Andy Martin says the Selma Alabama Fiftieth Anniversary march was a lost opportunity for national reconciliation

New Hampshire Republican Party maverick and national columnist  Andy Martin says the Fiftieth Anniversary of the original Selma Alabama march was a typical Barack Obama clown show, and a lost opportunity for a day of national reconciliation. Andy says Obama should have warmly welcomed the presence of former President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, instead of marginalizing them and effectively cropping them out of photos of the events taking place on “Selma Saturday.” Andy accuses the liberal national media of proffering false praise for Obama’s Selma speechifying, and misleading readers and viewers as to the lost opportunity for a day of national unity, healing and reconciliation. Andy says no civil rights law will ever pass again, unless such legislation passes with Republican support. Civil rights “leaders” will have to learn to work with Republicans or their movement will soon be extinct.

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Andy Martin says “Selma Saturday” confirmed his 2009 prediction that Barry Obama and his posse are the most ignorant and self-absorbed people to ever control the White House

Andy says the fiftieth anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama could have been a historic moment for national reconciliation, but it wasn’t

Andy says that today’s civil rights leaders lack the vision of the movement’s founders such as Martin Luther King

Andy says the “civil rights” movement is literally dying out because so-called leaders refuse to lead and instead insist on petty posturing for their own self-aggrandizement

(Manchester, NH) (March 10, 2015) When President Barack Obama and his posse moved into the White House six years ago I said they were the most ignorant and nouveau riche bunch of people to even hold court in Washington. Last Saturday, at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Selma Alabama march, Obama and his posse proved me right once again.

The Fiftieth Anniversary of Selma was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a president to work towards national unity and reconciliation.

Many if not most African-Americans believe they are treated unfairly by government. They believe their lives do not matter. Half a century after the civil rights era it is a tragedy that so many Americans have unhappy feelings. Partially, their concerns are correct, as the University of Oklahoma racist video appears to confirm. But partially, perhaps substantially, African-Americans are wrong. Hundreds of millions of Americans are people of good will who believe in national unity and racial reconciliation. Americans are hungry for great leadership; today we are controlled by the pygmies in Washington.

So where did Obama go wrong on “Selma Saturday?”

President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush went to Selma to join the commemoration. But you would never know that from either the news coverage of the events that took place at the Selma bridge or the photography which emerged. The liberal media were so busy praising Obama’s empty words they literally erased Bush’s presence in Selma.

National news media “blacked out” Bush’s presence. All you saw was Obama, all Obama, all-the-time.

Bush, Obama and I have something in common. I was the first name on George W. Bush’s enemies list (his brother Jeb attacked me). And I was the first name on Barack Obama’s enemies list (Obama stooge Robert Gibbs attacked me) (and we now know Obama has such a list, as Senator Bob Menendez is learning). So I am no fan of either Bush or Obama.

But I respect the institution of the presidency, and I respect the humanity and traditions of our great nation. Saturday was a time for greatness. Unfortunately, the day was devoted to Obama’s low class pettiness.

Obama and Bush should have marched together. Bush should have been invited to speak. He is a man of few words; the speech would have been short. Unfortunately, the Obama jamboree was all about Obama.

And Obama did not disappoint.

The speech Obama gave was vintage “Barry.” Flailing arms. Voice shimmering up and down. Obama’s gyrations were a carbon copy of his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention. But then all of Obama’s speeches are a carbon copy of his 2004 shtick. The liberals loved Obama’s Selma performance, but the reality was to the contrary: more empty words, more hollow promises, more shallow exhortations.

Obama could not bear to share the stage with Bush. Obama can barely share the stage with himself.

John Lewis gave some remarks but Lewis also fell short. Lewis is a historic figure. He was there fifty years ago; he was beaten to within an inch of his life by the mob of state troopers hat rioted at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. But Lewis also fell short.

The civil rights movement is literally dying out. Lewis is in his seventies. Jesse Jackson is no spring chicken, and he was an afterthought, not a center of attention, in Selma. Al Sharpton is an old chicken. Can you name an articulate civil rights “leader” in his 30’s? Probably not. There aren’t any.

