussions I've had with a few Black Republicans who were trying to get me to become a Republican and/or during political conversations were they whined complained about lack of Black support, I've asked why they weren't at places "Black leaders" were. Why weren't they at "Black Expos"? I saw the local chapters of the Urban League, the NAACP, League of Negro Women, and the like, but not one "Black Republican" or "Black conservative" group.
OK, now THIS has been what I've been trying to get at with the "Black liberal" vs. "Black libera" madness. This is true for especially the last quote.
Joseph C. Phillips nails it!
And it is not just those on the left who are guilty. There is an old saying that when you point one finger at others, you point three fingers at yourself. Those of us on the right have engaged in our share of outrageous rhetoric. I have not cut off my Democratic friends, but I cannot claim innocence. The fact that I am now mourning the loss of a cherished friend has convinced me that we must turn down the fire. Political passions run deep but what do we accomplish by raising the temperature so high that we are unable to speak to one another, no longer able to recognize each other’s humanity?
...
What is clear is that none of us has a monopoly on morality, patriotism or good ideas. It also becomes increasingly clear that our republic and the citizens therein suffer when the exchange of ideas is sacrificed in favor of overblown political rhetoric.
On the basis of a new study, a team of political scientists is arguing that people's gut-level reaction to issues like the death penalty, taxes and abortion is strongly influenced by genetic inheritance. The new research builds on a series of studies that indicate that people's general approach to social issues - more conservative or more progressive - is influenced by genes.
Tammany Fall
When Tom DeLay became majority whip in January 1995, he and Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, initiated the K Street Project, a plan to force lobbyists to hire only Republicans and raise money only for Republican candidates. It was based on the assumption that, by monopolizing political contributions from business, Republicans could preserve the congressional majority they had just won. But DeLay had his own stake in the project. By controlling the flow of these contributions, he could enhance his own power within the party. That, after all, was how he had defeated Robert Walker, Speaker Newt Gingrich's candidate for whip--by raising and dispensing over $2 million during the fall election to Republican House candidates.
Inquiring minds want to know which if any members of the CBC attempted anything so audacious back in the day when democrats actually called some shots on capital hill?
As a first step in tightening ties between corporate America and the Republican Congress, DeLay convened a meeting of lobbyists in early 1995 to write legislation that would freeze new government regulations on business. DeLay's success that year in getting the House to adopt this legislation and in waylaying the Clinton administration's ergonomics regulations cemented his ties to a group of lobbyists who would become his "kitchen cabinet."
Then, in 1998, as he was assuming de facto control of the House from an embattled Gingrich, DeLay began to threaten firms and trade associations that refused to replace Democratic staffers with Republicans. When the Electronic Industries Association hired former Democratic Representative Dave McCurdy as its president, DeLay held up copyright legislation it had lobbied for. And, in the spring of 1999, after a court ruled against Microsoft in an antitrust suit, DeLay let Microsoft know that, if it wanted Republican support, it should hire Republican lobbyists and fund Republican candidates. Recalls one high-tech lobbyist, "The [GOP] leadership was pretty much saying that, if we are going to bail you out, what are you giving to those [Democratic] guys for?"
The pressure worked. Although the Electronic Industries Association retained McCurdy, it made him a figurehead and put the actual lobbying work into the hands of two conservative Republicans. Microsoft began hiring Republicans and giving the bulk of its contributions to Republicans, including DeLay. (During the 2004 election cycle, for instance, Microsoft gave DeLay's PAC the maximum of $10,000.) By the late '90s, lobbying firms and trade associations were coming to DeLay's office to have their new hires cleared.
That's when DeLay took the K Street Project one step further. He didn't just get lobbying firms to hire Republicans; he got them to hire his former staff. Through these staffers, DeLay created a network of lobbyists, political consultants, and conservative activists who did his bidding. The ex-staffers on K Street didn't act like conventional lobbyists, who represent the interests of their clients. When DeLay staffers left his office for K Street, they continued to represent his interests as well as those of their clients. They would tell businesses how to please DeLay--and that meant funding him and his political operations. And, in addition, they would aid and oversee the organizations that he was developing to enhance his power. The result was the rise of a political machine reminiscent of New York's Boss Tweed or Mississippi's Theodore Bilbo.
That machine is one reason DeLay, now the majority leader, has continued to amass power over the last decade. With its assistance, he has raised much more money than any other House member, ensuring loyalty and obedience from his fellow Republicans. But DeLay's relentless drive to power has created a continuing temptation to sell votes, exceed campaign funding limits, and cloak greed in the guise of charity or education. DeLay, like Tweed and Bilbo, has repeatedly succumbed to this temptation to bend the law. That's why, as clouds of scandal gather over DeLay's office, the same political machinations that contributed to his rise to power may finally lead to his downfall.
ince 1984, DeLay has employed about 300 people in his congressional and leadership offices and about 75 more on his campaigns and at his political and charitable organizations, including Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (armpac) and the DeLay Foundation for Kids. Working for DeLay was a plum assignment for ambitious conservatives, but many left after three or four years, with DeLay's blessing, to become lobbyists and political operatives.
Indeed, lobbying firms competed intensely for top DeLay staffers. Says one high-level Republican lobbyist for a trade association, "There is always a premium for people coming from [the congressional] leadership, and DeLay has run a tighter ship, so that has put a premium on contacts with people who serve in his office." After the lobbying firm Williams & Jensen landed former DeLay Chief of Staff Susan Hirschmann in 2002, National Journal termed it "the biggest hiring coup of the year."
Since the late '90s, 29 DeLay alumni have acquired major lobbying positions on K Street. (That dwarfs any other leadership office. Speaker Dennis Hastert, for instance, has six former staffers on K Street.) Together, they represent around 350 firms and institutions, including the bulk of the country's energy firms, the giants of the finance and technology sectors, the airlines, the auto manufacturers, the tobacco companies, and the country's largest health care and pharmaceutical companies. Former DeLay staffers also represent 13 of the biggest trade associations, including the American Petroleum Institute, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, and the Information Technology Industry Council. Microsoft, for instance, has retained a host of DeLay alumni, including nine lobbyists from the Alexander Strategy Group, which former DeLay Chief of Staff Ed Buckham founded in 1998 with a huge initial contract that DeLay secured from Enron. (The group also paid DeLay's wife a salary for several years.)
A few former staffers went to work for other House members or senators before leaving for K Street and are more clearly identified with them than DeLay. But most DeLay alumni trumpet their association with the majority leader. The Alexander Strategy Group's website sports a quotation from "Ed Buckham, partner, former chief of staff, Majority Leader Tom DeLay." The former staffers call themselves "Team DeLay," and, after DeLay's legislative director, Drew Maloney, quit to join the Federalist Group in 2002, he convened a meeting of ex-staffers every six weeks. One attendee, former Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Rudy, who is now with the Alexander Strategy Group, told National Journal, "There is a lot of discussion about how we can help Republican candidates and expand the majority." As for DeLay, Rudy added, "As long as he wants me, I'll be there for him." (DeLay, as well as Buckham and Rudy, did not respond to interview requests for this story, and former staffers who were interviewed insisted on not being quoted.)
DeLay's former staffers have also migrated to conservative Republican organizations. These include several high-powered communications firms. Former Press Secretary Michael Scanlon heads Capital Campaign Strategies, which is known as the partner of former lobbyist and DeLay crony Jack Abramoff in bilking American Indian tribes. Former DeLay Director of Communications Jonathan Baron's Red Sea LLC handles polling and media relations for armpac, Republican candidates, and the Club for Growth. DeLay alumni also occupy key positions in the Christian Coalition, the International Republican Institute, the National Right to Life Committee, the Home School Legal Defense Association, the Traditional Values Coalition, and Concerned Women for America.
DeLay has alumni throughout the Bush administration, including the White House and the Commerce, Justice, and State Departments, too. In January 2004, after reaching an antitrust agreement with Microsoft on its browser, Internet Explorer, the Justice Department appointed Patricia Brink, who had served for ten years as DeLay's press secretary, to oversee Microsoft's compliance. Asked whether the appointment could reflect DeLay's influence, one lobbyist commented, "I think that was a significant choice."
In the House, DeLay pushed Hastert, who had been his deputy whip, into becoming speaker in 1998 and nominated Missouri Representative Roy Blunt to succeed him as whip when he became majority leader in 2000. Many of their key staff are DeLay alumni, including Hastert's director of operations and Blunt's deputy chief of staff and director of floor operations. DeLay also has staffers in high positions in at least eight other House offices, including that of Republican John Boehner, who, along with Blunt, is often mentioned as a possible successor to DeLay.
These connections--and lobbying ties in particular--have allowed DeLay to dominate the relationship between K Street and the Republican Party. When pharmaceutical companies wanted a prescription-drug bill in 2003 that would not force them to bargain with the government over prices or to compete with imported drugs, they worked through a broad coalition organized by Hirschmann. The pharmaceutical companies also hired five other former DeLay staffers to lobby, including three from Buckham's Alexander Strategy Group. When energy firms wanted to pass a provision that would retroactively limit liability for manufacturers of mtbe, a toxic gasoline additive, they hired Maloney. And, when tobacco companies wanted to keep the Food and Drug Administration from regulating their industry, they looked to former DeLay staffer Karl Gallant at the Alexander Strategy Group.
DeLay almost invariably came through for these lobbyists and their clients, badgering and even allegedly attempting to bribe Republicans who didn't want to back the budget-busting prescription-drug bill, blocking the Bush administration's energy bill because the Senate version didn't limit mtbe liability, and killing a provision in a tobacco bill that would have permitted FDA regulation. His success redounded in fund-raising receipts. During the 2004 election cycle, two tobacco companies, R. J. Reynolds and Brown and Williamson, gave the maximum $10,000 contributions to DeLay's PAC. Energy companies contributed $143,425 and pharmaceutical companies $106,000 to DeLay's reelection campaign in the cycle.
ut DeLay's former staffers not only raised money for his campaigns--all lobbyists have their clients give money to politicians they want to influence--they also helped fund and staff his PACs and a succession of shadowy groups that intended to advance DeLay's personal agenda and preserve his power in the House. These efforts have proved enormously remunerative, but they have also contributed to the scandals and investigations that have dogged him.
The heart of DeLay's fund-raising has always been armpac, which he founded before the 1994 election to buy support from fellow Republicans. Initially overshadowed by Newt Gingrich's gopac, it became the leading House Republican PAC after Gingrich resigned. Its directors have played musical chairs between DeLay's offices and the Alexander Strategy Group, to which, at one point, armpac paid rent. After DeLay became majority whip, he recruited tobacco lobbyist Gallant to head it. Gallant was succeeded in late 1997 by Buckham, who also set up the Alexander Strategy Group, where Gallant went to work. In 1999, Jim Ellis, who worked for the Alexander Strategy Group, succeeded Buckham as armpac's director. Buckham and Ellis (along with Abramoff and later Hirschmann) became DeLay's principal political advisers.
ARMPAC was wildly successful. From 1998 to 2004, it raised $14.3 million, which it dispensed to the National Republican Congressional Committee (nrcc) and Republican House members. But DeLay was never satisfied with armpac, which had to disclose its contributors and limit the size of their hard money contributions. So, after the 1998 election, DeLay, Buckham, Ellis, and Gallant set up three dubious fund-raising vehicles: the U.S. Family Network (usfn), Americans for Economic Growth (AEG), and the Republican Majority Issues Committee (rmic). Usfn and AEG were registered as tax-exempt "social welfare" organizations that didn't have to report their contributors but did have to devote the bulk of their time to nonpolitical activities. The rmic could participate in politics but couldn't back specific candidates. All of these organizations were supposed to be independent of DeLay, but DeLay's lieutenants ran them on his behalf. Usfn, run by DeLay's former campaign manager, Robert Mills, seemed designed to subsidize DeLay's political operations and Buckham's lobbying. It raised over $1 million from five donors, which it used to purchase a Washington, D.C., townhouse for armpac and the Alexander Strategy Group and a 15-year lease on an MCI Center skybox (presumably to entertain clients and donors). In 1999, the nrcc--whose chairman, Representative Tom Davis, owed his position to DeLay's support, and which hired Buckham as a consultant--sent the usfn $500,000, most of which it funneled to AEG for ads in congressional races. The FEC later ruled that the nrcc was trying to avoid rules on the use of corporate money by laundering it through the two organizations and fined it $280,000.
DeLay shut down usfn and AEG after the 2000 election and rmic soon afterward. But he wasn't finished with questionable ventures. After the 2002 congressional election, when new campaign finance rules took effect barring members of Congress from raising soft money, DeLay's hand could be seen in the establishment of the Leadership Forum, chaired by Hirschmann and launched with a $1 million grant from the nrcc. And, on the eve of the Republican convention last August, DeLay established a "charity," Celebrations for Children, which planned to use the money it raised to entertain lobbyists and politicians at the convention.
But, of all DeLay's ventures, the one that has gotten him in the most trouble is Texans for a Republican Majority (trmpac). In September 2001, DeLay and Ellis established trmpac to help Republican candidates win control of Texas's House of Representatives in the 2002 elections, so that they could vote for a new congressional redistricting plan that was aimed at replacing seven Democratic incumbents with Republicans. Trmpac raised $1.6 million for Republican statehouse candidates, but at least $600,000 of trmpac's funds came from corporations. That's against Texas law, which forbids corporations and unions from funding state campaigns. Last September, a grand jury in Travis County indicted Ellis and two co-workers, John Colyandro and Warren Robold (who came from armpac).
DeLay denies that he had any knowledge of trmpac's fund-raising, but the entire operation was geared toward attracting his donors. Trmpac's fund-raisers went after not only Texas companies, but also firms like Kansas City- based Westar Energy Corporation, which didn't have any special business in Texas but wanted to buy favors from the majority leader. And DeLay's former staffers from K Street were brought in to involve DeLay in the fund-raising.
One of these ex-staffers was Drew Maloney of the Federalist Group. In June 2002, Maloney organized a joint armpac/trmpac golf fund-raiser featuring DeLay at the Homestead Resort in Virginia. It included several energy companies interested in limiting mtbe liability and Westar, which wanted a special exemption from public utility laws. In an e-mail to another former staffer, Chris Perkins, who was working for armpac, Maloney explained that Westar was giving $25,000 to trmpac on the understanding DeLay would champion its legislation. And, after reportedly asking Westar executives what they wanted, DeLay did so. DeLay later drew an admonishment from the House Ethics Committee for appearing to sell his vote to Westar.
As the Travis County case and a civil suit by former Democratic Representative Chris Bell, a victim of DeLay's gerrymandering, have proceeded, e-mails have surfaced linking DeLay directly to trmpac through his ex-staffers. In one e-mail, Maloney told Robold that he had two checks from Reliant Energy that he would give to DeLay to convey to trmpac. "Will deliver to T.D. next week probably," Maloney wrote. In another, Robold asked Colyandro to draw up a list of the top ten potential givers. "I would then decide from response who Tom DeLay others [sic] should call," Robold wrote. These and other e-mails could provide the basis for indicting DeLay. At the least, they add further detail to the picture of DeLay as an accessory to corruption.
eLay has, of course, been dodging investigators and civil suits since 1999 without any apparent reduction in his power. Up until this year, his notable successes--for instance, winning the Republicans six additional House seats from Texas--increased his clout. But DeLay's accumulation of misdeeds, most of which grew out of his attempt to create a political machine that would put lobbyists and their clients at his service, may have finally stalled his drive to power. Facing a panoply of ethics charges, DeLay's influence has begun to wane.
In the face of new charges against Delay, the House voted earlier this year to repeal the changes in ethics rules that were adopted last November at DeLay's behest--and which would have allowed him to keep his leadership position even if indicted in Texas. DeLay also failed to block a bill relaxing government rules on funding stem-cell research. Says one influential Republican lobbyist, "You would not think that, if he were at the height of his powers, the stem-cell bill would have passed." Only a handful of DeLay's colleagues showed up at a tribute that the American Conservative Union held for him in Washington on May 12. And Republicans, who once coveted DeLay's backing, are now worried about suffering from a "DeLay factor" in November 2006.
