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Thread ID: 4053 | Posts: 7 | Started: 2002-12-17

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PaleoconAvatar [OP]

2002-12-17 06:16 | User Profile

VDARE.COM - [url=http://vdare.com/francis/lott2.htm]http://vdare.com/francis/lott2.htm[/url]

Lott Lynching Reveals Corruption Of Establishment “Right”

By Sam Francis

"Nickles Seeks Lott's Ouster," blared the Washington Post's lead headline Monday morning. "GOP Agenda at Risk, Senator Says."

The good news is not that Senate Republicans have decided that their Majority Leader must go - but that there is a GOP agenda at all. From the way in which the Republicans and their neo-conservative allies have responded to the "crisis" created by Sen. Trent Lott's positive remarks about Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist presidential campaign, you would not necessarily know there was.

The initial reaction to the Mississippi senator's words from his counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, seemed almost sympathetic. Mr. Daschle noted that Mr. Lott had explained himself to him, and "I accept that."

Mr. Daschle, no fool, understands that when the Majority Leader feels the need to explain himself to the Minority Leader, it's pretty clear who really calls the shots in the Senate.

And as the Senate goes, so went what remains of the "conservative movement," as defined by the neo-conservatives who have come to dominate and speak for it. Almost to a man, their spokesmen damned Mr. Lott's remarks—"disgraceful" (David Frum), "indefensible" (Jonah Goldberg) "ludicrous," (William Kristol), "appalling" (Charles Krauthammer), "shameful" (a public statement issued by four Republican appointees to the Civil Rights Commission), etc.

Neo-conservative ex-football star Jack Kemp ranted that "until [Mr. Lott] totally repudiates segregation and every aspect of its evil manifestation," the Republicans would continue to suffer damage from his remarks. He demanded that Mr. Lott, as the Post reported, "go before a civil rights group and make a major speech about race and racial reconciliation in the New South to help clear the air."

What is remarkable about this reaction from the “right” is that it is entirely indistinguishable from the reaction from the left—except perhaps that the left was a bit less outraged.

What the reaction of the “right” reveals is that the neo-conservatives who today have come to define the American “right” share precisely the same views as the left. And what that means is that the “right” does absolutely nothing to challenge the left. The left can "up the ante"— escalate its political demands—as far to the left as it wishes, and the "“right”" will tag along behind (or perhaps even run in front).

This is why there is and can be no Republican "agenda" - despite what the wannabe Majority Leaders try to claim.

There can be no Republican agenda because as long as the left defines the boundaries of American politics, any agenda the Republicans or the "“right”" comes up with will merely reflect what the left allows it to support. Any dissent from what the left allows will be denounced—as "racist" or some other sort of "extremism." And you can bet your armband it will probably be the neo-conservatives who will do the denouncing.

By the middle of last week, with the neo-con pack in full bay at Mr. Lott's heels, the left "upped the ante" a bit more. It soon became clear that the real target was not what in the most extreme interpretation was a bland and certainly unintentional endorsement of segregationism but rather the real conservative position on race and civil rights. Both the Post and the New York Times dug up Mr. Lott's voting record and brayed the news that he had voted against the extension of the Voting Rights Act in 1982, against the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in 1983, against the Civil Rights Act in 1990.

Not one of these or other votes Mr. Lott has cast means he supports segregation, and he was hardly alone in casting them. What they tell us is that he has consistently embraced an authentic conservative position on these issues. Among Mr. Lott's many sins that the Post discovered: In 1998 he praised Confederate President Jefferson Davis in helping dedicate a library in his honor in Mississippi and said that Davis “rightly understood [the U.S. Constitution] was created to restrain government, not constrain the people." [text of speech.]

Having conceded the "evil manifestation" of segregation, the "“right”" opened the door for the left to denounce any expression of authentic conservatism—and not only by Mr. Lott.

The dominance of the American "“right”" by neo-conservatives—ex-liberals who continue to exude liberal premises and values but who for some reason insist on calling themselves conservatives—means that ideological hegemony is ceded to the left, that the “right” must always explain itself to and seek sanction from the left, that the “right” can and will do nothing whatsoever to challenge the left's monopoly of politics, culture, and discussion.

What good therefore is accomplished if a Republican president sits in the White House, a Republican majority sits in Congress -and neo-conservative commentators dominate the public dialogue on television and newspapers?

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

December 16, 2002

Dr. Francis most highlights the "Free Republic Syndrome" with that final paragraph. They think it's the be all and end all that a majority of the officials in the government have an "R" after their name, but the Lott incident highlights that "R" means nothing. We all know this. How much more proof do the American people need to see that the Dems and Repubs speak with one voice?