Obama was babbling about voting rights in Selma. But he was taking to himself. He said that the people who were present should go back to Washington and press for new civil rights laws. Huh?

No new laws are going to be passed. The civil rights movement in America is dead. Civil rights leaders killed it.

The civil rights advances of the 1950's and 1960’s could not have been adopted without White support. Whites marched. Whites died. But watching the Selma celebration Saturday you would never know Whites had anything to do with passing civil rights. You would never know Republicans were the key to the passage of civil rights; most Democrats voted against the civil rights and voting rights laws.

There was no room for a White presence on Selma Saturday.

Now, obviously, the parties have changed since the 1960’s. Republicans no longer lead the way on civil rights, and Democrats no longer vote against civil rights. Despite the fact that a Republican president sent federal troops into Little Rock to integrate the high school there, during the 1960s the African-American vote completed the transition from being solidly Republican to being solidly Democratic.

Politics is about bringing people together. Truthfully, of course, Obama is not a politician. He has succeeded because he is an Obamatician. Obama is focused solely on himself. He worships himself; Islam is only a secondary religion in his life, Christianity a distant third. Obama is fundamentally ignorant, small, petty. He is, in fact, everything he says to be against (ignorance, smallness, pettiness).

Saturday was a time for Obama to rally the nation. He should have welcomed Bush; the two presidents should have marched hand in hand. Instead Obama just wanted to blather to his shrinking base. Yes, shrinking. The civil rights community is dying out as African-Americans are left behind and eclipsed by the explosive growth of the Latino community. Civil rights issues, the civil rights agenda is in decline.

The grand Republican-Democratic civil rights coalition of the 1960’s can probably never be reassembled. But there is still a lot of room for a leader, be he or she Democrat or Republican, who extends a warm and welcoming hand to the opposition, who acknowledges the reality that if any civil rights legislation is ever again going to be passed, civil rights leaders are going to have to learn to live with and work with Republicans, yes Republicans. Leadership is about politics, and Obama hates politics.

African-Americans have created a cottage industry claiming Republicans are against voting rights for Blacks. I have never heard a Republican say a word against voting for anyone. I am sure there are a few racists in my own party, just as you can find racists in the Democratic Party. Neither party has a monopoly on ignorance and bigotry. But those who aspire to leadership have to transcend the oddballs and outliers of their respective parties and work towards reconciliation.

We know, for example, that some people lack basic photo identification. “Civil rights” leaders constantly remind us. Older people may have documentary problems. Why not a bipartisan effort to ensure that photo ID’s are available to every American? To be without an ID today is to be consigned to the fringes of modern life, maybe beyond. I don't know what the mechanics would be but I am absolutely sure of what our goal should be: full inclusion. But so-called civil rights leaders would rather attack Republicans than sit down and work with them. Obama would rather slight George W. Bush than honor and respect him.

Every American should have a photo ID. Every citizen should be a full participant in our national life, which includes voting. But we should also be fully committed to ballot integrity and avoiding voter fraud. Can’t the two parties agree? Sadly, they won’t. If LBJ were alive, he would cut a deal in a day. ID’s for ballot integrity. Done.

But today the office of president has no occupant. The office is vacant. “Barry” Obama is not the big man he dreams of being, he is still a little guy who was reared to hate Whites (thank Frank Marshall Davis for that instruction), who schooled himself to think he was too cool for school. Obama is now paying the price of his smallness and ignorance in his foundering presidency and he will pay a horrible price in history. The Obama “legacy” will be bitter one.

And so, once again, Barack Obama, who never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity to unite this nation, and who glories in his own divisiveness, missed an opportunity for a day of national reconciliation and respect for civil rights on Selma Saturday. He won’t have another chance for fifty years.

This nation needs a leader, needs a president, who will bring us together. LBJ united the nation through sheer force of personal power. I know, I was there in the 89th Congress (as a flunky). The Gipper united this nation through sheer force of personality and wisdom.

