Old News for a New Year

If you're a supporter of the 'alleged' FairTax, you have no need to continue reading.

Readers will remember my personal point of view on the very bogus and misnamed, "FairTax." The "FairTax" is just another political tool of the GOP, an extension of the Southern Strategy started under Nixon. Although Nixon gets most of the credit for moving Southern voters away from the Democratic Party, Reagan worked the Republican method of carrying Southern states and conservative Democratic voters in the latter decades of the 20th century and first decade of the 21st century by exploiting racism among white voters as well as anyone white man in history.

As explained by Kevin Phillips in a 1970 interview:

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.

Now what does a 1970 quote have to do with Reagan and the FairTax plan?

Let's cover Reagan, first. Reagan's first campaign stop in any Southern State after winning the GOP nomination, was in Mississippi at the Neshoba County Fair. That county fair isn't a small town event that means nothing and never had a place in history. It's the site where 3 Civil Rights workers were murdered in 1964. The 1964 murders were unsolved when Reagan proclaimed his support for "states rights."

Under the concept of "states rights," the federal government would have been barred from investigating the murders. The only murder trial was held in 2005.

In the 1964 uproar over the murders, Lyndon Johnson presured the FBI into investigating the three murders. During its investigation, the FBI also discovered the bodies of at least seven other Mississippi blacks, whose disappearances over the past several years had not attracted attention outside their local communities.

Did Reagan walk into this local community where so much violence had taken place with no intention of honoring the dead?

There are recordings of Reagan's comments. He commented that he had ridden in a surrey or a carriage for real. He wanted everyone to know that Ted Kennedy was concerned about poverty. Especially since Ted had never had any. Reagan commented on some mysterious and unnamed institution that he had read all about in the National Geographic.

Let me quote that passage.

Our young men are told to pre-register in the event that we need a draft. May I suggest something I think we need much more than that, because I don't believe we need a peacetime draft. What we need is to recognize what we're asking of the young people of this country who are in the volunteer military and then provide a pay scale and benefits commensurate.

But you'll never know how rewarding this is, this institution that has existed for so long-and as I said in the beginning, I know there is nothing-I have read all about it in the National Geographic. How did you ever accomplish this without a federal program?

Those who wish to debate the rambling and disfunctional quote can listen to the recorded speech by contacting the Reagan Library. That is, if the Library will let you listen to it. But, I've left nothing out. Reagan went from talking about a peacetime draft to discussing a rewarding but nameless institution. Thank God we can trust the National Geographic!

So Reagan wants to throw the FBI and federal agencies out of issues better handled by locals, like Sheriff Lawrence Rainey and his Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price. Price and Rainey more or less murdered three men in 1964, possibly many more. Reagan ignored those unsolved crimes when making this 'historic' speech before 30,000.

Trent Lott, remember him? Reagan went to the county fair because Trent Lott thought it would be a good idea.

It is a good idea to tell Southern people that the Federal government has no rights in the South. Especially if you want to run the Federal Government. Sort of like saying to voters, "Give me the job of running the federal government and I won't do it! Then, everyone can be put back the way it belongs. Anarchy!"

It's just more believable to accuse Reagan of seeking the racist vote. Perhaps more logical when looking back at the incredible growth of the national debt under Ronald Reagan.

The FairTax is like Reagan's use of the Southern Strategy. "Through the use of language, we'll use some words like fair and state's rights to attract certain groups of voters. These voters already have an agenda like racism.The only problem will be avoiding the agendas .

The FairTax agendas? One agenda under the FairTax is removing all federal taxes from corporations. Corporations aren't paying any federal taxes now. "Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress."

The FairTax has many false premises, among these that domestic corporations are unfairly taxed by the federal government.

The FairTax, like 'state's rights,' is lip service to the dysfunctional. Who would be proud of being the member of a mob?

See link.