Social conservatives like Paul Weyrich and James Dobson of Focus on the Family have stood solidly behind him, but other conservatives have begun to waver. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page has criticized DeLay for ethical lapses. And even his closest conservative allies are distancing themselves. Norquist, while insisting that DeLay has not been weakened by the scandal, tried to dissociate DeLay from the K Street Project. "Not to be critical of DeLay," Norquist says, "but this is an outside project where we have raised the importance of hiring people who understand economics." Norquist showed up briefly at the tribute to DeLay but left before the dinner and the speeches.
There has also been a sharp falloff in DeLay's fundraising. Contributions to his legal defense fund have plummeted, even as DeLay's legal expenses have mounted. In the last quarter of 2004, DeLay raised $254,250. In the first quarter of this year, he raised only $47,750. Contributions to armpac may also be falling off. In its FEC filing for the first months of this year, armpac listed $386,252 in contributions. In a comparable filing for the first four months of 2003 (also at the beginning of an election cycle), armpac listed $446,223 in contributions. (According to FEC records, DeLay also loaned his congressional campaign $100,000 this spring.)
DeLay could still rebound, or he could be forced out as Gingrich was, allowing Blunt, who is being groomed as his successor, to take up where he left off. But, in the growing public disquiet with congressional corruption--which is reminiscent of the early '90s--there are clear warning signs to DeLay and to Republicans. In trying to introduce the kind of political machine most commonly found in postbellum Mississippi or Tammany New York City, DeLay may have damaged not only his career, but also the Republicans' grip on Washington.
I don't understand why conservatives are whining about the "fillibuster compromise". Bush gets 3 nominees to get the up or down vote and he gets to nominate a lot more with limited reason to believe there will be a fillibuster.
I don't get the opposition unless members of the conservative media are doing a joint okie doke.
So, The Washington Post says that Mfume has women problems.
It's interesting that this has come out after Cardin has announced his candidancy.
It's also interesting that Cardin announced with many Black politicians supporting him, while Mfume has no Black politicians publically supporting him.
It's also interesting that this allegation is out there and now people are wondering if it was Cardin's camp, someone inside the NAACP who doesn't like Mfume, Jullian Bond supporters, the woman, or maybe even the Maryland Democratic party.
Today on a conservative talk radio program, Gov. Ehrlich called in and said Mfume was a nice guy, his friend, and that the source of the allegations have to be considered. Previously, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele has said that he and Mfume are friends.
Mfume has an opponent for the Democratic nomination to run for the Maryland senate seat.
At first I didn't care if Mfume had to fit for the nomination. After all, he has experience and these battles make sure that the best candidate to run a campaign, wins.
But now that I think about it, I've changed my mind. The Maryland Democratic party should be doing what the Maryland Republican party and the national Republican party are doing. They should have cleared the decks for one person.
The GOP is pushing Lt. Gov. Michael Steele to get into the race.
Right now, if it comes down to Mfume and Cardin, Cardin wins because of the "racial baggage" of the NAACP. Even if all Blacks who are registered as Democrats vote for Mfume in the primary election, without a sizable white vote, Mfume will not win.
I don't believe white Maryland Democrat voters will give Mfume their votes. Additionally, Cardin has already lined up Black politicians to support him.
It is noticable that not one Black politician has said that he will support Mfume, although Mfume announced a few weeks ago.
Black Democrats in Maryland are about to get shown how much Black support of Democrats really means.
"No permanent friends. No permanent enemies. Only permanent interests."
So I'm listening to the Fox talking head show and they are discussing the judicial nomination games.
If judges are being blocked because of their faith, as some are saying or are saying that "a pattern is emerging that judges of faith are being blocked", then shouldn't they be mad about the 124 appointees that have not been blocked?
What do I mean? Well, if Democrats have let 124 appointees go by, then they must not be people of faith. And if they are not people of faith, then shouldn't the people complaining be asking why Bush is nominating people who are not people of faith?
[ Update ]
Oh yes. Isn't it interesting that people are bringing up fillibusters that happened against the Civil Rights era to brow beat Black people who seem to support what's going on?
Race card anyone?
Of the Sunday talking head shows, Fox Sunday and Meet the Press are the cream of the crop. Meet the Press, in my opinion, towers above all. Russert really is non-partial in his questioning and does not let the politicians get away with much.
Today, I saw Fox Sunday but not Meet the Press. If you watched the show, and if you are not so much of a partisan that you just refuse to admit "your side" is ingenuous, then you have to admit that the Republican and Democratic senators discussing judges and the blockage of voting for judge appointees are a good reason why politicans are held in such low regard.
Fact: Republicans did not allow many of Clinton's appointees to get a vote by using secret holds or just refusing to allow appointees to get a vote in the conference committee. If Republicans want to discuss constitutional issues, then they have to admit that there is no constitutional support for conference committees in the Constitution.
Fact: Democrats are not allowing some appointees to get a vote by invoking the fillibuster tactics. Republicans have firm ground in saying that judge appointees, by tradition, have not been fillibustered, although there is one situation in the 1800s that it happened.
From my point of view, they both came off looking like snake-oil salesmen. They both are playing the American public for fools.
Whooops.
Counsel to GOP Senator Wrote Memo On Schiavo
Martinez Aide Who Cited Upside For Party Resigns
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 7, 2005; Page A01
The legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) admitted yesterday that he was the author of a memo citing the political advantage to Republicans of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, the senator said in an interview last night.
Brian H. Darling, 39, a former lobbyist for the Alexander Strategy Group on gun rights and other issues, offered his resignation and it was immediately accepted, Martinez said.
Martinez, the GOP's Senate point man on the issue, said he earlier had been assured by aides that his office had nothing to do with producing the memo. "I never did an investigation, as such," he said. "I just took it for granted that we wouldn't be that stupid. It was never my intention to in any way politicize this issue."
Martinez, a freshman who was secretary of housing and urban development for most of President Bush's first term, said he had not read the one-page memo. He said he inadvertently passed it to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who had worked with him on the issue. After that, officials gave the memo to reporters for ABC News and The Washington Post.
1. The power of blogs is over-rated.
2. Blogs have the same problem the "MSM" has when it comes to source verification and validation, fighting deliberate hoaxes, biases, etc.
This is a piece by a Maryland political commentator. He's "plugged into" Maryland Democratic politics and has a decent understanding of what goes on. However, he doesn't get the Black sde of Maryland politics very well, IMO.
But this piece about the senate race to replace Sarbanes is good for some thought:
Here’s the deal: The hypothetical match-up between Kwiesi Mfume and Lt. Gov. Michael Steele comes down to this: Voters will get to choose between a man in a dashiki with six illegitimate sons and an ex-seminarian who goes to mass every Sunday with his wife and kids.But Senate race 2006 is unlikely to produce such a contrast between the two black candidates. And the reason is that Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin will likely spoil the equation.
Assume that’s the case, and Mfume’s a loser either way – to Cardin in the primary election, or to Steele in the general. Assume further that in a Cardin-Steele face-off, Cardin will carry the election for the Democrats and retain the seat of Sen. Paul Sarbanes.And if Cardin tip-toes into the fray, as is his cogito, ergo sum approach to politics, he’s likely to squeeze out other Democrats as well.
The new paradigm in politics is the so-called 527 committee, i.e., Swift Boat Veterans, that operate as vigilante groups outside the margins of formal campaigns. Consider how the Swift Boat Vets bludgeoned John Kerry and think, for a moment, how a similar shadow group will decapitate Mfume.To be sure, Mfume packs a ton of baggage leftover from his incendiary past and his louche life as a wastrel youth, just the right stuff for slice-and-dice attack television ads. To his everlasting credit, though, Mfume picked himself up, dusted himself off and went on to become virtually the president of black America as head of the NAACP.
So says David Lambro:
At a well-attended "town hall" meeting in heavily black Prince George's County, Md., some 250 people turned out to hear Mr. Mehlman in a question-and-answer dialogue. It was a rare event in a party that has all too often ignored the black community. A chief adviser to Mr. Mehlman told me this week he plans to meet with and speak to a broad range of black groups in the coming weeks. A major speech is planned at predominantly black Howard University, and he plans to visit more black neighborhoods. "There will be a lot of community-type events within the African-American community," this adviser told me. Notably, Mr. Mehlman appeared last week on the nationally televised PBS talk show named after and hosted by Tavis Smiley, who sponsored the civil-rights meeting in Atlanta that alarmed Miss Brazile. An independent-minded black leader who wants a broader political dialogue in the black community, Mr. Smiley is being sounded out by the NAACP to become its next president, a sign that the venerable black organization may be ready to soften its often-harsh anti-GOP rhetoric.
This is funny.
Based on a ""conversation" I've gotten myself into on LaShawn's blog, I've noticed a continuing trend that I find fascinating.
"Liberals" call me "conservative".
"Conservatives" call me "liberal".
Define "liberal" or/and "conservative" and then define why I'm classified as such.
I can't, and don't, classify myself. I know most people won't even agree on the definitions of both labels when hard pressed.
As one who has been sick to death of hearing yang about the 'Southern Strategy' it is quite refreshing to use the internet as a real resource and find out exactly what they are doing today.
Here is a link to the hottest document in the blogosphere. Hosted at Vision Circle and available for posterity.
First is the Kos Scanned Version
This is a zipped file: luntz.zip that contains two PDFs of the scanned original document. I obtained this from The Daily Kos.
Download: luntz.zip
MD5: 50ec69dd29e8933c0a7a060f28842673
Second is the Ball Text Version
This is my PDF of a text transcription. It is not complete as of this posting but should be done by next week.
Big Props to P6 and Faye Anderson for both calling out the 800lb turd in the republican punchbowl - and in so doing - helping me to precisely articulate the cause of my discomfort with the GOP. For any who wonder why it's so difficult to extend the benefit of the doubt to the administration on any contentious issue, for me, I'd have to say it's circumspection regarding the climate of consciousness in a collective which not only embraced but has continued to evolve the infamous southern strategy.
Personally, until that cold day in political hell comes along when the party brain trust repudiates this insufferable element, count me as one conservative black man who'll feel about as warm and cozy for this administration and the contemporary GOP as Mrs. Bill O'Reilly must feel about Mr. Bill in the aftermath of his multimillion $$$ sexual harassment settlement.
Someone please tell me what friggin' sense it makes to be angry at Blacks for voting for Democrats when it was white Republicans who instituted the Southern Strategy?
In other words, why are Blacks castigated for voting against a party that shunned them?
Why is it that when the history of the party is mentioned, it always stops before the Southern Strategy?
From Tony Snow:
After years in the political hinterlands, Republicans finally have discovered they can't win elections without appealing to hearts and they can't woo undecided voters unless they put forward a face that looks like a cola commercial -- filled with men and women, whites, blacks, Asian-Americans, Hispanics, you name it.In other words, they have repudiated Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy," which wrote off black voters in a quest to turn the Solid South into a Republican redoubt. While that strategy worked for Nixon, it cost the GOP dearly in the long run. Racial separatism may have enjoyed a quiet vogue as recently as the '70s, but no more -- and Powell was on the mark when he warned that Republicans have a long way to go before they assemble a credible and durable Rainbow Coalition of their own.
I asked that of a conservative radio show host. He disconnected me.
An additional quote by Tony Snow:
Consider two recent Republican analogues, Richard Nixon and Pete Wilson. Nixon earned two trips to the Inaugural Ball by adopting a "Southern Strategy" that exploited the enmity between black and white Southerners. He managed to turn the "solid South" from a Democratic into a Republican stronghold, but he also deepened the impression that the GOP was a whites- only party.As recently as 1952, 40 percent of blacks voted Republican. That number dwindled to 20 percent by Nixon's first election -- and since has fallen nearer to 10 percent. The decline in black support also has weakened the allegiance of white suburbanites, who like to consider themselves enlightened on the matter of racial comity.
A charter such as this should have been drawn up by and for black folks the minute Thomas Sowell first mentioned it.
The question posed by Rev. Jackson to the Baptist Convention, i.e., "how many of you have been requested to perform same sex marriages in your church?" is right on point here. Some of the individual liberty and social justice issues confabulated with "morality" by the GOP are deeply troubling. As with the War on Terrorism, black folk should not be predisposed to accept any old thing coming out from under the GOP big tent. The "big tent" comfortably plays host to many a troubling and funky assemblage, and should always be handled with extreme caution.
I'm afraid that because we have failed to circle our own wagons and construct our own charter for change, we're now being cajoled into signing onto a Faustian agreement.
The "Black Contract With America on Moral Values," to be unveiled today in Los Angeles, is designed to help African American churches gain influence in the Republican Party and promote socially conservative legislation. Highlights of the plan include:
Marriage: Focus on prohibiting same-sex marriage.
• Wealth creation: Private Social Security investment accounts and encouraging homeownership.
• Education: School vouchers, charter schools and boosting black enrollment in higher education.
• Prison reform: Including a "Second Chance Act," reentry programs and laws restoring the rights of felons.
• Africa: Intervention in Sudan and penalties against corporations that explore for oil in the region.
• Healthcare overhaul: Including programs to cover the poor.
Source: Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr., Hope Christian Church, College Park, Md.
Los Angeles Times
I. AM. SHOCKED.
Republicans Reverse Course on Ethics Rules. (Reg. required)
By Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, January 4, 2005; Page A01House Republican leaders last night abandoned proposals to loosen rules governing members' ethical conduct, as they yielded to pressure from rank and file lawmakers concerned that the party was sending the wrong message.
The proposals in question would have made it more difficult for lawmakes to discipline a colleague for unethical behavior and would have allowed Majority Leader Tom DeLay to keep his post in the event he is indicted by a Texas grand jury that is looking into his campaign finance practices.
The sudden reversal came amid growing indications of dissension within the GOP. Just before House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's office announced that the controversial measures were being dropped, the outgoing chairman of the House ethics committee issued an unusual statement denouncing the leadership's plan.
Rep. Joel Hefley (Colo.), who appears on the verge of being forced out as chairman after his committee voted three times last year to admonish DeLay, issued a statement criticizing the proposed rules changes as highly partisan and not in the best interests of the House
"Ethics reform must be bipartisan and this package is not bipartisan," Hefley said after sending his Republican colleagues a letter outlining his objections.
I guess the lesson of Newt Gingrich killing Democrat House members over the check bouncing wasn't forgotten.
Last night, Michael Savage was on about his usual hindbrain ravings, when lo and behold he said, "we need to step up the racist propaganda and images of arabs so that we can better crystallize our hatred and more effectively kill these enemies of our freedom...just like during WWII"
So today, when I received the link to this strong article in my inbox, I was primed to pass it along for your consideration and comment. Primary payload excerpted below;
"Racism – at home and abroad – is a central element of the Republican "moral values" and strategy. And racism is conciliated if not actively promoted by the Democratic focus on winning more white voters by moving to the right while taking voters of color virtually for granted..........This is not just rhetoric. The future of our country and the well-being of the world depend on us. We cannot stop the right's incessant drive to dominate the world's resources and to steamroll all opposition to that program unless we pose a clear alternative. A powerful vision of peace, jobs and justice is our only chance to mobilize the democratic sentiments and courage of all the people of our country."
Let's be real for a moment.
No group has made the conscience decision to split their vote so that they will be a factor in both parties.
Groups of people have aligned themselves with a political party because that party was deemed to fit their values.
Dixiecrats left the Democratic party because of civil rights issues.
The "religious right" went to the Republican party because of "moral" issues.
Sure, the Black vote should not be in one basket, but stop acting as though others haven't heavily aligned themselves with one party.
Enough of the silliness.
Does anyone remember the House checking scandel?
The short version goes like this: Members of the House, controlled by Democrats, had the ability to write checks for whatever purpose they deemed fit. Many members of the House, bounced checks on a regular basis.
Newt Gingrich used this to beat ruling Democrats over the head. In short, he said it was proof that power corrupts.
Now, we have Tom Delay, facing indictment, being protected by the controlling party of the House; Republicans.
And this just in! Congress has raised the deficit ceiling by 800 billion dollars.
Sure, can't pay your bills because you are spending like a drunken sailor trying to lay a pretty woman, so raise your credit limit!
Sigh, I had a nice rant going and didn't save it, so this is take two.
The U.S. population has been duped by the ruling political elite. And the U.S. is worse off for it.
Some people at my job are making snide comments to each other because of opposing political views. While vacationing in Florida, "friends of the family" commented about the anger still residing over the previous Florida mess. And with respect to some people, the anger isn't generated by Democrats, it's generated by a real belief that their votes were not counted. And some for durn good reason.