Frederick William I

2002-12-17 07:41 | User Profile

Originally posted by PaleoconAvatar@Dec 17 2002, 06:16 Dr. Francis most highlights the "Free Republic Syndrome" with that final paragraph. They think it's the be all and end all that a majority of the officials in the government have an "R" after their name, but the Lott incident highlights that "R" means nothing. We all know this. How much more proof do the American people need to see that the Dems and Repubs speak with one voice?

Now the elites will always maintain the contrary. Theirs is a problem of bias. I think the American people really on the contrary, recognize the lack of substantive debate and opinions in our political system. Theirs is a problem less of understanding than of apathy and disengagement, as commentators like James Davison Hunter notes.

Its odd, as I contemplate this phenomena of neocon domination of the right, how much the situation parallels that of countries which were in imminent danger of totalitarian takeover. In Portugal in 1975, just as it had been in post war war II Eastern Europe, or post WWI central europe, obstensively the democratic process functioned. Unofficially however the undemocratic banning of the genuine right from the political scene meant that the democratic process no longer effectively functioned, and if the country was to be saved from totalitarianism, it would not come from the ballot box. It would have to come from the street - or totalitarianism would triumph.

Then as now, when succcesful in hanging on to power, the establishment continually used the efforts of those brave fighters without fair recompense.
It went so far as to provoke one brave fighter against Bolshevism, Ernst Junger, to proclaim that not only had the Freikorps been used, but that they had fought on the wrong side. We need to figure out a way we aren't similarly used by the managerial establishment.

You PA suggested we should all vote Democratic. I'm sure after this debacle more than a few paleo's will say we should all really vote for Nadar and the Greens. If we're going to get socialism anyway, why not get the real thing, rather than the watered down corrupted version?

PaleoconAvatar

2002-12-17 07:59 | User Profile

You PA suggested we should all vote Democratic. I'm sure after this debacle more than a few paleo's will say we should all really vote for Nadar and the Greens. If we're going to get socialism anyway, why not get the real thing, rather than the watered down corrupted version?

You're right. The destination is ultimately the same. I notice the Democrats appear to be moving leftward--or at least pretending to--with the elevation of Nancy Pelosi. I suspect this is their attempt to recapture those Nader voters, the importance of which was proven by the ultra-close 2000 election. If the Nader vote totals continue to rise despite this Pelosi maneuver, will the Dems stage an internal revolt against their corporate donors and move further toward what Buchanan called the "authentic liberalism" of Nader? And if that happens, will the Republicans balk and then move rightward to compensate? Both parties seem intent, right now, to sit in the muddled middle, which is of the Left by default and inertia. Something has to re-polarize the political spectrum and break the logjam.

Frederick William I

2002-12-17 10:11 | User Profile

Originally posted by PaleoconAvatar@Dec 17 2002, 07:59 > You PA suggested we should all vote Democratic. I'm sure after this debacle more than a few paleo's will say we should all really vote for Nadar and the Greens. If we're going to get socialism anyway, why not get the real thing, rather than the watered down corrupted version?**

You're right. The destination is ultimately the same. I notice the Democrats appear to be moving leftward--or at least pretending to--with the elevation of Nancy Pelosi. I suspect this is their attempt to recapture those Nader voters, the importance of which was proven by the ultra-close 2000 election. If the Nader vote totals continue to rise despite this Pelosi maneuver, will the Dems stage an internal revolt against their corporate donors and move further toward what Buchanan called the "authentic liberalism" of Nader? And if that happens, will the Republicans balk and then move rightward to compensate? Both parties seem intent, right now, to sit in the muddled middle, which is of the Left by default and inertia. Something has to re-polarize the political spectrum and break the logjam.**

This "middle" strategy of course is a function of the nature of the multicultural politics the parties have chosen to play. The Dem's cater to the minority groups, trying to meet their demands principally, while the Republicans play to the majority, whose purpose is to maintain social peace by continuing to sacrifice and give up to appease the ever growing majorities, which as MacDonald noted is the only way to maintain social peace in a multicultural society.

Obviously both parties face threats. The Dem's face problems from the inherently unstable and fractious nature of the multicultural coalition they assemble, the Republicans from the inherently disingenious role they have in extorting ever increasing sacrifices from their constituency. What unites the leadership of the two parties is their determination to quash the threats to both their positions, authentic national self determination.

