Thursday, June 21, 2007

99 - More GOP Racism: "Vote Caging" To Prevent African-Americans From Exercising Their Right To Vote

Today we're going to discuss yet another example of GOP racism: their recent attempts to disenfranchise African-American voters.

The modern day Republican Party is not the party of Lincoln. Quite the opposite.

Modern day Republicans don't walk around in Ku Klux Klan robes. But the GOP has engaged in a decades-old and still ongoing massive and intense effort to prevent African Americans from voting. So Republicans might as well walk around in Ku Klux Klan robes.

The present-day GOP doesn't burn crosses. It throws African-Americans off the voter rolls.

Before we get into what the GOP did in the 2004 presidential election, you really have to understand where the GOP is coming from.

Starting in 1968 with Richard Nixon, the Republican Party employed what was dubbed the “Southern strategy.” It was designed to attract the votes of whites who were upset that the Democrats had lent their support to civil and voting rights for African Americans.

This is not something right-wingers can deny.

The late Lee Atwater was the grandpappy of all Republican dirty campaign strategists. In fact, Karl Rove was a disciple of Lee Atwater.

In a 1981 interview, Lee Atwater described the Southern Strategy.

Now when I read what Atwater said, instead of the racial epithet that rhymes with “trigger” that Atwater uses, I’m going to use the term “N word.”

Atwater told his interviewer that

You start out in 1954 by saying ‘N word, N word, N word.’ By 1968, you can’t say ‘N word.’” That hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like “forced busing,” “States’ rights,” and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now that you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is that blacks get hurt worse than whites.

There you have it, right out -- literally -- in the open. The premier Republican strategy guru, admitting to a blatantly racist agenda.

...What we'll now get into, preventing African-Americans from voting, even has come up in the recent Congressional hearings into the firing of the federal prosecutors by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

For further details, please listen to the podcast.

(PS: Right-wingers, if you want to write in to me, fine, but at least do me the courtesy of listening to the podcast first. Please don't respond just on the basis of the brief preview above. Thanks!!)

Jack Clark 2:23 PM [+]   0 comments
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