The US Senate is about to pass a resolution apologizing for its failure to pass a law against lynching -- as first proposed by President McKinley over a century ago. Why the delay? Senate filibusters, part of that proud tradition of democracy that Senator Robert Byrd (KKK-- Dogpatch) and the rest of the Senate Democrats have talked about in recent weeks.

The U.S. House of Representatives, responding to pleas from presidents and civil rights groups, three times agreed to make the crime a federal offense. Each time, though, the measure died in the Senate at the hands of powerful southern lawmakers using the filibuster.

The Senate is set to correct that wrong Monday, when its members will vote on a resolution to apologize for the failure to enact an anti-lynching law first proposed 105 years ago.

"The apology is long overdue," said Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), who is sponsoring the resolution with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). "Our history does include times when we failed to protect individual freedom and rights."

Uh, does anyone notice something missing in the first paragraph I quoted -- and the rest of the article? The obstructionists who wanted to make sure that no white man was ever prosecuted for the murder of a black man were DEMOCRATS. The folks who shut down the Senate for SIX WEEKS in 1936-37 with a filibuster against a federal lynching law were DEMOCRATS (including Senator Hugo Black, who would be appointed to the Supreme Court by FDR in the midst of the filibuster, despite his known membership in the KKK).

The reporters and the editors of the Washington Post, of course, would never include that detail in an article. It would require reminding folks which party was the party of emancipation, which party lent its overwhelming support to every Civil Rights Act , and which party has always rejected racism and favored the best interests of African -Americans. It would also require mentioning which party supported slavery, disenfranchisement of blacks, Jim Crow, the appointment of segregationist judges, and, yes, lynchings of uppity black men.

And it would require reminding folks that the filibuster, trumpetted by Senate Democrats as the key to preserving minority rights, has long been used by them to obstruct the interests of blacks, Jews, Catholics, women, and others who stood in the way of the interests of Ol' Massa the leaders of the Democrat Plantation Party.

UPDATE: Seems that Captain Ed has stirred quite a controversy by commenting on this same article.
While I don't necessarily agree with every syllable of his post, I have to say that I don't find him to be too far off in noting that the filibuster has traditionally been used by the Democrat Party to make sure uppity Negros (and other groups whose full participation in the life of the American Republic is inconvenient for the aristocratic leadership of the Democrat Party) are kept in their place -- whether they be the victims of lynchings, blacks who want to vote, or judicial nominees of the wrong race, ethnicity, gender and religious persuasion.

Having Senator Robert Byrd, a former KKK recruiter, get up in the well of the Senate and lecture the GOP and the nation that ending the filibuster presented a danger to the Republic amounted to historical revisionism of the worst kind. While Harry Reid talked about Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (one of Frank Capra's worst and most idiotically idealistic films), the real, non-Hollywood Senate used the filibuster to ensure and to tacitly endorse the racial control that lynching provided. It isn't too far of a stretch to call it Southern terrorism.

Thanks to racists like Byrd, that tradition of filibustering continues today. In fact, Byrd (who isn't even mentioned in this article) filibustered the original Civil Rights Act in 1964, eating up 14 hours of debate before his own caucus finally put an end to his embarrassing display. It is a practice that allows the entire democratic process of the United States to be held hostage by a minority, even if it now requires a larger minority than before the rule changes which eliminated the need for continuous speechmaking.

AND

What I would like to know is what lives the Senate saved through the filibuster? What overarching principle has the filibuster ever protected that would counter the cost of the innumerable victims of lynching that the filibuster allowed? The only principle the filibuster has ever protected, as far as I see, is naked partisanship and in the case of lynching, racial oppression and terror. And yet, these same modern-day Senators stood with a man who used the filibuster to keep blacks from voting and justified its use against confirming judges to the appellate court. Thatincludes one nominee, Janice Rogers Brown, whose family suffered under the threat and terror of lynching because of the same filibuster the Democrats used to keep her from her bench assignment. That isn't ironic; it's morally depraved.

I guess I don't see the problem with his words. They are on target, except for the fact they should be extended to include the overall abuse of non-white non-Protestants by the Party that long embraced the Klan and still embraces the filibuster and the distinguished Kleagle from West Virginia.

As for Captain Ed's Critics, I find their protests less than persuasive.

Mark of Decision '08 wants to compare the filibuster to a gun and argue that it is those who use it are the problem, not the rule itself. But he fails to produce even a single example of the filibuster being used for good., as Captain Ed challenges his critics. One can therefore reasonably presume that, unlike guns, there really are no positive or respectable uses for the filibuster.

The lovely and usually correct Beth of My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy accuses Captain Ed of being the equivalent of one of the Democrat moonbats and blames him and others like him for folks like Daily Kos and DU. There is clearly a logic failure in her post, and I hope she wakes up and realizes that her position is just plain nutty. She even tries to innoculate herself against criticism by dismissing the criticism in advance and announcing a plan to preemptively ban dissenters.

Now watch, Captain Ed wonÂ’t do this, because even though heÂ’s WRONG, heÂ’s not an asshole (again, note that he didnÂ’t attack The Commissar). But his little hangers-on will be here calling me a moderate, a liberal, probably a racist!

HA! Let me head that off right now: All I’ve got to say to those people is PISS OFF, amateurs. Come on over here and call me a racist or a liberal and you’ll probably not just find your comment deleted–you might be banned as well. I don’t put up with idiots, period.

Sorry, dear, you sound like a low-rent Maureen Dowd there. And you are forgetting that the filibusters had a racist component to it from the beginning -- remember the memo that pointedly indicated that Miguel Estrada was dangerous because of his ethnicity.

PTH from Six Meat Buffet and Rick from Right Wing Nut House also dissent fromt he Captain, but more temperately. My major disagreement with them is that they are uncomfortable with drawing a link between the history of the filibuster and its contemporary usage.

I'll refrain from commenting on the Commisar from Politburo Diktat. Come on -- how can anyone draw that conclusion after an honest reading of the original post? Patterico agrees with me that the Commisar is seriously misrepresenting the Captain.

Posted by: Greg at 09:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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