By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
August 17, 2000
Perhaps, after watching almost all of the Republican Convention on C-Span and almost all of the Democrat Convention on C-Span, I’m getting convention fatigue. But, folks, even though I like politics I find my mind wandering after watching one dull portrayal after another in Los Angeles which seem to be designed to convince me that Al Gore is a family values centered chap I could trust to run the country.
The dominant theme coming out of the Democrat Convention is a confusing message to me. Almost every speaker is telling us that how the Democrats are the REAL party of inclusiveness, whereas the Republicans are only pretending to be inclusive. Yet, both parties have so showcased their minority representatives that both appear to have a black and Hispanic majority and a white minority.
Considering all those prosperous looking black and Hispanic delegates, mayors, members of Congress, etc., at both conventions, why do they need continued special help to get further ahead of the much larger group of poor whites in America? This doesn’t make sense.
Now, I don’t really have a problem both parties trying to convince me that they are inclusive of minorities. In fact, I as one who was working on this problem long before it was called the "civil rights" movement, when it was still called "race relations" I have enjoyed seeing all the black and Hispanic and other minorities who have become mayors, and members of congress. And, of all the people in the Democrat Party that Al Gore might have chosen, Joseph Lieberman is probably the best. He has only a 28% pro-ACLU voting record, which contrasts with Maxine Waters 100% favorable voting record on ACLU issues and arch-conservative Orrin Hatch’s 17% favorable ACLU voting record. He agreed with them on one issue - Campaign Finance Reform..
Of course, it is exactly Lieberman’s sensible voting record that has made him the target of the Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. Maxine Waters. She particularly attacked Lieberman, for his stance on affirmative action, especially a bill in 1997 which would have stopped the Federal Government from giving blacks advantages over whites in bidding for federal contracts. Black and other minority contractors, including women, have a 5% advantage over white men, in the guise of "Affirmative Action." Lieberman properly saw the special treatment as discriminatory. And, since his wife Hadassah is the child of Jewish survivors of Nazi death camps, he has a whole lot more personal, family knowledge of the horrors of bigotry than Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson could ever know.
The sharp comments and threats to not support Gore because of his selection of Senator Lieberman reveal what those of us who have been involved with Civil Rights for the last 40-50 years know painfully well. The real issue here is the latent anti-semitism of many inner city blacks.
This is beginning to bubble over in New York because of the Senate race between Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton. While several of New York’s top elected black and Jewish Democrats condemned an anti-Semitic editorial in Harlem’s Amsterdam News, Jesse Jackson refused to criticize the newspaper. The editorial claimed that "money from Jewish contributors was used to ‘buy’ Joseph Leiberman’s place on the party’s ticket." It brought to mind Jackson’s comment in 1984 when he referred to New York City as "Hymietown."
What is occurring in this year’s race appears to be a tug-of-war between the old guard socialists of the Democrat Party, and the discontent of many of the party’s younger black professionals. They are disturbed by the widespread assumptions on the part of all - black and white - that their success in life is due entirely to the special treatment in education and business they received through Affirmative Action. This is a long term problem that has been largely kept quiet by the media.
The 1960s riots in many of America’s cities were riots that targeted the largely Jewish owned stores of the inner city. The 1990s riots in Los Angeles targeted Korean immigrant businesses in the black neighborhoods. The liberal media generally portrayed those riots as legitimate opposition against "oppressive" businessmen. Almost never did they confront the anti-Semitic and anti-Korean aspects of the story.
While many of New York's top elected black and Jewish Democrats condemned the Amsterdam News for an ugly anti-Semitic editorial, the old guard didn’t. Jesse Jackson, who delivered a rousing speech to New York delegates at the Democratic National Convention, repeatedly refused to criticize the newspaper's claim that money from Jewish contributors was used to "buy" Joseph Lieberman's place on the party's ticket.
This time, however, it appears that it is dividing the Democrats, just as issues of 1968 divided the Democrats at their convention in Chicago. The clear lack of enthusiasm among the delegates, obvious to those watching on television, combined with a series of troubling developments do not bode well for the Democrats. The demonstrations in the streets, which got out of hand on Tuesday, along with the challenge of Ralph Nadar and the Green party, are deja vu experiences for those of us who remember what happened in 1968 in the Chicago Democratic Convention.
James Reston, one of America’s top journalists of the 1960s, wrote after the 1968 election which swept Nixon into office:
"It was a year of violence and defiance. The death toil in the (Vietnam) war rose to more than 30,000. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that violent crime in the United States increased by more than 32 per cent in the first nine months of the year, armed robber by 37 per cent. Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, the brother of the murdered President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Los Angeles during the presidential election campaign. The racial turmoil in the nation was dramatized by the spectacular murder of the Negro leader, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee. President Lyndon B. Johnson, harassed by anti-war demonstrators, announced he w as retiring from presidential politics, and the Democratic party, in control of the White House for 18 of the last 36 years, was finally defeated at the polls."While Bill Clinton keeps talking about America being at peace, most Americans don’t FEEL like we are at peace when they are continuously reminded of 79 days of bombing of Yugoslavia. It didn’t kill American soldiers, as did the Vietnam war but memories of American bombs being dropped on European civilians in hospitals, schools and churches left an uneasy feeling in the minds of many Americans.
In 1968 Hubert Humphrey urged Democrats to forget their differences and concentrate on getting him elected. He didn’t have the leadership skills to do it.
The Democrats are showing some of the same signs this year. The strange episode of Loretta Sanchez being scolded for planning a fund-raiser at the Playboy mansion, Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson’s embarrassing behavior are placing some real strains on the show of "unity. It is increasingly obvious that an effort was made by those who planned the Year 2000 Democratic Convention to SOUND and look like family centered Republicans. Hillary Clinton spent most of time on Tuesday talking about her many years of "concern" about children. Al Gore’s role as a father was emphasized not only in his daughter’s speech, but in a video shown about his life.
Yet, the Democrats are the party that has adopted a platform which supports Partial Birth Abortion a procedure in which the abortionist delivers late term and often viable baby feet first and, before it has a chance to take its first breath, drills a hole in the base of its skull and sucks out its brains. And, to get elected, it willingly takes millions of dollars from such sources as Playboy’s Hugh Hefner and the Hollywood entertainment industry which glorifies deviant sex and violence.
These are political positions that most thinking Americans find impossible to reconcile with "family values" and "trust." In fact, increasingly the whole thing is beginning to remind some of us of the violence and irresponsibility of the 1960s. In the end it could very well be the anti-semitism of black "leaders" that will un-do the Democratic party.
To comment: mmostert@waveshift.com
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