At the "Take Back America" conference in Washington yesterday, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond compared Republicans to the Taliban, the terrorists who used to rule Afghanistan.

"Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side," Bond told a cheering audience. "They've written a new constitution for Iraq and ignore the Constitution here at home. They draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban wing of American politics. Now they want to write bigotry back into the Constitution."

Bond called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 two of America's greatest achievements. Of course, he neglected the simple fact that the Republicans of the day were instrumental in pushing both Acts through. Had the Democrats of the 1960s prevailed, neither act would have become law, and blacks would have continued to be relegated to the "back of the bus."

"The passage of these two laws in 1964 and 1965 marked the beginning of the dependence of the Republican Party on the politics of racial division to win elections and gain power," Bond said. "By playing the race card in election after election, they've appealed to that dark underside of American culture, to that minority of Americans who reject democracy and equality. They preach racial neutrality and they practice racial division."

"We have a president who talks like a populist and governs for the privileged," Bond said. "We were promised compassionate conservatism; instead, we got crummy capitalism."

After similarly partisan statements by Bond at their convention last summer, a number of critics of the civil rights organization called for the removal of their tax exempt status. In an interview on MSNBC's Scarborough Country last July, I pointed out (much to the chagrin of fellow guest Roland Martin) that Bond's statements would make it easy for the federal government to withdraw that exemption.

Bond's statements make it crystal clear that the NAACP has no desire to work together with Republicans to make things better for all people.

The NAACP's 2004 National Convention is July 10-15 in Philadelphia. I'm sure we will hear much more in the way of venomous rage and true hate speech from Bond and his cohorts then.

Posted by: mhking at 02:59 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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