Apparently I'm closer than you are:
Old Username New Username Date Changed Changed ByDamn Yankee Martin Luther King Jr.06:21 AM, 08-29-2011 Martin Luther King Jr. Southern ManDamn Yankee 01:48 PM, 08-11-2010Synchronicity
http://crooksandliars.com/2008/07/06/martin-luther-king-jr-was-a-republican
TALLAHASSEE - A black Republican group has put up billboards in Florida and South Carolina saying the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican, a claim that black leaders say is ridiculous.
The National Black Republican Association has paid for billboards showing an image of the civil rights leader and the words "Martin Luther King Jr. was REPUBLICAN." Told about the billboards, the Rev. Joseph Lowery let out a soft chuckle that grew stronger as he began to think more about the idea.
"These guys never give up, do they?" said Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King. "Lord have mercy."
Seven billboards have gone up in six Florida counties, and another in Orangeburg, S.C., said Frances Rice, the Republican group's chairwoman. Part of its mission is to highlight what she said is the Democratic Party's racist past.
"I knew the King family well. We were all Republicans," said Rice, 64. "There was no way Dr. King would have wanted to be in the party of the Ku Klux Klan."
Her assertion angered state Rep. Joe Gibbons, a Democrat who chairs the Florida Legislative Black Caucus.
"Nobody knew who was leading the Ku Klux Klan, they had sheets over their heads. Was she at the cross burning meetings?" Gibbons said with a disgust that was just as strong when he talked about the billboards. "To make a statement like that is ridiculous. To make a claim without presenting proof is bogus."
The King Center in Atlanta says there is no proof that King was ever a Republican. Rice stands by her claim.
In Tampa, Clarissa Robinson sat in her car directly under the billboard on Busch Boulevard east of Interstate 275 and looked up at it.
"Why'd they put that up there?" said Robinson, 22, who is black and a Democrat. "So nobody will vote for Democrat Barack Obama. They're trying to make us vote for the other guy."
At the nearby gas station, Devoney Karvonen, 30, a white Republican, said she thought the billboard was offensive.
"I don't know the reason they would put that up," she said. "I don't think it's right. You're obviously lying about something and you shouldn't be."
Lowery, who knew King well, said there is no reason why anyone would think King was a Republican. He said King most certainly voted for President Kennedy, and the only time he openly talked about politics was when he criticized Republican Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential campaign.
"That was not the Martin I know and I don't think they can substantiate that by any shape, form or fashion. It's purely propaganda and poppycock," Lowery said. "Even if he was, he would have nothing to do with what the Republican Party stands for today. Do they think Martin would support George W. Bush and the war in Iraq?"
In "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.," which was published after his death from his written material and records, King called the Republican national convention that nominated Goldwater a "frenzied wedding ... of the KKK and the radical right."
"The Republican Party geared its appeal and program to racism, reaction, and extremism," King said in the book.For anyone who thought the Republicans wouldn't use race as an issue in the '08 election, think again. The lowest common denominator is always in play for the party thats hemorrhaging members and on its way out. As I read this 2006 article by Dave Johnson at The Huffington Post I found that the NBRA and other associated groups have quite a history of hackery and controversy. Their chairwoman is a plagiarist, the group lost 7 of its 10 board members after members gave glowing reviews to President Bush for his handling of Hurricane Katrina, and many of their offices are nothing more than P.O. boxes and motel rooms set up for ready made, hit-and-run hideouts. Here's all you need to know about these GOP front groups:Here's how the cynical process works. Your opponent is strong and you are weak in a certain area - in this case it is about strong African-American support for Democrats and a Republican race problem making its way into the news. To fight this you set up a front group that is designed to drive a wedge into the core of their support while providing "cover" to deflect attention from you. And to get this done you say anything - whatever is necessary to trick the voters into thinking their interests are served by your cause. So in this case the front-group Black Republican Freedom Fund is set up to run ads in urban areas that say, "Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan," "Democrats released those vicious dogs and fire hoses on blacks" and "Democrats blocked the minimum wage passed by Republicans."
This cynical wedge-driving process is reminiscent of the line from The Godfather, "It's not personal. It's business." It's just how it's done - you do what you have to do. It's just a job, just business.
