From: mattb@ctron.com (Matt Brown)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Re: Fuck You
Date: 14 Sep 92 20:26:10 GMT
Reply-To: mattb@olympus.ctron.com (Matt Brown)
Organization: Cabletron Systems INc.

(connor john) writes:
>Why does every person who makes a racist remark have to be
>a Republican?  Historically, Republicans have a lot on
>their side.  We did free the slaves, after all.  Duke, well,
>there's one in every bunch.  At last Duke never drowned
>an ex-girlfriend in the back of his car...

Easy Target Syndrome, with Incumbent Administration complications.
At base, the net is probably more liberal than everyday America, and
this neighborhood probably more than many other groups.  Haven't seen
the Dead play the Capitol steps in the last few administrations, have we?

Seriously, David Duke may represent the worst acknowledged strain of racism
or purported racism in the GOP, but the rest of the party has done little
to disavow more subtle policies that have impeded civil rights and sought
to restrict personal freedoms since Nixon's first term. It may be unfair
to brand the party overall, but when was the last time you heard a Democrat
candidate or spokesperson called racist?  Contrast that with Jesse Helms,
Pat Buchanon, and Rush Limbaugh. Now, what party were they associated with?

I see two distinctions that are rarely made in the heat of name-calling:
1) There is a difference between predjudice and racism that is usually
   quickly lost in the argument. Neither is good, mind you, but everyone
   who harbors some predjudice is not automatically a racist. Accusations
   of "racist" are used all too frequently, based on the slightest of
   evidence.  Stupidity expressed as prejudice is not always racism (my
   favorite examples are Jimmy the Greek and Al Campanis; a pair of dolts,
   certainly, but racists?).
2) Some Republicans and others are genuinely against the way (at least in
   their opinions) "liberal" programs have "wasted" money on entitlements
   and built a bureaucracy that guarantees generation-spanning dependence.
   That does not equate to racism either (necessarily).

Unfortunately, the GOP has not done enough to convince people that these
views are either not representative of the party, or that the issue is a
disagreement with the democrats, and the Republicans are ready and willing
to do more than scrap the assistance and throw poor minority families to
the wolves, while making the Rodney King incident a police-training film.
After 12 years of trickle-down, what has gotten to the bottom has been 
only a trickle, at best.  Now, one could argue that the problem has been
an inability to convince those making the high profits during the Reagan
years that they needed to trickle more down instead of banking the loot
(or putting it in LBOs or real estate). But if that's the case, it's 
still a Republican hand at the wheel of that steamroller that is crushing
the poor and minorities.

You bring up Lincoln freeing the slaves. I've written before that the 
greatest insult to Lincoln's memory, and to the tradition of the party
as emancipators, was Bush's letting Rush Limbaugh sleep in the Lincoln
bed in the White House this year. If that isn't an endorsement of a
racist, and the equivalent of pissing on Lincoln's grave, I don't know
what is. You may consider Ted Kennedy spineless if you wish, but he has done
more for minorities singlehanded than the entire Republican party over the
last 30 years. Maybe some of those approaches were invalid, or have become
outdated, but they put more food on the table than the GOP did (remember,
it was Reagan's administration that considered catsup a valid school lunch
vegetable).

Matt
ODC: John Barlow is said to be a Republican (heard him on GDH) and yet he
is instrumental in EFF, not widely considered a Republican cause.
So connor john is right on 1 count: don't automatically say
Republican=racist, or Republican=fascist.
I just wish the Republicans wouldn't make it so gdamn easy to make the mistake.