Erasing a Century of Civil Rights

Look at the two articles then the comments that follow. This gets twisted, naturally, it’s about liberals! -Ichabod Crane
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Sen. Clinton: GOP Erasing Century of Civil Rights Progress
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
July 29, 2005
Washington (CNSNews.com) -- New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton Thursday warned that Republican conservatives were on the verge of erasing a century of “progress” on civil rights, feminist and worker-related issues.
“So much of what we built in the 20th century is at risk,” Clinton said at the National Urban League’s annual conference in Washington D.C. She spoke to a crowd of several hundred at a panel discussion entitled “The Black Male: Endangered Species or Hope for the Future?”
“There are people -- unfortunately too many of them in this town -- who believe the progress that we celebrate -- that the Urban League was part of creating in the 20th century -- was not in the best interests of Americans,” Clinton said, apparently referring to Republican-elected officials.
“I don’t know who they’re talking about because it sure was in the best interests of women and of African Americans and of Latinos and Asian Americans. It sure was in the interests of workers and people who wanted a fair shake and a better life,” Clinton said.
“I think it’s fair to say that your government is not holding up its part of the bargain right now,” she added.
Clinton accused the Bush administration of budget “cuts” in a variety of federal programs, including food stamps, Medicaid, welfare, Pell Grants, higher education, and Head Start.
She also called for “racial justice empowerment” and asserted that the “promise of America” was “still missing for millions of our fellow Americans.
“We still have too many of our children who are being left behind ...You know, I do think it takes a village to raise a child. A village needs strong families, it needs good schools,” she said to applause.
Copyright © 1998-2005 CNSNews.com - Cybercast News Service
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Wow, I am (nearly) speechless. Where to begin with this stinking pile of skunk feces? OK, the ‘cuts’ – absolutely none of these budget items are smaller this year than they were last year, which were larger than the year before, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Every year huge allotments are proposed and, when a teensy-weensy, itty-bitty bit of reason enters and the PROPOSALS are reduced, that’s called a cut; even if the final figure is 100% larger than the previous year, if it is smaller than what was proposed, it is a cut, get it?
Then there is the “…we built…” comment, like she, or her ilk, had anything to do with it. It was the Democrats, lead by ‘sheets’ Byrd, who attempted to filibuster the Civil Rights Bill in the sixties. It was Richard Nixon who signed it, once a way was found to shut the southern Democrats up.
Let’s see, when he was a Southern Democrat (Dixicrat, as it was called), Strom Thurmond was a segragationalist; then he changed parties and his stance on Civil Rights. Once you scratch the surface, it looks like the Democrats talk the talk, but are short legged when it came to walking the walk. They do a great job of slandering the Republicans, though, so that it’s easy to forget that it was those Republicans who made the great strides in Civil Rights legislation.
Lincoln was the first Republican President and he certainly made the first great efforts at Civil Rights, didn’t he? John Wilkes Booth was a Southern Democrat; he prevented the reconstruction that Lincoln wanted – simple amnesty, forgiveness and education for the freed slaves.
After the Civil War, southern whites uniformly voted Democrat and when the 15th Amendment was passed, they ‘urged’ blacks to vote along those same lines. Blacks were largely illiterate back then and pretty much did what they were told. Old habits die hard (that is, the habit of voting Democrat, not subservience; they overcame that soon enough) and for no other reason than habit, southern blacks vote democrat. It’s like licking the boot that kicks them.
Don’t just listen to me, here’s what the Reverend Al Sharpton (I never thought he’d be agreeing to anything I said) has to say about it all: -Ichabod Crane
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Sharpton Slams Blacks for Blindly Supporting Clinton, Democrats
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
July 29, 2005
Washington (CNSNews.com) -- Former Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton blasted blacks Thursday for what he described as their blind support of the Democratic Party without demanding anything in return.
Sharpton, during his remarks at the National Urban League’s annual conference in Washington, noted that his fellow Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, have taken African-American voters for granted and failed to act in the best interests of the black community.
“The whole network of incarceration (of African-American men) happened under this president and the last president. So it wasn’t just George Bush. Bill Clinton -- I wish Hillary had hung around -- Bill Clinton built a lot of jails and passed the omnibus crime bill,” Sharpton said shortly after Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) had addressed the same panel discussion, entitled “The Black Male: Endangered Species or Hope for the Future?”
Sharpton noted that African-American men make up 6 percent of the U.S. population but 44 percent of the nation’s prison population.
“And just because Bill can sing “Amazing Grace” well doesn’t mean the omnibus crime bill was not a bill that hurt our people,” Sharpton told the several hundred people gathered at the Washington Convention Center.
Clinton enjoyed significant African-American support and was affectionately referred to by many in the black community as America’s “first black president.”
“We must stop allowing people to gain politically from us if they’re not reciprocating when dealing and being held accountable,” said Sharpton, referring to the allegiance that African-American voters maintain to the Democratic Party.
