🚀 go-pugleaf

Defend it hell republicans invented racism.
"Monte" <GeeDubya@aol.com> wrote in message
news:Xns92E16150A24D8Monte@216.168.3.44...
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/11/politics/11LOTT.html
>
> below are some excerpts from the article.  Particular note
> should be made of the fact that some moderate republicans are
> becoming disenchanted with the overt racism bubbling to the
> top in this administration.
>
> It is becoming quite evident that blacks and other minorities
> are okay as underlings, but they must know their 'place'.
> Sadly Harry Bellafonte not the brightest entertainer may have
> been correct in his assessment of Colin Powell as a 'house
> slave'.
>
> The term racist and racism have been widely abused in the last
> few years, and most Americans I honestly believe do not think
> that the old fashioned segregationist racist still exists.
> They are wrong, the South is still as racist as ever, it is
> just kept under the sheets better. ;(   Does these bastards
> exist outside of the South?  Of course they do.  But if you
> find yourself in California and overhear a racist slur, odds
> oare two to one the speaker has a suthrin' accent, sometimes a
> phoney wannabe but accent none the less.
>
> It's time for the Republican Party to clean out the closets
> and rid itself of every last Dixiecrat in its ranks.  As for
> the Democratic Party it is way past time for it to rid itself
> of the influence of self serving pariahs such as Jesse Jackson
> and Al Sharpton.  For it is those types who keep pouring on
> the fuel necessary to keep racist fires burning.
>
> Monte
>
> (excerpts)
> New York Times
> December 11, 2002
> Lott's Praise for Thurmond Echoed His Words of 1980
> By CARL HULSE
>
>
> WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 - Trent Lott, the Republican Senate leader
> who faces mounting criticism for his comment last week that
> the nation would have been better off had Strom Thurmond been
> elected president in 1948, expressed a nearly identical
> sentiment two decades ago.
>
> After a fiery speech by Mr. Thurmond at a campaign rally in
> Mississippi for Ronald Reagan in November 1980, Mr. Lott, then
> a congressman, told a crowd in Jackson, "You know, if we had
> elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we
> are today."
>
> Last week, in remarks he later characterized as spontaneous
> and a poor choice of words, Mr. Lott repeated his opinion
> about Mr. Thurmond, who ran for president on a Dixiecrat
> platform opposing "social intermingling of the races."
>
> At the party for Mr. Thurmond's 100th birthday, Mr. Lott said:
> "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran
> for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the
> rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have
> had all these problems over all these years, either."
> ...
> But the senator from Mississippi was attacked today with fresh
> complaints about his comments, as well as calls to step aside
> as Republican leader. Even some conservatives suggested that
> Mr. Lott had become a detriment to the Republican Party.
>
> The White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, found himself
> having to defend Mr. Lott, saying President Bush has
> "confidence in him as the Republican leader, unquestionably."
>
> The fact that Mr. Lott uttered similar comments in 1980
> threatened to intensify the controversy. The quotation was in
> a report on Nov. 3, 1980, in The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson and
> was cited in the introduction of a dissertation by a
> historian, Joseph Crespino, who is writing a book on civil
> rights and political culture in Mississippi.
>
> ...
> Even without knowing of the earlier quotation, critics of Mr.
> Lott called on him to quit his post, saying this was not his
> first misstep. They recalled that he appeared in the 90's
> before the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group whose
> leaders have expressed extremist racial views.
>
> "If Senator Lott's remarks last week were an isolated
> incident, we would be willing to accept his apology as truly
> genuine," said a statement by Wade Henderson, executive
> director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "His
> record, however, speaks far more loudly than his words alone."
>
> ...
> Some conservatives, who have had disputes with Mr. Lott, said
> his statements would feed the impression among some minorities
> that Republicans are intolerant. The president of the Family
> Research Council, Kenneth Conner, said Mr. Lott's remarks had
> done considerable damage.
>
> Besides the White House, other Republicans went to Mr. Lott's
> defense, including Representative J. C. Watts of Oklahoma, the
> lone black Republican in Congress. Mr. Watts, who was in the
> leadership before retiring this year, said he did not believe
> that Mr. Lott needed to relinquish his position. "We should
> not trivialize the issue of race for political gain," he said.
>
> Mr. Crespino, a fellow at George Mason University in Fairfax,
> Va., ..."I couldn't believe he said it in 1980, let alone
> 2002," he said. "These kinds of appeals to the racist right
> have been the G.O.P.'s dirty little secret for years."
> Copyright The New York Times Company
>