Farahmandpur is a doctoral student at the Graduate School of
Education and Information Studies
By Ramin Farahmandpur
It is believed that with the help of the clandestine efforts of
a “fifth column” in Florida, consisting of loyal
contingents of button-down storm-troopers ““ the Secretary of
State, Kathleen Harris and the Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush; the
five supreme court justices who ruled against counting ballots; and
the predominantly Republican state legislature of Florida ““
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney succeeded in stealing the 2000
presidential election.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that, after announcing that
he is a “uniter, not a divider,” George W. Bush decided
to nominate former Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft to the post of U. S.
attorney general. Ashcroft is an extreme right-wing Dixiecrat
ideologue who wishes to turn back the hands of time and restore the
South to the pre-Civil War era.
Perhaps more disturbing is Ashcroft’s voting record, which
shows him as a staunch opponent of civil rights, women’s
rights, abortion rights, school desegregation and gay and lesbian
rights. He is also against banning assault rifles and mandatory
safety locks for guns, and in favor of legalizing the carrying of
concealed weapons.
Ashcroft’s opposition to the appointment of Ronnie L.
White, an African American member of the Missouri Supreme Court,
who was nominated to the federal bench for the Eastern District of
Missouri by President Clinton in 1997, serves as a telling example
of Ashcroft’s politics. Further, one only has to take a close
look at Ashcroft’s voting record to see why over 200 liberal
and progressive interest groups oppose his style of
“compassionate conservatism” for the poor, children,
women, minorities and senior citizens.
Ashcroft voted against increasing funds for Medicare
prescription coverage for the elderly; voted against a $150 million
bill for basic health care for uninsured Americans; and voted in
favor of using social security surplus to fund tax reductions.
Is there any guarantee that Ashcroft will take steps to prevent
hate crimes against gays, such as in the case of the tragic murder
and torture of Matthew Sheppard? Apparently not. Ashcroft voted to
prohibit hate crimes from including sexual orientation.
While the liberal media and Republicans have attacked
approximately 200 liberal and progressive groups who oppose
Ashcroft’s nomination and labeled them as “narrow
special interest groups,” one has only to examine
Ashcroft’s pro-tobacco industry voting record to reveal which
special interest group Ashcroft supports. Ashcroft voted against
penalties on tobacco companies and against increasing tobacco
restrictions.
Finally, Ashcroft’s die-hard supporters who have portrayed
him as a man of “integrity” and “honesty,”
who will uphold traditional family values, will be disappointed to
learn that he voted against restricting violent videos to
minors.
As the Republicans and Democrats prepare for ideological war in
Congress over the Ashcroft confirmation nomination, one of the more
pressing issues is how Ashcroft came to be nominated for the post
of attorney general. This is an important consideration, given the
fact that he is known for having deep-seated resentment toward the
Confederacy’s defeat by the North some 130 years ago, and has
publicly praised the pro-slavery leaders of the confederacy
(Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson) in an
interview with the neo-confederate journal, “Southern
Partisan.”
And one cannot forget his Pentecostal-driven view that the
United States is a country whose founding Christian fathers have
blessed it by giving us Jesus as the ultimate arbitrator of right
and wrong and that he uses the scriptures to justify his pro-death
penalty views.
Part of the answer to why Ashcroft’s longing for an
anti-government, pro-state Dixieocracy is tolerated, and in some
instances endorsed by the establishment, can be explained by the
dramatic ideological shift of the Democratic Party to the right of
the political spectrum in the aftermath of the 1992 presidential
election.
Under the leadership of the Clinton-Gore administration, the New
Democrats embraced pro-corporate, neo-liberal social and economic
policies, which at the same time, drastically weakened the power of
labor unions. Given the fact that the Democratic Party severed its
ties from its own progressive base during the years of the Clinton
presidency, it is not surprising to see why at the start of the
2000 presidential election, it was already too late for the Gore
campaign to rally working-class and progressive movements around
its platform.
This also explains why many anti-corporate environmentalists and
peace activists, who had been alienated from the Democratic
Party’s pro-corporate stance, decided to vote for Ralph
Nader. Having witnessed deep ideological fractures within the
Democratic Party, the Republican Party wasted no time. They set
aside their deep-seated differences and rallied around the
nomination of George W. Bush.
It is precisely because the Democratic Party has abandoned its
working-class and progressive roots that has made the Ashcroft
nomination for attorney general a possibility with little vocal
opposition from the Democrats. Indeed, if Ashcroft is confirmed by
Congress to be the next attorney general it will be a great tragedy
for all Americans and an insult to great leaders such as Martin
Luther King, Jr. who fought and died in the struggle for civil
rights.