Judas Goats in the G.O.P.
Once upon a time in a thread somewhere, someone said that it would be at least 50 years before the G.O.P. would have a minority on the national ticket. Actually, Colin Powell had a pretty fair chance of being the G.O.P. Presidential candidate in place of the younger Bush, if my memory is correct. But Powell nixed it, bowing, maybe principally, to his wife's fear of the horrible magnifying glass effect they would undergo if he accepted.
Things change.
Later in the same thread someone else said that with Colin Powell as Bush's running mate, the Republicans would grab 45 states. This was a while ago, and I doubted that, and soon afterward Powell's credibility dropped to practically nothing. His "Iraq speech" at the U.N., hailed by many at the time as a great triumph, turned out to be the instrument of his downfall, because of its blatant untruths that the invasion itself revealed, and so Powell completed the process of being debased that has been the fate of so many people of his ethnicity who have put personal gain ahead of principle and thrown in their lot with the Republicans.
Some, like Supreme Court judge Clarence Thomas and Bush's Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, were debased long before they gained their high positions.
There was never a doubt in my mind that Thomas' accuser during that very contentious period when he was nominated, Anita Hill, was telling the truth about his practice of sex harrassment. The Senators should've listened to her. The country would've been spared the sight, and Rainbows would've been spared the humiliation of all these subsequent years of seeing a wooden dummy occupying that Supreme Court chair and ostensibly in their name, as part of Antonin Scalia's ventriloquist act. Thomas just sits there, session after session and year after year, rarely asking any questions, rarely offering any insights, and just routinely making decisions that Nathan Bedford Forest might have applauded.
During the first Nixon Administration there was a man with a name that combined those of the top general on each of the two sides in the Civil War. As a GS-22 in HUD he was at the time one of the highest ranking Rainbows in government. But he became fed up with the administration's policies toward minorities, and he made a speech to the NAACP in which he attacked many of the same figures who, just a year or two later, were felled by Watergate. For a couple of weeks after he was summarily fired, he was a hot figure in the news.
I know about this because, at the suggestion of and through the management of a friend, I wrote an "as told to" book about it that was published. I titled it "The Star-Spangled Hustle."
Robert Lee Grant was not the nicest fellow you ever saw. He was unbelievably arrogant. He was a misogynist. In short he was a Republican. Following his brief moment of fame though not fortune, in the 30-some years since then, I have heard absolutely nothing from or about him.
More recently J.D. Watts, a former football star and Congressman from Oklahoma, ranked fourth in the Republican leadership in the House, but it wasn't long before he chucked all that. He said that he wasn't being consulted as much as he thought his standing deserved. Maybe, unlike Rice and Powell, his pride was too strong to allow him to bear for long the natural humiliation of his party affiliation -- and maybe he had also noticed that his father had become nearly as famous as he for saying that "a black man voting for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."
I call these people "Judas Goats," after the animals that happily lead others of their kind to the slaughter, confident that the same fate does not await them.
Such people are a common and maybe even an essential part of the human condition, though why that should be is one of the big mysteries of existence.
And now today two Rainbow politicians are among the six viable candidates for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, to be decided in a few days. One from Maryland, while the other is more infamous because of the way, in 2004, as Secretary of State of Ohio, he manipulated the vote to the Republican advantage in that state.
Their names, respectively, are Steele and Blackwell.
What's in a name? Highly interesting and meaningful these are, considering the circumstances.
Things change.
Later in the same thread someone else said that with Colin Powell as Bush's running mate, the Republicans would grab 45 states. This was a while ago, and I doubted that, and soon afterward Powell's credibility dropped to practically nothing. His "Iraq speech" at the U.N., hailed by many at the time as a great triumph, turned out to be the instrument of his downfall, because of its blatant untruths that the invasion itself revealed, and so Powell completed the process of being debased that has been the fate of so many people of his ethnicity who have put personal gain ahead of principle and thrown in their lot with the Republicans.
Some, like Supreme Court judge Clarence Thomas and Bush's Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, were debased long before they gained their high positions.
There was never a doubt in my mind that Thomas' accuser during that very contentious period when he was nominated, Anita Hill, was telling the truth about his practice of sex harrassment. The Senators should've listened to her. The country would've been spared the sight, and Rainbows would've been spared the humiliation of all these subsequent years of seeing a wooden dummy occupying that Supreme Court chair and ostensibly in their name, as part of Antonin Scalia's ventriloquist act. Thomas just sits there, session after session and year after year, rarely asking any questions, rarely offering any insights, and just routinely making decisions that Nathan Bedford Forest might have applauded.
During the first Nixon Administration there was a man with a name that combined those of the top general on each of the two sides in the Civil War. As a GS-22 in HUD he was at the time one of the highest ranking Rainbows in government. But he became fed up with the administration's policies toward minorities, and he made a speech to the NAACP in which he attacked many of the same figures who, just a year or two later, were felled by Watergate. For a couple of weeks after he was summarily fired, he was a hot figure in the news.
I know about this because, at the suggestion of and through the management of a friend, I wrote an "as told to" book about it that was published. I titled it "The Star-Spangled Hustle."
Robert Lee Grant was not the nicest fellow you ever saw. He was unbelievably arrogant. He was a misogynist. In short he was a Republican. Following his brief moment of fame though not fortune, in the 30-some years since then, I have heard absolutely nothing from or about him.
More recently J.D. Watts, a former football star and Congressman from Oklahoma, ranked fourth in the Republican leadership in the House, but it wasn't long before he chucked all that. He said that he wasn't being consulted as much as he thought his standing deserved. Maybe, unlike Rice and Powell, his pride was too strong to allow him to bear for long the natural humiliation of his party affiliation -- and maybe he had also noticed that his father had become nearly as famous as he for saying that "a black man voting for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."
I call these people "Judas Goats," after the animals that happily lead others of their kind to the slaughter, confident that the same fate does not await them.
Such people are a common and maybe even an essential part of the human condition, though why that should be is one of the big mysteries of existence.
And now today two Rainbow politicians are among the six viable candidates for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, to be decided in a few days. One from Maryland, while the other is more infamous because of the way, in 2004, as Secretary of State of Ohio, he manipulated the vote to the Republican advantage in that state.
Their names, respectively, are Steele and Blackwell.
What's in a name? Highly interesting and meaningful these are, considering the circumstances.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 12:38 PM
2 Comments:
It is amazing to me that people (black and white) continually vote for those really can't stand them. My father will NOT vote Democrat. He just won't. He isn't old enough to be completely stuck in his ways, and the Republican party could give a sh** less about my father. He doesn't make enough money, no matter his skin color.
It's sad that this is 2009; the last year of the first decade of the 21st century and people are still completely brainwashed and doing things that are against their own better interests.
Maybe we will learn.
Maybe.
Hello, I've recently come into contact with Robert Lee Grant and sent some information, but the e-mail was returned as undeliverable. Is there another contact e-mail available? You can contact me at petri_trueba@att.net
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