America cannot survive another failed presidency, which is why Hillary Clinton should not be elected. America needs a successful leader who will extend a hand to people who disagree with and often dislike each other. That is the essence of leading. Taking people who do not want to move outside their comfort zone and bringing them into your own zone. Combining the talents of every citizen, and ensuring that every person’s worth matters in creating and continuing our great national tapestry.

The sad spectacle on Selma Saturday was a reminder we lack such a leader.

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ABOUT ANDY:

Andy is a legendary New Hampshire, New York and Chicago-based muckraker, author, Internet columnist, talk television pioneer, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. Andy’s family immigrated to Manchester 100 years ago; today his home overlooks the Merrimack River and he lives around the corner from where he played as a small boy. He has forty-five years of background in radio and television. He is the author of “Obama: The Man Behind The Mask” [www.OrangeStatePress.com] and he produced the Internet film “Obama: The Hawaii’ Years” [www.BoycottHawaii.com]. Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of the “Internet Powerhouse,” www.ContrarianCommentary.com. He comments on New Hampshire, national and international events with more than four decades of investigative and analytical experience both in the USA and around the world. For more, go to: www.AndyMartin.com

Andy has also been a leading corruption fighter in American politics and courts for over forty-five years and he is executive director of the National Anti-Corruption Policy Institute. He is currently sponsoring www.AmericaisReadyforReform.com. See also www.FirstRespondersOnline.us; www.EnglishforAmerica.org

He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York (LaGuardia CC, Bronx CC).

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© Copyright by Andy Martin 2015 – All Rights Reserved

Andy Martin asks whether some African-American “congressional leaders” are cheapening the 50th anniversary of the historic march from Selma, Alabama

Fifty years ago civil rights leaders began a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. New Hampshire Republican Party maverick Andy Martin was and continues to be a strong supporter of civil rights. Andy looks back at the Selma march and asks why today’s civil rights leaders and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are now cheapening the memory of the historic event. Andy says national progress can only come when all Americans join together, and when partisan divisions are set aside. Andy cites the New Hampshire Secretary of State as a source of concern that voting laws and voting itself are becoming increasing causes for concern. “If photo ID’s would be good for New Hampshire,” Andy asks. “Why not for everywhere in the United States. Ballot integrity should be paramount. And ballot integrity has nothing to do with diluting respect and reverence for the historic Selma march. The need for photo ID’s is consistent with, not repugnant to, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”

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independent authors/investigators

“Factually Correct, Not Politically Correct”

you can call Andy:

National (866) 706-2639

Cell (917) 664-9329

you can email Andy:

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Andy Martin questions whether today’s “civil rights leaders” are polarizing the nation rather than uniting the American people

Andy says the fiftieth anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama is being used to create partisan divisions

Andy says that today’s leaders lack the vision - Republican and Democratic - that united the nation fifty years ago

Andy says the Selma anniversary should not be exploited in 2015 with bogus claims of “poll taxes” and racial discrimination

(Manchester, NH) (March 6, 2015) I grew up in a home that was committed to civil rights. One of the most moving moments in my young life was when my mom looked at me and said, “We are committed to civil rights.” I am just as committed to civil rights today, in 2015, as I was in 1965.

That is why I am saddened to see how today’s so-called “congressional civil rights leaders,” in reality little more than racial hucksters, are cheapening the memory of the great Selma-to-Montgomery, Alabama march.

First there was the bogus “Selma” movie that sought to minimize the role of President Lyndon Baines Johnson in achieving voting rights. I worked in Washington during Johnson’s years. Nothing happened in Washington without Johnson’s stamp of approval. No man since has ever been as committed to civil rights as Johnson was. He had a close, but clandestine, relationship with my boss, Senator Paul H. Douglas, and so I had an inside perspective on the relationship between the two men.

Likewise, I was brought up in a home with three-sided religious affiliations: Episcopalian, Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic. All denominations supported the Selma march. Americans became united in rejecting the racism of Jim Crow and the 1965 south.