Meanwhile, a "friend of the family" told us about people shouting at each other over the current political battle. Or, a boss a work saying that if Kerry is elected, all bonuses will stop right away. Hmmmmmm.....
Meanwhile the safe political elite are sitting back laughing their butts off. Those who are not safe are campaigning like their lives depend on it, which to an extent, it does. They want to stay a part of the political elite power grid. (Or is that greed?)
And the "K Street" lobby is laughing, safe in knowing that no matter who wins, they have enough contacts to still be at the political elite power grid control board.
The sad part is, Blacks have allowed themselves to be duped into being a part of this mess.
Look, here's something I found while surfing. BAMPAC is trying to be a player. Now look at this page from their annual expense report.
Administrative expenses are more than 6 times the amount that they have made in direct contributions. Before I give to charity, I check out their expense report to make sure it's being spent wisely. I wouldn't give BAMPAC a dime!
With the political elite Black pols calling other Black pols sellout, who benefits? With political elite Black pols calling other Black pols race hustlers or saying the Black population is on a plantation, who benefits?
The Patriot Act was passed without members of congress reading it. Look, that's not from Micheal Moore, members of congress said it at first. Now they are claiming otherwise.
Baah baah baah, American sheep.
Sigh, I had a nice rant going and didn't save it, so this is take two.
The U.S. population has been duped by the ruling political elite. And the U.S. is worse off for it.
Some people at my job are making snide comments to each other because of opposing political views. While vacationing in Florida, "friends of the family" commented about the anger still residing over the previous Florida mess. And with respect to some people, the anger isn't generated by Democrats, it's generated by a real belief that their votes were not counted. And some for durn good reason.
Meanwhile, a "friend of the family" told us about people shouting at each other over the current political battle. Or, a boss a work saying that if Kerry is elected, all bonuses will stop right away. Hmmmmmm.....
Meanwhile the safe political elite are sitting back laughing their butts off. Those who are not safe are campaigning like their lives depend on it, which to an extent, it does. They want to stay a part of the political elite power grid. (Or is that greed?)
And the "K Street" lobby is laughing, safe in knowing that no matter who wins, they have enough contacts to still be at the political elite power grid control board.
The sad part is, Blacks have allowed themselves to be duped into being a part of this mess.
Look, here's something I found while surfing. BAMPAC is trying to be a player. Now look at this page from their annual expense report.
Administrative expenses are more than 6 times the amount that they have made in direct contributions. Before I give to charity, I check out their expense report to make sure it's being spent wisely. I wouldn't give BAMPAC a dime!
With the political elite Black pols calling other Black pols sellout, who benefits? With political elite Black pols calling other Black pols race hustlers or saying the Black population is on a plantation, who benefits?
The Patriot Act was passed without members of congress reading it. Look, that's not from Micheal Moore, members of congress said it at first. Now they are claiming otherwise.
Baah baah baah, American sheep.
Here at Vision Circle, we're all about the kids. So today I thought I'd honor that.
My daughter was at school today...and was told that George W. Bush was going to visit. He ended up not showing up...but upon hearing about the visit one of my daughter's 5th grade classmates had this to say:
I hope if he comes and something horrible happens, he doesn't just sit there forever like he did in that classroom in Florida.
Turns out that an idiot working for the NAACP's voter registration program in Ohio paid a crackhead in crack to fill out registration forms. See here for the picture.
Now I had a friend who used to move people for a living. Whenever he needed extra help, he turned to people that just so HAPPENED to have addictions.
He found they were the best workers. Diligent, hard-working, and would follow directions readily.
I wouldn't do it...but like Chris Rock says, I can understand.
But this is a different enterprise I think. I wonder if she paid him before, or after?
....
I've been trying to get a handle on the belief that Democrats engage in more voter fraud than their Republican counterparts. To my knowledge we just don't have the same type of observable data on the Democratic end as we do from the Republican end. Folks ripping up Democratic registration forms. Folks punishing black voters for felons committed in 2010.
Now let's think a bit more about this story.
Homeboy is registering voters. Supposedly. He's on crack, and is paid in crack. What are the odds that the voters he supposedly registers are going to be real voters? What are the odds that the fake voters are even real people? The volunteer that hired him should not only be arrested, but should be slapped for incompetence.
This story is the type of spin I'm betting accompanies the crackhead story. Yep. The reason the DNC is going to steal the election is because they are paying crackheads to register imaginary voters who will then vote at the wrong polls...and have their votes counted anyway
Yep. That's the ticket.
I said a couple of years ago, and sometime this year that I thought that Bush would be lucky to get 9%. I don't think that anymore. I believe Bush should do better than he did last time out, better than his father, better than Reagan. In fact I don't recall Ford's numbers, but I would be surprised if he did worse than Ford.
In talking to my relatives I've found a lot more support than I expected to find...and this has changed my opinion. The root of their support is spiritual. I don't think they support his policy on Iraq. I don't think they support his ideas about the economy. But the idea that Bush is religious, strong in his convictions, and does not waver in the face of adversity, is very attractive to some black voters.
Of course this could all change if the Republicans use heavy handed tactics to suppress the black vote. But if they just use SOFT tactics, I'm thinking he's going to get more black votes than we've seen in some time. Very bad news for me...but hopefully the end result is more dialogue about these issues over time.
For example, I cannot overstate the fear and awe of the Third Triumverate – which is to say, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity – that pervades every conservative publishing house, because any one of these three men can make or break a book intended for a conservative audience. As I was told by one publisher: "You may not care about the consequences of taking on O'Reilly or Hannity, but we have to be careful." This is not moral cowardice on the part of the publishers, it is simply the market reality with which they must deal. It is also why most conservative commentators are eventually forced to decide if certain individuals are to be considered off-limits or not.
The Sinclair situation has me rolling my eyes and asking myself how stupid do the political elite think the U.S. is? Then I listen to talk radio and I think that they are still over-estimating the I.Q. of the general public.
Sinclair can do it's "documentary."
Fine.
The GOP says what the Dems wanted to do was censorship.
OK.
Now, look at what the GOP has said they want to do in Congress after the elections. They want to hold hearings over CBS and Dan Rather with the fake memo.
The difference is, what?
The political elite is playing us all for chumps. And it's a damn shame that Blacks are falling into the "right vs. left" garbage.
My name is "DarkStar" and I have approved of this message.
The Sinclair Broadcasting Group has recently decided to air a 42 minute long critique of Senator Kerry's service record. In response to questions about the propiety of such a move Michael Powell, (son of Colin Powell and Chairman of the FCC) had this to say:
"As a broadcaster, Sinclair does have a duty to the public interest," FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell told The Washington Post by e-mail. "We will, as always, review any complaints we receive that properly fall in our jurisdiction."
Today's version of The Black Slate deals with a question Gwen Ifill asked during the Vice-Presidential debate about rates of HIV/AIDS among African American women. I'd originally written something totally different, but I scrapped it. I'm not sure if I got the ending right but this version is much better.
I'll be reviewing Cornel West's DEMOCRACY MATTERS this Sunday in the Washington Post.
OK, this one really gets me.
The terrorists are more likely cheering for Kerry to win!
Folks, if the translation of bin Laden rantings is correct, he's trying to get the world into a fight. He's trying to pit his version of Islam against the U.S. and her allies. He wants to rid the world of the "U.S. perversion of world culture".
Well, if that is what bin Laden wants, hasn't he essentially received his wish?
Further more, if Kerry wins and the U.S. pulls out, then again he wins because he wanted the U.S. out of the region. The terrorists who are in Iraq would be able to declare victory.
So, if I'm not mistaken, it doesn't matter. Bin Laden will get his way either way.
Maybe this entry should be titled Responding to Fear Mongering.
Last night's debate was actually held on my yard. From the camera angles I saw afterwards it appears that a few of the pundits set up shop near my office. (Then again, because the yard is so small, it is ALL near my office.) Now I wasn't there, because I'm here in Baltimore.
But I bring all that up (along with the point that I saw a few of my students on tv) to address a strange comment Bush brought up regarding Dred Scott. Some were wondering why in the hell Bush would bring up Dred Scott as a way to talk about what type of judges he would appoint? Not only was his understanding of the case off (to say the least), the entire spiel didn't really fit.
It isn't that deep. Dred Scott was decided in Saint Louis. The building in which the case was heard still stands downtown. Washington University digitized the proceedings of that case and dozens of others (with some interesting results I might add). I believe this was Bush's attempt to bring the local context into the debate.
Whether he succceeded is another question entirely.
Collective thought, aka group think.
What a concept.
At a GOP convention, Colin Powell said he supported affirmative action and he was booed. No group think there.
Better yet, let a white person agree with Blacks on issues and sooner or later, someone will accuse that white person of being a "guilty white liberal."
So tell me why those who call people "guilty white liberals" are NOT taking part in group think. Aren't they assuming that all whites should think alike?
And if conservatives believe that Blacks don't need Black leaders, why are conservatives trying to pass off people like Jesse Lee Peterson as a Black leader?
Identifying as a "Black conservative". That's not "group think"?
Isn't it interesting that "Black conservatives" seem to have a scream of "victimology" when stating certain things? What's not "group thinking" on the misuse of such a silly phrase?
These are the questions about the debate:
1. Were you decided on who you were voting for before the debate?
2. Did the debate change your mind?
3. If the debate changed your mind, why?
4. Who is the best person to run the country?
#4 trumps 1-3.
Next.
I don't do politics at work. Work is not the place for it. When it's raised, I keep my mouth shut and listen to people go back and forth.
This silly season I've noticed a marked increase in the amount of political discussion in the workplace.
I've also noticed the increase in sarcastic comments as a result.
I wasn't going to go here.
Really.
But comments to blog entries by
dcthornton and Black Republicans don’t really want to go down this path.
Black GOP’ers claim that Blacks are emotionally tied to the Democrat party.
That’s a fair comment.
Black GOP’ers say that Blacks need to examine politics in a non-emotional way.
That’s a fair comment even if idealistic. The reality is politics is emotional.
Now they start with the plantation stuff?
Ya’ll don’t want to go down that path. Especially when there are Black GOP’ers whose words can come back to haunt them.
Think I’m kidding? Do this search in Google. Use the quotes. It’s one search.
“shannon reeves” “window dressing”
When you get the results, use the cached copy to get to the Contra Costa Times article.
Here’s a quote:
“Black Republicans are expected to provide window dressing and cover to prove that this is not a racist party, yet our own leadership continues to act otherwise,” party Secretary Shannon Reeves wrote in an e-mail to party board members.
Now with all of that said, a couple of more points:
1. In the post that started this, I did talk about "future voting scandals" perhaps in the same way that Florida has future felons on their list.
Given Jimmy Carter's statements about Florida, the closeness of this election, and the unwillingness of the current Administration (and Congress) to fully fund the actions needed to protect and secure the right to vote, I expect the problems with this election to be severe. Severe enough that if Bush wins there will not only be calls that he is illegitimate (which won't be different from what happened in 2000), but there may be more than mass protests.
2. It DOES behoove us to prepare.
I support civic education. So I do think that teaching folks how to use ballots would be a good way to spend loot. But what I think is more important are statewide initiatives designed tactically to protect and secure our vote, and if that isn't possible to restrict the vote of our political opponents. I haven't thought much about this last point, but I know it is possible.
To my mind there are a few forms of vote tampering.
There are your heavy handed tactics. These tactics in the modern era happen infrequently, largely because of the Voting Rights Act. But I'd suspect that when they are used, they are used against relatively powerless populations--populations without the education, or the money, to understand and use their rights. I imagine that when my colleague talks about people needing to learn how to cast ballots he is assuming that the majority of people hit by vote tampering fit within this category. "Police" going through poor neighborhoods warning citizens that they will be arrested if they cast a vote and they are found to have warrants, fliers telling folks they can vote on Saturday if they are unable to vote today, police barriers, etc. are all examples of heavy handed tactics.
But there are a variety of methods that can either stop people from even casting a ballot in the first place...or that will neuter the value of that vote.
The Florida felon case is the best example. And it would've been worse if not for the Sunshine provisions that make the machinations of Florida politics visible for all to see (provided they ask). When the newspapers used these provisions to get a sense of who was removed from the rolls this year, they found 22,000 African Americans...and only 61 Latinos.
As far as I know (and of course I could be wrong) the African American felony rate isn't anywhere close to 4000 times higher than the Latino rate. Note here that being smart enough to cast a ballot doesn't matter. If your name is on that roll there is nothing you can do about it.
Another mode of vote tampering is tampering with the funds that are used to purchase voting machines. You'd think that states would allocate funds based on population size, or in some other way that could even things out.
They do in some cases, but they don't have to. Imagine a scenario in which the city of Saint Louis with more than 300,000 people was given the same amount of money as a city of only 10,000.
Then we can talk about the vote machines themselves. Are they butterfly? Are they hand operated?
Now I'm pretty sure there are articles written about this within the academic journals, but until 2000, we largely assumed that elections worked as advertised within the US. I'm willing to bet that munipalities that are poorer and blacker have poor voting systems--which have the effect of taking the votes away from a number of folks smart enough to cast ballots.
(Jimmy Carter has recently stated that the political conditions in Florida do not fit the conditions required internationally for a legitimate process. What are we to make of this? <----facetious question)
Final point in pt. 3.
One of my erstwhile colleagues made this comment after I wrote about UPCOMING voter scandals. He understood that there were a number of people placed on the felon list, but also notes that "some people need to learn how to use a ballot."
I'd like to go backwards a bit.
Approximately fifty years ago, it was customary to browse through political science journals and see little to nothing about black people's political attitudes or their voting behavior. In fact, when this information DID appear, it was always belittling. Black people don't care about politics. Black people don't have any political attitudes.
If you would've pressed these scholars up to prove their propositions...they would've pointed to one thing--black voting patterns.
What's the problem with this scenario? Black people couldn't vote.
Now to be technical, this isn't really true. Some black people could vote. But if out of a county with 90 black adults, only 2 got to vote, there are only two possible explanations. Either they didn't vote because they didn't want to...or they didn't vote because they couldn't.
Fast forward.
Now what my erstwhile colleague would have us believe is that a significant number of black citizens are so clueless that they just don't know how to cast a ballot. I disagree with this.
But whatever the case, the next entry will talk about why this misses the point.
The most recent edition of The Black Slate deals with what you won't hear in the debates. Of course there's a whole LOT you won't hear about in the debates...but I focus on one particular health plan that Bush isn't finding much room for though there is bi-partisan support for it. I thought about focusing on the voting scandals, or the upcoming voting scandals. I suspect I'll be harping on it and policy differences as we get a bit closer to the election.
I would've missed Gates' piece on Black Politics. In as much as I study this for a living, it is easy for me to dismiss the writings of an English Literature specialist (I've never seen a specialist in Shakespeare talk about the Appalachian poverty). But Ed misses the money quote:
What the big-tent rhetoric ignores is that a more "black friendly" G.O.P. might pay a price in white support. "The Republicans would lose more white votes than they would gain black votes," Dawson says. And so blacks, as a one-party constituency in a two-party system, get sidelined.
But I digress.
Cobb notes smartly that it doesn't necessarily matter how many racists are in the Republican Party. But Dawson is right...it DOES matter, to the Republican Party. And I don't see why it wouldn't.
Some in the GOP are saying that the number of Blacks owning homes is at a new high, so credit should be given to Bush because of some of his housing initiatives.
Blacks are starting businesses and getting more SBA loans so some in the GOP are saying that the credit should be given to Bush.
The Black unemployment rate is falling so some in the GOP say that the credit should go to Bush.
Meanwhile, the GOP is saying that they foster things so that people don't depend on government, and that Blacks really need these things because Blacks are too dependent on government.
So, isn't there a contradiction somewhere? If you give Bush credit, you have to say that Bush is fostering government dependence. But that's not what the GOP is about, right?
:-)
I look forward to the end of the silly season.
Today's column deals with Bushisms. Particularly a comment Bush recently made about OB/GYNs and love. Some think that Bush's gaffes are actually indicative of first stage dementia. While this sounds like lefty griping, I am not so sure. From what I've heard, Bush wasn't known to make mistakes like this earlier in life--when he ran for Congress for example.
But that for now at least is besides the point.
