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News :: Right Wing |
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Racist Lott Comments Too Hot To Be Reported In News-Gazette |
Current rating: 0 |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
09 Dec 2002
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Friday's edition of the News-Gazette had a "happy news" version of the 100th birthday of unreconstructed racist Republican Senator (SC) Strom Thurmond. IMC will now bring you a fuller version of this glorification of thinnly-disguised Republican racism. |
Speakers at Thurmond's birthday bash included has-been presidential candidate and former senator from Kansas, Bob Dole, and others. More important were the remarks from someone who has a major role in formulating Bush Administration policy and advancing its reactionary agenda, Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, who takes over leadership of the Senate as Majority Leader in January when he is seated at the head of the Republican majority elected in November.
Needless to say, the following was NOT reported in the News-Gazette. It is certain that many Republicans would repudiate such remarks, if only they knew about them, but they can't expect any help on this from the N-G. What others might think of Sen. Lott's coziness with racist icons is certain to be even less kind.
Lott minced no words in kissing up to Thurmond's racist legacy. The Chicago Tribune reported, "The Mississippi Republican glowingly recounted the 1948 presidential campaign of Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., who turned 100 last week. Speaking at a birthday party for the lawmaker, Lott said the United States would have been better off had the then-segregationist won. 'I want to say this about my state: when Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him,' Lott said. '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.'
Thurmond ran for president as a candidate for the breakaway Dixiecrat Party when he was governor of South Carolina. 'All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches,' Thurmond said while campaigning against Republican Thomas Dewey and Democrat Harry Truman, who supported civil rights legislation."
The Washington Post reported further, "On July 17, 1948, delegates from 13 southern states gathered in Birmingham to nominate Thurmond and adopt a platform that said in part, 'We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race.' Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a leader of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, said he was stunned by Lott's comments, which were broadcast live by C-SPAN. . . In 1948, he said, Thurmond 'was one of the best-known segregationists. Is Lott saying the country should have voted to continue segregation, for segregated schools, 'white' and 'colored' restrooms? . . . That is what Strom Thurmond stood for in 1948...'
In 1998 and 1999, Lott was criticized after disclosures that he had been a speaker at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization formed to succeed the segregationist white Citizens' Councils of the 1960s. In a 1992 speech in Greenwood, Miss., Lott told CCC members: 'The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy. Let's take it in the right direction, and our children will be the beneficiaries.'"
The CCC felt really good about Lott's renewal of his support for their racist position on the occasion of Thurmond's birthday. Asked to comment on Lott's remarks at the Thurmond celebration, Gordon Baum, CEO of the Council of Conservative Citizens, said "God bless Trent Lott."
Remember, you did NOT read about such atrocious behavior on the part of Republican leaders in the News-Gazette. The editors there felt that residents of Champaign County only needed to hear a carefully sanitized version of the Thurmond birthday bash. What other important news are the keeping from you?
Note: To access the Washington Post website, just tell them you're from Armenia or something if you don't like their nosy gatekeeper page before it allows you to go to the story. |
See also:
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/4697608.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20730-2002Dec6.html
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More News On This |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
09 Dec 2002
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Lott made a rather lame and half-hearted apology yesterday, four days after his comments had stirred up a storm (a Strom?) of condemnation.
This article details how Lott's remarks were fully intended to be exactly what they were and not a ny kind of mistake or slip of the lip:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/dec2002/lott-d10.shtml |
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Recent Comments Part Of Long-Term Pattern Of Thinnly Disguised Racism |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 Dec 2002
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As it turns out, there is really nothing new or surprising about Lott's recent comments. Here's more evidence that Lott hasn't changed his views over the years, but rather simply hasn't been held accountable for such views.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1211-05.htm |
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News-Gazette Breaks Its Silence On This Sordid Affair |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 Dec 2002
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Nearly a week after Sen. Lott provoked a national storm of bi-partisan condemnation with his comments that clearly implied a personal nostalgia for segregation, the News-Gazette finally broke its wall of silence on this incident. In a way, their hand was forced by Pres. Bush's public condemnation of the remarks at an appearance in Philadelphia.
The N-G ran a couple of small stories on page A-3 that in no way reflect the national concern this incident has created, finally making its readers aware of Lott's reprehensible attitudes. On the editorial page, the N-G's secretive editorial board trys to convey the idea that it strongly opposes the crypto-racism that such comments demonstrate underlies Lott's actions and words.
Neither the N-G's nor Bush's distancing themselves from Lott's comments at this late date inspire confidence that they really mean to do anything other than engage in political damage control.
Meanwhile, more details about Lott's life-long love of racial segregation emerge, continuing to call into question his personal fitness to hold high office. See: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1212-09.htm |
