Senator Macaca's in big trouble

[welshTerrier2]

sometimes, when you open your big yap, you can kind of lay low for a bit and then apologize to anyone who will listen ... if it's a one shot foot-in-your-mouth, you might get away with it ... but The Nation magazine has discovered that Senator Macaca has a bit of a checkered past ...

if you're scoring this at home, Allen is in big trouble ...

source: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/george_allen

Beyond Macaca: The Photograph That Haunts George Allen



<skip> Time and again, he has felt compelled to explain that his mocking of S.R. Sidarth, a young Indian-American staff member for his Democratic opponent, as "macaca," or monkey, was an unintentional gaffe. "It was a mistake. I made a mistake," he told a reporter from a local NBC affiliate at a campaign stop on Thursday. Hours later, he told the ABC affiliate, "It was a mistake, I was wrong." On Fox News's Sean Hannity show, he echoed, "It was a mistake."

But was it an isolated "mistake"?

Only a decade ago, as governor of Virginia, Allen personally initiated an association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, the successor organization to the segregationist White Citizens Council and among the largest white supremacist groups. <skip>

Descended from the White Citizens' Councils that battled integration in the Jim Crow South, the CCC is designated a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In its "Statement of Principles," the CCC declares, "We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called "affirmative action" and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races." <skip>

But George Allen's relationship with the CCC is different; it went beyond poses and portraits. In 1995, he appointed a CCC sympathizer, Virginia lawyer R. Jackson Garnett, to head the Virginia Council on Day Care and serve on the Governor's Advisory Council on Self-Determination and Federalism. According to the CCC's Citizens Informer, Garnett delivered a speech before a CCC gathering saying that the Federalism Commission was "created to study abuses by the Federal government of constitutional powers that rightfully belong to the states." <skip>

Using the Lott incident, Allen stepped forward as a champion the legacy of the civil rights movement. He boasted to Ryan Lizza of The New Republic of his "civil rights" pilgrimage to Selma, Alabama in 2002 with Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a former Freedom Rider. In 2005, together with Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Allen co-sponsored a formal apology for slavery. He was carrying the banner of a new brand of Republicanism that compensated for its opposition to affirmative action and social spending with symbolic condemnations of what President George W. Bush deemed "the baggage of bigotry." <skip>

Now Allen finds himself in a quandary. While he atones for his racist gaffe in order to succeed in the 2008 Republican primaries, he cannot afford to alienate the neo-Confederate movement that helped propelled his career during the 1990s. As Allen begs forgiveness for his "mistake," his spokesman avoids criticizing groups like the SCV and CCC. "The neo-Confederates could break a Republican candidate, especially in South Carolina, where they're extremely organized," Sebesta observes.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. And I'm guessing that the guy next to allen isn't Santa Claus.

[welshTerrier2]

2. check out these quotes from the CCC

they used to call these jackasses the "uptown Klan" because they didn't go around hiding under sheets ... they disguised their racism and hatred behind suits and ties ...

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Conservative_Citizens

"Each of the three major races plays a distinct role in history. . . . The whites were the creators of civilization, the yellows its sustainers and copyists, the blacks its destroyers.” (www.cofcc.org, 12/98)

“Is it racist to say that it is legally and morally wrong for government to force a mixing of the races to produce a mongrel?" (Citizens Informer, Spring/97)

Abraham Lincoln was "surely the most evil American in history," and Martin Luther King was a "depraved miscreant.” (www.cofcc.org, 12/98)

"Western civilization with all its might and glory would never have achieved its greatness without the directing hand of God and the creative genius of the white race. Any effort to destroy the race by a mixture of black blood is an effort to destroy Western civilization itself." (Citizens Informer, Fall/94)

"Our liberal establishment is using the media of television to promote racial intimacy and miscegenation…. All of the news teams on the major networks have black and white newscasters of opposite sexes." (Citizens Informer, Fall/98)

"The Jews' motto is 'never forget, and never forgive.' One can't agree with the way they've turned spite into welfare billions for themselves, but the 'never forget' part is very sound." (Citizens Informer, Winter/97)

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. My guess was right.

St Nick would never say horrible shit like that. Leave it to allen to find twisted lunatics to pose in pictures with.

[LibDemAlways]

4. Allen is a veritable treasure trove of racism going back

almost 40 years. Another picture he'd like to forget about is his high school graduation portrait from Palos Verdes High in Southern California in which he's sporting a Confederate flag pin on his lapel. Claims it represented "youthful rebellion." This in the same year he spraypainted racist graffiti on the school walls.

How Allen managed to get as far as he has in politics without his racism becoming an issue before now is a mystery.

[welshTerrier2]

5. The Nation article said he had "large confederate flags" in his house

he claimed he just liked to "collect flags" ... bet he doesn't have a picture of that flag collection in his campaign literature ...

btw, the article talked about how Rove made the republicans dump Trent Lott as majority leader when he got into trouble about segregation ... i wonder whether Rove will have the party distance themselves from Allen as well ... the last thing republicans need right now is to be tagged with the segregationist label ...

here's the excerpt from the article in the OP:

In 2000, he had hung a noose at his law office. When that fact was reported, he claimed it had "nothing to do with lynching." When it was reported that he also hung large Confederate flags in his house, he explained they were part of his flag collection. Allen had also opposed the 1991 Civil Rights Act and making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a holiday.

[LibDemAlways]

6. He once filmed a campaign commercial in which a

Confederate flag was visible folded on a shelf behind him. Allen is completely enamored with the Confederacy. All three of his children are named for his favorite Confederate heroes. It's no coincidence that his only son Forrest shares a name with Gen. Nathan Forrest, perpetrator of atrocities against black Union troops, slave owner, and early Grand Wizard of the KKK. How warped would you have to be to name your kid for a KKK Grand Wizard?

[jackpan1260]

7. This guy is a real piece of shit.

And this is what Republicans think is Presidential material?

[BluegrassDem]

8. It's safe to say his presidential ambitions are shot to hell

I was actually a bit worried about Allen cause he's in the mold of Bush...dumb and country. But with his race problem out in the open, I doubt he'd even win the repug nomination, much less the general election.

[durrrty libby]

9. But he is such a typical repuke. The majority of them are

just as ignorant and bigoted.

He is just not as clever as most in covering it up.

:freak:

[gasperc]

10. too Bad

cry me a river

[Johnyawl]

11. That picture horrifies me!

Those four men think they are exemplory examples of a master race??!! Short, fat, pudgy, misshapen, bald and ugly, and they think they're superior to everybody on the planet.

All that inner hatred has expressed itself physically, and distorted them into ugly lumps of misbegotten flesh.