MIM Notes 188 June 15 1999

LOUISIANA GOV. FOSTER ADMITS CONNECTIONS WITH KLANSMAN DAVID DUKE

The elected governor of Louisiana is considered a friend by David 
Duke, ex-Klan leader, Nazi sympathizer and Republican candidate 
for state offices in Louisiana. "'We have been friends for a long 
time,'" said David Duke on May 24th.(1) Gov. Mike Foster met with 
David Duke before and after the governor's race which put Foster 
in power in 1996. For his part, Gov. Foster refuses to renounce 
Duke:  "'Mr. Duke has always treated me with respect and it is 
well-documented that I don't condemn and hate others.'"(1)

Now the ruling class (IRS) is investigating David Duke's finances. 
Foster secretly paid $150,000 for supposedly exclusive use of 
David Duke's mailing list. House Rep. Woody Jenkins also paid 
$82,500 for the list in the Senate race of 1996.(2) Some believe 
it amounts to a pay-off to leave the race.

David Duke endorsed Foster for governor and Foster won. MIM is not 
surprised, because Duke carried a majority of the white vote in 
the previous race for governor in 1991. Having won the Republican 
nomination, Duke, "former Nazi sympathizer and Ku Klux Klan grand 
wizard, lost the election, but he captured an astounding fifty-
five percent of the white vote."(3) Readers can check on that in a 
book by Tyler Bridges. The David Duke support amongst whites is 
proof that white national chauvinism runs deep in Amerika. It is 
not something only in dusty history books.

No one should be fooled by David Duke's claims to have changed. He 
published a book in 1998 that runs the same old thing against 
Blacks and Jews. His web page has links, the first of which is to 
www.stormfront.org, which is an avowed white nationalist group 
with sections including "Aryan women." The organization sells his 
book and also promotes literature on the Nazi view of the 
Holocaust of Jews and the ideology of "national socialism." 
Finally, "Stormfront" itself is just a front for other white 
nationalists and its links include the KKK. If David Duke truly 
disavowed his KKK past, he should have disavowed Stormfront too.

In 1995, Foster only won 4% of the Black vote. The Black Democrat 
Rep. Cleo Fields won 17% of the white vote in opposing Foster. 
Foster won 63% to 27%.(4) Foster got his opening when the previous 
governor Edwin Edwards retired after 25 years in Louisiana 
political leadership. Edwards was under a legal cloud even as he 
ran for governor in 1991, but Black voters decided "better a 
lizard than a wizard," as the bumper-sticker said.

Sheriff Harry Lee of Asian descent attempted to buy the list from 
David Duke and thought $250,000 was a fair price if it included 
Duke's endorsement for governor. The deal never came off, but 
other politicians also adopted a very pragmatic outlook toward 
Duke -- one that capitulates to his power instead of mobilizing 
against it on principle. Even a University president Bobby Jindal 
(University of Louisiana) defended Foster for his handling of 
Duke.(5) It demonstrates the complete lack of principles in 
Amerikan politics, a lack of principles that leaves the oppressed 
peoples oppressed by white nationalism.

Notes:
1. Times-Picayune 25 May 1999.
2. USA Today 21 May 1999, p. 13a.
3. http://www.upress.state.ms.us/ catalogs/books/R/html/duke.html
4. USA Today http://www.usato 
day.com/news/washdc/elect/states/louisian/n95la004.htm
5. Times-Piacayune 22 May 1999, p. a8.