From the Pen of David Horowitz: September 5, 2009
Let me begin by saying that I am not a racial provocateur and, as I hope will become evident in the course of this reply, I do not have a chip on my shoulder that causes me to seek confrontation with the African-American community. In fact, I do not see myself in confrontation with the African-American community at all. My fight is with the African-American left.
When a well-meaning Democrat in Florida designs a butterfly ballot to help elderly Democrats vote their ticket but inadvertently confuses them instead, and when this becomes a pretext for Jesse Jackson and other demagogues to charge Republicans with a plot to “disenfranchise the descendants of slaves,” that is racial provocation. If you’re looking for a racial provocateur, Jesse Jackson should be your model. Jackson’s strategy is a cynical triad: provocations, negotiations and then “reparations” (for Jackson, of course, and his family and their well-heeled friends).
– “I’m not a racial provocateur.”
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Commonly it is the sop of liberalosts to attack and vilify opposing ideology either by denigration or accusation of racism, as it seems to give them a sense of credibility upholding an ethereal purpose that somehow causes then to be elevated to a “higher plain of consciousness” than the pragmatic John & Mary Doe….don’t-cha-know!
African-American left Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have been selling half truth’s and band aids since 1968 there lies were not M.L.K. dreams these people have used his murder and made millions of dollars and the inner city still the same fire are still burning that hate inside waiting for the code word to jump. Everyone has been taken by Obama, Michelle Obama Valiere Jerrett Van Jones and the rest of the czar’s. and the rest of the administration with the nine finger enforcer Rahm Emanuel. David Axelrod the professional race card dealer. But the real truth here is if your poor you don’t matter to these people.
Another such radical provocateur would be my Sen. Bernie Sanders. Since his feet hit the ground in VT (circa ‘68) he has been espousing his Alinski tactics by riling up the masses to help the tragic poor, uneducated, underemployed, underfed, taken advantage of Vermonter. He has fought hard to improve the status of the “average” Vermonter – paid for by Vermonter’s and Fed taxes. And you know what? We pay more in taxes, have higher teacher salaries, have class sized of 1 to 12, lunch programs school year and summer, have one of the most generous entitlement and healthcare programs that includes paying folks to clean people’s houses than any other state, yet our test scores are no better than other states, there are no new jobs – our young people leave, and at my last check a few years ago…over 25% of the population was receiving assistance – ugh!!!
It seems that most of our representatives have lost touch with reality. Exploiting those who have no hope is a common theme throughout this world and must be subverted. While we’re appalled at Muslin extremist movement, they have slipped their doctrine of hate upon us. One can only wonder, how could this have occurred?
“When a well-meaning Democrat in Florida designs a butterfly ballot to help elderly Democrats vote their ticket but inadvertently confuses them instead, and when this becomes a pretext for Jesse Jackson and other demagogues to charge Republicans with a plot to “disenfranchise the descendants of slaves,†that is racial provocation.”
No. It’s what’s known as a red herring. In Palm Beach, hardly a hotbed of black voters, butterfly ballots led to confusion among elderly voters, causing anomalous numbers of ballots to be voided.
In a quite separate incident, Jeb Bush’s State of Florida contracted with ChoicePoint to develop special new felon lists, of potential voters who should be disenfranchised. The list, incidentally, cost the state an order of magnitude more than the usual felon lists, readily compiled through state-by-state databases in the public domain.
This list was distributed by Katherine Harris to polling stations across the largely black northern part of Florida, with specific instructions to apply it broadly.
It contained so many errors and so few real identifiers that it became increasingly likely that many voters with common names would be challenged, as having a name similar to someone on the lists. Often voters were excluded even when they were not a “Jr.”– or even when they were of the wrong race.
These excluded voters, nearly all black, were given no chance to contest their exclusion, or to cast a provisional ballot pending a later recount. They were just denied.
After the election was safely over, the Florida Board of Elections admitted that some 7500 voters had been wrongfully disenfranchised.
Goerge Bush “won” this election by 537 votes. I think Mr Horowitz knows full well that the incident of the butterfly ballots was not racist. The felon lists certainly were.
Could David explain why the overwhelming majority of Jews are liberals? Why are intelligent people drawn to an ideology that destroys minds, hearts and souls, disparages human dignity and worth, and fights to enslave people?
This is something that actually falls within the job of the government, and congress. Election ballots fall under the perview of the federal election commission. Maybe the president should drop his ideas of a federal healthcare system and actually try to fix the things that are wrong.
1) set a standard ballot, and use it for every election.
tax the drugs when they sell them to druggies, and provide clean needles, etc.
2) Pass real-id legislation so that only citizens can vote
3) Get the unions and teachers organizations, and other fringies to back off and let people vote their conscience.
4) Enforce the laws we have, instead of trying to make new ones.
5) Make it to where illegals can never vote again.
6) Pass legislation that’s logical about immigration. (I.e. let those want to come over, fill out paperwork at the border checkpoints, and streamline the process so those with skills can get greencards.)
