I read an article regarding recent stuff that led to a link that led to another thing to an extensive article that led to me looking up something else and so on and it led to me putting the 1991 Louisiana Gubernatorial Debate on, which was the infamous "Vote for the Crook, It's Important" election in which three time and pretty much well known corrupt Governor Edwin Edwards and David Duke got into the runoff from hell, with incumbent Governor Buddy Roemer third and so eliminated.
Basically, David Duke at the time was saying he was a born-again Christian and no longer believed in any of that white supremacy stuff not even towards the direction he moved shortly thereafter to his "race realism" white supremacy. He runs pretty much as a Pat Robertson type Christian conservative except for the most fascinating thing in both this debate and the pre-runoff one is that he's more or less running as a proto-Green Party candidate otherwise, well, not the Jill Stein type, but the local type that wants to literally ban oil practically. His platform seems to be that he's a Christian Captain Planet, oh, and he wants to cut taxes.
The only real hint of his past and future white supremacist self is that he talks about preserving our culture, which like his opposition to racial quotas is more or less a standard GOP position at the time and even a predominant one in much of the Democratic Party. (Also, an unconstitutional form of affirmative action.) Dude is very slick in a way that I dunno, the current President of the United States and his former bffs have not been at times. It helps that this is Louisiana so nobody wants to go digging into the past about racism so all the candidates give him benefit of the doubt until this debate.
One of the journalists at the debate is a black man who basically asks him "why shouldn't I be afraid of you for being part of the Klan and all that shit?" and Duke sorta goes "that's a cheap shot, you're the real racist for mentioning it", somebody clipped out the part which is pretty intense for a political debate:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4585511/david-duke-gets-slammed-racismI clipped out an amusing two minute segment near the end where, as an example of his Green candidacy, Duke first talks about how much of a toxic hellhole Louisiana is and how he's going to clean it up and that's all he cares about (except for God he forgets which he manages to get back in for his closing statement)...then the same reporter as before asks him about his lack of paying taxes, his using the pseudonym Mohammed X to write racist pamphlets, and another to write sexual materials for some reason:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4680740/david-duke-mohammed-xFrom wikipedia, this was then President Bush's statement on the election:
When someone has a long record, an ugly record, of racism and bigotry, that record simply cannot be erased by the glib rhetoric of a political campaign. So I believe David Duke is an insincere charlatan. I believe he's attempting to hoodwink the voters of Louisiana. I believe he should be rejected for what he is and what he stands for.
Lastly, because why not, it's not like I'm not benji-ing it up in here, here's Duke announcing, less than a month after he got crushed in a state Gubernatorial race that he's going to challenge President Bush for the 1992 Republican nomination:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?23153-1/duke-announcement (It would be another fourteen years before someone attempted to fail their way up to the GOP nomination.)
And here he is a few months later after receiving no delegates (in a race that Pat Buchanan got enough that he got to give a primetime RNC speech) announcing that he won't run as a spoiler third party candidate and essentially giving what would become the Trump 2016 stump speech:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?25722-1/duke-withdrawalspoiler (click to show/hide)
We do need trade, obviously; no nation can survive without trade. But it's got to be fair trade -- not necessarily free trade but fair trade. We've got to have a policy in terms of our own borders to protect the integrity of our borders. Right now America is being made over. We're losing the integrity of our society. Our children are going to be growing up the strangers in their own land, in their own country.
And we've got to begin to work to protect the consensus that creates America. What is that consensus? The consensus is a common language. And that basic standard is being cut down and brought down across America. In some parts of this country today, you go into a public school you'll find Spanish as the primary language of instruction. In some parts of America right now this morning you could go, and if you can't speak Spanish you can't do some basic business. We're losing the foundations of the country. We're becoming Balkanized.
We have massive immigration coming in, and massive illegal immigration coming in. Our government hasn't even the will to protect this country from the massive numbers of illegals across our border illegally. And they often overburden our social welfare system, add to our crime problems -- look at the gangs we have across America, and most of these gangs aren't Americans. Most of the gangs come in from the immigration. And we find this continued and increased across this country repeatedly. It's cost us jobs, it's cost us welfare monies, it's cost us crime, it's cost us overloading our medical system because all the people coming in, it's hurt our educational system, and it's even affecting the culture of the country.
Western civilization can't go. We've got to protect it. And to do that, we've got to protect the people who have the heritage of Western civilization. It doesn't mean suppressing anybody, because I believe in equal rights for every American. That's one of the principles the country was founded upon. But to show you the disposession that's taken place of the American majority, the American majority no longer has equal rights. In fact, we're second class citizens in our own country.
In South Africa right now -- a lot of liberals are talking about South Africa and saying, well, South Africa has got to have black majority rule. Would any of those liberals in America say that America has got to have white majority rule, and use those words? Would any of them say that and use those words in America? We have a double standard of racism. The political correctness that's running this country has got to end. We've got to speak frankly and openly. And I believe my participation in the American political process has helped that process.
DOUBLE STANDARD!
In this, our nation's capital, we're in Washington, DC, I read an article from the New York Times which stated 42 percent of the black males in this city are in some sort of trouble with the law, either in jail, on probation or parole -- 42 percent. That's damaging to them, it's damaging to our community, it's damaging to our nation. And this is a product of this massive welfare system that's now out of control in this country.
We're encouraging people to have illegitmate children, not being responsible in that. We're encouraging people not to work. We're allowing drugs to pervade the social welfare system, to control public housing, control many of our cities. You know, we're not giving impetus anymore on the other side of the coin in terms of the welfare system in America. We've got to change that.
We've also got to be concerned about demographics and international considerations. And we have right now massive numbers of American companies who are going bankrupt and Americans who are losing their jobs because of the new world order, as presented by President Bush, and certainly endorsed by liberal Democrats such as Clinton. And what is this new world order policy? Basically it's sublimating the interests and the values of the United States of America for this gossamer new world order concept.
Right now this world is in crisis -- economic, social, political and and ecologic (sic). We have an ecological crisis right now. The first world nations are beginning to address the problems of pollution, for instance. Right now the third world is not. And now we're shifting our productive capacity from the first world every day to nations like Brazil, nations like Mexico, that pollute freely. And this planet cannot continue to exist to survive unless we begin to protect our environment. If the Amazon rain forest burns down, all of us will suffer, here in the United States and Europe and all over this planet. And yet right now we have open trade policies with Brazil. We should be waging economic war on Brazil, with as much vigor as we did against Saddam Hussein in terms of his political corruption and physical corruption as far as the environmental corruption that's taking place in the Amazon rain forest until Brazil acts to defend this precious resource in the world.
