Southern Democrats

50th Anniversary Of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” Speech And The March On Washington!

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It is hard to believe that this weekend, and specifically next Wednesday, four days from now, marks the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington by a crowd estimated at a quarter of a million people, calling for racial equality and justice.

It was a peaceful march, with a crowd of people of all races, an historic moment on the way to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It was a time of the greatness of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther, King Jr, and his brilliant “I Have A Dream” speech, one of the few greatest speeches ever given by any American in our entire history!

It was a time of hope and optimism, before the tragedy of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr himself, as well as the tragic war in Vietnam, which took 58,000 lives!

It was a time of optimism and a sense of progress, and now, sadly, the same battles fought over race and voting rights haunts us, as the Supreme Court majority, created by Republican Presidents who represent a desire to move backwards on the subject of race, seem to believe that denial of voting rights and the issue of race no longer is of importance in America, when it continues to be a divisive matter that prevents the full development of justice and equality in this nation!

This is a sad time when the Republican Party, which in large measure supported the civil rights legislation of the mid 1960s, now has adopted the old Southern Democratic racist policies that the national Democratic Party repudiated fifty years ago, and the GOP seems unembarrassed that they have become the “poster boy” for racial prejudice and nativism!

So while we celebrate the anniversary, we are still having to fight the battles won, and then lost, due to the party that once boasted of Lincoln, TR, and Ike, and now boasts of despicable leaders who have no shame, including Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, et al, and their ilk!

Conservatives Call Barack Obama First Racist President: Look In The Mirror And At History, Right Wingers!

Ronald 88 Comments

What a preposterous statement by many people in the Right Wing of the Republican Party and the conservative movement, to call Barack Obama our first “racist” President, because of his detailed, courageous, principled statement about race yesterday before White House reporters!

What Obama said about young black men growing up in America is absolutely true, and despicable, and Obama made it clear that he had, personally, experienced the same racism, and all that talk show hosts can do is throw the appellation “racist” at the President, rather than admit the history of the country, and the reality of the profiling of blacks in 2013, along with Hispanics and Latinos as well!

And the Right Wing chooses to ignore history, probably affected by fake historian David Barton, who promotes a sanitized view of American history, and has had a dramatic effect on textbook companies, pressuring them to write myths, rather than facts, about American history!

The facts are as follows:

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James K. Polk, and Zachary Taylor all owned and exploited slaves, and some of them had children with their slaves, what could be called rape situations!

Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren forcibly removed Native Americans, the infamous “Trail of Tears”, while in office; and William Henry Harrison, Andrew Jackson, and Zachary Taylor all gained their original fame by killing Native Americans, and bragging about it!

Andrew Johnson was probably the most outspoken racist President, and made it clear in working against the Freedmen’s Bureau continuation after the Civil War!

Ulysses S. Grant warred against Native Americans during his Presidency in a massive campaign to take away their lands!

Republican Presidents after Grant ignored violations of civil rights by Southerners, beginning with the fixed election of Rutherford B. Hayes on a promise to end military occupation of the South and let Democrats take care of their own states, and promoting racial segregation, Jim Crow laws!

Woodrow Wilson demonstrated strong racist tendencies and views during his administration, catering to the Southern Democratic heritage of his boyhood!

Many Presidents in their writings displayed racist thoughts, and some did so in speech at times, including Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan (who talked about welfare queens).

Only since Truman has it been fashionable to be FOR civil rights, but even then, Nixon and Ronald Reagan worked against civil rights any opportunity they were given!

So we have at least 18 Presidents who were racists, or displayed racist tendencies, toward African Americans and Native Americans in different forms!

So the concept that Barack Obama is a racist for speaking up on injustices toward people of his heritage is outrageous, ridiculous, and preposterous to the extreme!

Do you hear that?—Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter and the rest of their ilk?

Comparing Obama To FDR And LBJ: The Circumstances Are Dramatically Different!

