The Ruins of Trenton

A common tactic of Adolf Hitler and Nazi party officials was to try at all costs to stoke the flames of fear among the German people. They did this by putting out propaganda that painted the picture of the phantom threat of Jews and other so-called "undesirables" and the danger they posed to the common people that made up German society in the 1930s.

Hitler, through his propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, effectively utilized the newspaper. Just one way they did this was through a slew of articles and columns meant to twist, bend, and warp the will of the public into believing that these minority groups represented a serious threat to the German government, as a means of securing and then reinforcing an iron grip on the reins of power.

Unfortunately, Mayor Douglas H. Palmer has a man that for some unknown reason operates in a somewhat similar way, in Trentonian columnist and reporter L.A. Parker. Mr. Parker is usually quick to use newspaper space in The Trentonian to warp public opinion and stoke the basest sort of racial and class fears in order to secure power for Mayor Palmer and shore up the image of Trenton's missing mayor.

Fortunately for us, few Americans can doubt that the nomination of Sen. Barack Obama by the Democratic Party represents a major step forward in the integration and equalization of the disparate races that make up the American public.

Yet Mayor Palmer, despite what Mr. Parker continues to write, sought with all his might to defeat Sen. Obama and get Sen. Hillary Clinton to the point of receiving the nomination of the Democratic Party.

When one of the worst local electoral defeats in New Jersey was experienced by Mayor Palmer's preferred presidential candidate, the mayor disappeared for long periods of time from the city.He only recently emerged in local newspaper pieces crying alligator tears for the nomination of the African-American candidate that he strove so hard to defeat, during New Jersey's early February primary.

To this writer it was quite humorous, following all the L.A. Parker and Mayor Palmer-spawned propaganda, to hear only months ago from very close friends of Bill and Sen. Clinton that the two did not really know who Mayor Palmer was at all. They went as far as saying Mayor Palmer could be a part of the gang of groupie, semi-important party officials tagging along with the Clintons in hope of some sort of larger personal gain.

But, all joking and pontificating aside, it remains clear that Mayor Palmer and L.A. Parker are fast becoming relics of a time when politicians and their followers took advantage of others through the politics of racial fear, for the sole purpose of gaining and solidifying power.

What the nomination of Sen. Obama represents is an end to the politics of fear, and the start of a time when nations, cities, and towns made up people of all types of colors and creeds can get together and support political leaders that transcend every possible distinguishing feature.