The Confederate flag on South Carolina Capitol grounds in Columbia MUST come down and NOW! The Charleston Massacre at the African American Church is the last straw!
It is NOT a sign of the losses of white Southerners in the Civil War, 150 years ago, sorry!
It is a sign of racism and hatred, and NO public place anywhere in America should be allowed to display it!
Look at the Supreme Court stating in a decision the other day that Texas can ban use of the Confederate flag as a symbol on automobile license plates.
That should become the standard everywhere in America.
Of course, if a private person wishes to display the Confederate flag on his car or his private property, nothing can be done about it, but on public land and locations, it MUST be banned!
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina claims it is part of “tradition”! Well, sorry, Lindsey Graham, NO MORE!
The Civil War is over, so get over it!
The Confederate flag will still be in museums, but it should not be permitted anywhere else in public places, clear and simple!
No symbol of hate and prejudice and racism should be legally allowed in public places in America, as this is NOT freedom of speech!
Professor,
CNN is showing The Seventies this summer. The series started last week. This week’s episode was about Nixon and Watergate.
What are you so afraid of? I mean, I detest everything that Dixie stood for, and that includes not only slavery and its economic system but also segregation and all the Jim Crow era. But seriously, if we had to ban the Confederate flag from public property well then we should ban the Democrat Party logo and name as well from. I mean after all,the Democrat Party stood for slavery and then for segregation for well over a hundred years after the Civil War ended. Every time I see the Democrat Party logo I feel like throwing up, it repels me just as much as the Confederate flag and dare I say the swastika. But you won’t see me banning them.
I agree with the Professor. The flag is a symbol of hatred.
The Federal Government has no authority to ban it, so just go and persuade the State legislators and they’ll ban it on public property.
Pragmatic Progressive, thanks, but I am well aware of the Seventies series, but I thank you!
Max, you play dirty, as if the Democratic Party was only its southern racists. There were ALWAYS Northern Democrats who fought for civil rights, while the Republican Party did nothing about segregation and racism for so many years when they were the majority party in voter registration!
And now the old Southern Democratic mentality IS the Republican Party, trying to restore the old barriers to voting; allowing racism to go unanswered by its own Presidential candidates; catering to right wingers who used to be Democrats before 1964; doing everything imaginable to keep African Americans and Latinos from having a motivation to vote Republican; and fighting a rear guard action to keep older whites in the South and older whites elsewhere in control of the future, which is a lost cause, as the GOP has become a right wing bigoted party, including against women, science, the truth of American history, gays and lesbians–along with African Americans and Latinos.
To be a Republican today is shameful beyond belief!
LOL! Their governor is saying the flag is under the authority of the state’s General Assembly.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/south-carolinas-confederate-flag-not-lowered-half-staff-after-massacre
Purely political BS!
Nikki Haley, the Republican Governor of South Carolina, may be a minority person–from India, but she is no different than Tim Scott, thie African American Senator from the state—or Bobby Jindal, the Louisiana Governor of India heritage who is a likely Presidential candidate—or Dr Benjamin Carson, the African American Presidential candidate—or Herman Cain, the African American who ran for President in 2012—or Cuban Americans Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, both Presidential candidates!
None of these or others will come to grips with racism, discrimination, and hate, as they have sold their souls to the devil to advance themselves and enrich themselves.
They are more despicable in many ways, than white racists, as they consort with them, and have a clean conscience. They are extremely lacking in integrity, the whole bunch of them!
The Northern Democrats did nothing serious about segregation because they needed the Southern Democrats for almost a 100 yrs. The racists policies belonged to the Democrat party and if the northern Democrats were serious about ending racism they would have kicked out the southern Democrats immediately. But they didn’t . And now they want to come back and just as you, say that it was the Republicans fault? WTF?? The mess was in your party, your party was the racist, the Jim Crow, and Klan party and now by virtue of magic in 2015 the Republicans are the racist ones? What the on earth are you talking about? Are your serious? It is the Democrat party’s history so they should own it. It was not the Republican party’s history, whether it was the traditional conservative Taft wing or the moderate big government Dewey wing, it was not their doing, it was all the Democrats party’s doing and shame. That’s why I will never vote for the Democrat party among other reasons, should I decide to vote again.