The larger issue is what exactly do we gain from treating Bush's missteps as either the mistakes of someone who knows what is right but for one reason or another can't put it together verbally (the conservative angle), or the utterances of an idiot (the non-conservative angle)? In the first case there is a real interesting racial dynamic that I haven't seen people deal with--and to be fair I didn't deal with it either.
If someone black made Bush's missteps, along with being a C- student at school, along with not being that much of a reader, what would we say about him? Sounds like a Cosby poster-child. If Bush weren't President I'm not sure the dynamic would be any different.
On the other hand there is a casual tendency of non-conservatives to blow off people that talk like Bush as being beyond "saving." I don't know how many times I've thought this myself--we MUST be a nation of idiots if we could elect THIS fool. (don't give me any sc mess either--Bush still received almost HALF of the vote in 2000.)
But we have to get beyond this. We have to find a way to talk about the policy outputs of this administration and recognize that they don't just come from Rove pulling strings (the we obviously being left-leaning here). And on the other hand if we're willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt, even given some of his obvious verbal mistakes, we should rethink our conceptions of what it means to be intelligent. Because we (and of course the we here is obviously right-leaning) are towing a line dangerously close to relativism.
Highly selective quotes from J. C. Phillips.
http://www.josephcphillips.com/html/Essays2003.asp?Essay=61&Title=Republicans%E2%80%99+Room+to+Grow
Conservative Commentator Armstrong Williams has stated that the party cannot remain lilly white any longer. He is correct. As big a fan as I am of Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice I am frankly tired of hearing about them. Where is the rest of the talent in "The Big Tent?" Unless Republicans manage to place a few more Black faces on the national scene and elect some Black congressmen, they will continue to have trouble refuting Liberal claims that Black conservatives are lackeys who represent no one but themselves.
...
The case for Republican policies must be made in churches, it must be made on the campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and it must be made anywhere there's a gathering of Black minds and bodies. And Republicans -- both White and Black -- must make these arguments! White candidates must stop conceding the Black vote to their Democratic opponents.
...
If Blacks have been slow to respond, it is only because Republicans have not yet taken that all important step and leaned in for that first kiss.
http://www.josephcphillips.com/html/Essays2002.asp?Essay=34&Title=How+did+this+conservative+end+up+on+National+Public+Radio
Commercial radio didn’t call me up and give me an opportunity to put my views on the airwaves, National Public Radio and Tavis Smiley did. And I have been listening to Public radio ever since.
What I have discovered is that NPR and in my case Tavis Smiley, is dedicated to providing a forum for voices you might not otherwise hear, for exposing issues that other broadcast media might overlook and this reaches across the entire ideological spectrum. Just goes to show that you never know what or whom you might hear on NPR. I have heard everyone from David Boaz from the Cato Institute talking about the Libertarian Party to Ward Connerly of the American civil rights institute talking about pizza delivery. You just never know.
http://www.josephcphillips.com/html/Essays2002.asp?Essay=12&Title=Barely+Entertainment+Televison
The sad truth, however, is that so convinced are Viacom and other “White” media companies that this underachiever represents the sum total of the Black consumers desires that they are not only reluctant to challenge BET in the marketplace as they would any other company, but they also hail, Johnson’s performance as genius. (Performance, by the way, they would not accept from a white executive running a 3 billion dollar company.) Meanwhile, the Black cable subscriber (who clearly has the patience of Job) waits for BET to fulfill its promise and become a real network catering to the entertainment and informational needs of the Black community.
http://www.josephcphillips.com/html/Essays2003.asp?Essay=102&Title=Vanguarde+Media:+Black+voices+silenced?
Unfortunately, as with BET's film series, Vanguarde was not given the opportunity to nurture the creative venture to success. According to media experts I spoke with, it takes five to seven years for a magazine to turn a profit. Vanity Fair, considered by many as one of the premier publications in the nation, hemorrhaged money to the tune of $40 million during its first four years of operation, but Conde Nast, the owners of Vanity Fair, had the luxury of very deep pockets. Vanguarde, on the other hand, was going into its fifth year of operation, and while revenue was up, ad pages were up and the circulation (which dictates advertising sales) was growing for all the magazines, their pockets were empty. The result is that there are now three fewer outlets for journalists who wish to speak about black issues to black people and 70 full time professional journalists will be looking for work during the Christmas holiday. The financial impact of the magazine closings will also be felt by the many black freelance writers, photographers and other independent contractors that were able to make ends meet with work garnered from those publications.
I worry, because just as Hollywood did not rush to fill the void left by BET and offer a flood of diverse films featuring black characters, I do not believe mainstream publishers will sprint to fill the void left by Vanguarde and suddenly begin speaking to the issues and concerns of the black professional reader.
Tavis Smiley's NPR program during the GOP convention did a good job in show casing Black Republicans.
He should have received kudos for his coverage, IMO. While he asked the same "simple minded question" of "Why are you, a Black person, a member of the GOP?" he was fair and even handed.
So, where's his props?
Tom Joyner is a hard core Democrat. I don't feel bad by saying that Joyner carry's the water for the Democrat party.
His audience is big enough that if he just laid out the facts on the dirt the Democrats have pulled in the past few years, the Democrats would be in trouble. In fact, he and Tavis Smiley get blasted by telephone calls when either voices their displeasure with the Democrats.
Check out the interview with Joyner and Lt. Gov. Michael Steele.
Then check out how Black America Web, Joyner's web site if I'm not mistaken, defends Joyner by going for some stats.
Did you catch his comment about the Southern Strategy?
Subtitle: Checkin' a Fool IV...
Ehrlich stated that Blacks expecting Blacks to vote a certain way is racist.
Let's look at Ehrlich's and Steele's support for Maryland's MBE program. They revamped the program to get more participation of minority business in Maryland government contracts. Before they were in office, minority businesses received 1 or 2% of Maryland government contracts. They have set a goal of 20%, and the numbers of Blacks getting Maryland government contracts has already risen.
Wait....
MBE stands for Minority Business Enterprise.
Oh....
Wait...
A GOAL of 20%?
Don't your GOP peers call that quotas? Don't your GOP peers say that by supporting "quotas," you are "telling Blacks that they are not capable of meeting normal standards"?
Wait.... Don't your GOP peers call that RACIST?!?!?!?!?!?
You've been checked fool!!!!!!
WHAT!!!!!!
P. S. I voted for Ehrlich.
Subtitle: Checkin' a Fool III...
Ehrlich stated that Blacks expecting Blacks to vote a certain way is racist.
Welll.......
Isn't the GOP expecting Blacks to vote a certain way, also racist?
Isn't the GOP refusing to go after the Black vote, then racist?
If you say it's because the payback is so small, what about the fact that Jewish voters vote for Democrats 80-85%?
Booker Rising has another way to look at it. I think they are wrong, but here it is.
Maybe I should subtitle this, "Checkin' A Fool".
Jack Kemp, after being selected as Bob Dole's running mate, said that he felt as though he was in the "wilderness" because the Republican party had treated him as an outcast. He said it was because of his calls for Republicans to go for the Black vote. Should I mention he's a white Republican?
Faye Anderson, who was part of the GOP's New Majority Council, the "minority outreach arm," quit the Republican party after Sen. Lott's association with the CofCC became known. Should I mention she's a Black Republican?
Shannon Reeves, the former head of the Oakland NAACP, and a Republican, has stated that at a GOP convention, his white peers thought he was member of the serving staff.
So, Gov. Ehrlich, are you going to say anything about your own party now?
In your run for office, YOU stated that you will not concede the Black vote to Democrats, as your peers have done. Are you going to call their actions racist?
Are you going to say that because THEY, the Republicans, EXPECT Blacks to think a certain way, that THAT is racist?
You've been checked fool!
Yeah. I'm pissed.
This is what Maryland Gov. Ehrlich said:
On the opening day of a Republican National Convention that will showcase a prominent Marylander to attract African-Americans, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. today called the Democratic Party "racist" in its appeal to blacks.
Baltimore Sun
(Registration required)
Gov. Ehrlich, KISS MY...
... In Maryland, it was the previous Republican nominee, Ellen Sauerbry, who accepted an invitation to speak to a Black group, and then later "turned down" the invitation because her advisor said that speaking to a Black group would upset her base.
It is your Lt. Gov., Michael Steele, who has stated on Black radio stations in Maryland, and other radio stations in Maryland, that the GOP dropped the ball in not seeking the votes of Blacks.
So, how in the hell can Ehrlich then state what he stated?
And how can you, Michael Steele, back it up?
You sir, are talking out of the side of your neck!
A great example of an asinine comment made during the silly season is:
We haven't had an attack against us since 9-11 because of the policies of George W. Bush!
Please!
Does anyone remember Richard "The Shoe Bomber" Reid? He failed because he couldn't light his shoe. He failed because someone on the plane saw him and started fighting him.
Some Vietnam vets are supporting Kerry. Some Vietnam vets are not supporting Kerry and with good reason.
Mr. Kerry, you have re-opened the madness of the Vietnam War and the garbage the men and women faced when they returned from that "conflict."
Thank you Mr. Kerry. You have showed that you are at least as much as a divider as is President Bush.
I believe the patrol boat vet who supported your version of events.
I believe the patrol boat vets who don't support your version of events.
In the "heat of battle," what really happened can be hard to determine.
But you, Mr. Kerry, are an idiot. There is no other way to state it. Who else but an idiot would rely on being a "war hero" with your anti-Vietnam statements, on tape, just waiting for you?
You are disqualified just for being an idiot.
"Reporting for duty"?
Dismissed!
I like Tavis Smiley's NPR show. He generally has guests to represent "both sides" of the issue.
On The Tom Joyner Morning Show, he's more himself, which means he's more of a Democrat supporter. As such, he seems to give them a pass. Although sometimes he will make comments that lets the audience know he's not happy.
When Clinton was in office, Tavis was very easy on the administration. When Gore ran for the election, he was harder on Gore. This was especially the case when Gore's "short list" didn't include any Blacks.
His commentary on the matter was biting. During the same race, he did a commentary piece that caused the CBC and the DNC to fear that the Black vote may stay home. At the end of the election cycle, he said that he thought it was time that Blacks access their support of Democrats. But nothing really came out of that commentary.
A few weeks ago, Tavis commented on Blacks supporting Democrats but getting nothing in return. He made it a 2 part commentary. And the end of the first part, I thought he would announce that Blacks should sit this election out, or that Blacks should register as independents or as Republicans, en masse. But it didn't go that way. Instead he said that Blacks should register and vote in this election.
After he came back from vacation, he "came up with an idea" to canvas "Blacks" to see what was of high interest to Blacks. He decided to do this so that a "contract with Black America" could be developed. His aim is to get any politico who wants the Black vote to sign this contract. If they don't sign it, they shouldn't get the support of Blacks.
Fundamentally, I like the idea of not giving your vote to politicians who don't support you or stand for what you believe. So in one respect this is a good thing. But suppose a Democrat signs and a Republican signs. Then what?
And suppose the contract contains things that Republicans say they are against, so the Republican politican doesn't sign it and the Democrat does signs it. But then once in office, nothing happens?
Then what?
Suppose vouchers are one of the things that the contract says politicians should support? Do you think a Democrat will support it?
The ideas of what should be in the contract will come from people who email Tavis and those who take the time to join in on a webchat.
The Black America Web website has details.
Since this is the internet, suppose the email and webchat gets "hi-jacked" by Republicans?
It will be interesting to see what comes out of it. I dont' think much will come out of it.
Ok, check this out. I first heard about this on The Tom Joyner Morning Show:
Nadia Naffe, who worked as a Field Director in Southwest Florida for the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF), filed a lawsuit today in federal court alleging race discrimination and retaliation on the job. Along with the RPOF, the lawsuit names the Republican National Committee and Bush-Cheney '04 as defendants.
See the link for more details.
Thanks to M. King for the link.
The presidential election season is here. From now on, I call it the silly season.
*Sigh*
Democrats take Black voters for granted.
It appears that the CBC is spineless and powerless within their own party. So, what good does it do? Are appearances deceiving in this respect? Did they get one Democrat sentator to challenge the 2000 election results in Florida?
After J.C. Watts announced his retirement, he appeared on "Meet the Press" with Charles Rangel, Rangel said, "I wish there were more J.C. Watts' so that I could get more concessions from my party."
Bill Clinton pimp smacked Jesse Jackson, Sr. with Sista Souljah, and Jackson still compaigned for Clinton.
Clinton pimp smacked the NAACP with comments concerning "personal responsibility." This was after the bimbo eruptions started!
Clinton showed white Democrats how to knock around Black voters and still get them to vote Democrat.
It doesn't phase me that the party doesn't support vouchers.
It phases me that Sen. Clinton is saying that when they get control, taxes are going to be raised. (Although if you pay attention, some Republican politicians are raising taxes as well).
Democrats controlled congress and the White House, yet drug sentencing disparity was not fully addressed.
When the late Ron Brown ran for DNC chair, other Democrats said that Brown could not be let to win the position. It took Bill Bradley to step up to the plate and call the comments being made racist. Meanwhile, Clinton sat around and did nothing. After Clinton won the election, he praised Ron Brown by saying Clinton's win would not have been possible without Brown. This appears in the book about Ron Brown, written by his daughter.
I play softball once a week. Still haven't relearned how to throw a ball up close, which is why I don't play infield...but can still play the outfield like, well I was going to say Ken Griffey, but he's had a whole host of injury problems.
So afterwards I was hanging with one of the players, a Latina teacher. She teaches a group of largely African American kids. She told me about how she tries to communicate the value of Standard English to the kids. "You don't want to sound stupid do you?" "You want to get a job don't you?" I hear this argument all the time, and it isn't just from non-blacks. My mother is a teacher and makes the same exact argument. So my friend asked me if she was being politically incorrect.
I don't know about being politically incorrect. I do know that if she wants to get kids to speak "Standard English" she's taking the wrong approach. The approach she SHOULD take could be instructive for Republican whites. Not for THIS election mind you--Bush is lucky if he gets even 10% of the black vote, and I'm thinking that black turnout is going to increase significantly this year because of Florida. But over the long term, perhaps. If they pay heed.
The problem with the way my friend, and most teachers, pitch the standard english vs. ebonics debate is twofold. The first is that it is technically inaccurate to argue that you can't make money with Ebonics. In as much as Ebonics is now synonymous with urbanity and with youth culture, you can make TONS of money using it. Why the hell do you think one of the slogans that a prominent cell company uses is "Where you at?" Why do you think the WNBA's slogan was "We got next?" Advertising execs recognize the cache in the black english vernacular. STUDENTS recognize its cache--one of the reasons I am a fairly effective and popular teacher is because I can convey dry information in a way that speaks to where kids are at. And part of that is using the BEV when required.
Ther other problem with the way it is pitched is similar. If you've got two people--one who speaks English, and one who speaks English and French--which would you say is more equipped? I'd go for the bi-lingual over the monolingual any day of the week. While I wouldn't argue that Ebonics/BEV constitutes a separate language, it does constitute a unique dialect that for some people might as well BE a separate language. So teaching kids standard English gives them a LEG UP on those kids who only KNOW standard English.
So you don't teach kids standard english so they can get "real jobs" and "sound intelligent". You teach kids standard english so they have the ability to speak more than one dialect.
I think this can be instructive for Republican whites. (I assume Republican blacks already know this...and I don't think much about black Republicans to be honest). Work on the assumption that black people KNOW what their issues are and have made a RATIONAL decision to support the DNC. If you work from there not only are you working from a much saner position (current arguments about blacks always seem to be based on some sort of pathology--black people have been duped, i.e. are too stupid to realize their TRUE interests), you are working from a position of respect. A position which, combined with sane policy proposals (significantly funding the EEOC for example to aggressively combat racism), may actually get you votes in 2012.
"Black conservatives" say they are shunned and called names from other Blacks.
Let's address the latter, first. Rush Limbaugh frequently states that conservatives, in general, are blasted and called names. His term is racistbigotedsexisthomophobes. So why do "Black conservatives" and white conservatives point out the "special case" of Black conservatives being called names?
I've been in a circle of "Black conservatives" and have been called names for disagreeing with them. All the while, I was respectful. By the end, however, most of them started giving me respect because, I think, I was able to present my thoughts in a logical manner.
Now, let's address the former.
To do that, I like to use This example of Glenn Loury's treatment from the LEFT and the RIGHT.