7) Kill all the stupid drug laws and have the fda step in and take over the processing of cocaine, heroine, etc. Then buy the drugs from the cartels, on the condition that they pay their workers fair wages and become real businessmen.
9) If the government wanted to, it could make drugs cheap and then people wouldn’t have to steal to get their fix.
But then that is the independant/libertarian way of taking care of a problem, and the government is anything but logical.
Dear David Horowitz,
I respect you already. So please stop reassuring me that you aren’t a racial provocateur. I don’t care if you are. I’ve put up with Reverend Wright, haven’t I? And Jesse and Al all these years, haven’t I? In everyday life, I’ve put up with the snide accusations, bad attitudes and PC paranoia for years. I’m used to being told my heritage and my country is the source of all injustice in the world. I’m used to living with people who really are racial provocateurs. They amuse me.
I held back my vomit while listening to Reverend Lowry’s little “prayer” during Obama’s inauguration. Remember? “When whites will do what is right?”
All whites are racists, according to him. So just take his advice and just continue to “do what is right.” Unfortunately for Reverend Lowry, God just might answer his prayer in a way he doesn’t expect.
If more blacks became self-reliant, were independent, and accountable to themselves
and their families, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be out of work.
Why do you think they promote class warfare, grievance politics, and victimhood
mentality? They’ve gotten rich pushing this agenda, and are responsible for many
continuing a life of dependency. They say they want to see MLK’s dream come true,
but the philosophy they are espousing reaps results that are truly a nightmare.
Martin Luther King Jr. espoused a dream wherein people weren’t judged by their skin tone, but by their character.
Ya know, that works both ways. I’ve seen some really characterless white people out there, and most of them are in the congress. Ted Kennedy was one, Murtha is one, Kerry is one, Richards is one, Obama is one as well, and on the republican side, The louisianna congressman that got ride from the NG to pick up frozen cash, Senator Hutchison of Texas is one, as is the Governer that had the south american mistress.
If you think this administration should change the rules on ‘ID required for voting’, you are wrong. The left wants no part of making voting an honest act- how many dead people do you know who have IDs?
About as many as there are illegal immigrants that can vote.
I honestly believe we need to go back and start doing things the way the constitution says they are to be done.
Thomas Paine, where he alive today, would be screaming about government intrusion, and would be calling for another rebellion.
“The tree of liberty needs to be nourished from time to time, with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”
I’ve begun wondering if when we have this revolution (not if, but when) will it be an American Revolution, or a French Revolution.
Our Revolution was relatively bloodless, with only british soldiers being attacked, while in France, they painted the streets red with blood, and the innocent and guilty both lost their heads.
The rancor on both sides makes me so sad. It seems so irreconcilable. I am coming to the point, for the first time in my life, to truly fear for the future, especially the future of my children. My husband and I are quietly trying to instill in them the reasonings of Ayn Rand….true individualism and self reliance. NOT ultra-right wing survivalist…but compelete self sufficiency for their futures. They will look to no one to provide health (health insurance, medicare), wealth (government handouts of all kinds, including social security), or happiness.
They will expect to have to work hard for anything, and work their entire lives. Work will make them strong, productive, and hopefully, secure. We are encouraging them to seek love and faith, and to work to sustain and survive. I hope they can live lives as far removed as they can, from the chaos of American political life, and all of its ramifications.
I want the RADICAL LEFT to leave them alone and let them live!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It isn’t in the best interest of politicians nor those in the judiciary to abide by the authority given them in the Constitution. How would the millions dependent upon their usurping their authority and making up the meaning of the Constitution as they go along survive if that were to happen?
If you want to turn off the antipoverty spigot these people have been holding you back you don’t need any of these to step up.
If the legislators implimented logical laws they would lose their ability to manipulate, for most are lawyers whose livelihood depends on interpreting the abstract profitably.
You should ask yourself why the politicians either oppose your ideas, or don’t want to discuss them.
It’s not because they are stupid or “misguided.” It’s deliberate.
What, Michael? Horowitz isn’t making the case that the butterfly ballots were racist. He’s making the opposite case. So, of course he knows that they weren’t racist. I’d like to see your source for the 7500 disenfranchised claim. If leftists REALLY believed that this was wrong, there would have been hell to pay. But there wasn’t, was there?
Bush didn’t win by 537 votes. I bet he won by more, if you discount all the votes by dead and non-existent Democrats, or by those who voted once, but not just in one state. I’d love to know how many felons got away with voting. The Democrats cheat profusely. That’s what the term “Chicago politics” means.
But I will be honest with you. IF the election was rigged in favor of Bush, then I say GOOD! I love to see the left denied opportunities to undermine America. They’ll get their revenge anyway. If the right was anywhere near as ruthless as the left, they’d be using the Smith Act to run the left out of politics. Like they used to do in the good old days. The fact that they don’t tells me most Republicans are cronies of the left.
in 2000 those who complained that they voted for the wrong person because they were confused-had to be talking trash-all the lawsuits brought against the elections office were dismissed-and mind you they were brought before libral courts. The unlawfull antics and deliberate felonies ACORN commited were not brought to trial. In case after case those claiming they were confused were in larger numbers that existed at the location. “overwelm the system and break it “
Your statement that North Florida is mostly black is racist nonsense. Additionally, your implication that blacks were not intelligent enough to figure out a vote card indicates your narrow mindedness. You may think that a statement like that is noble but in fact, it is offensive. Senility is a medical fact. It affects most humans as they age. Race does not determine intelligence.