Ronald 10 Comments

Maureen Dowd of the NY Times has complained that Barack Obama needs to be more like Lyndon Johnson, and others would say Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This is preposterous, as both LBJ and FDR had MASSIVE majorities in the US Senate, while Obama has to deal with having only 55 members of his party in the Senate, plus a Republican House of Representatives for the past two and a half years, the next year and a half, and likely beyond that!

Johnson had 68 Democrats at the time of the Civil Rights Act, and 64 for the Voting Rights Act, and FDR had 75 Senators at his peak.

It is true that LBJ had to deal with segregationist Southern Senators, but he also had moderate and liberal Northern Republicans he could count on, and FDR had progressive Republicans, including those that this author published about in his monograph, TWILIGHT OF PROGRESSIVISM (1981), who were willing to cross party lines to back him on many issues!

Obama has found the opposition party unwilling, in either house of Congress, to back him on almost anything he promotes, with an occasional few Senators helping out, but with the filibuster requiring 60 votes, the result is a total stalemate, something he has not been able to overcome, even after having lunches and dinners with Republicans, particularly in the Senate, as they are dedicated to prevention of any legislation that might make him look good in history.

But despite that, Obama is accomplishing a record that will make him look good in history, even with the opposition of conservatives and Republicans, and the criticism of Maureen Dowd and other unrealistic liberals and progressives!

Victories For Right To Vote Mounting In Republican Controlled States That Tried To Limit Voting

Ronald 1 Comment

After a year or more of attempts to limit the right to vote for senior citizens, college students, minorities, and the poor, the forces battling for the right to vote are winning victories, due to court action by the federal government, and decisions of federal judges in favor of the whole basis of democracy—voting!

Florida, Texas, and Ohio are among the states where the tide has turned, and Pennsylvania is awaiting a six member state Supreme Court decision that is thought to be ready to throw out the limits on voting set up by the Republican legislature and governor, with the three Republican members of the Court showing skepticism about the limit on voting rights.

This trend makes the likelihood of Barack Obama winning all of the above states, except Texas, more realistic, and it is a stain on the GOP that the party that expanded the right to vote to include African Americans in 1870, and supported civil rights at its founding, now has become the image of the Southern Democrats of the 1870s to the 1960s, who took away the right to vote and promoted Jim Crow segregation!

This is a time for mourning for the Republican Party of the past, which was principled and on the side of voting rights, and now has been captured by extreme right wing elements that are against basic democracy, what people in all nations around the world fight and die for—the right to express their view of who should govern them!

The Republican Party Totally Changed From Its Founding: More Southernized Than Ever Before!

Ronald 1 Comment

The Republican Party started as a party of anti slavery and anti slavery expansion, and became anathema in the South, fighting the Confederacy during the Civil War, and imposing military Reconstruction on the South after the Civil War.

For a century, the South was solidly Democratic in reaction, and the South subjugated African Americans in segregation and discrimination, while the GOP abandoned African Americans after 1877.

In the 1960s, moderate and liberal Republicans supported the passage of the civil rights laws, but southern Democrats started to veer to the Republican Party in reaction to President Lyndon B. Johnson’s advocacy and promotion of civil rights, with Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina leading the march to the GOP.

Richard Nixon pursued a Southern strategy, and after Ronald Reagan became President, the trend to “Southernization” continued, and now it has reached full development, even though we have two Northerners–Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin–on the Presidential ticket.

The Republican Party of 2012, based on its platform and its rhetoric, has hostility toward minorities, promotion of racism against Barack Obama, hatred of national government, belief in exploitation of low wage workers, and promotes religion over science, all reflective of the backward traditions of the Old South, which remains the poorest part of the nation economically, and yet is willing to support the Republican Party out of fear of change and modernization.

But, ironically, this is the last gasp of this trend, as the country is changing to a multi ethnic society, and the white population that is so anti change is rapidly becoming a smaller portion of the nation, and will be so, in a very obvious way, by the time of the Census of 2020 and after, when the Hispanic and Latino population of Texas and Arizona and Florida will likely turn those states “blue”,. from their momentary “red” status.

So the Republican Party is in the death throes of its Southernization, as even Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia are being changed demographically, rapidly before our eyes!

The Democratic Party And Human Rights Asserted Again!

Ronald 6 Comments

The Democratic Party is the party of most of the great social, political, and economic reforms of the 20th century, and going into the 21st century. A small number of Republican political leaders, whether governors, senators, or congressmen, joined the cause, and at times Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon joined in, but the Democrats were still the vast majority of those who promoted reforms we think we can now take for granted, but which conservative and Tea Party Republicans today wish to reverse!

The Democratic Party outside the South had to struggle against the right wing conservatism of most of its Southern members, including governors, senators, and congressmen, but in 1948, led by Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis, they came out for civil rights in the national convention platform.

The Democrats came out for women’s rights, including the right to control their own bodies, in the 1970s after Roe V. Wade.

And now the Platform Committee of the Democratic National Convention of 2012 is moving toward adoption of a plank in the platform, backing gay rights and gay marriage explicitly!

This is a great victory, and follows in the tradition of the Democratic Party, being the party of openness, tolerance, and human compassion!

48th Anniversary Of Landmark Civil Rights Act Of 1964: Transformative Event

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Today, July 2, is the 48th Anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, passed within seven months of Lyndon B. Johnson becoming President, a truly miraculous event, considering the strong and vehement opposition by Southern Democrats and many conservative Republicans.

The Civil Rights Act ended discrimination in all public accommodations, and promoted integration in education and the work force, and was a step toward the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ending all discrimination in voting in the South, and dramatically changing the South forever.

Of course, the South, which had been heavily Democratic switched to support of the Republican Party, much of which saw an opportunity to exploit the racial issue, as they have continued to do ever since, mostly in a veiled, but obvious way, including their constant racism regarding President Barack Obama. And it is Republican Governors who are trying to take away voting rights in time for the election, and in so doing, are violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965, leading to lawsuits by Attorney General Eric Holder, which helped to cause his being cited for contempt of Congress last week, a purely vindictive political act!

While there are indeed many whites in America who would wish for the “good old days” before the Civil Rights Act, everyone realizes the changes back then are permanent, like it or not!

The same is happening with the transformative event of the Obama Presidency, the Affordable Care Act, also called “ObamaCare”!

The Republicans are pledging to fight “tooth and nail” to repeal the law, but it will not happen, and they will have to get used to it, like it or not!

LBJ is best remembered for Civil Rights and Medicare, also bitterly opposed by Republicans and conservatives, and Barack Obama will be best remembered for the Affordable Care Act, and the elimination of Osama Bin Laden, another issue that the GOP avoids giving Obama much credit.

The Republicans fight the future, but the Democrats BRING the future, and on this day, just a few after Obama’s signature achievement on health care, let us salute LBJ for the Civil Rights Act accomplishment!

A Century Of Struggle For Health Care: Theodore Roosevelt 1912 to Barack Obama 2012!

Ronald Leave a comment

Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, out of office and running on the third party movement, the Progressive Party, in 1912, first proposed some form of national health exactly a century ago as part of his New Nationalism platform!

His distant cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, considered it as part of his New Deal in the 1930s, but it was controversial enough to promote Social Security, which was called “Socialism”, and bitterly opposed by most Republicans, and used as a campaign issue by Republican Governor Alf Landon in the 1936 Presidential campaign.

Harry Truman actually was the first to promote a program as part of his Fair Deal programs in the 1940s, but the Southern Democrats and the American Medical Association bitterly opposed it as “Socialism”, and it died in committees in the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

John F. Kennedy proposed what became Medicare for the elderly as part of his New Frontier, but it was blocked again by the AMA and the Southern Democrats who headed Congressional committees in both houses of Congress in the early 1960s.

Lyndon B. Johnson overcame the AMA and Southern Democrats, and accomplished Medicare in 1965, and the Republicans campaigned against it, but failed to gain enough support to repeal it

Richard Nixon had devised plans for more health care legislation, but Watergate killed any movement in that direction in the 1970s.

Jimmy Carter also had developed a plan for expansion, but faced too much conservative opposition and other issues and crises, which drew attention away from the idea.

Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton proposed a major government program, but it went down to defeat in 1994, with Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and the conservative Heritage Foundation proposing a “mandate” instead, which would allow private health insurance companies to profit from health care reform, but nothing was done.

And Senator Ted Kennedy fought the good fight for decades, and was at least able to see progress before his death in 2009.

And when Hillary Clinton, and then Barack Obama, adopted the Heritage Foundation plan in 2008, far less than the original Clinton plan of the 1990s, suddenly the Republican Party and conservative ideologists bitterly opposed it, as they still do, and their hope is to repeal the program declared constitutional by the Supreme Court this past Thursday.

So it has taken a century, and we are the ONLY major nation in the world which allows millions of people to be uncovered for health care, and we have the opposition bitterly trying to destroy it, including Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who actually promoted the SAME idea successfully in Massachusetts in 2006, but now is out to destroy “ObamaCare”!

What a history, and hard to believe that it would take a century, and still be a controversy in 2012!.

The “White” Republican Party Against The Future

Ronald 1 Comment

It is clear that the Republican Party is trying to keep control of Congress and regain the White House by appealing to white voters of all economic classes by stealthily promoting fear of immigrants, Hispanics and Latinos, and African Americans, and trying to take away voting rights from the poor, the elderly, college students, as well as minorities.

This is a very troubling strategy, as it promotes a “them” versus “us” mentality which does not serve the nation well, as the reality is that the future of the nation is that the white population is declining in percentage, and by the mid 2040s, will be a minority.

So the need to adapt and appeal to nonwhites of all backgrounds is essential for the political health of the nation in the future. Instead, the GOP is acting as if it is the old Southern Democrats of the segregation era, or the Confederate mentality of the Civil War era.

This is ugly, dangerous, poisonous and reprehensible as the future cannot be stopped, and instead must be confronted! So a return to moderate Republicanism of the Nelson Rockefeller-William Scranton-Henry Cabot Lodge-Charles Percy-Mark Hatfield-Charles Mathias etc variety is essential and soon!

Today Is A Shared Death Date Of Two Courageous Presidents, Often Criticized In Office Endlessly!

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Today, December 26, is a shared death date of two courageous Presidents, often criticized in office endlessly.

These two Presidents were Harry Truman who died in 1972, and Gerald Ford, who died in 2006.

Harry Truman was incessantly attacked on all sides, by Republicans who thought he would be easy to defeat in 1948, and were surprised by his upset victory over Thomas E. Dewey; and who later bitterly attacked his strategy on the Korean War. But also, liberal Democrats were disappointed in him, seeing him as a poor replacement for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who he succeeded in 1945. So he faced the opposition of former Vice President Henry A. Wallace and the Progressive Party of 1948. But he also faced the opposition of Southern Democrats, led by Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who ran for President in 1948 as a “Dixiecrat” on the States Rights Party line, because of Truman’s brave stand ending segregation in Washington, DC, and in the armed forces, by executive order.

Truman had twenty years in retirement, and grew in stature as the years went by.

Gerald Ford, not even elected Vice President, ended up succeeding Richard Nixon, when he resigned due to the Watergate scandal in 1974.

Ford gained criticism because of the pardon of Nixon one month later, and because of the economic recession that had already begun, and was the worst economic downturn since 1939.

Ford also had to battle for the GOP nomination against conservatives who backed former Governor Ronald Reagan, who nearly defeated Ford in the Republican National Convention of 1976, and this forced Ford to drop Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and replace him with Kansas Senator Bob Dole. He came close to the defeat of Democratic nominee Governor Jimmy Carter, losing in Ohio and Hawaii by very small margins, enough to have defeated Carter if only he had gained a few thousand votes.

Ford came to be regarded with respect and admiration, even by Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who in 1999 said he had been wrong to attack Ford for the Nixon pardon 25 years earlier.

Ford lived on for 29 years after the Presidency, and is looked at kindly now, much like Truman.

These were two men who had in common that they came across to average Americans as being “one of us”! May they rest in peace!