It is an inherently unstable situation, not conducive to moderation, except that induced by corcion and force. What is most likely to happen is similar to that of Yugoslavia, where the majority tires of accomodating the splinter groups, and the splinter groups retaliate and try to split the nation apart. All it takes is one principled man like Slobodan Milosevic to stand up for the majority and the "moderation" game will end.

Multicultural politics is a play for keeps game. It isn't conducive to outdated talk of political ideologies, just as in Yugoslavia the ideology of Milosevic proved to be of much less relevance than that he was willing to take stands against the establishment - the same way Nadar and Buchanan seem to have such a strong agreement, in tone if not in precise programme, on so many issues. For all our differences, we do share a common enemy - the establishment, managerial state.

The center will naturally try to coopt the extremists. That is probably what Pelosi represents to an extent. Perhaps the withdrawal of Gore for a perhaps more radical Democrat like Hillary represents the same thing.

The dominance of the politics of radicalism certainly appears complicated. But on inspection it doesn't seem difficult at all. Hi-sounding political ideals are eventually exposed, and the political dynamic reasserts itself on a more basic level. All the empty sounding rhetoric of the middle and the neo cons is exposed as surely and simply as all the talk about the superiority of "the Yugoslavian Way" suddenly just ephemerly vanished in smoke, as if 40 years of history had never happened.

il ragno

2002-12-17 12:13 | User Profile

Long as the topic is VDARE on Lott, here's Paul Craig Roberts weighing in...

Lott A Victim Of The New Feudalism By Paul Craig Roberts

For three decades the United States has been descending into a feudal legal order.

In the ancient feudal system, the differential rights in the legal system were class-based. In the new feudal order, rights are determined by race, gender, and handicapped status. In the old feudalism, the people with the most rights were descendants of warriors. In the new system, it is the victim who has superior rights.

This difference aside, there are many similarities between the two feudal legal systems despite the many centuries that separate them.

In the old feudal system, there were no First Amendment rights. The legally privileged were free to engage in hate speech and to verbally harass others, but any commoner who replied in kind could be sued or have his tongue cut out.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott still has his tongue, but just barely. He used his tongue in a way that gave offense to the new aristocrats.

Black Americans have been granted the right to be offended by any words they don’t like and to extract retribution. The offending speaker finds himself forced into contrition and humiliating apologies. Often the penalty is a destroyed career.

At a birthday party for Strom Thurmond, a 100-year old retiring U.S. Senator, Senator Lott said that if the country had voted for Mr. Thurmond’s States Rights party in 1948, “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over these years.”

It was Senator Lott’s way of doffing his hat to the longest-serving Senator.

Before the new feudal age, Senator Lott’s words would have been understood as tribute to a centenarian. But we are so thoroughly conditioned to the new feudalism that race-baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton scarcely needed to open their mouths before “powerful” white males, including the President of the United States and the editorial page editors of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, were doing their job for them, denouncing Senator Lott for being a segregationist and giving offense to blacks.

Republican pundits fell in line, demanding more apologies from Lott, while Senator Don Nickles (R, OK) saw an opportunity in Lott’s discomfiture to gain the Majority Leadership position for himself.

The spectacle proves--if proof is any longer required--that the First Amendment has been trumped by the race-based privileges of the new feudalism.

Contrast the excoriation of Senator Lott for his harmless remarks with the respectful reception given a few days before to black Vanderbilt professor Jonathan David Farley's hate-filled outburst against white southerners:

“The problems that wrack America to this day are due largely to the fact that the Confederacy was not thoroughly destroyed, its leaders and soldiers executed . . . Every Confederate soldier deserved not a hallowed resting place at the end of his days but a reservation at the gallows.”

Noel Ignatiev, Professor Farley’s counterpart at Harvard, is not content with exterminating only southerners:

“The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race.”

No one demanded apologies and resignations from Mr. Farley and Mr. Ignatiev. The presidents of Vanderbilt and Harvard responded to the blatantly hateful speech with assurances that the hate-mongers were free to speak insensitively as long as it was about whites.

Michelle Malkin, a rare voice of intelligence in the Fourth Estate, noted the skill with which the “race Mafiosi” and big government Democrats maneuvered Lott’s contrition to their advantage. Lott will be forgiven if he delivers more minority set asides, more subsidized housing, a minimum wage increase, and a prescription drug benefit.

It was left to the libertarian, Llewellyn Rockwell, to point out that, fundamentally, states’ rights is about the Tenth Amendment, not segregation. Thurmond’s political movement sought a return to the enumerated powers guaranteed by the Constitution to the states.

Some supporters of Strom Thurmond’s presidential candidacy in 1948 saw states’ rights as a way to continue segregation. Others, however, saw it differently.