Time, of course, has not stood still. There have been great successes and abject failures in the past fifty years. The Republican Party has become more conservative, but so has the United States. Data fraud, identity theft and computer crime had yet to be invented in 1965. Voting fraud in Chicago? Still with us. The personal computer, let alone the smart phone, could only be seen in the comic book futurology of 1965.

Today, day after day, African-American members of congress steadily cheapen the memory of Selma and seek to divide us for their own selfish spoils. Instead of using the Selma anniversary to extend their reach, to bring the nation together, to expand their own “base” more deeply into non-African-American communities, these so-called congressional leaders are doing exactly the opposite. They are stridently negative when they could and should be boisterously positive.

Reasonable people can differ about the need for voter identification laws. But here is the reality of 2015, not 1965: in 2015, no one is able to open a bank account without a photo ID. No one can board an airplane without a photo ID. Virtually every federal building requires a photo ID to enter. For African-American leaders to claim that those of us who support ID’s for voting are endorsing racial discrimination, “poll taxes” and mass denial of voting to blacks is an outrage. These false prophets are deepening the racial divide in America, not seeking to eliminate it.

In 1965, when the Congress and the Democratic Party were still controlled by racist white legislators, Republican votes made the difference in approving the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But there would have been no civil rights laws without the support of Republican leader Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen. Although both Douglas and Dirksen (whom I regularly met) came from Illinois they were polar opposites in temperament. But Dirksen’s support was the linchpin, the indispensable prerequisite for enacting civil rights laws. Without Dirksen, there would have been no voting rights, no civil rights. America would have plunged deeper into a racial abyss.

That’s why those who know (Senators of both parties) have named one of the senate office buildings after Dirksen. Today we live in the world envisioned by Senator Douglas; but we in that because it was enacted by Senator Dirksen.

Are African-American leaders thanking Republicans for enacting voting rights. Not at all. They are excoriating them for currently supporting the need for voter ID laws. To inflate today’s call for basic identification, which is required in every aspect of American life, into some sort of indictment of those who support ballot security, is an outrage. The Democrats’ irrational attacks boomeranged at the polls in 2014, and they will boomerang again in 2016, and will keep boomeranging until today’s “leaders” stop their racially-motivated partisan attacks.

The presidency of African-American Barack Hussein Obama has been a disaster. Every day brings new threats of foreign policy collapse and domestic division. To take words from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, the next president will have to “bind up the wounds” of this nation. And they will be many. So yes, Obama has exacerbated racial polarization. Each party has become locked in rigid embrace of its own doxology with no breathing space for the “other.”

As a partisan opponent of Obama, and as much as I have come to detest him, I wish that he had taken up a contrary approach and sought to bind up the wounds left behind by the failed presidency of George W. Bush. Instead, Obama has been the most polarizing president of modern history. Obama has squandered all of the goodwill with which this nation, rightly or wrongfully, embraced him in 2008.

I was a proud supporter of civil rights in 1965. I am an even prouder supporter of civil rights in 2015. When I look back on all of the progress we have made in the intervening 50 years, and when I look ahead to the promise of the next 50 years I am heartened, not disappointed. But I can’t help believing that if today’s African-American leaders had as much foresight as their predecessors, we would be celebrating a great national victory with the Selma anniversary, instead of being polarized, once again, by partisan attacks on Republicans and conservatives who wish to embrace modern technology and accept the demands of 2015, not 1965. Valid voter photo ID is a necessity of the modern world.

No doubt obtaining a photo ID can be a problem for some people. Rather than encouraging laws which assist every American to become “identified,” civil rights leaders today are trying to use the ID challenges of a few as a general indictment of American society. That assault on “America 2015” is doomed to failure, and is having a boomerang effect at the very polls African-American leaders want to protect. An assistance program could resolve the ID dispute in an instant if good people would sit down and “reason together” as Johnson asked us to do.

