born again reactionary
2010-05-21 03:09:22 UTC
On May 20, 7:56 pm, "Kennewick Man; the first, the BEST!"
A RACIST PARTY WITH A RACIST STRATEGY: THE REPUBLICANS
When President Johnson helped pass Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s
he commented that: "Well, there goes the South." He meant, of course, that
now the South would become Republican as they now saw the Democrats as the
party standing up for the blacks.
Following the Civil War, the South defeated what little there was of
Reconstruction when in a contested presidential election the Republicans
under Hayes agreed to pull out Federal troops from the South in exchange
for Hayes being president. After the troops wee gone, the whites took back
any remaining outstanding power that blacks had and placed blacks in a new
type of slavery: this one an economic slavery through the share-cropping
system.
Southerners have traditionally dominated American politics to a greater
extent than their proportional representation entitled them, because,
although they were largely members of the Democratic party (because the
South was poor), they could quickly shift their weight to the Republican
party to pass conservative legislation or to block liberal legislation.
They voted virtually as a block and this ability gave them legislative
power. Southern Democrats were pretty solidly racist and voted to keep the
racist system in place.
Following the Civil Rights legislation, the South temporarily lost some of
its legislative power as its voters and politicians switched inexorably to
the Republican party. This, of course, has made the Republican party even
more conservative and racist than it had ever been following the death of
Reconstruction.
The South also changed its religion. As the former Democratic South
changed it allegiances in politics, so did it also start to change its
allegiances in religion. In the days of the anti-slavery movement, when
the Anglican ministers in the South would not support racism and
pro-slavery sentiment, the South changed its religions to the more
personal, evangelical religions whose ministers did support racism and
slavery. An insistence on maintaining a racist structure leads also to an
insistence on racists values and hence racist religions. Similarly,
today's Southerners are abandoning the more staid evangelical religions
for the highly personalized religions characterized by the phrase
"born-again Christians." Whereas, many a Methodist or Baptist preacher
would not now condone racism, the Southerners don't have to worry about
this with their new preachers of born-again religion.
With the abandonment by the Southern Democrats of the Democratic party,
blacks became somewhat more influential in the Democratic party, because
the party was now much smaller than it had been. As a result, the
Democratic party is somewhat more liberal than it used to be.
So the division between the two parties grew. The Republican party
represented the wealthy industrialists and other rich persons, the South,
and a good proportion of the working class and middle-class who were
concerned that blacks were getting too much privilege in this country. (I
watched a lot of coverage of the 2000 elections and I heard no one discuss
the obvious: the entire old Confederacy went for the Republicans, plus the
more rural parts of the Midwest -- with the exception of Ohio. So Bush won
the election with a combination of the two R's: ruralism and racism. The
networks are both too biased and/or too afraid of losing ratings by
offending the South and Midwest, apparently.)
The Democratic party, although losing the South, did retain some of its
traditional base, working class, some of the middle class, and the blacks.
But by and large, the Democratic party was much weakened by the overall
abandonment of the party by the South.
The end result was that the two parties now grew very far apart from each
other ideologically speaking. The Republicans now had a very strong racist
backing which made the party take very conservative stances. The Democrats
had a cadre of liberals that kept its ideas in the liberal camp.
Since the two parties were so far apart from each other, many Americans,
more in the ideological middle, not solidly racist, but certainly not
pro-active for Civil Rights legislation, did not trust either of the
parties. So the middle areas decided to practice split government. If the
Democrats had the legislature, the voters would give the executive to the
Republicans. If the voters gave the legislature to the Republicans, they
tended to give the presidency to the Democrats. It was and not a perfect
pattern, but the general trend is still true. The voters figure that it is
better to have political stalemate than to have either party do something
"radical," either to the political right or the left.
The new racism of the Republican party has expressed itself in some very
ugly ways. Since the voters were not giving the Republicans a clear hand
and they wanted to stop any more pro-Civil Rights legislation, they
decided to take a strategy that would ultimately prove very destructive of
the United States as a whole.