Murray Rothbard, the founder of modern libertarianism and certainly no segregationist, saw in Thurmond’s states’ rights party an alternative to the centralizing socialism of the Democrats and the Republicans. In a 1949 letter, Rothbard wrote that it was “the myriad invasions of states rights” that were destroying the constitutional order, everywhere substituting federal coercion in place of freedom of conscience, reason, persuasion, and the will of the people.

Senator Lott’s tribute to Senator Thurmond is easily defended on principled constitutional grounds. However, to speak against the neoconservative Republican and liberal Democrat ideal of a powerful central government is as impermissible as to utter words deemed to offend the legally privileged.

The only parts of the Constitution that still exist are the amendments that permit the income tax and direct election of senators, amendments that centralized power in Washington.

The land of the free is a lost civilization.

Paul Craig Roberts is the author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

il ragno

2002-12-17 13:23 | User Profile

More Lott.

WASHINGTON (Dec. 17) - Trent Lott says his Senate leadership could bring Americans together, now that he understands the hurt he caused with his apparent nostalgia for segregation. His Republican colleagues might not give him the chance.

The Senate GOP set a Jan. 6 meeting on Monday to decide whether Lott's leadership of their majority could be too much of a liability to their agenda in Congress and to President Bush's re-election.

Lott reached out to the community he now admits he wounded, and promised black Americans that minorities could benefit from his continued leadership.

''I accept the fact that I made a terrible mistake, used horrible words, caused hurt,'' Lott, R-Miss., said during a 30-minute interview with Black Entertainment Television. ''But it is about actions more than words. As majority leader I can move an agenda that would hopefully be helpful to African Americans and minorities of all kinds and all Americans.''

Lott has been trying to atone for his Dec. 5 toast to centenarian Sen. Strom Thurmond, when he wished Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. Mississippi voted for Thurmond, Lott recalled, ''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's third-party platform in 1948 was almost wholly segregationist, upholding bans on multiracial marriages and the defense of the South from ''anti-lynching'' reforms.

Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., Lott's longtime rival within the GOP leadership, was the first Republican to break ranks over the weekend and call for new leadership elections, and there were fresh signs of Lott's political weakness Monday. The Republican National Committee maintained its silence about the controversy, and the White House issued its sharpest rebuke yet.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Lott's remarks about Thurmond's presidential bid were ''offensive and repugnant.'' At the same time, he said, ''The president does not think he (Lott) needs to resign.''

Incoming GOP whip Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was the sole Senate Republican to repeat his support for Lott on Monday, saying he hoped ''this issue is resolved quickly so we can move forward together to advance the president's agenda.''

Democrats are discussing a rare censure motion against Lott, and several have said he should consider stepping down.

There was no shortage of speculation about potential successors.

In addition to Nickles, Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has also gained prominence in recent months, following a successful stint as chairman of the senatorial campaign committee.

''My Republican colleagues and I are actively engaged in deciding what is in the best interest of the Senate as an institution and the country,'' Frist said in a statement. ''I am confident a consensus will emerge, but no decisions have been made yet.''

Lott's reputation suffered as much from his toast - which he said was offhand - as it did from the subsequent analysis of his political record, which showed resolved opposition to causes dear to the civil rights community.

In his fourth apology to date, Lott scrambled to show he was a changed man. He announced that he now supports making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday - having voted against it on the Senate floor - and said he supports affirmative action.

''I'm for affirmative action and I've practiced it,'' he said. ''I've had African Americans on my staff and other minorities, but particularly African Americans, since the mid-1970s.''

NAACP chairman Julian Bond said using Lott's staff to tout his record ''demonstrated abysmal ignorance of the legal status of affirmative action.''

''He kept saying, 'I made a mistake,''' Bond told AP Radio. ''But he didn't make one mistake. His whole public life has been a mistake.''

Lott also said had spoken with Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., about setting up a task force on reconciliation and with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, about setting up an African-American summit.

Lewis, a veteran civil rights leader, said Lott appeared ''sincere.'' ''I'd like to come down on his side, giving him a chance,'' Lewis said. ''It's very much keeping with the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence to forgive and move on.''

Lott denied that he was a racist. ''To be a racist, you have to feel superior,'' he told his questioner, Ed Gordon. ''I don't feel superior to you at all.''

Some Republican aides speculated about an effort to coax Lott from his leadership with the prospect of a committee chairmanship. They worry that a humiliated Lott could resign his Senate seat, allowing Mississippi's Democratic governor to name a Democratic replacement - and leaving the Senate at a 50-50 tie.