Bu where are the seats on which to sit?  Where is the reason? What is the price of division? May the ghosts of Selma whisper in the ears of our leaders today, “Unity, not division, is the road to progress.” Selma embodied the hopes of a nation that was slowly coalescing around the concept of civil rights for everyone, and gradually acknowledging the inhumanity of segregation and racial division.

We won that war. Sadly, today, some “leaders” are losing the peace by making spurious attacks on good citizens with whom they have honest differences of governance. The “ID wars” are not even remotely a basis for attacks of racism and partisanship. In New Hampshire, the Secretary of State has sounded alarms about tens of thousands of questionable ballots and widespread misuse of the voting process, in a state that is over 90% white. We need voter ID in New Hampshire. I am a 100% supporter.

President Johnson always said, “Come let us reason together.” Those words are as true today as they were in 1965.

LINKS TO THIS STORY (cut and paste the entire link below and not just the underlined portion):

New citations after emailing:

WHAT OTHERS SAY:

One author has called Andy the “big kahuna” of the anti-Obama movement. Another said “Andy Martin is revolutionizing journalism… [Andy] brings to online journalism what Rush Limbaugh [brings] to radio or Michael Moore to film: sleek little stories that fit into larger political narratives…”

“The only American journalists that are “standing UP” [to Obama] are, Andy Martin…”

ABOUT ANDY:

Andy is a legendary New Hampshire, New York and Chicago-based muckraker, author, Internet columnist, talk television pioneer, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. Andy’s family immigrated to Manchester 100 years ago; today his home overlooks the Merrimack River and he lives around the corner from where he played as a small boy. He has forty-five years of background in radio and television. He is the author of “Obama: The Man Behind The Mask” [www.OrangeStatePress.com] and he produced the Internet film “Obama: The Hawaii’ Years” [www.BoycottHawaii.com]. Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of the “Internet Powerhouse,” www.ContrarianCommentary.com. He comments on New Hampshire, national and international events with more than four decades of investigative and analytical experience both in the USA and around the world. For more, go to: www.AndyMartin.com

Andy has also been a leading corruption fighter in American politics and courts for over forty-five years and he is executive director of the National Anti-Corruption Policy Institute. He is currently sponsoring www.AmericaisReadyforReform.com. See also www.FirstRespondersOnline.us; www.EnglishforAmerica.org

He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York (LaGuardia CC, Bronx CC).

UPDATES:

www.twitter.com/AndyMartinUSA
www.Facebook.com/AndyMartin

Andy’s columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com ContrarianCommentary.wordpress.com

ContrarianCommentary.typepad.com

[NOTE: We try to correct any typographical errors in our stories; find the latest version on our blogs.]

----------

© Copyright by Andy Martin 2015 – All Rights Reserved

ANDY MARTIN: In defense of Governor Haley Barbour

Conservative columnist Andy Martin strikes back at liberal lies about the civil rights era and brands the Washington Post’s Gene Robinson a resident “Racist-in-Chief.” Martin says efforts by the mainstream media to demonize Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour are part of a relentless attack on Republicans and Conservatives. Andy says “Gene Robinson’s ‘Big Lie’ shall not pass.” Liberals are not going to be allowed to rewrite the history of the civil rights revolution and the Republican Party’s leading role in that great moral crusade.


Internet Powerhouse Andy Martin says the liberal media are lying about the civil rights era

Martin says racist journalists at the Washington Post are trying to rewrite history and demonize Governor Haley Barbour

ContrarianCommentary.com
“The Internet Powerhouse”
Andy Martin
Executive Editor

“Factually Correct, Not Politically Correct”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Andy Martin says “reporting” by Washington Post writers is nothing less than the “Big Lie” and a blatant attempt to rewrite history

Martin accuses the Washington Post’s Gene Robinson of becoming become the newspaper’s resident “Racist-in-Chief”

Andy says Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is the victim of a liberal smear campaign

(NEW YORK)(December 2, 2010) It’s “holiday" time for some (for me Christmas). While most people have good cheer in their hearts, the relentless disinformation and racist smears of the mainstream media are going full blast to demonize Governor Haley Barbour and Republicans in general. As someone with actual knowledge and experience of the civil rights era, the media and the Republican Party, I rise unhesitatingly to stand up to and condemn the Washington Post’s resident Racist-in-Chief, Gene Robinson, and to condemn efforts to demonize Barbour. I have no links of any sort to Governor Haley Barbour.

