The American presidential campaign comes to Alabama, this weekend, and our entertainment circus media continues to offer up the usual melange of non-history and press releases. Perish the thought they should accidentally contrive to produce journalism with depth.
Bill Clinton will join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at a commemoration of the 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Ala., on Sunday, bringing his star power and popularity among African Americans to a weekend of events that had been shaping up as a showcase for the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama. It will be the former president’s first major public appearance with his wife since she launched her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination last month.
Obama announced several weeks ago that he would deliver the keynote speech at a service honoring the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, joining Rep. John Lewis and other veterans of the civil rights movement in marking the historic event. Obama has gained significantly among black voters in recent months, according to a recent Washington Post-ABC News survey, jeopardizing Clinton’s early lead in the Democratic primary field.
The convergence of the Clintons and Obama in the small Alabama town that became the focus of national attention during a series of police beatings and civil rights demonstrations that ultimately helped pave the way for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 sets the stage for an extraordinary political showdown — and media circus.
In 1965, Nixon was busy invoking the “southern strategy” — code words for “we can offer a better home for racist politics than the Democrats”. But, a number of leading Republicans in the House and Senate, from Dirksen to Taft, stuck to principals and endorsed the same civil rights legislation fought for by the brave people who crossed that bridge in 1965.
There were Republicans who joined that original march. There often are Republicans who join John Lewis in the commemoration, every year. But, not this year. What passes for leadership, nowadays, in the Republican Party decided that partisan politics is more important than any struggle against racism — once again.
So, no McCain, no Giuliani, no Romney.
I don’t think they cre all that much about who their candidate is at this point – they just congratulate each other with nods and winks on how Hillary and Obama splitting the Democratic vote guarantees their man the White House…
The media has just morphed out of control in this country. Who really cares to hear about most of this crap?
#2 I agree. Lets pick an example – CNN (I admit, not the worst example). I watch it in Europe where they have a bit different coverage than in the US (thank god!), but they still basically report only variations of the same story. Let’s see….Irak, Iran, Afganistan, Israel, “axis of evil” and war on terrorism. They pick a story, an event etc. that fits something along these lines and keep talking about it over and over again until there is nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, that they could say anymore. Their coverage in the US is even more, if possible, boring and along one theme.
#1. Um, unless one of them runs as an independant, either Hilary OR Obama are going to be running against the Republican nomination. Therefore, they are not going to be splitting any vote, thus guaranteeing the GOP the White House …
Maybe you were commenting upon how confused the Republicans were? 😉
The saddest part for my conservative friends and relatives — whether or not they’re still official Republicans — is that if the 3 leading Republican contenders were running for re-election in the offices they now hold, none of them would have any particular problem showing up at an historic civil rights celebration.
It’s only as someone trying to be the Republican candidate for president that they have to avoid the appearance of favoring equal rights for all Americans.
Question: President Bush, or any other Republicans act like Republicans? I used to be a Repuke, but I don’t see anyone acting like it? Am I missing the boat totally? For that matter do you think the Democraps act any differently? WTF! is there anybody left that I can vote for?
#4 – The going theory is that the split they create in the base will not be healed in time for the general election. Catch up.
#7, Only Democrats don’t think like Republicans. Whoever wins the Democratic nomination will be backed by the other candidates. Unless you happen to be a Republican Jew from New England in which case you play by your own rules.
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This march is another chance for us to remember how cruel we were not too long ago. I realize kids like James Hill have no recollection of even what a Jim Crow law is, let alone the inhumanity we, as a nation, heaped on blacks. May we all remember this piece of our history and vow to never again allow it to happen where one is judged by the color of their skin, or their age, or their faith, or their sex, or their sexual orientation, or their politics.
And there, folks, it is, in a nutshell; textbook White Liberal Guilt. And after 40 years of listening to it, it still just frosts my frijoles, it does. Therefore, I am compelled against my better nature to pop the top on a family-size can of STFU.
Sorry, Fusion, but you’ve been had, buying into that PC “judgement” bullshit. A country where your opinion of people is dictated to you by self-appointed thought police is not a free country. – But of course, exactly like religious fundamentalists, your smug, self-righteous kind “know” that you’re right., so it’s OK to force your ideology on everyone else – they’re not as “enlightened” and “tolerant”. My ass.
Something you never grasped; the idea was to prevent people receiving unequal treatment – to affirm the right to be treated as equal before the law – not to coerce conformity of citizens’ thoughts. You PC ‘tards are 90% of the reason others flee from the Democrats and go over to the other side.
I, just like you, have the right to my own opinions on whatever subject suits me. Should I choose to say that, f’rexample, Baptists are fools, or women make poor pilots, or Asians score better on IQ tests, or whatever else – If you want to call that (and you do) “judgemental” then be my guest. That, in turn, is your opinion, which you, in turn, have every right to. But when you try to use the law to force your beliefs on me, then you are every bit as evilly anti-freedom – and anti-American – as the Taliban. And I’m far from the only old-school small-‘L’ liberal who feels that way, even though you’ve done your totalitarian best to try and silence us.
