Posted on 07/11/2005 9:37:00 AM PDT by UB355
Bond comes out swinging at Bush He denounces president in speech By TOM KERTSCHER tkertscher@journalsentinel.com Posted: July 10, 2005
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond bashed President Bush and other conservatives Sunday, warning they have tried to seduce black clergy, created "fraudulent" civil rights organizations and backed federal judicial nominees who come from a "dim and gloomy legal netherworld where few Americans wish to dwell."
"We have never wished our way to freedom, instead we've always worked our way," he said in a 50-minute keynote address at the Midwest Airlines Center.
Bond opened with an attack, saying, "Milwaukee is the home of beer, of brats and the Bradley Foundation," and blasting Bush for failing to appear at the NAACP's annual convention for the fifth straight year.
Bond explained his reference to the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation later in the speech, saying it is among entities that fund what he called "fraudulent" civil rights organizations.
He charged that the organizations appear to back civil rights but push school vouchers, use legal means to assault affirmative action and try to redraw political boundaries in hopes of preventing people of color from being elected to office.
Such organizations have had black "hucksters" on their payrolls for 20 years, said Bond to thunderous applause.
"Like ventriloquist dummies, they speak in their puppet master's voice, but we can see his lips moving," he said.
Similarly, Bond fired at organizations that have tried to "seduce black clergy" to conservative causes and criticized what he said is an attempt by the Bush administration to replace vital public welfare programs with faith-based organizations.
He gave special importance to the continuing battle over Bush's judicial nominees, especially a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, saying the high court needs another independent-minded justice like her. Too many Bush nominees to federal judgeships have made rulings that hurt the civil rights movement, he said, calling newly named federal appeals court judge Janice Rogers Brown "the female Clarence Thomas."
Bond recalled that some people had hoped the conservative Thomas would change after being put on the Supreme Court. "He did change, he got worse," Bond said.
Bond, a close ally of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., invoked King several times in recalling '60s civil rights triumphs such as the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott. He also credited recent National Association for the Advancement of Colored People efforts for accomplishments such as a law reducing school class sizes in Florida and restoring in Pennsylvania voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences.
"Our values are American values. We value tolerance, we value inclusion, we believe in equality, we celebrate the worth of every human being," he said.
But Bond urged the audience to continue the struggle.
The former Democratic Georgia state senator blasted the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate for failing to hold a roll call vote on a resolution apologizing for failing to enact an anti-lynching law first proposed 105 years ago. He named eight Republican senators who did not co-sponsor the resolution, saying, "If a United States senator in 2005 cannot apologize for that, what outrage is deserving of an apology?"
Targeting the Bush administration, Bond said it was "outsourcing torture" by sending terrorism suspects to foreign lands and backing economic policies that have created "an ownership society, where you're really on your own."
"They profess to being true believers, but they're really true deceivers," he said. Bond said African-Americans, in comparison to whites, still face wide gaps in "life chances" such as jobs, and that discrimination continues to be a key cause. He said the NAACP should resist calls to become a social service agency, saying its fight against discrimination is more important.
"We believe when our people have social justice they'll need much less social service," he said. Sensenbrenner praised
Bond did praise U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who told the convention he would introduce legislation extending provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that are due to expire in 2007. Bond said the most important provision requires certain jurisdictions - most of them in the South - to get "pre-clearance" from the U.S. Justice Department before making changes in voting time, place or manner.
"Anybody who claims that voting rights are now secure only has to look to Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004," Bond said, referring to razor-thin margins in back-to-back presidential elections in those states.
"Making democracy safe for America's minorities is as important as making the world safe for democracy," he said.
Bond did not hold his criticism to Republicans. He also had some harsh words for Democrats who agreed to an "empty compromise" that allowed Brown and other nominees to be confirmed from the Senate last month.
"Unfortunately, some Democrats won't take their own side in a fight," he said.
Also at Sunday evening's session, Bond recognized James Cameron, 91, founder of America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, who is believed to be the nation's only living survivor of a lynching.
Hmmmmm
The sun rose in the east this morning.
Again.
So Bond is a political enemy of Bush. That's not news.
I challenge anyone on FR to come up with a picture of Horace ("don't call me Horace) Julian Bond's wife, Pamala Horowitz.
Looks like it's time for a visit from the I.R.S.. something to do with looking at the books.
Same old, same old stuff. Bond and the NAACP are so predictable.
Already posted:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1440379/posts
This is not news. The NAACP attacking a Republican is as newsworthy as a dog peeing on a tree.
This is the proverbial "Uncle Tom/Aunt Jemima" commentary from the black leadership? What's next, a political cartoon of Janice Rogers Brown in the slave outfit? Sounds disgustingly familiar to what the NAACP has stood by and watched with Condi Rice. I suppose that yet another one of the leaders of the NAACP is interested in only promulgating the racial divide, ironically, that this sham of a commentary is at the expense of the advancement of a "colored person".
It would be funny...if it weren't so disturbing.
So, apparently Bond considers the words of the Constitution of the United States to be a "gloomy legal netherworld"? He finds his light among the emanations and penumbras, it seems;)
Julian Bond's previously bright trail sputters out in an endnote of hateful ignominy.
What a turd.
What are a few key (and true) summary statements describing Julian Bond that would make a good Starbucks letter?
The world is changing, Mr. Bond. People are actually working for a living. Time marches on, Mr. Bond, and it is passing you by for good reason. No country ever taxed its way to prosperity and no politician ever succeeded for long by calling his opponent nasty names...and meaning it.
The NAACP keeps electing the sane old fossils. It just goes to prove how out of touch they are.
I thought the NAACP did not have a "side".. right? They are a nonprofit org with no political allegiances.. right?
I can't really blame the NAACP. Prez Bush bows to la raza but snubs them?
Bubba, you USED to work your way... Stop pretending.
The single greatest thing working against blacks in America today is black culture.
Of course, so much of white culture is crap today too... so choose your poison.
But the facts speak for themselves. People who work hard and work smart make it, and people who don't, don't! People who look for other reasons to gloss over their own failure are doomed to a life of failure.
If the United States bordered Zimbabwe and accepted zillions of illegal Zimbabweans the situation would be reversed. Blacks as a percentage of the U.S. population has remained about the same - Mexicans as a percentage is surging. It's all about votes.
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