The first nominees' debate of 2008 is slated for Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi on Sept. 26. Ole Miss has to be the most undeserving debate venue and Oxford the most unqualified community selected, and it's not just because of Oxford's mere 650 hotel rooms.
Ole Miss is steeped in racist symbolism. The fact that Ole Miss had been chosen instead of New Orleans, which per the Times Picayunehad been looking at historically-black Dillard University as a venue, means that by rejecting her, the commission passed up the historic chance to use for the first time as a venue such a school. This makes the stance regarding those on the Commission for Presidential Debates (or at least their decision-makers) regarding race at least a little suspect.
Below the fold is what happened at Ole Miss that renders this university an unsuitable debate venue and why, if the members of the Commission on Presidential Debates were to show true moral courage (which they won't, because of their and BushCo's agenda, but....) they'd scratch Oxford in favor of New Orleans. The following shows why Ole Miss would not deserve to be a debate venue even if Oxford had 65,000 hotel rooms.
DISCLAIMER: What follows about Mississippi does not apply to the Gulf Coast area slammed by Katrina, where survivors are still struggling to put their lives back together. I understand the Gulf Coast is worlds apart from the rest of Mississippi including the area in which Oxford is located.
And I'll add that ironically, a debate held in New Orleans would be far more beneficial to Katrina survivors along the Mississippi Gulf Coast in discussing the hardships with which they've been dealing, than will the one planned for Ole Miss. So the fact that this debate will be held in Mississippi won't mean anything for her storm survivors.
For example, I don't think the topic of 14,000 Mississippians still in cramped, crowded FEMA trailer parks--which I've decided should be called Bushvilles--because federal funds are bottled up, which commonscribe recently diaried--would be brought up in an Ole Miss debate. But this would have to come up in a debate held in New Orleans.
Now for Oxford and Ole Miss. Because the commission members as part of their agenda in choosing Ole Miss as a venue must have been banking on Americans' having forgotten what happened there during the civil rights struggle, which perhaps many have because it took place in the early 60's and most people anymore don't seem to recall what happened more than a week ago, it would be helpful to take a good hard look at not only Ole Miss and Oxford per se but also the state of Mississippi during that era. What happened there shows that the choice of Ole Miss as a venue for an American presidential candidates' debate is tantamount to the choice of a Nazi death camp for the site of a debate by German candidates.
According to Neal R. Peirce and Jerry Hagstrom's The Book of America: Inside Fifty States Today (Published in 1984 by Warner Books),
Legitimized, callously cruel, and violent racism pervaded Mississippi with a virulence unmatched by no other state. It did not begin to abate until the 1960's.
Now for Ole Miss and Oxford, regarding which Peirce and Hagstrom say:
Segregation's last golden moment came in autumn 1962 when impatient federal courts told the University of Mississippi at Oxford ("Ole Miss") to stop its stalling and enroll black applicant James Meredith...
They go on to describe how at the Ole Miss vs. Kentucky football game in Jackson that weekend, 46,000 [Diarist's note--Intriguing that this game took place in Jackson, not Oxford. Why? Lack of hotel rooms, maybe?] students and friends called,
"We want Ross! We want Ross!" The call was to Governor Ross Barnett, a staunch segregationist...
Barnett, at a mic on the field, raised his fist and shouted:
"I love Mississippi. I love her people. I honor her customs. The crowd was delirious with pleasure; in that last moment before the wall of segregation began to fall, the concepts of Mississippi and white supremacy and embattled resistance were all one.
The next afternoon federal agents whisked James Meredith onto the Ole Miss campus and to a tightly guarded dormitory. That night there was a pitched battle between 400 federal marshalls and a screaming mob of 2,500 students and segregationist sympathizers before the Ole Miss Lyceum.
Inside this building were federal officials receiving instructions from the White House.
Obscenities, then bricks, sticks, and burning missiles poured in on the beleaguered marshalls, who responded with tear gas, sporadic gunfire broke out; two people were killed; the Mississippi National Guard was federalized and called in; and finally regular Army troops arrived to raise the siege...
As for James Meredith, he
was officially registered and started classes; protected by federal officers, he would remain untin his graduation on a peaceful sunlit morning of August 1963--a world apart from the night of Mississippi's last stand...
And Ole Miss was merely one battleground in the fight for civil rights in Mississippi--see the movie Mississippi Burning for the story of the three northern civil rights workers who'd been doing things like registering blacks to vote, who were martyred for their efforts in 1964.
That's it for the hard look at Mississippi, Oxford and Ole Miss. Now let's examine the motives of members of the Commission on Presidential Debates. Note how outside of the Times Picayune and other New Orleans media, hardly anything can be found on New Orleans' rejection as a debate site. Because, for example, you won't see a Lisa Myers investigative report on "Nightly" on what would have gone into their decision, because these characters are far too wealthy and powerful to allow such scrutiny, and the corporate owners of the MSM are standing behind them, this is a job for us bloggers.