The origins of the latest controversy are an article in the Weekly Standard in which Barbour discusses in passing the civil rights era from his perspective. (link below) The gist of Barbour’s view is that as the civil rights era unfolded, different communities reacted differently. Out of this tiny acorn the Washington Post has created a mighty oak of lies, more lies and damn lies. The Post’s Gene Robinson is the prime orchestrator of this despicable behavior.

The Post began by reporting Barbour’s comments as though the governor was a racist. (links blow). Then the Washington Post’s latest “conservative writer” Jennifer Rubin buried Barbour’s presidential campaign before it was even announced (link below). The Washington Post always keeps a liberal-Democrat-as-“conservative” on its staff. Rubin is the Post’s latest liberal “conservative.” Rubin’s “conservative” predecessor, Dave Weigel, was fired by the Post when he was outed as a liberal: Weigel promptly became a flack on Keith Olbermann’s nightly left-wing tirade. Some “conservative.” [Full disclosure: Weigel has also written lies about me.]

Younger Post writers trying to make sense of the attacks on Barbour looked back to Gene Robinson’s despicable earlier attack on Barbour that had slipped by unnoticed during the heat of the recent campaign (link below).

Robison’s Big Lie: that Republicans in the South were racists during the civil rights civil war, and that Barbour’s claim that Republicans led the civil rights era is nonsense. Gene Robinson is a bald-faced liar.

Robinson’s distortion and disinformation of Barbour’s views: “He [Barbour] has the gall to try to portray Southern Republicans as having been enlightened supporters of the civil rights movement all along.” (link below)

Here are the facts:

1. Slaves were emancipated by a Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. In gratitude, from the end of the Civil War well into the 20th Century most African-Americans were Republicans, not Democrats. Jim Crow racism was a creation of Democrats, not Republicans.

2. During the years when the “solid South” was a bulwark of the Democratic Party, the most vicious racists were all Democrats.

3. The only federal civil rights advocates were Republican judges. Due to segregation, the actual Republican Party in the racist south was skeletal. But the handful of southern Republicans had one powerful trump card: they controlled federal patronage during periods of Republican presidents. When Dwight Eisenhower took office as a Republican president in 1953 he began to appoint “Republican judges” to the Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the federal district courts in the south. Republican appointees to the Court of Appeals Elbert Tuttle, John Minor Wisdom and John R. Brown were the men who captained the assault on Jim Crow and segregation.

4. The most illustrious federal judge of the civil rights era was probably Frank M. Johnson, a Republican who was appointed by President Eisenhower in 1955. Johnson was at the center of the desegregation wars, constantly battling Alabama Governor George Wallace.

5. In 1960 Presidential candidate John F. Kenney weakened the lingering support of African-Americans for the Republican Party by reaching out to civil rights advocates such as Reverend Martin Luther King.

6. But once elected, Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy renewed the Democratic Party’s practice of appointing racist judges to the federal courts in the South.

7. More Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965.

8. In the 1964 presidential election the South switched from Democrat to Republican. Southern voters backed conservative Republican Barry Goldwater. But Goldwater was no racist. Goldwater was as decent a man as ever served in the senate. Goldwater had a conservative vision that saw an excessively limited role for the federal government; his vision, when followed to its logical conclusion, was wrong on the issue of civil rights. If anyone believed in 1964 they were voting for a racist in backing Goldwater, they were mistaken.

9. In 1968 President Richard Nixon crafted the “Southern Strategy” to appeal to conservative white voters. The wisdom of that approach is open to debate. But by 1968 the climate had also shifted in the North. Bitter civil rights disputes had broken out in Chicago, where Mayor Richard Daley clubbed and arrested civil rights advocates (I was there). Angry Whites had already stoned Reverend Martin Luther King in Chicago in 1967.