I’ve enslaved no one. My ancestors arrived on these shores long after slavery; they enslaved no one. That means I feel no guilt and I owe no one my place in line for anything. Your kind discriminates against me because of my skin color and says that I’m less deserving than someone of another color. And you’re so fucking dim that you actually have let yourself be brainwashed into believing that it’s evil for someone of one race to be refused employment solely because of their race, yet it’s perfectly OK to do the exact same unjust, discriminatory evil to me – because of my skin color.
“We” as a nation – oh, fuck off. I didn’t participate, none of my people did either, and I ain’t taking responsibility or ceding what’s properly mine. You want villains, go talk to Strom Thurmond, and leave me out of your “we.”
Now don’t get me wrong, Fusion, it’s nothing personal, it’s about the ideas. So don’t get your panties in a wad when I say: take your Marxist multiculti “diversity” pabulum and get stuffed. Or, in the kinder words of a great American:
“Enjoy your multicultural hooey.”
~ Groundskeeper Willie
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Sorry, but it needed to be said. So there. Pfffft. 🙂
So if Obama does become President, I doubt he’ll get the nomination from the Democrats, at least there will be one individual of color in the cabinet. Oh yeah, have the Democrats decided if Obama is black enough to be considered black, funny that no native long term minority Americans can garner this much support from the little Commie Demos? If Hillary wins there will no-more than Fellatio Bill had, unless someone wants to claim Joycelyn Elders. Then we can repeat the Enron/business scandels all over again, maybe this time they can totally ruin the economy and Hillary can make some more money selling stock short.
Yeah, I think it would have been very good for members of a different party to be there. They could of stood there like statues while the little commie demos attacked them as slave holders and practicers of genocide, and then if they tried to counter the attack be out shouted and attacked for that also.
Which party was it that lobbied for slavery preceding the Civil War, oh yeah the Republicans and Lincoln was a Democrat. What a bunch of ‘Double Speak’, the little Dehimmi commies practice.
Bill loves giving apologies around the world for what America has done. I wonder if he’ll apologize in Alabama for what the Democrats did for 100 years in the South? Or maybe for his own action of giving a Presidential Medal of Freedom to a segregationist governor?
Why should a Republican show up? This in a non-event. It has no relevence to current events. The civil rights groups are approaching complete irrelevence given that there are no legal barriers to black participation in society.
Now they are not even the most numerous minority group, they are grasping for significance. Republicans getting on board with the SCLC and the like is like booking passage on the Titanic.
If nonsense sold like music albums Mr Fusion would be a hit machine. The liberal black leadership in the south has become a democratic hack organization that spreads more rasism throughout the US than anyone will admit.
#12 said it correctly, why should the republicans show up to some irrelavant do nothing, feel good liberal event? Liberal white guilt is the only reason this drivel gets any attention. The only barriers black people face are the ones they create themselves, same as the rest of us.
No one gives you a damn thing in this world. You have to take it.
#8 – You sure are bitter for someone who gets his ass handed to him on this board all the time…
Another racist rant from Lauren, I see. That’s getting to be the norm around here.
“I’ve enslaved no one. My ancestors arrived on these shores long after slavery; they enslaved no one. That means I feel no guilt and I owe no one my place in line for anything.”
When your ancestors arrived, white supremacy was already firmly established. They could attend schools, obtain jobs, even sit in any damn seat on the bus, without being discriminated against. People of color whose ancestors had been here centuries before yours arrived could do none of those things. So, spare us the damn lies. Nor is discrimination over. The benefits and disadvantages conferred on people by a history of sanctioned racism largely decide what oppportunities are available today. Examples: Only about eight percent of the white population is officially poor; an Asian-American with a master’s or doctorate usually earns equivalent to a white American with an undergraduate degree, women still earn less than 70 percent of the wages of a man with an equivalent degree and experience.
If I were Lauren’s employer, I would fire him before he goes off and starts shooting every person who isn’t white at his workplace. The two biggest workplace slaughters in reason years happend when one of his ilk decided to practice what he preaches. Why wait?
Note to Mr. Fusion: You really know how to bring DV’s resident racists out.
Another racist rant from Lauren, I see. That’s getting to be the norm around here.
“I’ve enslaved no one. My ancestors arrived on these shores long after slavery; they enslaved no one. That means I feel no guilt and I owe no one my place in line for anything.”
When your ancestors arrived, white supremacy was already firmly established. They could attend schools, obtain jobs, even sit in any damn seat on the bus, without being discriminated against. People of color whose ancestors had been here centuries before yours arrived could do none of those things. So, spare us the damn lies. Nor is discrimination over. The benefits and disadvantages conferred on people by a history of sanctioned racism largely decide what oppportunities are available today. Examples: Only about eight percent of the white population is officially poor; an Asian-American with a master’s or doctorate usually earns equivalent to a white American with an undergraduate degree, women still earn less than 70 percent of the wages of a man with an equivalent degree and experience.
If I were Lauren’s employer, I would fire him before he goes off and starts shooting every person who isn’t white at his workplace. The two biggest workplace slaughters in recent years happened when one of his ilk decided to practice what he preaches. Why wait?
Note to Mr. Fusion: You really know how to bring DV’s resident racists out.