Getting it Right on Reagan and Civil Rights
Getting it Right on Reagan and Civil Rights
In endorsing extension of the Voting Rights Act, the President has taken a strong step advocated by civil rights activists. The only ones who could be disappointed by the President’s actions are not those truly concerned about the right to vote but rather those who, for whatever reason, were simply spoiling for a fight that never materialized.
In 1981, John Roberts wrote the above statement to close out the draft of an op-ed responding to publicly published criticisms from then-president of the National Urban League Vernon Jordan. Roberts’ eagerness to dabble in politics is interesting, especially considering the present administration’s attempts to paint him as simply an advocate of a client. What is more interesting, however, are his attempts at revisionist history.
When California governor Ronald Reagan kicked off his bid for the presidency the year before, “he began his campaign with a controversial appearance in Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers had been brutally killed. It was at that sore spot on the racial map that Reagan revived talk about states’ rights and curbing the power of the federal government. To many it sounded like code for announcing himself as the candidate for white segregationists.” That same year, Reagan publicly opposed the landmark Voting Rights Act, calling it “humiliating to the South.”
Roberts certainly was no champion of civil rights either. In his time with the Reagan administration, “he wrote vigorous defenses of the administration’s version of a voting rights bill, opposed by Congress, that would have narrowed the reach of the 1965 Voting Rights Act [and] he wrote a memo arguing that it was constitutionally acceptable for Congress to strip the Supreme Court of its ability to hear broad classes of civil rights cases.”
What Reagan did by signing an extension of the Voting Rights Act pales in comparison to how much the President and his administration did to undermine the very same legislation.
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OT, but know your opposition
Sectors of the US Right
The Conservative Right
Secular Right
Corporate Internationalistsâ€â€Nations should control the flow of people across borders, but not the flow of goods, capital, and profit. Sometimes called the “Rockefeller Republicans.” Globalists.
Business Nationalistsâ€â€Multinational corporations erode national sovereignty; nations should enforce borders for people, but also for goods, capital, and profit through trade restrictions. Enlists grassroots allies among Regressive Populists. Anti-Globalists.
Economic Libertariansâ€â€The state disrupts the perfect harmony of the free market system. Modern democracy is essentially congruent with capitalism.
National Security Militaristsâ€â€Support US military supremacy and unilateral use of force to protect US national security interests around the world. A major component of Cold War anti-communism.
Neoconservativesâ€â€The egalitarian social liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s undermined the national consensus. Intellectual oligarchies and political institutions preserve democracy from mob rule.
Christian Right
Christian Nationalistsâ€â€Biblically–defined immorality and sin breed chaos and anarchy. America’s greatness as God’s chosen land has been undermined by liberal secular humanists, feminists, and homosexuals. Purists want litmus tests for issues of abortion, tolerance of gays and lesbians, and prayer in schools. Includes some non–Christian cultural conservatives. Overlaps somewhat with Christian theocracy.
The Hard Right
Christian Theocratsâ€â€Christian men are ordained by God to run society. Eurocentric version of Christianity based on early Calvinism. Intrinsically Christian ethnocentric, treating non-Christians as second-class citizens. Implicitly antisemitic. Includes soft dominionists and hardline Reconstructionists.
Xenophobic Right
Patriots (Regressive Populists)â€â€Secret elites control the government and banks. The government plans repression to enforce elite rule or global collectivism. The armed militias one response from this sector. Americanist. Often supports Business Nationalism due to its isolationist emphasis. Anti-Globalists, yet support non-interventionist national security militarism. Repressive towards scapegoated targets below them on socio-economic ladder.
Paleoconservatives Ultra-conservatives and reactionaries. Natural financial oligarchies preserve the republic against democratic mob rule. Usually nativist (White Racial Nationalist), sometimes antisemitic or Christian nationalist. Elitist emphasis is similar to the intellectual conservative revolutionary wing of the European New Right. Often libertarian.
White Nationalists (White Racial Nationalist)â€â€Alien cultures make democracy impossible. Cultural Supremacists argue different races can adopt the dominant (White) culture; Biological Racists argue the immutable integrity of culture, race, and nation. Segregationists want distinct enclaves, Separatists want distinct nations. Americanist. Tribalist emphasis is similar to the race-is-nation wing of the European New Right.
Ultra Right (Extreme Right, Far Right)â€â€Militant forms of revolutionary right ideology and separatist ethnocentric nationalism. Reject pluralist democracy for an organic oligarchy that unites the homogeneic nation. Conspiracist views of power that are overwhelmingly antisemitic. Home to overt fascists, neonazis, Christian Identity, Creativity (Church of the Creator), National Alliance.
http://www.publiceye.org/research/chart_of_sectors.html
August 12th, 2005 at 11:58 amTrying to look Roberts look bad, just makes the person who wrote this look bad.
Roberts does not hate black people… so get over it.
August 12th, 2005 at 4:55 pmI agree Lyle, trying to look Roberts does look bad. LOL!
August 12th, 2005 at 5:19 pmRoberts don’t look half as bad as you sound, Lieall. That ain’t saying much, though.
August 12th, 2005 at 5:31 pmI remember something that Reagan’s DOJ did to a small business in the Chicago Area.
Basicly the DOJ used the Equal Rights laws to file a Federal case against a small bussines for failing to met the racial quotas demanded for the area.
I believe the company had minorities of several races but was short a half of a black person, even though the total number of monorities working at the company was greater than required to meet that law.
The legal costs the company incured force it out of business. It was an example of how the GOP uses laws that are meant to help and level the playing field are use to turn public opinion against Federal Laws of that nature.
It would be interesting if John Roberts had anything to do with that case.
Can anybody come up with the right case and track its history through the Reagan DOJ?
August 12th, 2005 at 8:35 pmRoberts wouldn’t have been the darling of the Reagan DOJ if he didn’t personally believe what he was doing. It’s human nature; if you don’t believe in something your not going to persue it as aggressively as something you do believe. Bush is trying to make Roberts’ statements sound acceptable to the general public so the Democrats will roll over and confirm him without a fight. Face it; 52 million people were fooled in 2004 and they can be fooled again. Bush isn’t very smart, but he’s a master manipulator.
August 12th, 2005 at 11:07 pmDenelle
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March 14th, 2008 at 7:09 pm