[MLUG - DISCUSSION] Days of Shame

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Nice article.  I suppose it is racism, as Herbert claims, but it is 
probably not motivated by racial animosity, just by the knowledge that 
black people tend to vote for Kerry.  Shameful indeed.  --Mike


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/01/opinion/01herbert.html

New York Times
November 1, 2004

OP-ED COLUMNIST

DAYS OF SHAME

By BOB HERBERT


Overseas, our troops are being mauled in the long dark night of Iraq - a 
war with no end in sight that has already claimed the lives of more than 
1,100 American troops and thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of 
innocent Iraqis.

At home, the party of the sitting president is systematically stomping on 
the right of black Americans to vote, a vile and racist practice that 
makes a mockery of the president's claim to favor real democracy anywhere.

This will never be seen as a shining moment in U.S. history.

There is a hallucinatory quality to the news as Americans prepare to vote 
tomorrow in what is probably the most critical election the country has 
faced since 1932. Osama bin Laden made his bizarre cameo appearance on 
Friday, taunting the president who once promised to get him dead or alive. 
Commentators have been compulsively reading the tea leaves ever since, 
trying to determine who was helped by the video, George W. Bush or John 
Kerry.

On Saturday, as if to take our minds off the sideshow, nine more American 
marines were killed in the Iraq slaughterhouse. It was the deadliest day 
for U.S. forces in six months. The death toll for Iraqis, which the U.S. 
government has tried mightily to keep from the American people, is flat 
out horrifying. Unofficial estimates of the number of Iraqis killed in the 
war have ranged from 10,000 to 30,000. But a survey conducted by 
scientists from Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and Al 
Mustansiriya University in Baghdad compared the death rates of Iraqis 
before and after the American invasion. They estimated that 100,000 more 
Iraqis have died in the 18 months since the invasion than would have been 
expected based on Iraqi death rates before the war.

The scientists acknowledged that the survey was difficult to compile and 
that their findings represent a rough estimate. But even if they were off 
by as many as 20,000 or 40,000 deaths, their findings would still be 
chilling.

Most of the widespread violent deaths, the scientists reported, were 
attributed to coalition forces. "Most individuals reportedly killed by 
coalition forces," the report said, "were women and children."

That people are dying by the tens of thousands in a war that did not have 
to be fought - a war that was launched by the United States - is 
mind-boggling.

Also mind-boggling is the attempt by Republican Party elements to return 
the U.S. to the wretched days of the mid-20th century when many black 
Americans faced harassment, intimidation and worse for daring to exercise 
their fundamental right to vote. A flier circulating extensively in black 
neighborhoods in Wisconsin carries the heading "Milwaukee Black Voters 
League." It asserts that people are not eligible to vote if they have 
voted in any previous election this year; if they have ever been found 
guilty of anything, even a traffic violation; or if anyone in their family 
has ever been found guilty of anything.

"If you violate any of these laws," the flier says, "you can get ten years 
in prison and your children will get taken away from you."

In Philadelphia, where a large black vote is essential to a Kerry victory 
in the crucial state of Pennsylvania, the Republican speaker of the 
Pennsylvania House, John Perzel, is hard at work challenging Democratic 
voters. He makes no bones about his intent, telling U.S. News & World 
Report:

"The Kerry campaign needs to come out with humongous numbers here in 
Philadelphia. It's important for me to keep that number down."

That's called voter suppression, folks, and the G.O.P. concentrates its 
voter-suppression efforts in the precincts where there are large numbers 
of African-Americans. And that's called racism.

These are days of shame for the United States. No one writing a civics 
text for American high school students would recommend this kind of 
behavior for a great and mighty nation. We have to figure out a way to 
extricate ourselves from Iraq and rebuild a truly representative democracy 
here at home. Right now we have a mess on both fronts.

It was Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, who said that "America's 
leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material 
progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the 
interests of world peace and human betterment."

That's as good a thought as any to carry with you into the voting booth 
tomorrow.


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