Some choice bits:
He befriended William Bennett and William Kristol, his colleague at the Kennedy School. He sat at President Reagan's table at a White House dinner, and he socialized with Clarence Thomas. (Although the two no longer speak, Loury still keeps a picture in his office of himself with Thomas.)
In 1995, he founded the Center for New Black Leadership with a group of conservative black intellectuals that included his friend Shelby Steele, the essayist.
He was horrified by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein's 1994 book, ''The Bell Curve,'' a social Darwinist tract arguing that black poverty was rooted in inferior intelligence. He was even more appalled by ''The End of Racism,'' the lurid assault on ''black failure'' written by Dinesh D'Souza when he was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Not only did his conservative friends not share his rage; they were taken aback by it and tried, he says, to muzzle him. Commentary, which had welcomed Loury's writing in the past, refused to publish his critique of ''The Bell Curve.'' And though The Weekly Standard ran Loury's caustic review of D'Souza's book, it also published a lengthy response from the author. In 1995, Loury resigned from the American Enterprise Institute over its support of D'Souza.
Finally, this point:
A few days later, Steele phoned him. ''Where do you stand on race?'' Loury says Steele asked him. ''It's as if you're a racial loyalist here. I thought we all agreed.''
''No, Shelby and I didn't agree,'' Loury says now. ''I was always aware that, whatever I thought about race, I'm still black. Shelby's position. . . . '' Loury starts to laugh. ''I was about to say, Shelby's position was that we had to completely transcend race, though I can imagine saying those words, too. But my heart wasn't in them, whereas he really meant it. How could it have been otherwise? His mother was a white woman. His wife is a white woman. When he looked at his own children's racial identity and wondered about an oppressive world that would say to those children, 'Choose sides' -- a dilemma I'd never faced -- Shelby's angle of vision was really quite different from my own. So in all honesty, it was I who betrayed him, not he who betrayed me.'' The two men have not spoken since that conversation.
Is that enough to show that "both sides" do it?
I have a question that's been on my mind recently.
If "dependency on the government" is a bad thing, why is it a "good thing" that during G. W. Bush's first term, Blacks have received more S.B.A. loans?
That's an honest question on my part.
From reading things like Black Enterprise, it's obvious that one of the reasons why Black businesses fail, even though most businesses fail in the first 5 years, is because Black business is under capitalized from the start. So why celebrate Black businesses getting further behind?
Yesterday we held our primary, as did other states. Richard Gephardt decided to step down, leaving his seat open. 9 candidates stepped up to the plate, including Russ Carnahan (scion of the Carnahan clan that has sent the patriarch to the Governor's mansion and the matriarch to the Senate after the patriarch's untimely death), and one of my students, Jeff Smith. Well, technically he isn't my student...I'm not on his dissertation committee. But he took a class with me, so I'm counting him as one of mine anyway.
Smith was able to be competitive in the face of the Carnahan juggernaut largely for two reasons. Russ is a poor legislator. Has the third worst absentee record in the State House. He's missed a couple of extremely important votes, and the votes he did cast were shaky ones. And Smith has a committed volunteer group, culled largely from the ranks of college students. As this was their first time participating, they were full of enthusiasm and energy...and this was contagious.
An interesting aside--Carnahan was endorsed by a number of African American elected officials. I wish I could've been in on that conversation--his mother was replaced by Jim Talent in the Senate largely because she wouldn't intervene in an intra-city dispute between African American elected officials and the Mayor of Saint Louis. Mayor Slay redrew the aldermanic wards in the city leaving the Board split something like 16-13 white black...even though the black population is technically larger than the white population in Saint Louis. What were the officials promised that caused them to switch gears? The carrot, or the stick?
As of noon CST we still don't know who won. I left the party at somewhere around 1am or so. I'm sure a recount is going to take place, and I expect the candidates to be separated by 1 or 2 percentage points. I wish I could've done more to help Smith out.
It's been pretty much decided that a black Senator will come out of Illinois. I'm not conceding the election to Obama, though it is clear to all by now that he is a force to be reckoned with. But the Republican Party in its search for a candidate has settled on two African Americans--Andrea Grubb Barthwell and Alan Keyes. Both have significant problems--Barthwell was accused of lewd and sexually inappropriate behavior while in her post as Deputy Drug Czar, and Keyes doesn't live in the state of Illinois.
I remember talking to a friend of mine about Notre Dame's decision to go after Tyrone Willingham. He noted that very conservative institutions often go after African Americans only after all other options have been exhausted. I'm not quite sure how much of that is at play here, but after both Ryan and Ditka failed, there seems to be something to it. And of course a better question is why the pool of qualified African American Senatorial candidates is so weak. But I think we know the answer to that one.
Prometheus 6 has an NAACP report about voter suppression. It falls much in line with my own comments.
But questions arise. At what point is voter suppression and intimidation important. If 7 voters out of every 100 are faced with intimidation tactics (which does not measure how many are actually turned back) what are we to make of that? To be sure from what I know about Florida, that's an easy one. As far as I'm concerned it is enough to call in international forces. And anytime you've got an entire campus told not to vote, there is a problem.
But I wonder how big a problem it'd be if similar attempts were conducted to suppress their vote? What would such attempts even look like anyway?
"They think the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their political, economic, and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on matters like health care and retirement security," he said. "Since most Americans are not that far to the right, they have to portray us Democrats as unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America."Let me be clear. As a President, I hated Clinton's policies. I hated the way he scapegoated working class black people to pass his policies (and also to win the White House). I hated the way he misconstrued Sistah Souljah's comments after the disturbances in L.A. I hated the way he played Jesse (even though I don't have much love for Jesse either).
But LIKE Jesse, you can't sleep on him. Because every now and then Clinton makes a speech that makes everything so clear and crystalline, you got to bow down.
"If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election."
More here. I've already noted that the Carol Mosely Braun event I attended was cut short because of a bomb threat. These are the stakes we face.
Dean Esmay analyzes the two party system vis a vis its seemingly fixed relationship to The Black Vote.
Fact is Republicans have learned through hard experience that no matter what they say, no matter how much money they spend, black people will not vote for them. So why try?And why should Democrats ultimately really care what black voters want, so long as they know black people feel like they have nowhere else to go?
Gay voters need to learn the same lesson too. If Republicans know they can never get your vote, then quite seriously, why do they care what you think? I mean, other than to be nice? If you'll never support them, what motivation do they have to care what you think? About anything?
And you know, it really doesn't help much when the few blacks who do vote Republican get called Uncle Toms and Aunt Jemimahs and sellouts.
He's being wry here so don't fret none. But his points are on target and generally observable. The parties are gaming the vote, and right now the party bosses don't seem concerned that their abstractions are incorrect because nothing seems to be changing.
He reminds us of some points made before as well:
To say that it's "natural" that blacks should only support Democrats means you're saying that the black man's opinions are predetermined. It says the black woman's vote is to be taken for granted. It says that the color of your skin pre-determines your position on all the big issues of the day. You can be pigeonholed because of your skin color.
So he shows that he understands an important point about, but there a couple other things missing in this analysis. and that is black apathy.
Political Diversity
One of the things we in the Brotherhood are doing is being constantly out here spewing our angles. And you cannot read across our blogs without recognizing that we come from varying perspectives. So if there's one thing that must be recognized, as blackfolks started to demand in the 80s, is that African Americans cannot be taken as a monolith. That means political monolith. So try this: don't say 'The Black Vote'. Say African American voters. At the very least you acknowledge that there are individuals out there. Again, since the Brotherhood is working to make visible the political diversity that already exists in African America, we're attuned to the costs of the assumption of singlemindedness.
There are regional differences in African American populations. My particular focus is on the class differences that trump the racial solidarity established by Black Nationalism. Nothing William Juilius Wilson didn't say a generation ago, but
Apathy & False Abstraction
I should also like to bring up the point that African American voters are not particularly more energized these days. The majority say both parties suck. They sit out elections. Most of my contemporaries tell me that they remain uninspired and cannot decide between which way to go not only because of the unattractiveness of the parties, but based upon their lack of faith in the political process itself. So when we talk about what 90% of 'The Black Vote' does, what we're really talking about is 90% of what something like 30% of us did which is a far cry from describing what any of us think. This extrapolation of what 30% of registered African American voters do as a proxy for what blackfolks think is the same kind of problem as Angry White Math. You know the old statistical tricks about x% of the population causing y% of the crime and saying it's a black problem, when it's not.
Nevertheless, while I be presumptuous in saying so, my contemporaries in the Old School are a highly influential group. The direction we take will be inordinatly significant.
Reductionism
Thirdly, I will invoke what I will coin the Drylongso Imperative. Don't second-guess what blackfolks do and assume you know the reasoning by which they arrive at what you observe to be their behavior. You just don't know. There are a wide variety of issues of concern to African American families which must be addressed in the context from which they arise. This also means that there are a wide variety of solutions to these problems.
Went to a Carol Mosely Braun talk. It got truncated a bit because of a bomb threat. They pitched it afterward like it was some "crazy" that did it, but I think that people often forget Clausewitz' idea that politics is war by other means. (if they ever knew about homeboy's ideas in the first place.) And people definitely forget the fact that in much of the world political parties operate a lot like gangs. Including drive-bys.
I guess the question for me is, what would be the Democratic equivalent? I can't imagine the DNC calling a GOP event and doing something similar...not because DNC folks are inherently "better" people. But perhaps because they are kindler and gentler.
Check out this doozy:
The paucity of Hispanic voters on the felon list was first reported Wednesday, by The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, but officials said then that the problem was not systematic. After The New York Times examined the data, state officials acknowledged that the method for matching lists of felons to those of voters automatically exempted all felons who identified themselves as Hispanic.Hispanic Republicans outnumber Hispanic Democrats by about 100,000 voters in Florida. But more than 90 percent of the approximately one million registered blacks there are Democrats. The exclusion of Hispanics from the purge list explains some of the wide discrepancy in party affiliation of voters on the felon list, which bears the names of 28,025 Democrats and just 9,521 Republicans, with most of the rest unaffiliated.
I remember reading an interview with Albert Murray. Murray was going off on the victim approach to black politics, and he said something to the effect that if someone wronged him or his folks...if somehow someone tried to oppress or subjugate him...he wouldn't make much hay about it. No marches, protests, or boycotts. He'd just round up his people...and take care of it.
About a month or so ago it was revealed that Jack Ryan, Illinois senatorial candidate, paid a staffer to follow Barak Obama (his democratic competitor for the seat) 24 hours a day. Obama pisses...the kid is there with a videocamera. Obama goes to get a bite to eat...the kid is there in his rear view mirror. Obama picks up a Ludacris CD from Tower Records...you get the picture.
Drylongso sponsored a contest. Who could come up with most innovative response to Ryan's tactics.
I don't know who won that contest, but given recent revelations about Ryan, I'm thinking that someone's been reading Murray.
This article reiterates both the necessity of integrating the GOP, and the pitfalls associated with it at an individual level. Though obviously the African American/gay comparison isn't totally apt, we've got a long road ahead of us. The key is maintaining integrity to move the party to a position that is favorable to black interests, or even select black interests, rather than going into the party and changing in order to meet their needs and advance within the ranks. Ever since the Fairmont Conference, this has been the road most have travelled by.
I wonder if there was ever an lgbt version (probably more like lgb) version of the Fairmont Conference?
I've got a bit of time to kill, so I thought I'd respond to the recent Claremont Institute's response to the argument that the Republican Party ascended on the back of racism. While Cobb is right that it does raise questions, these questions can be answered in a pretty straightforward manner.
Take the quote below:
The myth that links the GOP with racism leads us to expect that the GOP should have advanced first and most strongly where and when the politics of white solidarity were most intense. The GOP should have entrenched itself first among Deep South whites and only later in the Periphery. The GOP should have appealed at least as much, if not more, therefore, to the less educated, working-class whites who were not its natural voters elsewhere in the country but who were George Wallace's base. The GOP should have received more support from native white Southerners raised on the region's traditional racism than from white immigrants to the region from the Midwest and elsewhere. And as the Southern electorate aged over the ensuing decades, older voters should have identified as Republicans at higher rates than younger ones raised in a less racist era.
Points to consider:
1. Over the course of time, ideologies of conservatism and liberalism map onto political parties in very different ways. The idea of state's rights (now a conservative principle) was first evoked by the DNC, whereas massive redistribution of wealth was first evoked by the GOP.
2. The Deep South and most of the surrounding states were dominated by the Democratic Party. The larger the black presence in the state, the greater the level of dominance.
3. Party ID endures over time, even as national ideologies shift. But at the same time people are also known to cast split tickets when the national and the local conflict.
4. In 1980 Ronald Reagan begins his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi with one phrase: state's rights.
While the author does well in separating the Deep South from the periphery, he doesn't quite grapple with the points above. Why would we expect GOP dominance to start immediately in the Deep South, when the Democratic Party was already deeply conservative AND deeply entrenched in that area of the country? There is a REASON why Zell Miller is a Republican in all but name.
At the same time he doesn't quite get around to talking about the ideological predispositions of the parties and how they were related to race. How does the GOP go from supporting 40 acres and a mule in 1865 to supporting state's rights come 1980? Surely they don't reflect the same ideological predispositions?
Finally what Carter and the others are arguing is that the Southern Strategy is responsible for Republican dominance...but this doesn't start UNTIL Reagan. Why doesn't the author grapple with the electoral patterns of 1980 and beyond rather than conflating different electoral eras?
I don't have so much time that I can crunch the numbers myself, but I'm betting that republican dominance begins when the deep south shifts...and that this shift occurs over the course of years as older democrats first vote republican in national elections, then gradually change their partisan identification.
From the Claremont Institute:
The point of all this is not to deny that Richard Nixon may have invited some nasty fellows into his political bed. The point is that the GOP finally became the region's dominant party in the least racist phase of the South's entire history, and it got that way by attracting most of its votes from the region's growing and confident communities—not its declining and fearful ones. The myth's shrillest proponents are as reluctant to admit this as they are to concede that most Republicans genuinely believe that a color-blind society lies down the road of individual choice and dynamic change, not down the road of state regulation and unequal treatment before the law. The truly tenacious prejudices here are the mythmakers'.(emphasis mine).
That's something that makes me think. What are we to make of the Southern Strategy. Glenn Loury? Help us out here bro.
I used read about the ostracism of black Republicans with a great deal of skepticism. When I would hear them applauded for standing up for Republican values in the face of black opposition, sometimes called racist, I would poo on that. How could anyone dare suggest that being a black Republican in black Democratic territory was as dangerous to blackfolks as being black in white territory? Perish the thought.
That thought doesn't perish. As crusty as I am getting in my age, I'm certainly a whole lot more sensitive to this than I had been in the past, not simply because I myself am Republican but for the sakes of others not quite as hardheaded as I. Today held an object lesson in that.
I rejoined the fray at the NAPA meeting this morning where James A. Spencer , a businessman from Inglewood and new friend, was the man on the spot. He has just won the primary to represent the Republican challenger for the 25th State Senatorial District, which includes, Inglewood, Palos Verdes, Hawthorne and several other communities. While I had promised to spend a bit more time in the old 'hood through my participation in the National Alliance for Positive Action, I've scaled back on that for a number of reasons. Nevertheless, I couldn't miss this opportunity to speak and hear what's spoken about the resurgence of Republicanism in blacks in LA. This is as good a referendum as any. The seat, currently held by Ed Vincent, former multi-term mayor of Inglewood and full-time pol, is now challenged by another black man. Spencer plans to throw the bum out. Of course, he'll have to convince voters and he got his first chance today to answer the perennial question:
How can you be a black Republican?
I think Spencer handled himself well and has begun to bridge the gap between talking strictly in the abstract and dealing with policy and political dollars. His focus is on local politics. Some of the members of the audience wanted him to go to Haiti. Some members of the audience's first words out of their mouths was George Bush. Others wanted to talk about Iraq, Clinton, Trent Lott, The Federalist Papers and just about everything but the 25th State Senatorial District. That figures because most of us wouldn't recognize the shape of it if we saw it on a map.
"This is what you ought to be about." is what I keep hearing. The double standards and prejudices are clear. To be a black republican, or anything not taken for granted as black, there are certain litmus tests presented. It's not catastrophic and nobody is going to lose any sleep over here, but what I saw and what I think it's reasonable to expect from black audiences is no benefit of the doubt. That's not much of a hurdle to overcome, but it certainly is disrespectful.