These replies show a lot of false reasoning in the service of a desired conclusion. “intheknow”, for instance, says that my “statement that North Florida is mostly black is racist nonsense.” But it is very well known that black and Democratic voters are concentrated in the north of the state. So it is demographically accurate to state that that portion of the state was the desired target for the strategy of using wildly inaccurate exclusion lists.
Then he/she says “Additionally, your implication that blacks were not intelligent enough to figure out a vote card indicates your narrow mindedness.” But this is yet another red herring. The confusing ballots were employed in districts full of elderly (and mostly Democratic) voters. People more easily confused, or perhaps with poor vision. The racially exclusive lists were used where race reflected the difference in political affiliation.
As for elaine’s comment, I would invite her to offer actual evidence, not mere allegation, that ACORN did anything unlawful in signing up new voters prior to the 2000 election. Had they done so I’m sure we’d have heard charges being laid against them.
And jonathan, Mr Horowitz did indeed lay the charge that there was racial provocation in Florida. But the plain fact is, the total of 537 winning votes is a false one by any reckoning.
Counting was stopped and never resumed. The Florida Board of Elections did admit that there were thousands of voters unfairly disenfranchised, and they were never allowed to contest their improper exclusion from the count. And the difference in the vote at no point ever exceeded what experts consider to be a normal margin for error.
So the Florida vote results are now permanently clouded.. and the man who the Supreme Court declared by a margin of one to be the winner, actually received fewer than half the votes in the United States by everyone’s count.
It’s a problem of legitimacy.
That is precisely why they should be voted out.
Let them try to make a living under the conditions they created.
Voting them out isn’t the solution. Not even close. Unfortunately, after 70 years of subversion, we don’t have that luxury of just voting them out any more. America has terminal cancer. And I’m afraid that most people don’t really realize that, judging from what I’m hearing coming out of the Town Halls and the Tea Parties. God Bless Them though. We’ll all wake up to the reality eventually. It just takes time for people to move out of their paradigm of passive pasifism.
RE: JOHN DAVIDSON’S COMMENT,
THE LAWMAKERS (OXYMORON?) MAKE A LIVING UNDER THE LAWS THAT THEY CREATED.
I THINK IT WAS GEORGE MC GOVERN WHO SAID, SOMETHING TO THE EFFECT, (A FEW YEARS AFTER LEAVING OFFCICE, AND SEEING A BUSINESS OR TWO THAT HE )( AND/OR MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY) STARTED, FAIL, IF HE KNEW THE CONSEQUENCES AND DIFFICULTIES IN COMPLYING WITH THE VARIOUS LAWS, HE NEVER WOULD HAVE VVOTED FOR THEM
IOt is the only viable way to deal with scoundrels. They obviously cannot be shamed for they have no scruples.
I assume that is a short list, sir.
At almost every level of government is an extensive list of miscreants.
@ Joseph White…
Nice try at the first one on the “Republican side”…
but the congressman who got the ride from the NG during Hurricane Katrina, who had 90,000 in cash in his freezer was
Congressman William Jefferson.
DEMOCRAT, Louisiana.
I know that he wasn’t a Republican, because if he was, it would have been mentioned within the first five words of the story. As it was, it took forever for the State Run White House Stenographer Media to even mention his party affiliation…and when it did, someone let slip that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, was a Republican. It fit the narrative of what the then-minority party wanted the American people to believe.
As for the legitimately corrupt in the Republican party, they are dealt with. Those on the Democrat side, like William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, are PROMOTED.
Not the only way. There are better ways. But, it will happen when the thrust of history moves us to that point. It will happen. I just hope it doesn’t come to late, and with the wrong people calling the shots.
The revolution has started.
The question remains as to which of our representatives have the courage to join the wave of discontent rumbling throughout this nation.
We have only experienced murmurs so far.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/THE%20RELIGIOUS%20ROOTS%20of%20Radicalism.htm
It is irreconcilable, Deborah. Unfortunately, our side hasn’t realized that yet. Our house is ALREADY burning down. We should be putting out the fire, but we’re too busy telling the left to stop playing with matches.
Ayn Rand is good. You mention faith, however, which is opposed to Rand’s objectivism. She was astray in understanding the importance of God in American development. All politics and economics aside, this really is a war of absolutes versus relativism. What Rand never realized is that America was not intended to be humanist under any economic model. The Founders knew that Humanism inevitably leads to slavery from any direction.
Have you read her 1971 book, The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution? I highly recommend it if you haven’t. It’s for sale on Amazon in paperback:
Thank you David for the response. I’ll check out your link.