Because the commission members obviously have vested interests and prejudices--an agenda--that caused them to select racist Ole Miss over New Orleans--where as noted, traditionally-black Dillard could have made history as the first historically-black school to serve as a debate venue. My comment that for some of these members their other suit is a white robe and a hood wasn't pure snark. Because it does point to a definite mindset on their part that causes them to hate New Orleans and want to keep her from showing the world that she's very much alive.
Reason being, these commission members, based on what I've read about them, are a knowledgeable bunch. So Ole Miss wouldn't have been selected by accident or by mistake. It had to be part of their deliberate design. For example, a Google search I did on Co-Chair Paul G. Kirk, Jr., shows that per the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation website Kirk is
a founding Board Member of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and currently serves as Chairman of the Foundation's Board of Directors.
(Interestingly, Caroline Kennedy, the presidential daughter and another member of the Commission for Presidential Debates, is according to this website president of this foundation.) I'm sure that to be in the position he's in, Kirk would have to have known that the 1962 Ole Miss standoff described above had taken place during the Kennedy Administration. So I strongly doubt that he would have been ignorant on this matter. The selection of Ole Miss as a debate venue was obviously not due to incompetence or cluelessness.
Rather, this choice, coupled with New Orleans' rejection, shows exactly what these commission members, or at least their decision-makers, are all about--namely their support for the Bush Administration's criminal neglect of, abandonment of, and forgetting of New Orleans which I diaried on recently. And the MSM news blackout on same. Those people hate the diversity New Orleans stands for and are in league with BushCo's ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide effort in Louisiana. They're frustrated by the fact that in spite of BushCo's best efforts, New Orleans has been managing to come back in ways because of the spirit and the determination of her people. As eloquently described in this wonderful post by doctorj2u under my previous diary:
They won't do a thing. (2+ / 0-)
Louisiana1976,
Thank you for all of your efforts for my hometown, but why should any of the politicos lift a finger. They continue to get away with ignoring the Gulf South. There is no outrage from the American people. Most don't care. I will vote for Edwards if I get a chance because he has been the most dedicated to the city, but most democrats have done NOTHING to crow about when it comes to recovery. How many have even taken the time to come see the ruined city? The denial of the city as a debate site is IT for me as far as US government is concerned. My belief in this country died August 29th 2005. It has just taken me this long to realize the truth. New Orleans is alive and healing a little more everyday. It is a wonder to behold. But government gets none of the credit. It is all due to individuals that love the city and her culture. I went to the opening night of Celebration in the Oaks in City Park last week. It was joyous! When you think you have lost something forever and then regain it, it is all the more precious. We have had many of these moments in New Orleans. They are as small as the Cafe du Monde opening, getting enough children together to form one marching band so the Mardi Gras parades had music, to have a streetcar running again, to have a second line again in the streets, to have a Christmas light show in City Park. Each is regaining a piece of your soul. Maybe I am being too hard. America gave us what it values the most - money (finally 2 years after the storm Congress stepped up to the plate) but the support we needed has never been there from either party. We have had to beg for every bit of help towards our survival. (and called whiners for begging). America will go on believing the myth of America. I don't have that luxury. I have seen what happens when the worse happens and it isn't a pretty picture. But New Orleans goes on, changed a little, but still sweet to the soul of a country that rejected her.
by doctorj2u on Fri Nov 30, 2007 at 05:16:28 PM PST
These commission members, folks, are not stupid--but rather, evil people. Knowing how hosting something so prestigious and attention-getting as a presidential debate would benefit New Orleans and her people, they mean-spiritedly are denying them this chance. And on top of this these bigots are spreading lies about her in order to defend their decision. They hope that people in the rest of the country who don't know what New Orleans is like today or that she has hosted all sorts of events beautifully since Katrina will believe them.
This is what we are fighting against--as well as the continued sweeping under the rug of New Orleans and Katrina as a campaign issue. The latest example was Wednesday night's CNN YouTube debate in which nothing had been asked about New Orleans or Katrina. When Anderson Cooper found the time to air questionable videos from such sources as Grover Norquist, infamous for his line about making government so small you could
drown it in a bathtub.
Which to me has an odd symmetry with the drowning of New Orleans... When the need for a New Orleans debate is urgent because of the serious problems still prevailing among Katrina survivors in that city...see PolicyLinkDan's post on the serious lack of affordable housing there.
Feel free to crosspost or pass on this whole diary if you wish. In fact, I strongly encourage it. Because younger bloggers not up on the history of the civil rights struggle need to know exactly the significance of Oxford, Mississippi and what Ole Miss stood for that renders that institution unsuitable for being a presidential debate venue. And to those who say 1962 is very long ago, I must say, just because something that was very wrong happened many years ago, it doesn't make it any less wrong--or mean that it should be forgotten....