Trent Lott is a Misunderstood Man
A
BUZZFLASH READER SATIRE
by Michael LaMartina
I just don't understand why everybody's picking on you, Senator Lott.
For chrissakes, you're the first Republican to tell us what you really think in some time and you're getting flak from the Democrats...and your own Republicans!
You'd almost think that Republicans don't agree with what you said. But we know better, don't we? Things like not letting blacks vote in the 2000 election and kicking thousands of them off the voter registration lists, and playing the "race card" whenever and wherever possible disproves that silly idea, doesn't it?
After all, what did you say that was so wrong?
Just imagine what this country would be like if Strom Thurmond had been elected in 1948, Senator.
First off, I think that a Dixiecrat government wouldn't have allowed the Supreme Court to let that little black Brown girl win the Brown v Board of Education decision.
Oh Wait! Rehnquist, Scalia, O'Connor, Thomas, and Kennedy weren't a part of that court, so blatant partisanship might not have won out.
Still, it doesn't hurt to imagine.
Okay, if the Supreme Court hadn't let the blacks put their foot in the school door (and into white society), Dr. Martin Luther King wouldn't have come out of the woodwork agitating for civil rights, since the concept of "separate but equal" would have been been upheld as the law of the land by our highest court.
There would have then been no Montgomery bus protests, no need for Rosa Parks to sit in the front of the bus, no Selma protest marches or Birmingham riots with Bull Connor anxious to use dogs and fire hoses to stop the demonstrators.
There would have been no reason for the ever lovely J. Edgar Hoover to infiltrate civil rights groups or to try to smear Dr. King, in which case he might have been able to spend more time catching the real bad guys.
Hell...the 60's would have been just another decade like all the rest! Watts wouldn't have burned. Detroit wouldn't have crumbled. Harlem wouldn't have lost its quaint colored charm.
And without black people protesting for civil rights, white people probably wouldn't have had the nerve to protest against the war in Vietnam. I mean, we wouldn't have questioned the government when they said that they were just trying to stop communism from spreading throughout Southeast Asia.
Rebellious hippies wouldn't have flocked to Haight/Asbury because there would have been no reason to rebel. Kids would have believed what they were told. The world would have been as our government presented it.
Without protests at home, our soldiers would have known that they were fighting a good fight to free the people of South Vietnam from certain tyranny. Our boys, then, wouldn't have had to turn to drugs to escape the torment of knowing that people back home were questioning why they were even there.
So drugs wouldn't have gained the status they have in our society because white folks would have known that only ignorant black folks and beatniks used them. And the CIA would never have begun importing cocaine and heroin into our country to finance their extracurricular black ops around the world because there wouldn't have been enough drug users to make the trade worthwhile.
Richard Nixon would never have become President since he won by running against an unpopular Vietnam War. Without Richard Nixon, Watergate would never have happened and people would still have faith in government and believe that their representatives were truly representing them and not moneyed interest groups.
Then there are all those other interest groups that popped up trying to convince us that they, too, were different and needed special rights. That would never have happened if Strom had been elected.
Today, we wouldn't be so damn concerned about being Politically Correct since there never would have been movements for women's rights, gay rights, grey rights, welfare rights, children's' rights, fathers rights, grandparents rights, Native American rights, rights for the disabled, abortion rights, religious rights, ethnic rights, rights for the mentally ill, rights...rights...rights...ad nauseum.
We wouldn't have needed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Office for Civil Rights, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In fact most of the Department of Health and Human Services wouldn't be needed if we didn't have to focus on the differences between us all the time.
Let's face it. The rich and the poor have always existed and always will. Same with the young and the old, men and women, the weak and the strong. It's not the government's duty to change human nature.
We probably wouldn't have had a President Ronald Reagan, whose disdain of government created an atmosphere where people no longer believed that the government could, would or should do anything beneficial for people who weren't rich and powerful. We would never have elected someone like that who believed so little in government.
If Strom had been elected, blacks wouldn't have moved into our neighborhoods, screwed up our schools, destroyed our cities or taken our jobs. It just wouldn't have happened under President Strom, who could still be President today. Think about it, Senator! Strom Thurmond could be the world's first centenarian President. Now wouldn't that be something?
Okay, I know there would be a downside. We wouldn't have blacks in pro sports or have blacks entertain us on television or in the movies. But I could live with that.
So...would a President Thurmond have been such a bad thing? I think not. Didn't we we all grow up hearing that life was so much better back in the "old days"? We all knew what our parents meant when they told us that.
Yes, I'm with you, Senator, and I think you're getting a helluva raw deal from everybody. I, too, think America would be a much better place if Strom had been elected in 1948.
Now...would you please get that colored boy over there to bring me another mint julep? I just want to sit here and listen to the darkies singing their spirituals back in their shacks.
It sure is a beautiful sound, isn't it, Senator?
BUZZFLASH
READER SATIRE
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