------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Dec. 19, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
EDITORIAL: TRENT LOTT & JIM CROW Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott has proffered a belated apology for his "poor choice of words" at the birthday party of Sen. Strom Thurmond. These amends focus on semantics. The truth is, he saluted Jim Crow in his toast to the 100-year-old politician from South Carolina. Lott had waxed eloquent about Thurmond's 1948 run for the Oval Office. "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. 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 ran on a platform with one plank: racist segregation. He was the States Rights Democratic candidate. "States' rights" has been the cry of slave masters and segregationists since the Civil War. Lott knows that. During the 1990s he was up to his hips in the Council of Conservative Citizens--the heir to the Klan-like White Citizens Council. In fact, he told their members they stood "for the right principles and the right philosophy." So the real question is, what did Lott mean that "we" wouldn't have all these problems if Thurmond had been elected commander in chief? That water fountains and public toilets should still carry apartheid labels? That without the mighty Civil Rights movement the Republicans wouldn't have to dirty their hands burying affirmative action and re- segregating the educational system? That without the Voting Rights Act it wouldn't have been necessary to invalidate Black Florida voters to steal the election for Dubya? Hopeful Democrat Al Gore expressed consternation over Lott's remarks. But his party was originally Strom Thurmond's home, and has been complicit in the erosion of civil rights and affirmative action won through the mass struggle. And Gore was part of Clinton's team when they abolished the pittance subsistence of welfare, plunging millions of women and children deeper into poverty. Tom Daschle, Democratic leader in the Senate, at first "accept ed" Lott's apology, trying to belittle the whole incident. That it hasn't gone away is testament to the vitality of the movement that exists outside these capitalist parties. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