I look forward to the at large election which will determine the fate of Spencer in his contest against Vincent. The new dynamic is afoot.
Spencer promises to stay in touch with the community. He wants to reduce the time of all legislators spent in Sacramento. Too much time to debate, he thinks. Not enough time spent with the people. His priorities are Economic Development. Every dollar that comes into the community should have 50 cents go to local labor. His second priority is 'mis'Education, and his third is gang intervention.
UPDATE: Arnold is talking about this same part-time legislature idea.
Yesterday I did it. I signed the DNC's loyalty pledge saying I'd do everything possible to ensure that John Kerry is elected President. While I supported Nader last time around I don't see the need for it now. Not only do we have a strong candidate, we have a candidate who isn't afraid to brawl. So I plan to do phone bank work, to send money, to help register voters, and maybe to poll watch....kids in tow. If you think the country is worth fighting for, whatever side you are on, you've got to do more than vote. Voting alone won't get it.
...
So Bush has decided to use 9/11 as part of his campaign. While some are focusing on issues of ownership (shouldn't the victims of 9/11 and their families have some say about how this event is used?) I think the argument made by the families (some of the families rather) is too idealistic. A better argument, which is also idealistic, is simple. Bush said he wouldn't do it. He said that he had no plans to use the attacks for political ends. But like I said, that's too idealistic. We should have expected him to use it. We should also expect similar behavior at the GOP Convention in NYC.
How do we respond? A brass knuckled shot to the jaw should do it. You want to open up the can?
* Mr Bush, why didn't your advisors follow the advice of Clinton's team on the power of Al-Queda?
* Mr Bush, why didn't your advisors tell the rescue teams that the wreckage was safe to sift through when they knew it wasn't?
* Mr Bush, after the attacks on Pearl Harbor a committee was established, and made a full report less than a year later. Why hasn't the 9/11 commission been able to report?
* Mr. Bush, why haven't you appeared before the committee?
* Mr. Bush why have you cut the amount of money allotted to firefighters and rescue workers through homeland security?
* Mr Bush using the image of 9/11 you focus on a single flag-covered casket. We've had thousands of casualties and injuries as a result of the War on Terrorism that was carried over into Iraq. How many of those funerals have you attended? Why haven't you allowed their image broadcast on television?
Bush made the decision to wrap himself in a bloodsoaked American flag. It's now the job of the loyal opposition to make sure people know exactly how that blood got there.
Folks should take note that Ralph Nader doesn't go away.
Now that he has officially tossed his hat into the ring of presidential politics, once again, he gets an opportunity to speak out on a national plaform to remind us of what he thinks in the long off-season.
Public Citizen, his years old organization is the author of some pretty decent white papers. I've referenced them on occasion in the past for issues like redlining. In the din of spin, Nader comes off as an anti-corporate crank (which isn't altogether untrue), and a spoiler for the Democrats (which is true, but not this year). But that doesn't change the fact that he has experience as a grass-roots organizer and is much more likely to have a firm grip on issues and policy than most of the front-runners. The problem is, of course, people don't vote for their permanent interests because their permanent interests aren't interesting to the press and the parties during the long off-season.
The Democrats are sounding like spoiled children. They are supposed to own the anti-corporate activism. They don't of course, but they want to appear to have a monopoly. Which only goes to highlight how foolish it is that a) we don't have a real third party and b) that there isn't much business between elections in the grass roots wonk department.
Black politics, however is more attuned to grass roots wonking. Or at least it ought to be considering how overwhelmed it is with its signature preoccupations: racism, civil rights and police brutality. Understanding that Nader is never going to win, just as Sharpton is never going to win reminds us that while the spotlight is always going to shine during presidential elections, it's what happens in the dark that matters. This is why Sharpton lasted longer than Mosely-Braun. Nobody knows what the ex-senator stands for when she's not running for office. Sharpton, on the other hand, can command attention at will.
The recent flap over Sharpton's back office staff being populated by Republicans illustrates how important it is to have something going on when elections are not happening. That means money.
This is something Nader evidently can do, can we?
Dutton directed Against the Ropes, the movie starring Meg Ryan. Ryan plays a boxing manager, and her character is loosely based on James Toney's old manager Jackie Kallen. I've got a lot of respect for Dutton, not only because he's so serious about his craft, but because of what he was able to do with Roc and the half-hour sitcom format. His work there places him in rare company...Bill Cosby, Debbie Allen, and Tim Reid are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head who've been able to instill a great deal of humanity and pathos into a half-hour meant to make people laugh.
There's a deep tension that his comments about hip-hop reveal. Acting is a rough job. You've got to deal with rejection after rejection, putting your heart and soul on the line for bit part after bit part, hoping that someone will recognize someone else in you. Of course it's ten times hard for black actors, who have another set of issues to wrestle with. While most sane folks recognize the types of inter-racial politics played in Hollywood is often nasty and brutal, what Dutton's words reflect is the hidden kernal within black life. There is often as much tension and competition for scarce resources within black spaces as there is between black spaces and non-black spaces. Now to be fair, I think Mos Def has got serious acting chops. And it's damn hard to take your eyes off of Tupac in the few movies he was able to make before his murder.
I wonder which side the NAACP would take here?
Today in Public Opinion I talked about the meme of electabillity that dammed and jammed Dean, and catapulted Kerry into the driver's seat. I also had my students watch an old Bill Moyers video about the evils of polling. It was filmed in 1989, and its age showed.
Anyone remember BehaviorScan?
The low light of the story was Willie Horton...the ad that single handedly relegated Dukakis to a Trivial Pursuit question. Non-blacks didn't recognize how racist the ad campaign was until much later...the best Moyers could do was utter something about pandering to our fears.
But a couple of swatches make me think we don't have to worry about that if Kerry wins the primary.
"Their tired old G.O.P. attack dog just won't hunt," Mr. Wade said, adding that Republicans would be running against "a Democrat who fought for his country in war, put criminals behind bars as a prosecutor, stood up for balanced budgets in the Senate," and "kept faith with America's veterans."Another Kerry adviser was more blunt. "This is not the Dukakis campaign," the adviser said. "We're not going to take it. And if they're going to come at us with stuff, whatever that stuff may be, if it goes to a place where the '88 campaign did, then everything is on the table. Everything."
And:
Bush-Cheney campaign chairman Marc Racicot called on the Democratic front-runner, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) to repudiate the attack on the president. But Lindlaw writes that Kerry's campaign dismissed that contention."'It is up to President Bush whether he wants to answer these questions that continue to persist about the year missing from his National Guard service,' said spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. "John Kerry will stand up to the slanderous tactics of the Bush attack machine, and if the president wants a debate on patriotism and national security, we welcome that debate.'"
I'm really starting to warm up to the idea. This is going to be GOOD.
Federal Courts allowed a Texas redistricting plan to stand this week. As I wrote I think this is the new Southern Strategy, but what do I know?
I've got to commend Norquist, Delay, and the others for this move though. It required tenacity, it required ideological fervor. But probably most of all it required a proper understanding of modern day politics. I noted that Sun Tzu's THE ART OF WAR should be thought of as an old school classic. Also a standout is Clausewitz' work On War. Sun Tzu is all about subtlety...about winning the battle through psyops before war is even engaged. Clausewitz is about as subtle as the Geto Boys. War is politics by other means...and conversely Politics is War by other means. There is no distinction.
And while I loathe war-like rhetoric ("black people are at war!!") largely because it saps the democratic spirit (hard to cast votes on troop movements), it sure worked in this case. The courts won't save the DNC (and by extension in this case Latino and black folk) this time. Unless they are made of chain mail I say it's high time to take the gloves off.
I haven't been able to get much writing done over the vacation, hence the flurry.
But anyway, Cobb sees the growth of black support for the gop as a good sign. It is. I wouldn't have said this probably a year or more ago, but I've grown up. We need cells in a wide variety of institutions in order to build democracy from the bottom up in black spaces, and in America.
But a caveat is in order, at least when it comes to Baras' article.
I haven't read her work before now to know for sure. But I think that while the trend she identifies is accurate, the reason she posits for that trend is most decidedly NOT. That is, blacks aren't leaving the Democratic Party because the party is too far on the left for black people. It's probably that they aren't ENOUGH to the left. Of course they're to the left symbolically...and for us what that means is that they say the right things about police profiling, and about affirmative action. But that's about it.
Take the following argument:
None of this is coincidental. More African Americans now have college degrees, ushering them into the middle class, shifting their values and priorities while prompting them to abandon the "blacks-as-victims" theology. Many low-income blacks have gained an appreciation for the opportunities provided by the free enterprise system and are rejecting the notion of government as savior.
Now this is an excellent reason why the SCIENCE in political science should be taught in schools. The more education one is likely to have the more liberal one is likely to be....and this goes in the opposite direction than the one Baras is positing. The "blacks as victims" argument isn't part of the Old School Conservative OR the Old School Liberal ideology. And low-income blacks have ALWAYS had an appreciation for the opportunities of free enterprise. Particularly in cities like Detroit. Baras' article at least appears to be a knee-jerk uninformed journalistic response and even though i'm not yet in full bastard mode, her ignorance pisses me off. We need to be better than this.
What appears to be happening from my viewpoint is that democratic elites have taken over cities like Detroit and used government to enrich the coffers of their supporters rather than that of black working class men and women. The citizens see this, and say that they are no longer simply going to give their votes to someone because of the race/party constellation. The first people who are able to couch anti-poverty policies (like free college tuition) in GOP language (individual initiative, wealth-building, etc.) in black spaces, will win big.
My boy Cobb's been on a move to integrate the Republican Party for some time now. The number he's pushing for is around 10-12 percent, which is about the amount that Nixon got if I recall correctly. I believe that Cobb's goal is a worthwhile one even though my colleague Paul Frymer's work on the subject is pretty definitive for me.
But I'm reminded of JMS' Babylon 5--until the dawn of the 21st century teledrama THE best television program I've ever seen.
TO make a 5 season epic short, human beings are engaged in an intergalactic war between two god like races....the Vorlons (Who are you?) and the Shadows (What do you want?). JMS plays the banana in the tailpipe trick in that for much of the epic, the viewer is firmly convinced that the Shadows are actually the antagonists of all antagonists. Their appearance is sinister, their actions are violent and evil, and the characters that represent them on screen have few redeeming characteristics. Only near the end of the epic do we become aware that the battle between the Vorlons and the Shadows is a battle of dueling philosophies--the Shadows believe in growth through conflict, the Vorlons in growth through order and control.
Neither race gives a damn about humanity. And in the end the humans make a choice to take them both out.
We're the humans in this scenario. Neither the dems nor the gop give a fuck about us. The GOP scapegoats us to get the nascar dads, the Dems pay off Jackson (and soon Sharpton) to get us to the polls in exchange for high end trinkets.
In my most elitist PhD having tone I say this: fuck them BOTH.
We need a set of core policies that move people to the point where both parties have to grapple with them. Then it wouldn't MATTER what party id black people have on either the aggregate or the individual level. Because both parties will be dancing to our tune. Or they will be destroyed.
A meme like "free college education" can be easily touted as democratic policy (gives the locked out a chance to compete) and a republican policy (rewards individual initiative and builds wealth). Bickering over party id is nothing more than set-claiming. And I've done my fair share of it over the past several years. But I'm trying to move beyond that. And not just because it is a new year. Though I've unofficially changed my birthday to Jan. 1, I've never been one for resolutions.
I'm calling this one "party politics" but we're talking about a different kind of party here. I got on the road midnight Monday to make the bi-yearly drive to Detroit. Takes about 8.5 hours, so we usually get there around 9:30 or so (we lose an hour because of the time shift between cst and est). We drive this late because I've got a black nation, and we don't want any of them to be awake during the drive.
But we drove this late on MONDAY rather than last night, because I wanted to hit Half Past Three. Now I've talked about the superpromoters before. Whereas Black Diamonds should probably be considered third generation (and half of those folks have Detroit ties) Half Past Three's co-owner JD Simpson is probably second generation. I knew that if I made it there I'd see pretty much all the folks that I wouldn't be able to contact personally to let them know I was back in town for about a week.
The spot has changed...but in a way that is truly refreshing, and indicative of the degree to which class integration is possible in black spaces.
When Half Past Three first opened almost four years ago...maybe a bit more...it was largely a spot for Our Kind of People. In the Detroit case you're talking about either the scions of Jack and Jill or the folks who slipped through the cracks through affiliations created in undergrad or high school.
Me and my wife slipped through because we both went to Michgan.
Whenever I was back in the city, and I didn't know where to find the folks, I'd stop by Simpson's place. And here I'd get the dish. Who made partner, who finished his residency, who got divorced, who just got a fat county contract. So in the beginning it was a spot for male and female professionals.
But try as you might, you simply can't keep a joint like that secret for long. Now usually when the working class brothers and sisters start to come in large numbers, the professionals find another spot. But that didn't happen here, at least not to a significant degree.
So last night I saw plant managers, janitors, doctors, lawyers, judges, millionaire DJs, basketball players, gangsters, drug dealers, social workers, accountants, and executives all in the same spot. All dressed to the nines.
Literally a thousand different shades of black. And when the DJ dropped the new Outkast in the blue room EVERYONE STARTED TO MOVE.
Kwame Kilpatrick is representative of this type of integration. I don't know if it'll get translated into an integrated politics...but on the eve of xmas eve, and I'm seeing Detroit's east and west side meet, I can roll with it.
I've written here in Cobb that there is a dirty little secret in black politics. Perhaps some of Dean's campaign team has taken an object lesson. Those African Americans who hold out for hope in the world of politics of all places have apparently been placated by Mr. Dean's clever rhetoric.
What is astounding about this sleight of hand is that Dean has gotten away with getting endorsements without having made one documentable campaign promise. Sensible people expect politicians to dissemble, and those things that are sacrificed first are campaign promises. So what kind of fool gives the benefit of the doubt to a politician whose not even willing to make a promise? There is nothing so irresponsible as a man who makes no promises and states no case, something most of us recognized when pressing Clarence Thomas. But if there is, then it is the voter who trusts such a man. Fools following liars.
Let us start with the gushing of the Black Commentator.
Howard Dean’s December 7 speech is the most important statement on race in American politics by a mainstream white politician in nearly 40 years. Nothing remotely comparable has been said by anyone who might become or who has been President of the United States since Lyndon Johnson’s June 4, 1965 affirmative action address to the graduating class at Howard University.
BC seems to desire nothing more than acceptance of Dean as a mainstream candidate so that his vague histrionics can give air to BC's studied radical notions. BC is clearly anti-corporate, but do they actually expect Dean to endorse that form of economic strategy?
The core of BC's economic mythology is plain.
Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences – deep, corrosive, obstinate differences – radiating painful roots into the community, and into the family, and the nature of the individual.These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice. They are anguishing to observe. For the Negro they are a constant reminder of oppression.
This is the farce at the heart of Dean's legitimacy in the eyes of the Black Commentator. They refuse to separate economics from racial politics, therefore it is not sufficient that African Americans themselves know the facts of history. There has to be a Great White Father who also sees it that way. Blacks don't recover themselves, they do so under the aegis of a friendly politically revisionist history. This is all Dean delivers: talk and promises to talk.
I said it once, and I'll say it again:
I challenge anyone to show exactly what it is that the Democrats have done for African Americans that they haven't done for everyone else. Whatever you find, I will bet my nickel that it doesn't get any larger than a quarter of a billion in any one program out of the Federal budget. But what the Democrats do that the Republicans don't is insure that they say a lot of nice things about blackfolks. The dirty little secret is that this covers a lot of what the black electorate will settle for. If you ask someone who hates the idea of Black Republicans what it is that the Democrats will give blacks that the Republicans won't, it will all come down to warm and fuzzies. Try it. Get them to name programs when they disagree. Materially, most folks are hard pressed to talk about black patronage in dollars and cents. But they know what kind of rhetoric they like. Ask how much federal money goes to support HBCUs. Nobody knows. Ask what kind of support Affirmative Action should get and you'll hear a litany of legalese words, qualifications, provisos, tests, and other verbal requirements. What a twist of fate! It's not all about the Benjamins.
Check out his speech yourself. At least six paragraphs begin "We're going to talk about..". That wouldn't be so bad if the paragraphs weren't so damned thin. But then again, Dean has to prove himself mainstream, otherwise the formula doesn't work. That means he has to sell out principles for the sake of wide acceptability. I keep telling blackfolks that this is the fundamental problem.
Yet the BC keeps hope alive:
Where does this leave Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich? Exactly as they are, preaching the same social democratic, anti-racist, pro-peace message as before, for as long as their energies can sustain them. Dean’s political leap would not have been possible in the absence of Sharpton’s energetic Black candidacy and Kucinich’s principled, progressive white voice from the Left. At this historic juncture they dare not go anywhere. Dean has picked up the torch that Sharpton and Kucinich have been carrying and they must stay in the race to make sure he doesn’t set it down.
If there is any mark of delusion, there it is plainly and simply. To imagine that Dean couldn't survive without Sharpton and Kucinich makes about as much sense, as my old feminist buddies used to say, as a fish without a bicycle.
I am willing to bet money that this infatuation will be short-lived. It's too bad that the Black Commentator and those who follow this rationale are so soft-headed and willing to compromise. But that is their fate, tied as they are to the ritual of hope and disappointment which is the standard fare of the African American voters and the Democratic Party.
I know George W. Bush's weaknesses, and as a hard headed Republican, I'm not afraid to call him on them because I am vested in his practical success. Practical success is the difference between Cobb and the dreamers over on the Left. Apparently everybody can have a dream. It's just a matter of time before Dean reveals his dreams to America. "I too have a dream", he'll say. I'll hold back my puke until that moment. But it's coming.
I have one last barb to pitch. Where is the Congressional Black Caucus in all this? I haven't been looking, but if their opinion mattered enough, it would make news loud enough to hear. Considering small incidents that make enough news for Jesse Jackson to be mentioned, I'm sure I hear quite enough. And my ears are telling me that the CBC's opinion doesn't matter.
Glen Engel-Cox finds much to admire in the possible pairing of Howard Dean and Carol Mosely-Braun. Now that Dean is gaining momentum, such possibilities are enticing.
..it would be a bold move and be reflective of the diversity and appeal of his campaign. My hope is that she can obtain a position in Dean’s cabinet, as a woman of her intelligence and honesty is sorely needed, and it would be a shame to lose her skills to her family farm, which is where she had expected to spend the rest of her life before September 11.
Things that make you say Hmmm.
Although the biggest news related to state level politics is the recall in California, many of us recognize that the recall attempt is part of a larger pattern. The activities in Texas, where the Republicans in charge of the state legislature are attempting to redraw the political lines for the Texas Congressional delegation, are plausibly related. A colleague of mine asked me in the locker room last week whether I thought race had anything to do with the Texas redistricting attempt--which looks like it'll soon be a reality, given the return of Texas 11. Off the top of my head, I said no.
Here I am a SPECIALIST in race and politics...but I couldn't have been more wrong.
The way that the Republicans are going to get an extra six seats or so is relatively straightforward. All they have to do is redraw the district lines so more democratic voters are packed into fewer districts, and then split the rest of them so they'll be small minorities in the rest of the districts.
Question. What populations are easiest to pack into super-democratic districts?
Answer? The segregated populations. Black and Latinos.
In the short term what this does is give black and Latino politicians the opportunity to pick up more seats in the Texas delegation. And this is a good thing. But what it also does is create the opportunity for the Republicans to establish almost perpetual control over that state delegation. Kuff quotes from a Beinhart article that notes a similar dynamic. I noted earlier that the reason the Reagan Democrats BECAME Reagan Democrats was because they associated the Democratic Party with Black people. Norquist, Delay, and the White House would LOVE to see that dynamic played out in Texas. I can easily imagine a situation in which the majority of the state's population would be non-white and Democrat, while the majority of the state Congressional delegation would be white and Republican.
I want to shamelessly quote this article from Alternet by Lee Hubbard, because I have yet to find a decent history site which covers the Southern Strategy. Since I only use the internet for research and don't have subscriptions to nice transcription services I employ fair use for educational purposes.
I get the feeling we are about to witness some poorly informed backbiting on the Southern Strategy...
Does the GOP Have Racial Amnesia?By Lee Hubbard, AlterNet
March 20, 2001Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, recently met with House majority leader Richard Armey to discuss racial harmony. The meeting was described as cordial and productive, but if so, it was only because the leaders ignored the history of the GOP's racist past.
Mfume was responding in part to a letter Armey had sent him, declaring that "It has become an all too common practice to spread unfounded, racially charged falsehoods against Republicans for political advantage. If left unchallenged, this practice will continue to divide our nation, polarize our political parties, and do untold harm in the lives of real people who are unjustly accused of conspiracy against the civil rights of African Americans."
After the meeting they held a joint press conference to talk about trying to heal the canyon between the GOP and the African-American community. One of the things that Armey did not talk about, however, was the GOP's history with the black community, espescially the last 30 years, that have caused African Americans to treat Republicans with suspician and in many cases outright hostility.
At one time, the GOP was the party of blacks, and they religiously voted for the "party of Lincoln." They were attracted to its message of freedom and self-help. While black voting for the GOP decreased after Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, blacks still had high regard for the Republican Party, especially since the Democratic Party had long been in the grip of the "boll weevils" – Southern senators like Stennis, Eastland and Bilbo – who blocked nearly all civil rights legislation for the first half of the 20th century. Black people voted Republican by a 60-40 margin in the 1956 election that returned Eisenhower to the presidency for a second term.
This changed, however, when race become central to the Republican Party's national strategy, especially in the South, now the main region of power for the GOP. Arizona senator Barry Goldwater began the Republicans' catering to Southern racism in his 1964 presidential race against Lyndon Johnson. Realizing a large share of the black vote was going to Johnson, who was working on crafting the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, Goldwater came out against it, and went for states' rights instead. This helped him ride the wave of white backlash, and he carried the five Deep South (Dixiecrat) states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. This was unheard of for a Republican at the time.
That same year, Strom Thurmond, the then segregationist Democratic senator from South Carolina, saw the writing on the wall and switched to the Republican Party. "The Democratic Party has forsaken the people," said Thurmond at the time. "It has become the party of minority groups, power-hungry union leaders, political bosses and big businessmen looking for government contracts and favors."
Four years later in 1968, Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy" used tactics from the Goldwater and the Dixiecrat playbook of George Wallace to play on white fear and resentment by labeling blacks "welfare cheats" and "laggards." The white backlash to the Civil Rights Movement and to LBJ's Great Society programs (which, paradoxically, gave poor Southern white people unprecedented access to health care, education, and job training) helped elect Nixon, and the party wrote off black voters completely.
"Substantial Negro support is not necessary to national Republican victory," said Kevin Phillips, the mastermind behind the Nixon strategy. "The GOP can build a winning coalition without Negro votes. Indeed, Negro-Democratic mutual identification was a major source of Democratic loss and Republican party profit in many sections of the country."
Since then, some Republicans across the country have played to these fears to gather white votes. Ronald Reagan declared that he "believed in states' rights" when he kicked off a presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where civil rights martyrs Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman were murdered, fighting states rights and attempting to help blacks get registered to vote. Once in office, Reagan used the racialized image of "welfare queens" who drive Cadillac's, and he led an all out assault on affirmative action laws calling them "reverse racism."
Vice President Bush picked up the mantle in his presidential run in 1988 with the infamous Willie Horton ad campaign, which basically depicted all blacks of being criminals (sadly, inequitable law enforcement practices and sentencing disparities threaten to make that caricature a reality).
Some of the Republican brush-off of blacks has been unintentional, and some has been blatantly malicious. That is why blacks didn't buy the "compassionate conservatism" of George W. Bush, who received 8 percent of the black vote in the 2000 presidential election against Al Gore, especially after Bush refused to take a stand against the flying of the Confederate flag issue in South Carolina – Bush's play on Nixon's old Southern Strategy.
While Armey may not want to hear the recent history of his political party, it is something he will have to address. If he can address this, and Mfume can be honest about the NAACP's recent actions, then maybe something can come out of the recent meeting. If not, they met for meeting's sake.
Lee Hubbard can be reached by email at superle@hotmail.com with any questions or comments.
I recently have come into possession of some access codes, thanks to my public library, to a great treasure trove of archives. So I will be able to play journalist a bit moer closely. As I was surfing through newly opened vistas, I decided to track back to the LA Riots. I quickly noticed a name that was vaguely familiar, that of Arthur Fletcher, who was at the time was head of the USCCR.
The US Commission on Civil Rights has a measly $9 million budget and a staff of 75. There are 8 commissioners who run the joint. Apparently they are currently ideologically deadlocked. Once upon a time, Arthur Fletcher, a black Republican ran the office. He tired of it and passed the buck to its current Chair, Mary Frances Berry.
These days the CCR is deadlocked. You may recall the big debate between Edley and Thernstrom over at Slate. There is a 4-4 split along party lines. Too bad the blacks are only on one side.
Right at the top of the CCR page you'll note the following:
The United States Commission on Civil Rights is composed of eight Commissioners: four appointed by the President and four by Congress. Not more than four members shall at any one time be of the same political party.The President also designates the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson from among the Commission's members with the concurrence of a majority of the Commission's members.
The Commissioners serve 6-year terms. No Senate confirmation is required. The President may remove a member of the Commission only for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.
Abagail Thernstrom is the notable Republican of the group; her colleagues are not recognizeable.
But back to Fletcher. I want to quote this article from the WaPo of October 1996.
When [Clint] Bolick got the word from Dennis Shea, Dole's deputy chief of staff, that his boss wanted to join the anti-affirmative action team, his first reaction was equal parts "delight and skepticism." Dole was among the last Republicans that Bolick thought of as a prospective ally. Movement conservatives were nonetheless delighted by Dole's move rightward, Bolick said, because "we felt having the Senate majority leader, and someone whose civil rights record was unassailable, behind this legislation was the best possible scenario." Dole had been a moderate on issues of race going back to his vote as a young congressman for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. During the ideological struggles of the Reagan era, he had constantly frustrated the efforts of Justice Department officials to eviscerate federal affirmative action programs.But Shea, a movement conservative working within Dole's eclectic legislative shop, insisted that his boss had come to believe strongly that affirmative action was no longer fair or needed. Shea, carrying out Dole's wishes, drafted a letter to the Congressional Research Service requesting a detailed account of every program on the federal books in which race or gender could be used as a factor in the selection process. When the list came back with 160 programs, the publicity helped compel President Clinton to reexamine his position on affirmative action and produced the White House's "mend it, don't end it" conclusion. At one strategy session, Dole surprised and impressed conservatives in the room by declaring, "If we are not going to do this for the principle involved then we shouldn't do it at all." He also said that he was planning to push the bill aggressively. "We're gonna do this!" he declared privately.
When? Bolick and his allies began to wonder. Twice that spring they set dates to announce the legislation, and Dole's staff called to back out at the last minute. Shea said they were working out details. Bolick concluded "they were getting cold feet right at the start."
Dole finally unveiled what was called the Equal Opportunity Act on July 27, 1995. "Earlier in the year, I promised to introduce legislation to get the federal government out of the business of dividing Americans, and into the business of uniting Americans," Dole said at a news conference. "Today, I am fulfilling this commitment." He said he hoped his bill would be "a starting point in a national conversation, not just on the future of affirmative action, but on the future of America."
Arthur Fletcher, a black Republican who grew up in Kansas, was so depressed and angered when he heard Dole's statement that day that he immediately sat down and wrote him a 13-page letter. Fletcher, who had helped develop affirmative action programs as an official in the Nixon administration, told Dole he had foolishly bowed to pressure from the right and underestimated the dismay his decision would cause in black America. But within hours there was also dismay among conservatives. When Dole returned to the Senate floor and delivered his maiden speech as an anti-affirmative action man, Bolick watched on C-SPAN with growing alarm. The words were similar but Dole's demeanor had changed. "I was watching his eyes and his eyes would not leave the text on the podium," Bolick recalled. "It struck me that he was uncomfortable pushing the issue. I was afraid that he would lose his convictions and that he would be a poor advocate even if he remained constant. Both of those fears proved well founded." In the months that followed, Dole made little effort to get Senate co-sponsors and then went large stretches without talking about the issue. The revolutionary fervor waned, and with it the call for drastic action. Dole went silent on the issue. Considering his history, this was not a major surprise.
We may speculate on the amount and scignificance of Fletcher's influence on Dole, but there is no question that he had some, both as a fellow Kansan and as a fellow Republican. Was that the source of Dole's ultimate reticence? I don't know. What I do know is that black Republican leverage doesn't seem possible in the minds of most Americans, and yet a mere 7 years ago it was there in plain sight.
Was there something extraordinary about Arthur Fletcher? I don't know. There isn't enough within easy reach of Google for me to find out. But I'm getting closer to the ability to find out such things. In the meantime it looks to me that he was simply a right man on the right at the right time.
Too bad he's alone and forgotten.
A couple of days ago I wrote a piece about some of the myths about black politics that get neatly packaged and consumed whenever something "racial" happens in the media. Art McGee sent the Afrofuturists a brief article about the lack of colored folk in Dean's campaign. If Will Lester got the quote right, this is what Dean had to say:
"Asked why most of his supporters, particularly at the Meetup sessions, are white, Dean readily acknowledged that his support has been from the ground up, while attracting minorities must be done from the top down.
"You've got to go to the leadership in those communities. You can't just do the grass roots without the blessing of the leaders," Dean said last week.
I like Dean as a candidate. But damn this statement is stupid. Here we go again.
Why exactly CAN'T you go grassroots? What's preventing you? There's a strong black community on the internet, whether you're talking about the Afrofuturists, the black blogging community, or the various fraternities and sororities that have their own email lists. The Goldboot list (a list for members of Omega Psi Phi) runs literally thousands deep. Even given the difference in internet usage between black and white citizens there is no explicit reason why the same methods couldn't apply.
I'm thinking that what's going on here is the same regressive ideas about the relationship between "black leaders" and black citizens that I talked about the other day. To be "down with the folks" you got to go to The Black Church (yep, there's only ONE black church, and everybody black goes to it, because you know they all believe in the God, the same God that spoke to King). THEN you got to go to the NAACP. THEN you got to get the blessing of Rev. SHarpton and Rev. Jackson.
AFTER all that, you can get to the folks. In fact, you don't even have to GO to the folks. Just slide the Reverends some skin, and THEY'LL get the folks for you. Yeah sure, you have to say you support Affirmative Action, and are against Racial Profiling, and that you were at the March on Washington. But you don't have to do much besides that. Black people don't really care much about the issues, unless the reverends tell them to.
To show you how stupid this sounds, I'm going to flip the script:
Reverend Sharpton is doing well among African American voters but there aren't that many white faces in his campaign. 'I'm not sure what Sharpton is thinking about' says Andrew Knight, Professor of Political Science at the University of Idaho. 'He's got to get the white vote if he wants to be successful.'
Sharpton himself recognizes the problem.
'Well, the problem is that with black voters I can speak directly to them about their issues--about the poverty, the segregation, about the lack of an urban infrastructure, about the desire for higher education and health care. With whites, I have to go through their leaders and get their blessing first. So I've been trying to get in touch with the Pope, and with the cast of Friends (they ALL watch Friends) and I've just been having no luck.
"After I get the nomination, I'm hoping that all I have to do is give John Kerry some Ben & Jerry's coupons and he'll get the white vote for me."
Yep.
(Someone please tell me that Will Lester got the quote wrong.)
Several conservative conspiracy theorists are giving journalists a good name. In their attempts to pile on Cruz Bustamante through intimations that he's a closet racist who secretly desires to return California (aka Aztlan) to the 'la raza', they have self-righteously demonized the LATimes and other media for not snowballing their dirty hollow pebble.
Consider this gem from Hewitt:
There is an article on opposition research in today's paper, for example, that begins with two dozen paragraphs on AS and how his past life that might yield negative stories. In paragraph 25 we discover that Cruz Taxalotte was once a member of MEChA, but there is no discussion of the significance of that membership. The paper runs a lengthy story on Cruz that relegates the MEChA angle to the last few paragraphs, and also contains a story by Matea Gold on page A26 that is a magnificent example of terrible journalism --a piece designed to kill the MEChA issue by in effect declaring that membership in the group is hardly worth talking about. Whether MEChA is or is not a radical group, and Cruz's membership in it a quarter century ago any cause for concern, I don't know. But I know I can't trust the Los Angeles Times to report the issue fairly, and I doubt that the three favorable quotes about MEChA in the article or the one negative quote will decide the issue for readers. Clearly if the organization is the equivalent of the KKK, as State Senator Tom McClintock has asserted..
