From: Zhang, Yangkun (Yangkun.Zhang@FMR.COM)
Date: Mon Nov 27 2000 - 11:39:53 PST
> Minorities dont usually vote republican, I am guessing, for good reasons.
They
> dont trust them. There is a history of voting against civil rights for
> minorities, against immigration reform, etc
It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with economics. I
remembering flipping through the election results on voter.com a few weeks
ago--blacks and Hispanics do vote for the democratic ticket, but Asians
voted 50/50 for Democrats vs. Republicans--just like whites in this country.
Does this mean that Asians are a "lesser" minority? I doubt it. I suspect
that it has something to do with the fact that the median Asian income in
this country is slightly higher than the median white income.
However, it could also be that Asians simply don't buy the Democratic claim
that "minorities" somehow are handicapped by society and need "help" in the
form of further governmental interference. Frankly, I don't think the left
in this country think Asians are a minority group. When you hear about
minorities does poorly in school et all, the left always refer to blacks and
Hispanics. We simply do not count as a minority group. But I digress--I'm
grinding my old axe again...
Are Republicans often ignorant of minority cultures, hell yes! But at least
they are up front about it--which makes their ignorance more tolerable.
Otherwise, your typical Republican rube will leave you alone to your
business of climbing the socio-economic ladder in this country. Democrats
all too often go for fake multiculturalism--they claim they care about other
cultures, other racial groups, then advocate things that hurt
minorities--e.g., Nader's protectionism (which hurts mostly non-white
foreign workers), Gore/Nader's extreme environmentalism/anti-biotechism
(they'd kill projects like the Golden-Rice which would save millions of
third-world children from death and blindness), etc. Republicans may be a
bunch of white people who don't give a damn about minorities, but Democrats
are a bunch of white people who THINK they give a damn, but actually
implement destructive policies that harm minorities, then blame the
Republicans for it! Just two cent from this minority...
Apropos, for an international view on the American left, here's a nice
article from the South China Morning Post:
Sunday December 12 1999
WTO bullies right up Clinton's alley
Lim Say Boon
That shameless American, middle-class tantrum we witnessed in
Seattle - made more disgraceful by its pretence of
championing international labour and environmental standards
- goes a long way to reaffirming my long-held view that the
political path from Right to Left is circular rather than
straight.
That is, if you travel far enough to the left of the
political spectrum you will emerge on the far right.
And it is silly criticising Bill Clinton and the Democratic
establishment for their 'failure' to rescue the WTO's Seattle
summit. That's a bit like criticising Lennox Lewis for
Evander Holyfield's failure to keep his crown.
The third ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation
was a disaster - and that suited Mr Clinton just fine.
Noted Columbia University economics professor Jagdish
Bhagwati hit the nail on the head when he said: 'Perhaps
President Clinton wittingly sacrificed and scuttled the talks
to pursue a short-run political agenda, this so-called
'political failure' actually constituting a political triumph
for him. I believe that the evidence points much too
convincingly to [this] hypothesis.' Simply, Democrats with an
eye on the next presidential election had no interest in a
successful outcome in Seattle on anything other than the
terms laid out by the lynch mob of rich bullies gathered on
the streets outside.
Yes, rich bullies. With their designer grunge and political
double-speak about championing the poor, these New Age
Racists have a disgustingly familiar Old World agenda. White,
comfortable and determined to maintain their lifestyle
fetishes, the only people who matter to them are members of
their largely white, First World community.
The fact that many Asians are willing - no, grateful - to
work for an American multinational for US$5 a day is to them
a matter most distasteful. Whatever 'pity' they feel for the
'exploited' Asian worker is matched by equal doses of
ill-concealed disdain.
It boils down to a simple matter of American jobs. The flip
side of the coin - that for millions of Asians the choice is
between earning a dignified living or begging or even
prostituting their children - does not matter to them. They
are not us. Or at least the situation is too complex for the
convenient fantasies they construct to justify their
selfishness.
Presumably, these witless wonders of Seattle would have these
American garment workers doing much the same thing in 20
years time but at 100 per cent higher real wages. And they
would be quite happy to keep Asians in their place to satisfy
their Hollywood stereotypes of what we are supposed to be.
The holiday experience would not be complete without the
sight of Chinese living in boats off Hong Kong; Ibans in
their jungle long-house in Sarawak; or Javanese women toiling
in the rice fields.
The parents of these new racists would have cooed 'how
quaint' - as if gawking at animals in the zoo. To this grunge
generation, this would be preserving indigenous cultures.
Same old racism in new, dishonest packaging if you ask me.
And President Clinton encouraged the ranks of the selfish and
stupid - welcoming them to Seattle to make their voices heard
and announcing to the world that the trade group should
develop core labour standards and include them in every trade
agreement.
'I am very sympathetic with a lot of the causes being raised
by all the people who are there demonstrating,' he said. 'We
do have a right to say we will finance a different path to
growth that puts labour issues and the environment at the
core of our trade concerns.' And Mr Clinton said he would
'favour a system in which sanctions would come for violating
any provision of a trade agreement'. That is, he supports
beating up the poor if they have the cheek to offer the only
thing they have - their labour. And that is exactly what
these New Age Racists would have him do.
So Mr Clinton scrambled to ingratiate himself to this bizarre
combination of the hard-hat industrial sector,
environmentalists, religious activists, students and
anarchists.
As one American writer puts it: 'Once a bastion of
conservative support for the Vietnam War, opposition to
affirmative action and backing for Richard M. Nixon's 'silent
majority', the union movement has now become the ally of
once-disdained environmentalists, animal rights advocates and
other groups on the left.' Seattle has seen the emergence of
an unholy alliance between Right and Left. AFL-CIO (America's
peak labour body) president John Sweeney said: 'We've been
working on building coalitions, not only in the labour
movement and not only in our country, but around the world,
with environmentalists and religious activists and student
activists.' The American Left may have once joined hands to
sing the Internationale in some imagined comradeship with
their toiling brothers in far flung lands. But these days
they take on decidedly more nationalistic overtones -
demonising China and an assortment of other foreign devils.
And you don't need much imagination to work out what happens
when you combine nationalism with half-baked socialism.
And not surprisingly - at least not to me - the one US
presidential candidate who stands closest to the rag-tag band
of bums who derailed the WTO summit is Pat Buchanan, the
former Republican now seeking the Reform Party nomination.
Fine. Let the garbage Left of American politics choke on Mr
Buchanan's attacks on gay rights, abortion rights and a range
of other liberal causes. At least the Left has finally
emerged on the other side - and can now see eye to eye with
the Right. Good for them.
I don't like the Republicans, but I despise the Democrats!
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