AP-NY-12-17-02 0351EST

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

TexasAnarch

2002-12-17 15:46 | User Profile

RED, WHITE and TRUE BLUE CONSERVATIVE

       The New American political beat.     Original Dissent Forum. inc.


  Its taken all morning to digest through p. 6  of the comments of all, following Sam Francis' disappointing piece.  Now comes PC Roberts; cf. unread. as yet.)

  Where Francis' article fails to make the cut is where he reverses the mentalities of "right" and "left" in saying:  "There can be no Republican agenda because as along as the left defines the boundaries of American politics, any agenda the Republicans of the ""right"" comes up with will merely reflect what the left allows to support."  It is the neo-con right that has defined the boundaries of american politics.

He reverses the case:  the Left" is absolutely hollow, as a political force, which is why the dems failed on '02.  Behind the scenes, it is manipulated by the neocons, the way George Bush deballed Daschle's war opposition, and the anthrax poisoner, whoever it was, ferrorized liberal Senators Leahy and Daschle with high-grade, weaponized, intent-to-kill anthrax enclosed in an envelope with a fake political letter blaming a mad Arab or "Islamic Extremist".  When Francis lets little things like that slide by, in discussing today's politics, he misses the poisoning that has been done, therefore becomes part of it, by threading false trails.  It is absurd, in the sense of self-contradictory, to point out, in one breath, that it was liberal sentiment -- us old bleeding hearts -- that would overlook Trent Lotts remarks as innocuous reflective musing -- never admit segregation is wrong -- I was raised under de facto segregation, with no hostility whatever -- then in the next breath, turn around and say the "left" will "up-the-ante", and force propituation for  Lott's sin. (see Genesis 19.18:  "Then Lot said to them,  "Please no, my lords..."")

 In his closing remarks, Francis arrives at the point where, I caught on, after joining it, this board largely begins.  The pinned documents identifying "neocons" are historically critical, whether ever recognized as such, or not.  They analyze an actual ongoing political fifth column, variously called "cult", for its impenetrable ideological self-absorption; and "Cath-O-Jew complex", after its religious constitutents (mostly).  This identification also necessarily sets in motion (Hegel) the anti-thesis:  us.  The system of self-government left behind in our marrow is so dynamic it does not allow itself to be contained within their narrowed definitions.  It reverts to the the opposite (cf. also John Paul Sartre).

 The name "democracy" itself has been soiled and corrupted by the Democrate party (agree with Francis, here).  Therefore, I have come to think the new True Communication Movement, swhich we represent, cannot use nor join any who use it.  They will inevitably re-text what it means, somewhere down the line, in their favor, then say "Oh, didn't you know that was what democracy was?"  In true democracy, for instance, a logical distinction is drawn between the laws and procedures under which voting occurs, and the process of voting itself.  When this distinction falls, you vote for what you are voting for, and it is manipulated so that you never catch up to anything decisive.  But yuppie neo-cons have been raised to straddle all lines and fences, including this.  (As if you could vote on what "God" was, and that was it, legally speaking -- as if it were possible to assume that God could somehow be put on the ballot.)

  The "left" is merely a default position which the "right" defines itself over against, as an accusing mind-set.  Just read their stuff.  Every article, even into the mainstream columnists such as Michael Kelley, Will, going all the way back to Buckly, in addition to the spate of ones Francis mentions -- never a philosophical base in America, except through Lincoln Republicanism, now opposed from both sides, today.  Only a mind-reading, "projective" politics, over against a rapidly expanding unassimilated immigrant population, which it is required to defend itself against, or go under, as a light of civilization.  Like a flaming cross.  If there was a real "left", it would light one up.  I'm thinking of it.  I've down-loaded the C of CC brief, and their argument looks iron-clad.  Let Clarence eat Lott.


  Now that Trent Lott's words have been used against him by the New York Times, Washington Post, and all the rest, when the tempest could have been stilled in the teapot, it cannot be tolerated as a situation.  He cannot be forced to say, publically, such things as "I would vote for the MLK holiday, now".  Truly, he knoweth not what he does, either now, or then.  But that is no longer the point.  To have seen what they did, and not do anything about it, is to accept the bone that has been arranged to be thrown to old southern/southwestern conservatism -- I tie it to a geographical, as well as protestant religious spirit, but it is universal in its tolerance, dynamic inclusivenss, and developmental fullness --when, but only when -- governed by an aristocracy of the uncorrupt.


  As slogan of the RED, WHITE AND TRUE BLUE CONSERVATIVE PARTY

whoever joins, and all are welcome, it will be this: President Lieberman?

NO fcking WAY (start printing the Tshirts now)