10. Boston, home of the Kennedy dynasty, was also the scene of vicious civil rights resistance.

11. To say that Republicans had a monopoly on the growing resistance the civil rights agenda is demonstrably false. History, not even morally correct history such as the civil rights revolution, does not always move in a straight line.

The bottom line:

1. Segregation in the south was entirely a construction of the Democratic Party.

2. For decades almost all of the southerners fighting to maintain Jim Crow and segregation were Democrats. Most leading advocates of civil rights reform were Republicans.

3. Without Republican federal judges the civil rights revolution would have been stymied.

I know. I was there and saw it unfold before my eyes.

One closing observation about media lies and modern media mythology:

Today we are flooded with media contacts and images. We have cable TV bobbleheads, news, opinion, blogs, the Internet. We even have “dead tree media” (national newspapers). There is a daily avalanche of information. That was not the world in which Haley Barbour and I grew up.

The evening news was still 15 minutes going into the 60’s. “National” newspapers did not exist. Actual information and “news” was scarce. Almost all of our daily news came from local papers and the odd radio news report; they in turn were dominated by clipped wire service journalism.

Looking back half a century from today’s perspective, we instinctively and unconsciously compress years of civil rights activity into a few dramatic moments and a linear narrative. But that was not the way the civil rights revolution actually unfolded and took place day-by-day in the earlier media age.

There was scant “news” coverage, except for reporting on the occasional dramatic demonstration (Bull Conner in Birmingham or Governor George Wallace barring the door) and most people in Illinois, as well as those in Yazoo City, Mississippi, were only peripherally aware of the civil rights maelstrom taking place beyond the horizon.

Gene Robinson wants to rewrite history to paint Republicans as racists. That is a Big Lie. Robinson has sadly become the Washington Post’s resident “Racist-in-Chief.” For shame, Mr. Robinson.

P. S. Resident liberal “conservative” Jennifer Rubin has the Barbour-as-a-racist brouhaha backwards. The fact that the Barbour controversy is being ventilated now, before the governor even announces, means the issue of media lies is out in the open to be confronted and deconstructed.

WATCH FOR A DRAMATIC ANNOUNCEMENT BY ANDY MARTIN DECEMBER 29TH.

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LINKS TO THIS COLUMN:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/
boy-yazoo-city_523551.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/
44/2010/12/the-fix-called-attention-this.html

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/
barbour-seeks-to-clarify-comments-on-civil-rights-era/?scp=3&sq=Barbour&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/us/
politics/21barbour.html?scp=2&sq=Barbour&st=cse

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/12/does_haley_barbour_have_a_
bubb.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-turn/2010/12/beware_of_conservative_
magazin.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2010/09/06/AR2010090602959.html

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ABOUT ANDY: Chicago Public Radio calls Andy Martin a “boisterous Internet activist.” Andy is the legendary New York and Chicago-based muckraker, author, Internet columnist, radio talk show host, broadcaster and media critic. He has over forty years of background in radio and television and is the dean of Illinois media and communications. He promotes his best-selling book, “Obama: The Man Behind The Mask” and his Internet movie "Obama: The Hawai'i years." Martin has been a leading corruption fighter in Illinois for over forty years. He is currently sponsoring www.AmericaisReadyforReform.com
Andy is the Executive Editor and publisher of the “Internet Powerhouse,” http://www.contrariancommentary.com/. He comments on regional, national and world events with more than four decades of investigative and analytical experience. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and is a former adjunct professor of law at the City University of New York (LaGuardia CC, Bronx CC).

UPDATES: www.twitter.com/AndyMartinUSAwww.Facebook.com/AndyMartin Andy's columns are also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; ContrarianCommentary.wordpress.com.
ContrarianCommentary.typepad.com[NOTE: We try to correct any typographical errors in this story on our blogs; find our latest edition there.]

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