Further illustrating the factory-made process of setting up these front groups, NBRA shares the same street address and suite number as the DC office of another far-right front group, the National Center for Policy Analysis. This is not to say the two organizations are connected or share facilities or personnel -- a call to a law firm also sharing this address disclosed that this is an "executive suites" facility, which is, in a way, the office equivalent of a post-office-box address. The point is that these are ready-to-go offices that you can move into or out of immediately while giving every appearance of being an established, credible operaiot - quite appropriate for the kind of factory-made, ready-to-go front group that pops up just in time to set a nasty tone and drive a wedge into a target demographic for the election.
Taking note of the ad's outrageous claim that Martin Luthor King Jr. was a Republican, Steve Gilliard of The News Blog, talking to Raw Story said,
Gilliard told RAW STORY that the ad was particularly offensive because "it assumes that blacks are unsophisticated voters, who are driven by emotion," when Maryland just "may have the highest concentration of blacks with advanced degrees on the planet."
"So to try and rewrite history is insulting," Gilliard added. "People know the history of the two parties and this is just offensive."
BRFF, yet another 527, is entirely a creation of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA). The "About Us" page of the BBRA website makes their association with the Republican Party very clear,
MISSION: The mission of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA) is to be a resource for the black community on Republican ideals and promote the traditional values of the black community which are the core values of the Republican Party: strong families, faith in God, personal responsibility, quality education, and equal opportunities for all.
GOAL: The goal of the NBRA is to return black Americans to their Republican Party roots by enlightening them about how Republicans fought for their freedom and civil rights, and are now fighting for their educational and economic advancement.
NBRA's website also explains the relationship to BRFF,
The Black Republican Freedom Fund: Our affiliated political action fund, the Black Republican Freedom Fund, will strongly support, both politically and financially, black Republican candidates under the NBRA's Blue County Victory Plan. This strategy entails identifying, training and financing black Republicans to run for election in districts populated largely by black Americans, with the aims of getting black Republican elected and winning votes for the top of the Republican ticket.
Perhaps a review of the rules about connections between front groups and political parties is in order.
NBRA shares a certain extremist bent with other front groups Patriot Project has examined. NBRA Chair(wo)man, Frances Rice, writing at far-right Human Events - a publication that features Ann Coulter - demonstrates this extremist tone, (note the early-1960's John Birch Society-style wording "Democrat Party")
"And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S's: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism.
It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s.
[. . .] Today, Democrats, in pursuit of their socialist agenda, are fighting to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for Democrats. Examples of how egregiously Democrats act to keep blacks in poverty are numerous.
[. . .] We must demonstrate that the Democrat Party policies of socialism and dependency on government handouts offer the pathway to poverty, while Republican Party principles of hard work, personal responsibility, getting a good education and ownership of homes and small businesses offer the pathway to prosperity."
Rice has been in the press before,
Back in February of this year, we caught Frances Rice, one of the state's leading Republican organizers, plagiarizing Washington Post columnist Colbert King; when cornered, she accused Venice Florida! dot com of racism.
And, finally, an endnote -- events last year following Katrina. From Sept. 2, 2005,
BLACK REPUBLICAN GROUP PRAISES BUSH'S DISASTER REACTION
Seeing the hundreds of relief convoys pouring into New Orleans, bringing medicine and millions of gallons of food and water to provide relief and comfort to the people devastated by Hurricane Katrina, the National Black Republican Association (NBRA), a grassroots organization, issued a statement of praise for President Bush and his show of compassion and leadership in directing the relief effort.
... "As African Americans," NBRA officer Andre Cadogan said, "we are deeply concerned about efforts of President Bush's critics to politicize, for their own partisan political agenda, a disaster that affects so many of our fellow African American citizens."
This was apparently too much for even the organization's own Board of Directors to stomach. Just one week later, on September 12, seven of ten Board members resigned,
RESIGNATIONS AT THE NATIONAL BLACK REPUBLICAN ASSOCIATION
More than half of the newly formed National Black Republican Association's board of directors has walked out, according a now former high ranking board member.
... The exodus comes as President Bush has come under fire for his administration's slow response to Hurricane Katrina, a storm in which many blacks died.
The Patriot Project is working to expose the front groups, their funding, their connections and their tactics.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/front-group-report-black-_b_30578.html?
You didn't actually think I hadn't done my homework, did you, Damn Yankee? And your attempt at desecrating the name and the memory of Dr. King, only shows your desperation and your empty hand. A bona fide racist and bigot, Damn Yankee, aka Southern Man, known "far and wide", renaming himself Martin Luther King, Jr., whom you have nothing but contempt and vitriol for, to what end? Attention? Insult to injury? Getting my goat? How insignificant. How petty. How psychotic.
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