By David Mark Greaves
An enlightening window into the soul of a politician opened when Fernando Ferrer said the killing of Amadou Diallo, forty-one shots fired at an unarmed man, was not a crime.  It showed Ferrer giving up the African-American community at a dinner held by the Police Sergeant’s Benevolent Association, telling them in effect, “I don’t think they’re worth anything, either.”  
The groveling dismissal of an atrocity for political gain and approval, is bad enough.  But now he’s going to come to the Black community and ask for our vote, and for us to trust him with the health and well-being of the community and the education of Black children.  The C. Virginia Fields campaign should gain momentum from this Ferrer kowtowing.   
But when it comes to pandering at the coarsest level, none can surpass the behavior of the Republicans and their intrusion into personal family matters between the parents, husband, doctors and the courts involving the life-and-death wishes of Ms. Terri Schiavo, a woman 15 years in a vegetative state. 
Used as a hot-button issue to energize their political base of fundamentalist religious groups, President of the United States interrupted his vacation and rushed back to Washington joining his Republican comrades in coming to the aid of the sacredness of life.  It is hard to believe that the man who as governor spent no more than fifteen minutes reviewing over 150 death sentences he handed out, who has caused the violent deaths of tens of thousands of people for political ends, really believes, without smirking,  that “we must always err on the side of life.”   
I’d say look at the Democrats, but first you’d have to find them.  Giving the devil his due, at least the elite guard guiding the antics of the Republicans know how to fight for their politics.  They’re wrong headed, but they’re effective and they know what they want; they have a Planter’s legacy to hold onto.  As W.E.B. DuBois wrote in Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880,  “…Seven percent of a section within a nation ruled five million white people and owned four million black people and sought to make agriculture equal to industry through the rule of property without yielding political power or education to labor.”  
That is the legacy being continued, and the Democrats have no answer for it.   “If I say something, someone might not like me,” seems to be their guiding spirit.  Well they’d better start paying attention because the Planter mentality is always at work and they’re about to sit down and eat the Democrat’s lunch.  
The heirs to the “seven percent” that DuBois spoke of, after having physically and digitally stolen and suppressed the African-American vote in the last two national elections, now have the Republican National Party “courting the Black vote” with the tried-and-true method of visiting Black areas dispensing a mixture of gifts, smiles and the Bible. Done today with a scientific accuracy, bit by bit it’s beginning to work and this is dangerous for the nation and the world.
Now that the Planter class has access to hundreds of billions of dollars to have their way globally, they’ve taken to exporting the lash as well as the cotton and people around the world watch in horror as arrogant men crush whole populations and take natural resources.   The Planter’s nature is such that on the wish list of their military arm, is a trillion-dollar Pentagon budget item, for what is called a Future Combat System to aid them in their efforts.
 The only way to stop this class is for the non-Planters to step up.  Ninety-three percent of the population should be in play, but the Democrats or a third party, have to confront the seven percent, set the rules, new agenda, and have the courage to pursue it.