Tweedledum and Tweedledee
0 comment Wednesday, August 27, 2014 |

I had plans for a different blog entry today, but as I was surfing the blogosphere, I came across a 'conservative' blog, which is one I only recently found via a link, which had a lengthy post in response to the Colin Powell endorsement. The post was one very long and detailed timeline of every pro-black measure promoted by the Republican Party and every pro-black act by Republican presidents and congressmen.
The point being made, evidently, was that Powell and other blacks should be properly grateful and loyal to the GOP because it has steadfastly advanced their interests, ever since the War Between the States.
The comments echoed this kind of sentiment: ''don't the African-Americans know that the Democrats only hold them back? Why don't they realize that they need to vote Republican? It's the Democrats who are the real racists. We just have to make blacks realize that!" --- and so on.
Not one of the posters, apparently White Republicans, looked at the long list of Republican 'achievements' in the area of 'racial equality' and said, hey, it looks as though our interests are being disregarded in favor of courting blacks, and to no avail. What good has it done? What party represents me and my people and our interests? Not one said that or anything like that. It was all about crowing over how colorblind Republicans are and how racist the Democrats are, and why don't blacks join us in the GOP where they belong?
I collect ephemera, as I've mentioned before, and I've come across old documents and broadsides from the late 19th century and early 20th century when, almost comically, each party is claiming to be the friend of the black race, and pointing the finger at the other party to accuse them of neglecting blacks. On the other hand, there is a tract called The Short Catechism of Negro Equality, in which Republicans point to Democrats as being the chief architects of racial equality, while Democrats were apparently denying it. I suppose it all depended on which group's votes were being courted; each party tried to call the other 'bigoted' when it served them to do so, and later tried to claim the title of the most pro-black, pro-equality party.
Here is part of that undated 'Short Catechism"
Who made the Negro a citizen of the State of Maine? The Democratic Party.
Who enacted a similar law in Massachusetts? The Democratic Party.
Who permitted every colored person owning $250 in New York a voter? A General Assembly, purely Democratic.
Who repealed the laws of Ohio which required Negroes to give bonds and security before settling in that state? The Democratic Party.
Who made mulattoes legal voters in Ohio? A Democratic Supreme Court, of which Reuben Wood was Chief Justice.
[...]
Who, with the above facts, and many others, staring them in the face, are continually whining about 'negro suffrage' and negro equality? The Democratic Party.
All these things were done by Democrats, and yet they deny being in favor of negro equality, and charge it upon the Republicans -- just like the thief who cries ''stop thief" the loudest."
There is also this tract published by the Union Republican Congressional Committee in Washington, D.C. called The Position of the Republican and Democrat Parties: A Dialogue Between a White Republican and a Colored Citizen.
You can see a glimpse of it above. Notice the picture of Lincoln, captioned 'The Martyr For Liberty.'
The pamphlet features a question-and-answer format, and from page 2:
Q. "Who freed the slaves in the South?
A. Abraham Lincoln, the Republican President, by proclamation.
[...]
Q. Who gave us the Civil Rights Bill?
A. The same Republican Congress.
Q. What party gave us the right to vote?
A. The Republican Party.
Q. What has the Democratic, Copperhead, or Conservative Party ever done for the colored people?
A. It has tried to keep them in slavery, and opposed giving them the benefit of the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights bills, and the right to vote.
Q. Why cannot colored men support the Democratic Party?
A. Because that party would disenfranchise them, and if possible, return them to slavery -- and certainly keep them in an inferior position before the law.
Q. With whom do the disloyal white men of the South desire the colored men to vote?
A. With the Democratic Party.
Q. Would not the Democrats take away all negroes' rights?
A. They would.
Q. Then why do they pretend to be the best friends of colored men?
A. Because they contend they are fitted only for slavery, or an inferior position, and are happier in either condition.
Q. How would it suit them to be served in the same manner?
A. They would not endure it. They call themselves a superior race of beings, and claim they are born your rulers.
Q. Why do they not do unto others as they would be done by?
A. Because they are devoid of principle, and destitute of all sense of justice where the colored man is concerned.
[...]
Let me say to you further, that the Democratic Party will use all means to get the colored people to put it in power again, but you must remember what has been its past record, and see to it that you do not trust it in the future.
[...]You want to be so organized that you will act as one man, lest your enemy gain the victory.''
What I take from reading these things is that the two parties, Republican and Democrat have switched places, with the Republicans originally being the party which adopted the most punitive, harsh policies towards the South, specifically Southron whites, after the War Between the States. This is the reason why the older generations down South considered the Republican Party anathema. Reconstruction was a chaotic and violent time, and the radical Republicans were bent on revenge against Southron White men.
Today's Republicans, in the mainstream at least, like to boast about how pro-black the party was during the Civil Rights era, and they like to jeer at people like Democrat Senator Byrd for his past politically incorrect positions on racial 'equality'. But they would do well to remember that the Republicans have taken both positions as it suited them. Both parties seem to be made up of mostly craven opportunists who would go wherever they sensed there was a bonanza of votes to be had. Principles and loyalties be damned.
And the present day is no different. Both parties jockey to be seen as the most politically correct and 'inclusive', and just as the men who wrote the tracts quoted above, they are more than willing to sell their own people and kin for thirty pieces of silver, or for access to more power. Notice the writer of the second tract (who is not identified) speaking to blacks and referring to White Democrats as ''your enemy". Nothing like trying to turn blacks against your own people for political gain.
And it's still going on now. Right now, the [White] Democrats are outdoing themselves to try to throw their own kin overboard in favor of minorities, and guess what, the Republicans are doing it too. But while I think the earlier generations were less blameworthy because their pandering was cynical (in many cases), using blacks to undermine their enemies politically, today's liberals truly don't see what they are doing to their own people or perhaps are not even able to care. They have truly become taken in by their own propaganda, and they have become blind to their own interests and deaf to their own people. They truly know no other tune but the politically correct one.
How else can you explain today's alleged 'conservatives' who are all exercised because they can't gain the approval of black voters? How can you explain the fact that they truly believe that blacks and Whites surely, surely have the same interests and needs, if they but knew it?
When are these 'conservatives' going to awaken to the obvious fact that the minorities have two parties and we have none? Where is the party that stands for us and our interests, or must we submit to being exiled forever from political power in favor of the aggrieved 'victims' and their White advocates?
And when will these same White advocates for the poor victims, like the Clintons, ever see that they are being used and thrown away by the people they championed all these decades? And the Republicans, too, are being used and manipulated, while mewling that they want credit for all their altruism and good deeds?
It's a cynical saying, but probably true in this fallen world: no good deed goes unpunished, and both parties are being punished for all their racial self-sacrifice. Unfortunately the American people, who either opposed the do-gooders or were oblivious, are also being punished along with our sorry politicians.

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