Have you forgotten Hubert Humphrey, Paul Douglas, Robert Wagner Sr, etc? They fought for civil rights and were held back by the majority of GOP members joining the Southern Democrats!
The GOP looked the other way, did not give a damn about civil rights until the 1960s!
It is good that you would not vote Democratic, and would rather vote GOP, the extremist right wing party which has inherited the Strom Thurmonds and Jesse Helms mentality.
It is great that you do not vote, as your vote is not desired!
Are you insinuating I am a racist?
By saying that, you are showing signs of guilt, Max! I said no such thing,and do not know you well enough, but you doth protest too much!
But if you are allied with the Republican Party of 2015, face the facts that there is plenty of racism in that party, whether you admit it or not!
The problem is that the liberal wing of the Democrat party co-habitated with its segregationist wing for almost 100 yrs. And even prominent modern liberals aka “progressives” like Woodrow Wilson were segregationist and racist. The only ones that changed were the liberal Democrats. Republicans, both wings, remain the same. The Republican party , both conservative and liberal wing never ever voted for segregation, quite the contrary they always voted to abolish it. There was no switch. The only thing that happen was that the northeastern liberal Democrats stopped supporting the southern Democrats segregationist. And even though the Civil Rights movement was an important part of American politics what really determined American politics after WWII was the Cold War. And the only issue in which the Southern Democrats shared a common policy with both wings of the Republican party (liberal and conservative) was how to deal with the Soviet international communist threat. Many Southern Democrats believed the modern liberal Democrat wing was to soft on communism and the USSR, especially after the McGovern nomination in 1972.
I think the Democrat Party is the racist one, because they cause black unemployment with the minimum wage laws. Before those laws, black youth and white youth unemployment levels were similar. But democrats made it a lot harder for people of all races, especially blacks, to get the very important first job.
So now we have two trolls, spewing their right wing BS!
To say, Lucas, that the minimum wages laws should not be changed is to guarantee poverty will never lessen.
Max, the GOP was NOT supportive of any change in civil rights, and contributed to keeping Southern blacks down. It is true about Wilson, but it is also true about Republican Presidents from the Gilded Age until Ike was “forced” into action at Little Rock, because, unlike Presidential contenders Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, who say they will not obey the Supreme Court on gay marriage, Ike felt he needed to back up the courts on ending public school racial segregation.
And Truman had already taken courageous action,after FDR let Eleanor Roosevelt take the flack on race, along with Henry Wallace, so as to keep the Democratic coalition together for World War II. No one is praising FDR on what he did, but it was strategic, while Truman was pure principle.
But if the GOP had held the majority, there would have been no civil rights acts in the 1950s and 1960s, and still, many GOP members opposed them.
Both of you love to distort reality and make up your own history, absolutely amazing!
I’m not saying minimum wage laws should not be changed, I’m saying they should not exist. It’s a barrier to the very important first level job and the main reason why black youth unemployment is so high.
Supporting minimum wage laws is supporting unemployment of the least skilled people.
No one hires low skill people with a high wage, it’s often cheaper to automate. But if you’re a low skill person and get hired on a low wage, it doesn’t mean you have to stay on that wage forever. You acquire skills and then can acquire a higher paying job, instead of being unemployed.
Ok, Lucas, so do you propose that these “low skill” workers be paid $5.00 an hour instead of $7.25? Or should it be $2.50 an hour or $1.00 an hour, so it is like some third world countries?
And how is someone supposed to eat, have a roof over their heads, etc?
It sounds to me like slave labor all over again.
Hmmmm, is that your true intention about black youths (forgetting there are many WHITE single mothers on this minimum wage)?
And that means MORE welfare payments so people do not starve, and die!
Professor, you’re proposing they get paid ZERO!
Whatever number is better than ZERO.
How is it so hard to realize that if you got a low skill, it doesn’t make sense to give you a high wage, when it’s often cheaper to automate? You will go out of business if you hire low skill person with a high wage! Your competitors will kill you and your whole company will be unemployed! Then a bunch more people won’t have anything to eat.
Having a low wage doesn’t mean you don’t eat. You often have family, friends, churches, charities. Once you get that first job, even if the wage is low, you acquire skills on the job. Once you acquire those skills, you can get a higher paying job and stop depending on others to pay your basic necessities.
Lucas I am NOT proposing any specific wage, but trying to get you to tell my readers what you think the wage per hour should be.
Is there not a wage that you believe is “reasonable”? And if not, then you are simply wasting our time!
Whatever an employee and employer agree on.
So it’s not up to me to decide other people’s wages, only mine by negotiating with somebody else. Each person should be allowed to freely negotiate their wages without interference by other people or government.
If you want to set a minimum wage, that would result in unemployment of people with very little skill. If your skills bring, on average, only $10 of additional revenue to the company, and you set the minimum wage to $15, that person will earn $0 because he won’t be hired.
On the other hand, if there isn’t a minimum wage, that people will be hired, acquire skills on the job, and those skills would allow him to get a higher wage and move forward.
LOL! The Democrats are not the racist party.
Where on earth do these Teabag trolls come up with such nonsense?!
Of course the Democrat party not only yesterday but today is the racist party. For example, only those who believe themselves to be superior to others can truly believe that minorities are so stupid that they cannot obtain a photo ID to vote. It’s the condescending bigotry of low expectations. And it is so ingrained within their mindset that they don’t even realize it not even for one second.
It is telling that the South’s chosen, enduring symbol of the Confederacy wasn’t the flag of the Confederate States of America — the slave state itself — but the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee’s army. Lee was the reluctant Confederate, the brilliant commander, the man who called slavery a “moral and political evil,†and the architect — by his example — of much of the reconciliation between North and South. His virtue grew in the retelling — and modern historians still argue about his true character — but the symbolism was clear. If the South was to rebuild, it would rebuild under Lee’s banner. Since that time, the battle flag has grown to mean many things, including evil things. Flying it as a symbol of white racial supremacy is undeniably vile, and any official use of the flag for that purpose should end, immediately. Flying it over monuments to Confederate war dead is simply history. States should no more remove a Confederate battle flag from a Confederate memorial than they should chisel away the words on the granite or bulldoze the memorials themselves.
Exactly Rustbelt! It’s the GOTea that is the racist party.
The purpose of the photo ID laws is the GOTea’s efforts to suppress Democrats from voting.
Trolls is the perfect term for them. They hear their nonsense on whatever their favorite right-wing blog is then bring it here, to stir up arguments with them.
So photo ID laws to vote only applies to Democrats voters? LOL!!! Just look at what you are saying!! It’s either that or you believe Democrats voters are so stupid they are incapable of obtaining an ID LOL!!!
It’s very true, Max. The Government Accountability Office did a study and has found no credible evidence of voter fraud. The voter fraud threat is a smokescreen that is being used by Republicans to depress turnout and keep minorities, poor people, women, and young people, groups who tend to vote Democratic, from voting.
Do you realize the Confederate flag flies because of the Democrat Party? Do people even care anymore about truth, objective truth, ontological certitude?
Do people care about this stuff anymore? Does it matter? Or is truth something so elusive that it’s impossible to achieve because everybody has a bias and somebody’s truth is somebody else’s lie? And if a truth is a lie to somebody then it can’t be the truth? Is this where we are now, facts are irrelevant? The Confederate flag in South Carolina.. There’s a man. There’s a name. There’s a reason why that Confederate flag flies over the Statehouse in South Carolina. His name was Ernest “Fritz” Hollings a well-known Democrat — senator from South Carolina — is responsible for the Confederate flag flying over South Carolina! It does not fly over the statehouse anymore but over at the War Memorial. It used to, resulting from the commandment, if you will, from Senator Ernest Fritz Hollings, Democrat Senator, South Carolina. He used to be the governor, he put it up. So when did this become a Republican problem? Who wrote the lyrics to the song Dixie? When did all this become a Republican problem? If you go to Arkansas. You know, all these old racial segregationists, they’re all Democrats. Bill Clinton’s mentor from Arkansas, J. William Fulbright, was a proud segregationist! And Bill Clinton signed a proclamation authorizing the Confederate flag to fly over the statehouse in Arkansas. While the Clintons were in Arkansas they presided over something called the annual celebration of Confederate Flag Day, which continues to this day. Not only that, Governor Bill Clinton, 1987, signed into law an act that commemorated the Confederacy with a blue star in the Arkansas state flag. And this didn’t happen in the old Southern Democrat Jim Crow pre-1960’s Civil Rights movement. This happened in 1987. And the Clinton-Gore pins with the Confederate flag happened in 1992! The Democrats are never held to account for hypocrisy. http://www.sciway.net/hist/governors/hollings.html
Max, I am not denying the validity of what you say, BUT the Republicans have continued to cater to this ever since they won the South after LBJ and the Civil Rights Act, and they have become the inheritors of the old Southern Democratic agenda! Those are facts!
The Professor’s right, Max. Get yourself an encyclopedia or a history book and learn about how the Republican Party has become the racist party.
Max, the Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon onward through Ronald Reagan and the Bushes has been to appeal to the white racism of the South, and to do everything possible to prevent blacks from being able to vote.
This has been the aim since after LBJ and the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and its leader was Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, both originally Democrats, who made it their mission, with the help of GOP Presidents and candidates, to keep the South’s racist tradition in the party of Lincoln!
Now, the Republican Party owns the racism, as the Democrats were liberated of this cancer after 1964. And it IS a cancer, which is destroying the long range future of the GOP, as an all white Christian party is doomed in the long run with demographic changes, which the GOP is desperately trying to hold off, but will ultimately fail!
The makeup of the conventions shows the differences between the two parties.
Exactly right! The Democratic convention crowd was very diverse, a lot of men and women of a variety of races. The Republican convention crowd consisted of a lot of old white men.
So the Democrat party is responsible for the Confederate flag flying over state property and the Republican Governor Nikke Haley, together with Republican Senator Tim Scott, who for those living in liberal lalaland is black, are taking it down, or calling for the legislature to take it down, and yet somehow in the feverish imagination of the left, this is a Republican problem? We wouldn’t even be having this Confederate flag flying over state capitals, and having Confederate flag remembrance day if it were not for the Democrat party! Both wings I may add, liberal wing included, and by that I mean Bill “BJ” Jefferson Clinton!
Max, you are totally ignoring what I said above about the Republican party embracing Southern racists after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The only reason Haley and Scott and Graham are changing their views is the outrage being expressed nationally, as otherwise, all of them including Scott, were content with leaving it as it was!
Fundamentally, the Democratic Party’s approach to racial and ethnic politics has not really changed all that much since the 1830s; it’s just calibrated to a different audience.
Gotta love LBJ and his N word comment. Woodrow Wilson is another fine racist Democrat that progressives still love today. FDR didn’t exactly jump out of his seat when it came to stopping lynching in the South. However, all those sins are washed away now. That’s the beauty of the Progressive movement. In the past decade Democrats blocked the appointment of Miguel Estrada to a US appeals court for no other reason than his race. In the 2012 election all conservatives’ people of color were Democrat targets. Millions of dollars were spent to defeat these candidates and then liberals have the audacity to complain about the diversity of the House GOP.
Those who praise perceptional politics are doomed to fooled by perceptional politics
In 1956, as vice president, Nixon went to Harlem to declare, “America can’t afford the cost of segregation.” The following year, Nixon got a personal letter from Dr. King thanking him for helping to persuade the Senate to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
Nixon supported the civil rights acts of 1964, 1965 and 1968.
In the 1966 campaign Nixon blasted Dixiecrats “seeking to squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.”
Nixon called out segregationist candidates in ’66 and called on LBJ, Hubert Humphrey and Bobby Kennedy to join him in repudiating them. None did. Hubert, an arm around Lester Maddox, called him a “good Democrat.” And so were they all — good Democrats.
While Adlai chose Sparkman, Nixon chose Spiro Agnew, the first governor south of the Mason Dixon Line to enact an open-housing law.
In Nixon’s presidency, the civil rights enforcement budget rose 800 percent. Record numbers of blacks were appointed to federal office. An Office of Minority Business Enterprise was created. SBA loans to minorities soared 1,000 percent. Aid to black colleges doubled.
Nixon won the South not because he agreed with them on civil rights — he never did — but because he shared the patriotic values of the South, its anti-communism and its antipathy to liberal hypocrisy.
When Johnson left office, 10 percent of Southern schools were desegregated. When Nixon left, the figure was 70 percent.
Richard Nixon desegregated the Southern schools, something you won’t learn in today’s public schools.
Miguel Estrada was not stopped because of his ethnicity, Max, but because of his incompetence.
But Loretta Lynch can be blocked for no good reason to be Attorney General, until it became clear that race was the only reason, as the Republicans did not want two black Attorneys General in a row. They were finally shamed into allowing a vote, and she has been a great Attorney General.
There was no way to accomplish the New Deal and fight the evil influence of the Southern Democrats, Max, but you have ignored the greatness of Hugo Black, despite his earlier sins.
And Ike, Nixon, Reagan, were not paragons of virtue on racial matters either, Max, and it took LBJ’s influence to get enough Republicans behind the CR Act of 1964.
I love how you distort history and exaggerate and manipulate, typical for right wingers who are, whether Democrats in the past or Republicans in the present, true racists, who allow the most outrageous statements to pass by and never attack them in any fashion. Many of them today would love to see violence against our President and would cheer it big time!
When the ’68 campaign began, Nixon was at 42%, Humphrey at 29%, Wallace at 22%. When it ended, Nixon and Humphrey were tied at 43%, with Wallace at 13%. The 9% of the national vote that had been peeled off from Wallace had gone to Humphrey.
The charge that the Republican coalition was built on race is a lie. Nixon routed the left because it had shown itself incompetent to win or end a war into which it had plunged the United States and too befuddled or cowardly to denounce the rioters burning our cities or the brats rampaging on our campuses.
Nixon led America out of a dismal decade and was rewarded with a 49-state landslide. By one estimate, he carried 18% of the black vote in 1972 and 25% in the South.
I just saw what you wrote as I was writing,Max!
Nixon promoted the Southern Strategy and embraced newly Republican Strom Thurmond, and Reagan was a great buddy of Jesse Helms.
Nixon was a racist and anti semite, and Reagan was insensitive on race.
We can play this game of pointing out flaws, but you will never be able to get away from the reality that the GOP embraced Southern racists after the CR Act of 1964.
You have a parallel universe, and you are just out to be negative, typical of the right wing hate mentality!
Just because you accuse people of racism doesn’t mean it is so. You have to prove it. And if you were to go at a court of law and try to prove it you would lose. It is all about emotions and feelings with the left but no substance whatsoever. I have asked many times in many different forums to please name on single piece of legislation passed by any Republican Congress in Washington or in any state that re-introduces segregation. Just one. Disagreeing with Obama or the left does not make people or a party racist. Thus it is not me or the Republicans for that matter , who have to prove they are not racist but it is you who has to prove they are with much more than cheap rhetoric. And so far you have not. All you have done is repeat talking points o the typical southern strategy racist myth. All of a sudden the racist Democrats started voting Republican in 1968. Really? If so how is it that the Democrats at local , state and federal level had a stronghold in the south way into the mid 90’s and in some states even up to the 21 st century? Are the racist that slow to change parties? Seriously. I know you really don’t believe that, but you just have to say it to maintain the myth and of course young people ignorant. I know you are not at all dumb and know the truth. I mean you can read and know how to read electoral results , can’t you? I can’t imagine you ignore not only electoral results, but economic changes in the south as well as immigration shifts and flows from the north to the south due to new economic opportunities. You have analyzed that , haven’t you? I am sure you have. You just decided to ignore all that data for the sake of the “cause”.
I have no “cause” other than promoting the truth, but you have an agenda of promoting the right wing Tea Party arguments, so I will not waste time in constantly answering you, as it is all for naught.
I have better things to do with my time, and will not feed you by constantly responding.
The vast majority of my readers know the truth, and that is what matters.
So write away with your propaganda, but I will not respond any longer.
I suggest blocking him.
Even if he’s blocked, he’ll be back with another name.
So, I respond to you, I give figures, then simply ask for evidence of what you sustain and then you refuse to continue the civilized exchange by calling my arguments propaganda. And look at how when Democrats block a “minority” candidate it is not racism but it had to do with competence. May I call out your BS. It was about his legal philosophy, which was liberal left wing. Now Loretta lynch is clearly about racism ! Wrong it is also about legal philosophy, she is a left wing liberal. In liberal world liberals are allowed to vet according to their legal philosophy, conservatives are not.
Typo: It was about his legal philosophy, which was NOT liberal left wing
Pragmatic Progressive: Please try to resist your progressive inclinations on censoring. You should listen to Don Lemon. Be civilized. Thank you and good night. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MOgYL3lVR0
It’s the Professor’s blog. He can block a troll if he wants to. The only reason you pop out of the woodwork, strangely only as it gets closer to major elections, is to have inflamed arguments.
Haley is only doing it as a PR move. Just like Amazon, Walmart, Sears, Target, Ebay, etc. are banning sales of the flag and items containing images of the flag.
You people just don’t take yes for an answer do you? Is it so important for you to divide us, the American people, when we unanimously condemned what has happened ?
Max’s side is the ones dividing, us, the American people.
What matters when you are voting is where each party stands TODAY. Democrats today embrace equality and today’s GOP has moved away from their liberal/progressive roots.
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/the-truth-about-republican-racism-and-the-southern-strategy/
Exactly, Pragmatic! The actions of the Republican Party and the Democrat Party in 2015 is the real measure of what’s what.
Max can have his history, which is by the way, skewed to make the Republican Party look squeaky clean on race issues. I’ll take reality in 2015.
Many of the Democrats he’s referenced here changed parties and became Republicans, because the Democrat Party rejected prejudice and embraced desegregation. As the Professor has said, they’ve gotten rid of the cancer.
Pragmatic Progressive, you are one hundred percent right, as the Democrats brought about all of the great reforms of the past century under FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ, plus progress under Carter and Clinton and now Obama.
The Republican Party represented the big corporations and the elite wealthy in the Gilded Age and still do today; did not give a damn about African American freedom, abandoning them in the Compromise of 1877 to keep the Presidency in their hands; and except for Theodore Roosevelt, was always the more conservative party in the past century, working against labor interests and promoting the Red Scare and ignoring civil rights until finally they joined in in the 1960s, due to some Northern “liberal” Republicans
Those “liberal” Republicans, called the Rockefeller wing, declined quickly once the Reagan Presidency further promoted the race agenda that Richard Nixon had begun, and now there are no “liberal” Republicans, and the party is afraid of the term!
As those “liberal” Republicans and their mentality no longer exist, the GOP is now the party of the old Confederate South and of the rural Great Plains and Mountain States, and due to gerrymandering, are able to control the House, even though they gain fewer total votes for House seats.
But they cannot win the Presidency with their right wing orientation! They are the Strom Thurmond–Jesse Helms Party updated and they have no shame in their racism,. misogyny, nativism, and homophobia under their present leadership in Congress!
They are a dying party of white right wing Christians who are trying to prevent the transformation that is going on . Right now, they control the Senate, but that will change in 2016 and beyond with a victory of a Democratic President and agenda, as the nation is turning more liberal in social and economic terms!