Colored people for state-rights? They are obviously masochists

Actually, I have a rule : If you are Jewish, a woman and/or part of the melanin brigade, you cannot justify state rights in any way, shape or form. Sorry. Nope. Can't do.

You might as well go out, buy yourself a box cutter and start slicing yourself before you rationalize state rights. Why? Because they're synonymous to slavery, internment camps and husbandry privilege. Plain and simple.

Paul Krugman wrote today an piece on The New York Times where he says (obliquely, of course) that he agrees with me :

More than 40 years have passed since the Voting Rights Act, which Reagan described in 1980 as “humiliating to the South.” Yet Southern white voting behavior remains distinctive. Democrats decisively won the popular vote in last year’s House elections, but Southern whites voted Republican by almost two to one.

The G.O.P.’s own leaders admit that the great Southern white shift was the result of a deliberate political strategy. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.” So declared Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, speaking in 2005.

And Ronald Reagan was among the “some” who tried to benefit from racial polarization.

True, he never used explicit racial rhetoric. Neither did Richard Nixon. As Thomas and Mary Edsall put it in their classic 1991 book, “Chain Reaction: The impact of race, rights and taxes on American politics,” “Reagan paralleled Nixon’s success in constructing a politics and a strategy of governing that attacked policies targeted toward blacks and other minorities without reference to race — a conservative politics that had the effect of polarizing the electorate along racial lines.”

Thus, Reagan repeatedly told the bogus story of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen — a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud. He never mentioned the woman’s race, but he didn’t have to.

And here's the coup de grace, in case you were trying to make a case about "but he wasn't a racist" : Reagan’s defenders protest furiously that he wasn’t personally bigoted. So what? We’re talking about his political strategy. His personal beliefs are irrelevant.

And that, my friends, explains the Bush Administration.

Yes, there were/are way more minorities in positions of power in the BushCo administration than in any other Presidency, including Bill Clinton's.

Yet it also proves you don't have to be poor, uneducated and "socially underdeveloped" in order to be alienated and a tool. If you live in a world where you believe your place is to protect the interested of the rich and powerful that own you, then that's exactly what you're going to do ---no matter how much melanin you've got on yourself. On the contrary, it's been incredibly profitable for BushCo to have had a Powell and Rice and Gonzales on their board --they've been the tools for justifying the invasion of Iraq and for manhandling the Constitution and stripping anybody coming in contact with the US government from having any civil rights.

In other words, the colored puppets in high GOP places have made the southern political strategy the success that it is. Because we can't call what they've done racist. After all, it's people of colored in power positions that we're talking about.


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HispanicPundit's picture

Whether it is from the left

Whether it is from the left or from the right, suggestions that politicians of any political party are somehow more 'moral' or less racist than another always amuses me...the naiveness, the innocence, the childlike trust of such an inherently corrupt institution. To be a politician is in itself, to such an overwhelming degree, a backbone less career. Your personal views are so overwhelmed by your political calculations, that its insignificant to even consider them.

Whether it is the right or the left, both sides are always trying to maximize votes. To imply that one side is somehow immune from all of it is absurd. As Matthew Yglesias wrote, "Racism is a key part of the story, but it plays a much bigger role in explaining why Adlai Stevenson and John Kennedy won South Carolina than in explaining why Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush won there." That is not to say that I think Republicans are any different than Democrats when it comes to race, they are not. Both sides will do whatever it takes to get elected - whether it's Rudy Giuliani or Hillary Clinton. To think otherwise is to romanticize politics. This is why I try to focus on the policies, not the politicians.

Btw, as far as minorities and political parties go, there too, both sides can claim puppetry from the other side, see here.

Hispanic Pundit
http://www.HispanicPundit.com/


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