Virginia Politics

I’ve lived in Virginia all of my life, so it’s certainly imperative to me to describe

the happenings going on in my own state. Politics can be a competitive and
sometimes a cut throat reality. I don’t expect everybody to agree with all of my words here,
but certainly it’s quite reasonable to discover articles of a myriad of points of view. Happiness
and bitterness envelop participants in the tough world of American politics. Virginia is a place
whose American political history have spanned long centuries even in the days when solely
Native Americans resided inside of the North American continent (back spanning
thousands of years). Political arrangements crystallized among the Powathan tribes and the
rest of the Virginia Algonquian Native American confederacy. They lived in Eastern
Virginia. Patrick Henry was a famous political figure who said "Give me Liberty or Give me
Death" in a church in advancing the Revolutionary War. Patrick Henry denounced the British
utilizing America as a colonial enterprise. Thomas Jefferson participated in the early Virginian
government as well. I don't agree with him on every issue of course. Jefferson legitimately
proscribed to the concepts of individual liberty & religious freedom, which in this modern age
are enshrined in the confines of the American government (including the State
government of Virginia). Political changes came in Virginia after the Civil War in America.
Most African American males were given the right to vote. The Readjuster Party came about
in the 1970's. This party is made up of a coalition of Conservative Democrats, Republicans
and African Americans. This group was assembled and the Readjuster Party took power for
about 10 years. The Democrats regained the state legislature at 1883 when the Readjuster
Party lost control of Virginia politics. The Democrats used a statue and a new constitution in
1901. The provisions in these 2 items had evil policies in them like a poll tax, residency
requirements, and a literacy test to disfranchise most African Americans and even some poor
whites. This disfranchisement continued until after the passage of civil rights legislation in the
mid-1960's. Many white Democrats created an one party state with nearly unchallenged
majority of state and most federal offices through the middle of the 20th century. This group
was called the Byrd Organization. The Byrd Organization was headed by Harry F. Byrd Sr. The
Byrd Organization was headed by Harry F. Byrd Sr. in order rule the political establishment in
Virginia. African Americans and other Americans have protested and fought for the Civil Rights
Act of 1965 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Virginia was friendly to Republicans in the
national level more in the 1960's. Some conservatives in Virginia went against the Democratic
Party, because of President Lyndon Johnson's passage of civil rights legislation. Virginia's GOP
back then was more moderate back in the 1960's and the 1970's. Virginia elected the
moderate Republican A. Linwood Holton Jr. in 1970. He was the first Republican Governor in
the 20th century, which ended the influence of the Byrd Organization. Other more
conservative Governors came in Virginia which was former Democrat Mills Godwin and Jim
Gilmore. The famous Senator John Warner and Congressman Tom Davis exemplified the
moderate/conservative tendencies of Virginia Republicans. Democrats were Governors from
1982 to 1994. Chuck Robb was elected Governor in 1981 being and Gerald L. Baliles was
elected in 1985 as Governor. I remember seeing Chuck Robb walking was down the street in
a parade many years ago shaking hands. In 1989, Douglas Wilder was elected
Governor of Virginia. This was historical, because Douglas Wilder was Virginia's
first African American Governor in history. Douglas Wilder is a famous person to
this very day. Wilder was the grandson of American slaves. He was named after
the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Douglas
Wilder served in the Korean War earning a Bronze Star for his heroism at Chop Hill.
He gained a law degree at Howard University School of Law under the G.I. Bill.
Douglas Wilder was the first African American elected as a state Senator in
Virginia since Reconstruction. Wilder was the mayor of the city of Richmond. I’ve
been to Richmond before and Richmond is a city with a massive amount of
development in its downtown area. It’s a city on the move. Today, Douglas Wilder
is an adjunct professor in public policy at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Douglas Wilder served as the 66th Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. The NAACP
awarded Wilder the Spingam Medal for 1990. He was the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia
being the first black American to be elected to statewide office in Virginia. As governor,
Douglas Wilder tried to handle crime initiatives, transportation issues, and in May 1990 he did
something. He ordered state agencies and universities to divest themselves of any
investments in South Africa, because of its then policy of apartheid. This made Virginia the
first southern state to take such action. There is nothing wrong with that policy. He is pro-
abortion, which I am not. By 2001, Virginia elected Mark Warner as Governor and in 2005 Tim
Kaine was Governor of Virginia. He was once Lt. Governor in 2005. The lesson of Douglas
Wilder is that anybody regardless of their background or what they look like
have equal worth, equal value, and have every right to fulfill their own
aspirations and dreams within their own lives. All people should be treated
with respect and dignity. Life is never truly about being stationary or seeing
things as they are. Life is about dreaming of what things can become and using
a firm, dedicated plan of action in order to achieve personal fulfillment.

