Take our current US Senate primary race (oh, Goddess, please do) between conservative Dem Mary Landrieu and moderate Repub Suzanne Haik-Terrell. Landrieu, whose greatest feat in Washington in her last six years in office was to help her mentor John ("'Ya can't buy a politician, but 'ya can rent him") Breaux sell the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve to the Big Oil/petrochemical companies which have ruined Louisiana politics for so long, has been twisting the support of the usual Black lawmakers by basically trying to link Terrell to "a rubber stamp for the failed Republican policies" (some of which Landrieu supported as well). When two locally respected Black state legislators, state senators Donald Cravins (who actually represents my own home district)and Cleo Fields, called out Landrieu on her conservative voting record -- with the shot that "one Republican Senator is enough" -- it was the usual Black church leaders who rose up in unison to decry these men as sellouts.
Of course, many of these fine leaders will probably end up voting for Terrell anyway due to the fact that she is a bit further right on abortion and other religious issues than Landrieu; but the point is that they are so dependent financially upon the old guard Democratic machine that they can't even fathom the notion of independent thought or political action. (And, of course, as soon as the Repubs offer them up some of that "faith-based largeese", they will probably abandon the Democrats quicker than Michael Vick carves up defenses.)
Oh, what a great party the Democrats are!!! One reason why I voted for Moorehead/LaRiva (the Socialist Workers Party ticket) in 1996, and Nader/LaDuke (the Greens) in 2000. That's not neccessarily an endorsement of these parties, just my frustration with the do nothing jackasses.
Yes, the Black "community" is a lot more diverse ideologically than some figure; and so are the women's "community", the Latino/Latina "community", the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered "community", the white male heterosexual "community"....and so on ad infinitum. That's the very reason why I believe that popular parties have to rely upon their principles and actions, not on certain "communities" for success. Instead of pandering to certain "blocs", why not try putting forth sound, radical, progressive PRINCIPLES and PROGRAMS in real opposition to the broad and diverse Right and dead Center that can appeal to real live human beings????
OK....I'm off my soapbox for now. :-)
Anthony
:-)
Anthony --
On Wed, 04 Dec 2002 17:50:05
Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>Anthony:
>> Democratic does not make them progressive....in fact, some
>> Black Democrats are quite conservative, even reactionary. (I
>> could give you examples from my own family.) I guess that I,
>
>Good point. I made a similar observation in Baltimore where the corrupt
>Democratic political machine got a lot of support from conservative
>Black churches - and during the last mayoral election O'Malley ( a white
>law-and-order candidate who also promised to stop privatization of city
>services) got more Black votes than his two Black opponents combined.
>To avoid any misunderstanding, crime affects Black urban communities
>disproportionally more than white burbs - and thus is a big concern
>among Blacks here - so voting law and order is NOT an expression of
>conservatism.
>
>Another case: the corrupt Clarence Mitchell Jr. who fell in disfavor
>with Annapolis Democratic political machine and switched sides to
>support the reactionary Ehrlich in the last gubernatorial election.
>
>The point is that the Black "community" is much more diverse,
>economically and politically, than many Democrats - who tend to take the
>Black vote for granted - want to admit.
>
>Wojtek
>
>
>
>
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