Sharpton said many politicians who court the black vote “come by and get our votes ‘cause they wave at us on Sunday morning while the choir’s singing. And we act like that is reaching out.”
The problem is these same politicians “never addressed why they sit here in Washington with an epidemic proportion of HIV AIDS in our (black) community, unemployment in our community and they do nothing to deal with eliminating those problems,” Sharpton explained.
“Imagine me going to a convention of whites who half of them were unemployed and I smiled, waved, sing a hymn and leave. They would whip me in the parking lot before [I left],” he said to laughter and applause.
“As long as we allow people to get elected off of us and deliver nothing to us, then part of our problem is that we have such low political self esteem,” he said. “Every time we give them support for no support, we add to the marginalization of black men.”
Sharpton said the situation has “gotten so bad that we hold black leaders accountable and give white leaders a pass.”
‘People emulate what they see’
Sharpton also took aim at black popular culture. Noting that in some U.S. cities, black male unemployment exceeds 50 percent, Sharpton said black music and movies only aggravate the situation.
“We come out in response to that with movies like (the 2005) “Hustle and Flow” and tell our kids that the personification of black men is a black pimp of a white prostitute that wants to be a rapper who shoots the rapper and at the end of the movie, [a] black woman he had as his prostitute has his baby and the white prostitute becomes the head of the record company and makes the money while he’s in jail. That don’t make sense,” Sharpton said to applause.
“People emulate what they see ...We cannot succumb to a generation that acts like it’s all right to celebrate being down. It’s one thing to be down, it’s another thing to celebrate being down,” he explained.
Referring to gangster rappers, Sharpton said, “We’ve gone from ‘black and proud’ to groups now calling themselves “Niggers with an attitude.”
Sharpton told the panel discussion of how he has confronted rappers about their lyrics only to be told that the rappers simply “reflect the times.” Sharpton said black art and culture used to project its “hopes for the future.”
“In slavery we wasn’t singing, ‘you a low down cotton pickin ho.’ That would’ve reflected the times,” he said to more laughter and applause.
“In the civil rights era, we sang “We shall overcome” we didn’t sing ‘You in the back of the bus, got gum on your show, no good MF.’ I mean we’ve been down before. We never romanticized it and put melody to it and acted like it was all right,” he added.
Sharpton concluded his discussion with a call for the black community to help itself and return churches to “the center of our community.”
“Even if we [are] not responsible for being down, we [are] responsible for getting up,” he said. “And if we wait on those who knocked us down to lift us up we’ll never get up ‘cause if they wanted us up we would have never been down,” he said.
Copyright © 1998-2005 CNSNews.com - Cybercast News Service
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You Democrats out there who think that the nice words and good intentions of the Democrat’s leadership is enough, you are the problem, or at least a good part of it. Why do you never demand the results that are never forthcoming from that party?
All that seems to come from the democrats is good intention and failed social programs. Then you accuse the Republicans of ‘mean spiritedness’ when we try to patch your debacles. Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Welfare Society” is a prime example. This piece of crap caused generations of blacks and other poor people to be enslaved to the system that offered no way out, no hope, nothing but the prospect that having more kids was the way to make more money. I personally knew a woman who was third generation welfare recipient and her mother and grandmother were still drawing checks along with her.
Fixing the system to prevent that hopelessness is not mean-spirited; it is a way to instill self-respect back into those people.
Oh, on the twisted logic front, why are liberals so adamant about Judge Roberts’ views on Roe v Wade? If, as they say it is, the Constitution is a moving target, a living document, changing with the times, why would Roe v Wade be the only part cast in stone? Wouldn’t that be just as malleable as the rest of it?
Then, Ted Kennedy, the Senate’s most famous drunkard, wants to know who’s side Judge Roberts is on. Huh? Walter E. Williams compared that question to a baseball organization hiring a new umpire and asking him who’s side he would be on? (I saw that in an editorial cartoon as well, but I don’t have it and can’t remember who created it.) All you need to know about an umpire (or judge) is if he knows the rules, will adhere to them, and how much experience he has doing his job. It would be correct to look into his record and see what complaints he’d had against him and how they were resolved. (With a judge you might want to see how many of his decisions were overturned as well.) The rest, with any judge, especially with a lifetime appointment, is a crapshoot; seven of the current justices were appointed by Republicans and only two of them are staunch conservatives. By that tally, I would think that the liberals would just shut up and let the President pick another ringer for them.
Ah, but I digress somewhat, although the court has been very activist in Civil Rights as well. Consider affirmative action and forced bussing. (Why didn’t they just bus the teachers? That would have been way cheaper and just as effective - that is, not at all.)
I think I’ll leave it at this and let Rich feed me some fuel in the name of a rebuttal.
-Ichabod Crane