Tagorda warns ever so timidly:
In this light, conservatives may want to be somewhat cautious about pushing the issue. There's potential for backlash, despite the extremism of MEChA.
A cursory overview of the MEChA's philosophy reveals them to be radical nutcases. But it must be noted that these are radical nutcases who exist wholly in undergrad cliques.
The presumption that the only appeal that Bustamante can have to latino voters is one of a shared racist ideology is not only farcical, it legitimizes arguments that Arnold must account for his relationship with Kurt Waldheim - that racist sympathies work like some associative principle. Klansmen like lemonade, klansmen are racist therefore if you like lemonade you are racist.
Let us be clear here. The most important question is not whether MEChA is now or ever has been chockablock with racist radicals. It is more properly whether there is reason to suspect that Bustamante is himself racist or sympathetic to racist aims.
In the first place, the dubious research of ideologues who have certainly never heard of MEChA before demonstrates a clear lack of perspective. Has the any MEChA member been convicted of murder? Has any Republican? So which is more dangerous to the health of the public?
Requiring that Bustamante disown MEChA as a litmus test for his acceptability doesn't help anyone. It begs the question of MEChA's own racist culpability and influence on California politics. It lowers the ethical level of the debate. It offers Bustamante an easy way out - MEChA can instantly become Bustamante's 'Sistah Souljah'. It is a false accusation masquerading as racial concern.
This simpleminded matter differs substantially from questions like that of Trent Lott and Bob Barr and the CCC. In those cases, it was public statements by the individuals in question which were the cause of investigations into racist influence and support. In this case it is just muckraking in an attempt to paint Bustamante as racist in the absence of anything dishonorable he has said or advocated as a legislative agenda.
There are many reasons to object to identity politics, just as there are good reasons to object to demography politics and politics by polling. Primary among these is that it is foolish to assume that one's ethnic identity, or one's religion or zipcode is deterministic of one's political stances or one's intent as a public servant or government official. It is even more foolish to believe that such variables should be. But this is precisely the foolishness our blogger friends are asserting.
Why should Bustamante, a public figure already known to have used a racial epithet in the past (he infamously used the word "nigger" while addressing a Black History Month event two years ago) get a pass? Or, for that matter, former California State Assembly Speaker and Los Angeles mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa, State Assemblyman Gil Cadillo, State Sen. Joe Baca, and Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva -- all unapologetic Mechistas?
As for the infamous use, a little context is in order.
It's only because I am so disgusted at this blatant backhanded bigotry that I've taken this much time. I hope this bogus issue dies quickly. Show me the money or shut up.
UPDATE:
Ted Barlow Debunks
Rudy Acuna's Letter
Orcinus Explains at Length
My cousin is a lobbyist in Washington DC, but he has not yet earned his Gucci shoes. he's working for adult education, part of my family's fine tradition in education. When I met him for the second or third time at this weekend's family reunion, he told me that I should check out Project 21. I have. The reviews are mixed.
It is at this point that I speculate about several different things. The first is why the writers at Project 21 are not as good as I am. The second is how much traffic do they get vis a vis recognition as a website & as a real project. The third is how do people get hooked up into this racket and who approaches whom.
My first instinct is to copy the lot of the writers into my notifications. Spamming is rather crude, and so is telemarketing. But how else are people going to find out certain things? Should we all wait for our family reunions and find out which of our cousins are inside the beltway so that we can hear about more black republicans? I'm not sure of the answers to any of these questions, but that's the advantage of being an individual free of the kind of sponsorship I imagine one gets from Project 21. I get to think independently and admit when I don't know the answer to complicated questions. I also get to ask real questions rather than idiotic rhetorical ones putatively attributable to 'liberals'.
On the way into the site's editorials, I noticed some nice bold fonts about how participants in the Project have been interviewed by Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. I'm not sure how anyone of significant intellect can consider these a plus. It sounds almost like a deal with the devil. While many of us may lament the passing of Fred Friendly and still be sick to death of the self-importance of Cokie Roberts, is there anyone left in the media who have as much sense as Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers or Brian Lamb? Maybe I'm just a snob, but I would at least expect that there were some conservative snobs of my ilk remaining in the national mainstream press. Instead we have these belligerent oafs whose very comportment in an interview marks you ideologically. It's enough to frighten sensible and thoughtful people out of the game.
Perhaps the trick is to simply remain aloof, dignified and articulate on camera and leave the real mental and ethical wras'ling to the blogosphere. We are supposed to be disintermediating anyway. This brings us back to Project 21's website. Way behind the technical times in internet publication, they are. Is it moribund? Hard to say. It's probably not fair to judge the Project based upon its ability to get people onto the air with individuals I find somewhat ridiculous, but I am so tired of and accustomed to the likes of the Freepers, that I have become a bit cynical.
In the meantime, I will try to gather people unto me through this joint publication which serves the purposes and priorities of the Old School, and to my more uninhibited diatribes over at Cobb. I can only hope my cousin tells two friends.
I have to say, however, that I like what I see of the Project so far. It looks as if it definitely has a future. I'm going to try to entangle myself into it.
One of the things I haven't seen much written about re: the Cali recall is Prop. 54...the Racial Privacy Initiative. It's going to be on the same ballot as the recall, and I can't call the result at all.
One of my boys thinks it's going to go down in flames, largely because of the number of people and institutions that recognize the value of "diversity" and because people really DO know where they come from and don't want that heritage ignored. I don't buy that. I think the only way it loses is if those 135 candidates take people's minds off of 54, leaving those most negatively impacted by it (black, latino, and some asians) to vote it down. Otherwise? The majority of "liberals" are liberal on a number of issues. Race isn't one of them.
My boy also thinks that if it does win, there's no way it'll be enforced. Here I agree. Bottom line is that there has to be SOME way to enforce the Civil Rights Act. You can't do that if you don't collect racial data of SOME sort.
Particularly in the wake of the surge from Howard Dean, the Democratic Leadership Council (the conservative/centrist body that has exerted a great deal of influence on the Democrats since at least 1988) has sought to forcefully combat what they feel is the leftist insurgency within the party. Knowing the history of this organization in relation to black citizens may be helpful for those wanting to separate truth from fiction. This article is only the latest in a long salvo.
Who is the Democratic Leadership Council? The Democratic Leadership Council is an organization of conservative to moderate Democrats (originally their base was in the south but they've since expanded) that was created in 1985. It is believed that its creation was spurred by two inter-related events: Jesse Jackson's first presidential campaign; and a small focus group held in Macomb County, Michigan.
After Mondale lost (BAD) in the 1984 Presidential campaign, higher ups in the party wondered where they went wrong. Their conclusion was that their party had been hi-jacked by a host of what they called "special interests." None of these interests were more "special" than the one led by Jesse Jackson. The hi-jacking of the Democratic Party by "special interests" led to "regular folks" to flee the Democratic Party like the plague. Hence the term "Reagan Democrat"...lifelong Democrats who cast their vote for Ronald Reagan rather than Walter Mondale.
This finding was emphasized further by a focus group held in Macomb County, Michigan, a population of working class whites a bit Northeast of Detroit. When people held focus groups with men and women from Macomb, specifically about the Democratic Party, what they found astounded them. They found that these voters not only thought of the Democratic Party as the "black" party, they found that these voters blamed every significant problem they faced as individual voters and as part of a larger community, on black people. The end results were so problematic that the final report was allegedly destroyed.
The Democratic Leadership Council was created in order to take the party back from the "special interests" that caused Mondale to get wacked. Clinton's attacks on Jackson and Sister Souljah in 1992 (along with the execution of a mentally retarded black Arkansas inmate) were part of an explicit strategy calculated to erase that association in the minds of white voters.
Fast forward to 2003. Howard Dean is taking the country by storm, collecting more money from more people than any other candidate through a mixture of firebrand political organizing, and the use of smart mobs (collectives organized through the use of hi-tech means like blogging, IM, e-mail, etc.). His message is populist and has a progressive tint. The DLC response?
In the article I highlight above the DLC notes that the most important voting bloc is white men...and that this bloc is falling significantly. If they aren't somehow captured and fought for, the presidential election is LOST. Again they use the spector of "special interests" juxtaposing "special interests" (and by now you should know who that really refers to) against "white men." There are at least three problems with this approach:
1. The DLC is arguing implicitly that the success of the Democratic Party comes from following the mandates of the DLC. With the exception of Clinton's elections in 92 and 96, the Democrats have lost both houses of the Senate, the majority of state governships, and a significant number of state legislatures, under the DLC watch. This signals that CLinton's election was not so much the norm for the DLC strategy as the exception.
2. White men are the most conservative voting bloc in the country, and represent a special interest themselves. Moving towards this bloc inherently leads to a conservative policy orientation. And given the choice between a conservative-lite and a conservative, there is no reason to expect that the white male will choose Bud Lite over Bud. Plus there is every reason to expect that other constituencies will stay home, feeling their policy preferences aren't being articulated.
3. If we're strictly focusing on voting blocs (ACTUAL voting blocs rather than potential ones--I know, I know, focusing on them rather than on getting new voters is another problem but I'm short on space!) the most important voting bloc is NOT the white male, but the white FEMALE. And support for the Democratic Party among THIS group is growing...largely because they feel that the Democrats are more sympathetic on gender and race issues.
Either the DLC recognizes this...and willfully chooses to ignore it, or they don't recognize it...which means they are largely ignorant. Whatever the case, given their propensity to remove black americans from the status of regular folks to the status of "foreign cell" I'm not sure we should really be paying much attention to their pronouncements. Hopefully they'll take their beer (whether Bud or Bud Lite) and go home. Or be sent home by Dean.
I'm going to give an academic presentation on the Sharpton campaign at the American Political Science Association's annual conference in Illy. I've already gotten a pissed off version written up, but I think I'm going to do an Issue Watch. Report how long it takes for Sharpton to actually put up issues on his website.
So I checked today...found out that I've been looking in the wrong place. Sharpton has a website for his exploratory committee...then one for the National Action Network. So I take a deep breath, hoping I'm wrong...
Nope. Not a single issue paper.
Know who else doesn't have one? If you guessed Carol Mosely Braun you'd be right. As of 5.25.03 at 1:48am they don't have policies the first. At least with Lieberman (whoa....is he SURE he isn't just PASSING as a democrat?!?), Edwards and the others you know exactly where they stand. And as far as explicit policies dealing with race are concerned most of them stand pretty far away. Hell, when it comes to policies dealing with progressive issues in GENERAL they are pretty centrist. But at least you know where they are, know what focus groups they are fighting for.
With Sharpton...and now Mosely Braun...it certainly appears as if they're just running on melanin fumes. And while I can't speak for Mosely Braun, I KNOW Sharpton's got political scientists working with him.
To beat a dying horse, to run as if one is the sole candidate of "the black community" and not have a policy platform basically assumes that black people vote for candidates based on how they speak rather than what programs they support. On what color their skin is rather than the content of their platform. I have to laugh to keep from crying. This is awful.
If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, then the Republican party is the last refuge of white racists. It's important to know, however, that while desperate scoundrels get patriotic, not every patriot is a scoundrel. Likewise not every Republican is a racist. Nevertheless, I will assume the worst for the sake of argument, and that is that America is 15% racist and that every last one of them expresses their politics through the machinery of the Republican party. This only encourages my integration plans.
So why don't blackfolks integrate the Republican party? To my eyes there are three reasons. The first, and most important, is that they simply don't care. Insinuating oneself into party politics is not appealing to most people. In this blackfolks are just typical Americans who don't have time to wonk any policy, don't attend enough mixers and conventions and don't blog or otherwise soapbox their way into hearts and minds. Party politics is not a working class sport, it's not even a middle class sport. It's a chatting class sport (you know who you are), and like most Americans, blackfolks don't engage that much in chatting class activities. Especially not when there is so *much* on TV.
The second reason is moderately important. Blacks are politically opposed to the policies and practices of the Republican party. I won't belabor the point because I think we can all offer a halfway decent guess on what some of these policies and practices are, and since I don't have any statistics handy, I don't want to be on record as saying something incredibly stupid. (aside from the fact that I am hedging this conversation in the colloquial lower case.)
The third and least important, yet most significant reason is that to which I have alluded: the Republican party has a whites only sign over it, erected by all of its dumbass white racists. So what is a Negro to do when faced with a whites only sign? Stick with the other Negroes of course. Black men such as myself have different plans.
I should point out that in the era of Jim Crow, even whitefolks in the south could be shocked into a recognition that the evil done in their name (yes, Virginia, white racists are protecting *your* virginity. You are white aren't you?) was partially their fault. I haven't read any of Shelby Steele’s recent screeds but rest assured that he remains popular because his paying audience are whitefolks who wish to assuage themselves of the guilt imposed upon them by their evil cousins. The answer is rather simple: defect. Then those like Matt Hale will have nobody to defend. But whitefolks are fat, lazy, intellectually sloppy Americans just like the rest of us. (well not me of course). And, well, it's nice being white. Nice whitefolks don't like the Klan but they figure they can keep the Klan out of their neighborhood without inviting blackfolks in. Nice whitefolks also don't assume that their neighbors are closet klanners. Nice whitefolks don't ask, racist whitefolks don't tell. The same holds true for nice Republicans.
As defenders of all that is sacred in the sausage-making business of lawmaking and campaign fundraising, party bosses and top dawg congresscritters have developed strong stomachs. Since America is a nice place full of nice people, it comes as no surprise that when somebody steps over some line, the bosses make nice. So it came as no surprise to me that Trent Lott’s cross-in-mouth comments were defended at the outset. There are a lot of ugly things out there for which there is no zero-tolerance policy. The Republicans know they have a lily white suburb, but if one of their neighbors is an actual racist, it's not nice, but to Republicans it can't be tragic. Racist votes count as much as any other kind, and who is going to go through all the trouble to prove this 'racism', hmm? The realpolitik of political racism is that the pain is already priced out of the polls for the Republicans and they're all sleeping just fine.
Strong stomachs and those cute little sleeping blindfolds make for gaffes of biblical proportions which we witness from time to time. Occasionally somebody gets hurt, but it's generally somebody's feelings. These hurt feelings, unfortunately, tend to be the leading indicators of black unwillingness to integrate. And while it's true that they don't make blackfolks as robust as they used to and we're all getting soft now that we don't have to battle the Klan so often, there are still a good number who are hard as nails.
It may come as a surprise to the lay reader that we in the Old School have a strong sense of noblesse oblige, despite the fact that we may not spell it properly. Sue me, I’m writing at quarter to two in the morning, what are you doing? This willingness to do battle marks us among humanity's better examples if you ask me. So there is something of a selfless sense of sacrifice involved here, and that's about as aggrandizing as I’m going to get about it.
Any questions?
A recent piece about Al Sharpton drives home what is bankrupt about American politics in general. We've become so focused on individual personalities and political parties that we've lost the big picture--people are elected to serve in order to get certain policies enacted. As much as Al Sharpton's critique of the Democratic Party is on point, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Take a look at Sharpton's web page.
Do you see a HINT of a policy program?
Now take a look at Howard Dean's page. I don't care about the extra stuff...we can expect that Dean has more resources to provide bells and whistles than Sharpton does. I'm talking specifically about policy platforms. From what I can tell, Sharpton DOES NOT HAVE ONE. So why in the hell should we vote for him? Coates seems to argue that somehow Sharpton's campaign is going to move the Democratic Party to the left, increase black political activism, and bring the disaffected back to the party. How this is going to happen without public policy is beyond me.
Now at some point I expect that Sharpton is going to develop a policy program. But by making the policy program a secondary aspect of his campaign, Sharpton is making the campaign about one thing...his personality. And if black people need to get away from anything...it's the politics of personality. We don't need individuals...we need policy programs.
The Democratic Party HAS lost its way. Given that the Republican Party began as an attempt to envelop enslaved Africans within the American polity, we can say it has lost its way as well. But I'll be damned if we solve the problem by permed out reverends talking about identity rather than policy. Though I don't really expect more from Sharpton, we should all expect more from Coates and other analysts covering his campaign.