Opportunity for framing: Yesterday's challenge & '64 Miss. murder arrest

[HootieMcBoob]

The recent arrest of Edgar Ray Killen, the 79-year-old preacher who, investigators say, organized and led two carloads of Klansmen in Philadelphia, Mississippi in the murders of Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney should be used by progressive Democrats to highlight the need for election reform.

For example: when talking about the challenge yesterday it could be said that - Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, Barbara Boxer, the members of the CBC and the Representatives and Senators who spoke up yesterday concerning the urgent need for election reform are carrying the torch that was handed to them by these three American heros.

It could help to highlight the Republicans who ridiculed them as the party that is comfortable with racism.

Some things that could be pointed out when discussing this could be:

as sniped from the end of the NYT article - http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/07/national/07mississippi.html?hp&ex=1105160400&en=66692faa9eea140f&ei=5094&partner=homepage "They also detail the profound hatred that many white Mississippians held for civil rights workers. In 1964, a wave of thousands of civil rights activists, many of them white college students from the North, went to Mississippi and other states in the South as part of a broad coalition to end the political disenfranchisement of black people.

Within a month of the murders, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964."

It could be pointed out that this then led to President Nixon's "Southern Strategy" which has been a winning tool for Republican candidates ever since.

It could be pointed out that Ronald Reagan chose of all places Philadelphia, Mississippi as the site for his first major speech in his Presidential campaign of 1980 - apparently at the urging of Trent Lott.

It could also be pointed out that George W. Bush conveniently chose Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday to announce his attack on affirmative action against the University of Chicago. (I know this isn't about voting but it highlights the way that the Republican Party sends signals to white racists)

This is just off the top of my head and a rough idea but I just thought that if this is being talked about at all in the MSM today that it would be a good opportunity to tie yesterdays challenge in congress to the struggle for the vote that has been going on for decades and that the Republican party is on the wrong side of.

[FreakinDJ]

1. Very good point

your message .....

It could also be pointed out that George W. Bush conveniently chose Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday to announce his attack on affirmative action against the University of Chicago. (I know this isn't about voting but it highlights the way that the Republican Party sends signals to white racists)
<end snip>

I noticed that too The Ratpukes are basically calling it open season on different races. They send out messages like that all the time. Remember Bush's comment "Those Brown Skinned Peoples who can't govern themselves"

But at the same time the Ratpukes are attempting divide the different races by courting the Hispanic community with various appointments and immigration reform rhetoric

[grumpy old fart]

2. Do you have a link for that * quote?

Hadn't seen that one before, and wondering about its context

[HootieMcBoob]

3. Is this arrest being covered by the corporate TV media today?

I haven't had a chance to see the television at all today. Just curious if it's even on their radar. It seems to be really big news to me but then usually the things that I think should be big news are relegated to the back pages of the papers and no coverage at all by the corporate TV news.

If whoever is running the DNC right now (if there is anybody running it) should be on the phone with people from the southern poverty law center or some other experts that could be recruited to speak on this subject by the cable news stations. This is one of the things that needs to be organized once the new DNC chair hits the ground running - organizing networks of think tanks and organizations to coordinate a message as it relates to the news of the day. I believe that Howard Dean would set up something like that but I don't have much faith in some of the people our party leaders are pushing for the job.

[FreakinDJ]

4. The DNC is rolling over letting it happen

Sorry to say but the DNC is an official "No Show" on this subject