Friday, December 13, 2002

A Lott Like Reagan QUOTE OF THE DAY "Trent Lott's South only exists in myth. Fortunately, Trent Lott only speaks for that South. Not the real South. Not the South of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Not the South where one quarter of the population is black. Not the South which has emerged from a tumultuous legacy of racial oppression to make strides toward true racial unity, where the lofty ideals of Martin Luther King Jr. are being achieved in elementary schools across the region. These are the realities of the South today." - - Andrew Beck Grace RHINO HERE: Last week, at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, Senator Trent Lott toasted the old fart saying "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." "All those years" meaning since 1948 when Thurmond ran for president as an independent Dixiecrat with a campaign vigorously opposing a federal anti-lynching law and desegregation legislation. RANO SAYS, "She'ore! If'n he'da won, an if all dem white liberal yankee jews hadn'ta come down stirring up the darkies, why things woulda kep on being nice and easy way it'd been since ma grand daddy's days." Hey, call a spade a spade, I say. And call a racist a racist too. On a related chunk of history, remember when Ronald Reagan kicked off his first presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi? Mmmmmm, why there? Cause on June 21, 1964 three students (2 Jews and one Black) disappeared. Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney were taken to jail for speeding, later released, and sometime later murdered. MORE ON THAT HISTORY AT: http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/missippi.html On February 6, 2001, Ronnie Reagan turned 90. Appearing on Lehrer's NewsHour, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and Professor of History and American Culture, Roger Wilkins had this to say: ROGER WILKINS: Well, every once in a while Reagan would just send out these laser beam signals that were crystal clear. His first speech in his campaign in 1980 was in Philadelphia, Mississippi, which nobody outside of Mississippi had ever heard of except for one thing and that was that three civil rights workers were killed there in 1964. Reagan said then I'm for states rights. If you say I'm for states rights in Mississippi, everybody knows what you're talking about. Some years later he went to Atlanta and he said Jefferson Davis is a hero of mine. Everybody knows what you're talking about then, too. He went to Charlotte, North Carolina, where the first federal court ordered the first bussing remedy and he said, I'm against bussing. So.... JIM LEHRER: So your point is that he believed this -- he wasn't in it for political reasons or he was -- ROGER WILKINS: I think he believed it. He opposed the Martin Luther King holiday, yeah. I think these were things... they worked for him..." NEWS HOUR TRANSCRIPT AT: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june01/regan90_2-6.html ROGER WILKINS BIO AT: http://www.gmu.edu/robinson/rw.html 8:48:25 AM    comment

Does Trent Lott Speak for the South? By Andrew Beck Grace, AlterNet, December 11, 2002 ... Considering the egregious civil-rights violations of Southern elections from emancipation to the late 60s, it's doubtful whether or not blacks had any voice at all in elections, especially in an election where the sole purpose of the organization of the party was to combat the proposed civil-rights legislation of the Democratic party. It wasn't until 1964, with the passage of the 24th amendment which outlawed the poll-tax that blacks could see the beginning of any realistic voting rights in the South. But, of course, by 1964, Thurmond had lost his bid for presidency by 16 years, and this country was well into what Lott called "all these problems over all these years." What's troubling about Lott's statement [^] which he described in a press release as "a poor choice of words" spoken during "a lighthearted celebration" [^] is that one of the most influential politicians in this country, soon to be the Majority Leader of the Senate, hasn't been affected enough by one of the most powerful moments in American history, a moment which happened in his state, to change what he says among friends during a birthday party. Al Gore denounced the comments as a "racist statement"; Rev. Jesse Jackson suggested Lott should step down from his Senate post. But to suggest that the attention being placed on Lott's words is merely another sign of partisan bickering is to lessen the gravity of his words. The comments of people in power are almost universally censored by their handlers, speechwriters and PR teams. The way we come to understand the true feelings behind the rhetoric of our ever-polished leaders is to see how they act and hear what they say in "lighthearted celebrations" with friends. These are the comments we should use to judge our leaders, not the rehearsed, scripted, media-friendly, and sound-biteable comments uttered in front of reporters. So the question begs to be answered: Does Trent Lott speak for Mississippi and the rest of the South?... SEE THE REST OF THE ARTICLE AT: http://www.alternet.ORG/story.html?StoryID=14737 Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law ( http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html ). All copyrights belong to original publisher. "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. RHINO'S WEB SITES: http://www.rhinosblog.info (RHINO'S WEBLOG - PRESENT & PAST) http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) 8:44:50 AM    comment

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