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The Stain In Our Body Politic
Must Be Cleaned |
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With utter disgust we watched the disgraceful news conference held by
U.S. Senator Trent Lott (R-MS). My wife, Anna, and I regret that persons of
his ilk still occupy positions of authority in our political party (the
Republicans of President Lincoln, who regularly continues to be vilified in
his state, and elsewhere below the Mason-Dixon line), and our country.
The audacity he exhibited praising the former Dixiecrat Thurmond is
an assault on all thoughtful people, including other minorities, reflecting
not only on his obvious racist sentiments, so casually exhibited at Senator
Strom Thurmond's (R-SC) centenary birthday celebration (in 1948 he was a
third party candidate for president running on the platform of white
supremacy), leads one to speculate on conceivable anti-Semitism lurking in
his bosom, as well (the two contagions are found frequently together).
Senator Lott's remarks, brief and vicious in recalling a discredited,
shameful, past, are worth quoting: "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."
One need not recount his opposition to: appointing black judges,
championing voting rights, designating a day in memory of Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr., et. al. and ad nauseam.
If Karl Rove, President Bush's political adviser, would not push him
out as Senate GOP Majority Leader, a groundswell of citizens might force him
to do the right thing. That would make a welcome trio for today's
resignations: Cardinal Law (on the charge of not being vigilant to protect
his flock from pedophile priests in the Boston archdiocese), Dr. Henry
Kissinger (on well-founded perceived conflict of interest concerns relating
to his new appointment as chairman of the national commission to investigate
the 9/11/01 tragedy).
Let Senator Lott, as he said today, continue to learn, as he grows older,
but as a private citizen — far from the continued threat he personifies to
inflict harm. And, let him ponder these words from a letter to the Touro
Synagogue of Newport, RI, in 1790 by our revered President George
Washington: " ... It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it
was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the
exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the government of the
United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no
assistance ... "
We are proud to be Americans, the more so for our system, making
possible the periodic cleansing of our free society!
Sincerely,
Prof. Asher J. Matathias |
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