Campaign 2000

"Recognizing and confronting our history is important. Transcending our history is essential. We are not limited by what we have done, or what we have left undone. We are limited only by what we are willing to do. Our nation must make a new commitment to equality and upward mobility for all our citizens. This is a great moment of national prosperity. But many still live in prosperity’s shadow... 

"It must be our goal to expand this opportunity – to make it as broad and diverse as America itself. And this begins with enforcing our civil rights laws. Discrimination is still a reality, even when it takes different forms. Instead of Jim Crow, there is racial redlining and profiling. Instead of "separate but equal," there is separate and forgotten. Strong civil rights enforcement will be a cornerstone of my administration... 

"As W.E.B. Du Bois said a century ago, 'Either the United States will destroy ignorance, or ignorance will destroy the United States.'  Education is the essential beginning – but we must go further. To create communities of promise, we must help people build the confidence and faith to achieve their own dreams. We must put government squarely on the side of opportunity... 

"I have proposed a New Prosperity Initiative that reflects the spirit of Lincoln’s reforms. A plan to remove obstacles on the road to the Middle Class. Instead of helping people cope with their need, we will help them move beyond it.  We must provide a Family Health Credit that covers 90 percent of the cost of a basic health policy for low-income families.

"We must make it possible for more people to become homeowners, to own a part of the American Dream. So we’ll allow low-income families to use up to a year’s worth of Section 8 rental payments to make a down payment on their own home – then use five years of those payments to help with the mortgage.

"We’ll start an American Dream Down Payment Fund, matching individual savings for the down payment on a home. Behind all these proposals is a simple belief: I believe in private property. I believe in private property so strongly, I want everyone to have some...

"I’m not calling for government to step back from its responsibilities, but to share them. We’ll always need government to raise and distribute funds, monitor success and set standards...  The NAACP and the GOP have not always been allies. But recognizing our past and confronting the future with a common vision, I believe we can find common ground."

(end of quoted passage)

CHILLING, HUH?  THE IDEA THAT SOMEONE WHO IS RUNNING FOR ELECTED OFFICE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PROFESSES THESE BELIEFS, AND PROMISES TO INFLICT THESE TYPES OF SOCIALIST PROGRAMS ON US, IS POSITIVELY FRIGHTENING!  Hearing and reading these comments certainly makes me want to do whatever is necessary to defeat this person.

So who is this person, who quotes from Communist W.E.B.DuBois, and who threatens to use my hard-earned tax dollars to destroy my neighborhood with HUD Section 8 denizens?  Who is this contemporary New Dealer (who calls his big-government scheme the "New Prosperity Initiative") who shows so much enthusiasm for socialized medicine?  And who wants the GOP to ally with the ultra-left NAACP?

It's not Bill or Hillary, not Ted Kennedy, and not even Al Gore, though it could easily have been any of these leftist ideologues.  No, our mystery egalitarian social engineer is none other than George W. Bush, the current governor of Texas and presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States.  This excerpt is culled from a speech he gave to the NAACP national convention on July 10, 2000. 

You may view the entire speech at http://www.georgewbush.com/speeches/naacp.asp   You will see that he did indeed utter these words, and that my slight editing (for length) did not alter the context in which these remarks were delivered.

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