Goldwater, Byrd, Sanger and Hillary

Elections are not popularity contests. Nevertheless, some people are approaching the 2016 presidential election like they are voting for an "American Idol" contestant. Hillary Clinton has alluded several times to comments which she perceived as Bernie Sanders' criticism of the Obama administration, as though such assessments should be considered blasphemous by African American voters. Obama is not on the ballot for 2016, and nobody should elect the next president out of some mistaken loyalty to him. The candidates for the Democratic Party are Clinton and Sanders.

Campaign flyers in my area claim that Clinton would "continue President Obama's legacy." That is desirable to some people and distasteful to others. Let us critique the records of some other people Clinton holds in high regard.

Clinton is a former Goldwater girl who praised Sen. Robert Byrd, a former KKK member, and called him her dear friend and mentor when he died in 2010. She also expressed high regards for Margaret Sanger, a Nazi eugenicist who propounded forced sterilization of Blacks and poor whites as population control, whose advocacy against such "undesirables" led to over 60,000 forced sterilizations in America.

1. Senator Byrd filibustered and voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Byrd was the only senator to vote against the appointing of both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas to the United States Supreme Court, the only two African-American nominees. Byrd also opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In the early 1940s, Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to create a new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Sophia, West Virginia.

According to Byrd, a Klan official told him, "You have a talent for leadership, Bob ... The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." Byrd later recalled, "Suddenly lights flashed in my mind! Someone important had recognized my abilities! I was only 23 or 24 years old, and the thought of a political career had never really hit me. But strike me that night, it did." Byrd became a recruiter and leader of his chapter. When it came time to elect the top officer (Exalted Cyclops) in the local Klan unit, Byrd won unanimously.

Byrd wrote to segregationist Mississippi Senator Theodore G. Bilbo:

I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.

— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS)

In later years, when it became obvious that Byrd's racist ideology was not championed by the majority of Americans, Byrd said, " I think we talk about race too much."

2. Senator Barry Goldwater: In her autobiography "Living History," Clinton described her father as a "rock-ribbed, up-by-your-bootstraps, conservative Republican and proud of it." She noted that she had been a Young Republican and a supporter of Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, who famously voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the Senate.

3. Margaret Sanger shaped the eugenics movement in America and beyond in the 1930s and 1940s. Her views and those of her peers in the movement contributed to compulsory sterilization laws in 30 U.S. states that resulted in more than 60,000 sterilizations of vulnerable people, including people she considered “feeble-minded,” “idiots” and “morons.” The majority of sterilized persons were Blacks. (This information is from a Grossu article about Sanger called "Margaret Sanger, racist eugenicist extraordinaire" and subtitled "The founder of Planned Parenthood would have considered many Americans unworthy of life.")

When the Planned Parenthood Federation of America gave the Margaret Sanger Award to Hillary Clinton in 2009, Clinton said:

“It was a great privilege when I was told that I would receive this award. I admire Margaret Sanger enormously. Her courage, her tenacity, her vision [a world with fewer blacks being born] … When I think about what she did all those years ago in Brooklyn, taking on archetypes, taking on attitudes and accusations flowing from all directions, I’m really in awe of her. There are a lot of lessons we can learn from her life, from the causes she launched and fought for and scarified for so greatly.”

More about Sanger and her agenda to reduce the population growth of Blacks in America is in a documentary called "Maafa21," a film about Black genocide. See it at https://youtu.be/HshhtiNm2Kc on YouTube.

It would behoove African Americans to pay attention to the people Hillary Clinton admired from her earliest childhood to this present day rather than to her critiques of Sanders' comments about some of President Obama's policies, which Sanders apparently considers too moderate. Many people agree, including African Americans. But President Obama's record, regardless of what one thinks about it, is not the determining factor of the 2016 presidential election. The candidates' own records and their platforms are. Therefore, please familiarize yourselves with the candidates' stance regarding issues that matter to us, and refuse to be distracted by irrelevant rhetoric about who does or does not think President Obama was/is an exemplary president in every area. 

Sanders' platform is exactly what I have been writing about for a decade. Some impressive points are: 
~ Sanders is against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). TPP is expected to negatively impact U.S. workers and limit our use of Internet services.
~ Sanders is against racism and always has been. He was arrested as a 21-year-old college student at Chicago Univ. for demonstrating with Blacks for better educational opportunities.
~ Sanders is against privatizing prisons and jails. He and others in Congress introduced H.R.3543 in September 2015, the "Justice Is Not for Sale Act." If it passes, our local, state, and federal government will be barred from contracting with private prison companies, and predatory pricing on prisoners' phone calls, etc., will end.
~ Sanders would raise the minimum wage; he supports labor unions and workers' rights.
~ Sanders would give free tuition for qualified students and lower the interest on student loans.
~ Sanders is for universal healthcare.
~ Sanders voted AGAINST the Iraqi War.

~ Sanders is against capital punishment.

~ Sanders is against NAFTA, which cost Americans hundreds of thousands of jobs.
~ Sanders voted against the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in October 2015, with its provision for incarcerating Americans in concentration camps without criminal charges or any opportunity for defense.

Mary Neal, marylovesjustice@gmail.com, phone (678)531.0262