[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Fw: Black Americans Discovered By Democratic Party

[Alfred Kagan]

>From: "Robert Wahlfeldt" <wally1 at soltec.net>
>To: "Al Kagan" <akagan at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: Fw: Black Americans Discovered By Democratic Party
>Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 20:23:12 -0500
>X-Priority: 3
>
>Very true - RJW
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Philip G. Smith" <philthorobred at mindspring.com>
>To: "Wahlfeldt, Robert J." wally1 at soltec.net
>Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2004 12:10 PM
>Subject: FW: Black Americans Discovered By Democratic Party
>
>
>>  This is by Greg Palast
>>
>>  BLACK AMERICANS DISCOVERED BY DEMOCRATIC PARTY
>>  KERRY MENTIONS THE 'D' WORD
>>
>>  Like Christopher Columbus blinking in shock at first seeing an American
>>  Indian, John Kerry has just discovered African-American voters.
>>
>>  On Thursday afternoon, Kerry landed at the NAACP convention, stepped off
>his
>>  slow-moving campaign boat and announced that he was exploring for one
>>  million missing Black voters.
>>
>>  Let me explain -- because the New York Times won't.  In the 2000
>elections,
>>  1.9 million ballots were cast which were never counted --"spoiled" is the
>>  technical term.  Ballots don't spoil because they are left out of the
>>  fridge.   There's always a technical reason:  a stray mark, or my
>favorite,
>>  from Gadsden County, Florida, writing in Al Gore's name instead of
>checking
>>  a box.
>>
>>  According to data from the US Civil Rights Commission and the Harvard
>>  University Law School Civil Rights Project, about half the nation's
>spoiled
>>  ballots -- one million -- were cast by Black folk.  Just as African
>American
>>  communities get the worst schools, the worst hospitals, they also get
>dumped
>>  with the worst voting machines, which eat, mismark, mangle and void
>ballots.
>>
>>  Poof!  A million Black votes gone, zapped, vanished.
>>
>>  And the nasty secret is that for years that suited many white leaders of
>>  local and state Democratic organizations -- Zell Miller of Georgia is a
>case
>>  in point -- who feared Black voters as much as they feared Republicans.
>>
>>  But change is coming, and not because John Kerry and the men who think for
>>  him have changed.  Change is coming because African-American leaders are
>>  getting uppity about the Democratic Party taking or leaving the
>>  African-American voter as the mood and arithmetic pleases.
>>
>>  Here's how Senator Kerry got the message:  Two weeks ago, when I was in
>>  Chicago, Jesse Jackson asked me to join him for breakfast at the Marriott
>>  Hotel.  To my surprise, he'd also invited Senator John Edwards.  Jackson
>had
>>  made copies of my editorial for the San Francisco Chronicle on the missing
>>  one million votes ... and wouldn't let the wannabe Veep touch his bagel
>>  until he'd read every word.
>>
>>  Just when Edwards thought he could have a sip of coffee, Jackson required
>>  him to watch the segment of our BBC television special, "Bush Family
>>  Fortunes," with the latest analysis on the non-count of Black votes in
>>  Florida.  In the 2000 race, 95,000 African-American votes were dumped in
>the
>>  Florida swamps, marked as spoiled.
>>
>>  Edwards, succumbing to hunger, caffeine deprivation and Reverend Jackson's
>>  intense interrogation, caved in and promised to take the message of the
>>  missing Black votes to the white side of his party.
>>
>>  Congresswoman Corrine Brown joined us.  When she read the story and saw
>the
>>  film, she was ready to spit bullets.  She was especially upset that
>British
>>  television covered the story while, in the USA, the Black story was
>blacked
>>  out.
>>
>>  The film clip would get the Congresswoman in hot water.  This past
>Thursday
>>  morning, in Washington, she again watched a preview of the BBC film and
>then
>>  marched down to the Capitol and denounced the Republican Party for
>stealing
>>  the election in Florida.   For telling this truth she was censured by a
>>  straight-up party-line vote in the House of Representatives and her
>remarks
>>  stricken.  (I would note that the President's flat-out fibs about weapons
>of
>>  mass destruction remain on the record.)
>>
>>  Senator Kerry is no Corrine Brown.  The man who would be President is
>first
>>  trying out the 'D' word in front of the friendly natives at the NAACP.
>But
>>  still, it's a first step:  mentioning out loud the massive, systematic
>>  Disenfranchisement of the Black vote.
>>
>>  But the real change won't come until Kerry can say the 'D' word in front
>of
>>  say, a gathering of the members of his wife's country club. And until he
>>  confronts the boys holding the electoral lynching ropes in both parties.
>>
>>  I have a dream.  I imagine John Kerry taking this message to the floor of
>>  the convention next week and proclaiming, "Three decades after Martin
>Luther
>>  King's murder, one million African-Americans cast ballots never counted.
>>  This will not stand!"  Imagine it:  At that moment, for the first time in
>a
>>  generation, the Democratic Party will have nominated a Democrat.
>>
>>  ------------------------
>>
>>  The preview of the updated investigative report, "Bush Family Fortunes,"
>is
>>  included on Punk Voter (Volume 2) CD-DVD, which will be released on August
>>  10.   "Bush Family Fortunes - the DVD" will be released in September.
>Greg
>>  Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy
>>  Money Can Buy.  View his BBC television reports and read the article, "ONE
>>  MILLION BLACK VOTES DIDN'T COUNT IN THE 2000 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION," from
>>  the San Francisco Chronicle, at www.GregPalast.com.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu