Posted on 07/13/2004 7:54:10 AM PDT by End Times Sentinel
AN UNREPENTENT Mayor Street wants to update the NAACP convention with some hot old news:
In Philadelphia, the brothers and sisters are still in charge.
Street, in welcoming remarks yesterday to the 8,000-delegate gathering at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, recalled how he "got myself in trouble" in 2002.
"I said in the city of Philadelphia the brothers and sisters are in charge," he declared. "They never let me forget it."
Street apologized at the time. But yesterday he brought delegates to their feet roaring approval when he said he "will never apologize" for the appointments and opportunities he has provided for African-Americans.
"We should never be ashamed of supporting African-Americans," he said.
Street said his advice to critics of his 2002 remarks was: "If you don't like the brothers and sisters being in charge, you should register Republican." He was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2003 with stronger white support than he received in 1999.
Street exhorted the delegates, "I will never apologize for [appointing] a black chief of staff, a black police commissioner, a black fire commissioner..."
He went on to cite other city posts to which he has named minority officials. "If I can't provide opportunity for African- Americans in this government, who will?" he asked.
Street made no mention of the federal indictment of former administration officials and political supporters for alleged "pay-for-play" influence peddling tied to city contracts.
But he did say, "We recognize responsible economic empowerment for African-Americans in this city." He said his administration makes sure "minorities do business with the city of Philadelphia."
Afterward, Street said President Bush was guilty of "bad politics" and "bad policy" for refusing to address the convention. He said Bush seemed to be "hijacked" by "right-wing" pressure groups to stay away.
"I think it was a missed opportunity for the president [and] a slight on the NAACP."
NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, in a fiery address, said Bush's absence was a slight that would not be forgotten on Election Day.
"We will be there in every polling place and every battleground state," Mfume said.
The NAACP, he said, will undertake a strategy aimed "entirely at unlikely voters and early voters," meaning those who have skipped past elections and those who can't make it to the polls but are eligible to vote absentee.
Mfume didn't name names but accused Bush of recruiting "ventriliquist's dummies" from minority communities to sing his praises. Mfume said if Bush "were willing to listen, he would hear our opinion of what it really means to be pro-family, why it's really important to save Social Security and why smaller classrooms for students and day care for working parents must be more than a song or dance or a 20-second sound bite."
The local welcomers included U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa.; Bishop Ernest Morris, president of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity; and Minister Rodney Muhammad, of the Nation of Islam.
Owl_Eagle
Guns Before Butter.
In order not to put an extra dollar that will end up in some 527 organization, I pledge not to buy one Eagles ticket from that effete, possible homosexual (you've seen "Christina" Lurrie, right?), left cause supporting, hypocritical socialist, Jeffrey T. Lurrie.
Guns Before Butter.
Take a drive around Temple University if you want to see pure wall-to-wall squaler. Worse than any city in Mexico that I've seen (so far).
Cincinnati is the new Hellmouth.
Even if he were dead (and thank God he's not), the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson would still be more intelligent than Jackson and Bond combined!
You want squalor? Ride a train from anywhere on the Northeast trains lines to DC. You will ride through parts of Baltimore that look like a neutron bomb hit there.
I have always called it Filthadelphia.
What a loathsome city.
Hey, it's a very beautiful city. It's the Democratic politics that make it appear ugly.
The "back yards" of Baltimore row houses along the Amtrak mainline compare unfavorably with anything I've ever seen in the third world.
You can dress him up, shave his face, elect him to the office as Mayor, but he is still a thug.
Except of course for the ones he so pleasantly refers to as the "ventriloquist's dummies". In other words, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, etc. etc.
Us white folk would never say or do anything like this. How ungrateful they are.
The so-called "Uncle Toms." Ironically, however, anyone who has ever read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" will know that this label is not really a stigma. Uncle Tom was anything but an "Uncle Tom."
Owl_Eagle,Bump.
Those of us who live here know where the city of evil really lies.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
We had one of those in San Frangayo too. Willie Brown, he wasn't distracted, you simply could build anything if you sent enough money his way. The Rats love to be RICH Rats. Are your developers "expensing" Street?
It doesn't appear to be the case. Well, some are. The ones who built the substandard HUD units in North Philadelphia kicked back to Street did. But most of the housing is being done by small to medium developers who are doing things within code, by the books, in a market driven manner.
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