Virginia voted for a Republican for the Presidency in every election since 1952 except for the
Democratic landslide in President Johnson's election in 1964 and Virginia voted for Barack
Obama in 2008. Virginia's former streak of voting for Republicans in 10 consecutive
Presidential election (from 1968 to 2004) began with Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy.
Virginia was the only state to vote for Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter in 1976. Today, Virginia
is experiencing rapid and constant political changes. Virginia was the state that voted for
Barack Obama during the 2008 Presidential election. Virginia didn't vote for a Democratic
Presidential candidate since Lyndon Baines Johnson. The 2 present Senators of Virginia are
Jim Webb and Mark Warner.

Jim Gilmore and Mark Warner are surely the representation of people who are right on many
things and I disagree with them on other issues. These 2 men represent different philosophies
that are common in Virginia. Jim Gilmore was a famous Governor who lead from 1998
until 2002. He created the SOL or the Standards of Learning reforms in Virginia's
public school. During his term, Virginia's public school students’ scores increased on these
state tests as well as nationally normalized tests. Gilmore is known as promoting the
controversial no car tax and other reducing taxes plans. This occurred around the time near
and at 9/11. Gilmore increased funding for adoption services and supported a waiting period
plus partial birth abortion ban. Today, Gilmore aligns with the Republican Party, the
Department of Homeland Security (which is an authoritarian group that wants to violate civil
liberties of American citizens), and is a political commentator on FOX News. Mark Warner
once was Governor and was very popular since he was a moderate and caused the state to
be rated A- by the Government Performance Project in conjunction with the Governing
magazine (along with the Pew Charitable Trust) in a 2 year study. Mark Warner as a Governor
was a moderate Democrat and back when he was Governor, his popularity was exceptionally
high. As governor, Warner worked with the Democrats and moderate Republicans to reform
the tax code, he lowered food and some income taxes, and increased the sales and cigarette
taxes. This tax package increased taxes by $1.5 billion annually. Warner believed that the
additional revenues came with saving the state’s AAA bond rating, which was held in only 5
other states in that time. Mark Warner’s greatest achievement in Virginia probably is his
investment in education and fighting for educational reform in the state of Virginia. Since,
Virginia is very serious about education, you can’t be an effective Governor her in Virginia
without executing an effective means to build up the functions of our educational systems. He
was famous for being involved in the telecommunications venture capital. He was a
Congressional staff and a Democratic Party fundraiser in the 1980's. Mark Warner calls
Virginia "The best managed state in the nation." In 2009, Virginia recently elected a
Republican Governor named Bob McDonnell. He replaced the previous Governor of Tim Kaine.
The reason that Bob McDonnell was elected was because of the hostility toward the
Democratic establishment and the Democratic candidate Craig Deeds didn't have much name
recognition around Virginia (and his campaign wasn't that aggressive). Politically, Hampton
Roads is mixed with Republicans and Democrats strongly represented in region. I'm from
Hampton Roads. The Richmond region is mostly Democratic and Northern Virginia is definitely
mostly Democratic & liberal as well. Western Virginia is made up of mostly conservatives and
Republicans. There are exceptions to these descriptions of course.

The Confederacy is in debate again even in 2010. Virginia's Governor Bob McDonnell wanted
Virginians to respect Confederate History month. People disagreed with that because of the
controversial history of the Confederacy. McDonnell was forced to apologized for not originally
mentioning words in the declaration to criticize slavery. This signifies that a revisionist
neo-Confederate distortion of history is common all over the world. We know the
real history of the Confederacy. The neo-Confederate agenda is based on lies since
although many factors were instrumental in causing the Civil War (like trade
issues, political issues, etc.). The major issue of the Confederacy's existence was
to maintain and spread the evil slavery system (not to mention that the Pope
supported Jefferson Davis and the British Empire via Palmerton funded the
Confederacy slavery system). The International financiers wanted a Civil War to divide
America up to economically control it. This doesn't mean that all of the Union were perfect (as
Lincoln made errors and war crimes existed on both sides during the Civil War). Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation didn't go far enough since it only freed the slaves in the Southern
territories. He admitted as much in a letter to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase: “The
original proclamation has no… legal justification, except as a military measure.” These errors
don't justify slavery or the Confederacy leadership's evil intensions though. Lee oversaw
slaves until December 1862 and Davis defended slavery his entire career. Jefferson Davis was
more racist than Robert E. Lee and he was the President of the Confederacy. No real black
man or black woman I know would of supported Davis when he demonized black people as
inferior and wanted slavery throughout the war until the last moment. Toward the end of the
war Davis led the fight to grant slaves their freedom in exchange for military service. When
the Confederate Congress began to debate a bill that would allow slaves to serve in the army,
Davis insisted that slaves who performed this service be granted their freedom, even if they
didn't serve in combat roles. Davis wrote to Governor William Smith of Virginia that he
promised ". . . to seek legislation to secure unmistakably freedom to the slave who shall enter
the Army with a right to return to his old home when he shall have been honorably
discharged from the Military Service." The South's own Cornerstone Speech and the
Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina had declarations of secession.
These declarations outlined slavery as a major reason for their secessions. The
South declared that Northern abolitionists had been demanding an end to slavery for decades.
Many Southern newspapers in that time in the Confederacy wanted to maintain the racist
system of slavery. Here's sources to prove it.

``Our Ideal is a Pro Slavery Republic.'

'--Augusta, Georgia Daily Constitutionalist

``This struggle has set the seal of providence before the eyes of the world upon domestic
slavery. Above all, it is this that lends an awful sacredness to this contest on our part--that the
rightful claims of Jehovah are deeply involved.''
--William A. Hall, in a lecture entitled ``The Historical Significance of the Southern
Revolution''

These quotes from a variety of southern religious and political leaders and major southern
editors make clear the central position of black slavery in this ``southern mission.'' This is
something that Kurt Nimmo forgotten to mention in his articles supporting the Confederacy.
See, these neo-confederates forgot that the leadership of the Confederacy called black
people inferior and continued slavery way into 1865. Jefferson Davis tried to desperately
free blacks not because of any type social concern of them, but he wanted to use them for
warfare. The Confederacy existed with mighty tyranny against people of black descent.

Lee, in other words, regarded slavery as an “evil”—but a necessary evil ordained by God as
the “white man’s burden”. Far from expressing opposition to the institution of slavery, the
purpose of his letter was actually to condemn abolitionists. The letter was an approving
note on a speech by then-President Franklin Pierce, which praised Pierce’s opposition to
interference with Southern slavery. Lee kept slaves as long as he could and he criticized
abolitionists. Lee even had doubts on secession to form his notes from a letter (in January
23, 1861. He changed his mind later on to defend Southern secession). Lee believed in the
mental & social inferiority of blacks. The second sentence of Mississippi's declaration says:
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material
interest of the world." The Confederates tried to build a nation on the Cornerstone belief
that all men are NOT created equal, and adopted a constitution that barred any and all laws
limiting slavery in any way, forever…” . All 7 of the states that initially seceded before
Lincoln took office issued statements putting forward the threat they perceived from his
presidency to slavery as the major if not the sole cause of their secession. If these states
don't secede & take over federal installations, there is no firing on Sumter. If there is no
firing on Sumter, Lincoln doesn't call up 75K men and the rest of the states probably do not
secede. Slavery WAS the root cause of the Civil War including other reasons.

Southern racism extended the oligarchical notion of blood and breeding beyond color, to view
southern whites who were not of the planter class, and northerners, of no matter what wealth
and class, as inferior beings. The neo-Confederates need to realize that state rights
aren't superior to the Constitution or God-given human rights. Human rights
trumps states rights. Even state governments can not enact corruption and if the
state can't reform themselves, the federal government has every right to make the
necessary reforms. All human beings are created equal and all deserve equal
protection under the law (in the basis of equality to live, to work, and to have their
own pursuit of happiness). Even the Constitution offer provisions to make
necessary reforms and legitimate changes to improve the conditions in society.
Robert L. Dabney, the Chaplain to Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson believed that the Confederacy
was moral. In its “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the
Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union,” South Carolina, the first state to secede
state that they wanted to expand the institution of slavery. The Confederate Constitution
supported slavery in the words:

"...``Article 1, Section 9. (3) No bill of attainder, or ex post facto law, or law denying or
impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.''

Virginia's own secession ordinance, which asserted that the state was leaving the Union
because the federal government had "perverted" its powers "not only to the injury of the
people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States."

Alexander Stephens or the Vice President of the CSA didn't want black equality and made that
clear in his own words: "...Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its
foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to
the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal
condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this
great physical, philosophical, and moral truth....”

This is contrary to the Knight of Malta Pat Buchannan's claim that Virginia never seceded
because of slavery. Surely slavery was a significant part of the conflict for the 30 percent of
Virginians who were slaves and did, in fact, welcome the advancing Union soldiers as
liberators. In 1860 about 60 percent of the human beings in Virginia were slaves.
Pat is known for controversial views. Buchanan supported apartheid. He wrote
admiringly of neo-Nazi and ex-Klansman David Duke. He also admired the good
qualities that he saw in Adolph Hitler!!! In a 1977 column, Buchanan wrote that
despite his genocidal tendencies, Hitler was "an individual of great courage...
Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an
intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading
as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path."
Abraham Lincoln started printing money called “Greenbacks” to fund their side of the Civil
War. So, I can't support the Confederacy. This doesn't mean the Union was perfect. Some of
these same Union leaders would oppress the Native Americans in the Mountain West during
the latter part of the 19th century. I believe in Reconstruction, because Reconstruction at
least promoted some reforms and liberties in the South. With Reconstruction, you had the 13,
the 14th, and the 15th Amendments in the Constitution that extended human rights among
more human beings. Reconstruction was gone by the Black Codes and Jim Crow. We can
learn about the history about the Civil War (as the Civil War has complex stories), but we
should never repeat the evil legacy of the Confederacy especially in Virginia where I'm from.
In Richmond, there is a Museum of the Confederacy, so this issue is personal with me. There
are Confederate statues in Hampton Roads not only in Richmond too. Yet, I want to make this
clear. I don't believe in hating a person, because of the region they may reside in. Many
people fought for real causes and tried to improve the quality of life or living in America (all
across America and in the South too) today and centuries ago. Many people in the South back
then wanted true freedom for all people, so bigotry collectively against a whole region is
wrong too. Although, we shouldn’t whitewash history. Neo-confederates want to whitewash
history in order to justify the crimes of the Confederacy and some people in the antebellum
period of American period. We in this generation should not whitewash a thing. All of good
and bad aspects of American life ought to be made available to the public. In order to
make real solutions in a society, you don’t omit the evils in the past. You
learn about it, so you don’t make the same wicked mistakes from the
past toward the future. In other words, you use the lessons from the
past to grow the improvements in the future that can bloom with the
tree of liberty, equality, and personal tranquility.

Recently, there has been public school budget cuts in Virginia and across the
nation. That is why many teachers have organized protests about this policies in
D.C., Rhode Island, and other regions of America. McDonnell advocated cutting
$300 million from health programs, $730 million from K-12 education, changing the state
retirement system, and requiring 10 days of furloughs for state employees, all to offset a
$2.2 billion budget shortfall over 2010-2012. The legacy of the controversial Virginian
Governor Bob McDonnell is still being written in the history books. McDonnell was
born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but he moved in Fairfax, Virginia very early in
his life. Today, some pro-life leaders want to cut Planned Parenthood funding
that exists from taxpayers in Virginia. People already know the real history of
Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood claims to deal with
family services, but these services readily include aiding in abortions.

One a positive note, here’s some trivia about Virginia. Our state flower isn’t really
a flower, but it’s the dogwood tree. This I also ou state tree. Virginia has been
called the “Internet Capital of the World.” We have the Great Dismal Swamp in
Chesapeake near the North Carolina border. Many of our kinfolks are from North
Carolina or lived there. Some of my relatives came from North Carolina from my
father’s side. There has been wild ponies traveling in Assateague Island for
centuries.

The more the things change, the more they stay the same is an old cliché. It’s
certainly apart of real today. The good news is that with a wide spectrum of media
showing what’s really going on in the planet, there are no excuses for an able
person to not have opportunity to see the real truth. Now, it’s 2010. It’s a new era
with some of the same problems from the past, yet we certainly have a new
insight that can carry forth the fight against evil toward the future. Culturally,
American society is in a crossroads period. There is the advent of the Tea Party
movement. The progressives, conservatives, and other political ideological human
beings are vying for the heart and soul of the U.S. Yet, beyond these people is a
basic resonating reality. These people including the independents have no
monopoly on idealism. Idealism is a part and parcel of any free thinking human
being in the world over. That is why it’s intrinsic that we not only write words
down or talk, but we should do the right thing in helping people magnificently out
of sincere love for humanity. We ought to maintain our core convictions, and be an
critical, inspiring example among the citizens in America plus the people
inhabiting the world.

In our time, you hear the words of no more excuses. I contemplate about the no
excuses mantra. Do you tell a person whose home has been gone no excuses? Do
you tell a homeless person destitute and seeking basic living conditions no
excuses? Do you tell a person without wealth and suffering in an extreme level no
excuses? The answer to those questions are uniformly No. The truth is that there’s
a profound difference between personal responsibility among an able bodied, non-
poor human being and ignoring the struggles in the existence of life. You don’t
ignore poverty, bigotry, economic exploitation, and other evils in the world and
say no excuses. It’s really no excuses for the global elite causing much of turmoil
in the world. I’m not going to tell a bootless person get up by your bootstraps and
survive on your own without any assistance. Some of the no excuses crowd live in
a naïve world. It’s a fact in human history that all people have had assistance one
way or the other. Even the Founding Fathers used some of the French military to
defeat the British Empire during the Revolutionary War. That is why it purely an
excellent prescription to assist those in need. This has nothing to do with
permanent dependency or submissiveness. On the other hand, it’s about giving a
hand up to allow people to have an opportunity to better their own lives. We ought
to never sell out our human dignity for worldly social acceptance. In our minds
and hearts, we should promote wisdom in that we should never be
ashamed of our heritage or background. Yet, at the same time we should
respect all people as equals.

By Timothy