In a sense, they decided to bribe the American public. They took the
stance that the government was a bad thing; that government over-taxed the
public in order to waste money on destructive progressive legislation to
help the blacks and other minorities. The Republicans basically said, vote
for us and we will give the money to you. We will put your money back in
your pocket instead of in the pockets of bad government. This way the
voters would keep more money, and the Republicans would be able to stymie
any further hope for a progressive government.
In a sense, the Republicans made a pact with the devil. They sold their
political soul to the hatred of the government devil, in return for
dominance in American politics. The Republicans demonized government and
the liberals. And no one clearly denounces the Republican Party for being
virtual anarchists -- always promising tax cuts and to hell with
government functioning. Actually, there is a method to the madness of the
Republicans. They claim that government is bad and so taxes have to be
cut, then government functioning does indeed become bad in many areas
because of the lack of funding, and then the Republican use the damage
(that they caused) as evidence that government is no good. It because a
destructive cycle with the government getting worse and the public
becoming more and more cynical.
The conservative emphasis on hatred of government is very attuned with
racism. Racism encourages hatred and hatred of government, especially a
pro-Civil Rights government, is very compatible with racism. The forces of
Republican, Southern, and born-again Christian racism and moralism
reinforces each other in a blend of very nasty, vindictive rhetoric.
Southern racists have always insisted that they were more religious than
any other segment of the population. And Southern religion, largely being
racist, has an exaggerated sense of moralism. Vernon Johns always used to
marvel that the most "religious" part of the country was also the worst
violator of Civil Rights.
This attitudinal mixture of racist moralism, so typical of the South and
now so typical of the Republicans, was practiced by the Republicans in
spades and to excess to paralyze the presidency of the Democratic
president, William Jefferson Clinton. The Republicans were able to
paralyze the Democrats by their constant misuse of legislative committees
and hearings. Somehow the Republicans have been able to substitute their
racist moralism for any balanced sense of decency and fair play. Somehow
they have decided that anyone in political life that they don't like and
who has committed adultery is deserving of being replaced in political
office or paralyzed in their exercise of political office.
It has been a long time since the American political culture has
experienced such vindictive and hateful rhetoric. The moralists, who are
supposed to be more moral than the rest of us, feel that it is justified
to describe the president of the United States as a "scumbag," a "stupid,
fat bastard," an "adulterer," a "rapist," etc. We became used to "hate"
radio, but now with cable we have "hate" TV. Angry white men with a
Republican bent now shout their anger and racist moralisms and accusations
at the top of their lungs. On cable TV, almost the entire Fox News network
is a very conservative, I would even say racist, network.
A great tragedy is that the liberals have not spoken up for themselves.
They have not defended Democratic values and beliefs, but rather have
either remained silent, or, like Senator Joseph Liebermann, have actually
spoken out against President Clinton. (Liebermann wants to compete with
the Republicans for moralism -- something which cannot be accomplished.)
The atmosphere these days is somewhat reminiscent of the McCarthy days.
McCarthy was going around pretending he was more moral, more loyal, to the
United States and that others were "beyond the pale" and had to be
stopped, or at least punished. No one spoke up against McCarthyism until
McCarthy went too far and took on the United States Army.
One reason for the Democrats silence and weakness against the moral
terrorism of the Republicans is that the Democrats have themselves
unleashed moralism by their insistence that everyone use "politically
correct" speech. Liberals can go so far to the left in some areas that
they come to resemble their opponents. The puritanism in the "politically
correct" movement is one with the moralism of the racists. It's hard for
Democrats to speak out against destructive moralists when they have been
acting much the same way -- using moralism to enforce heterodoxy on their
followers and others.
Another reason for Democratic weakness is the failure of the liberals to
find, maintain, and use some measure of racism and hence a determination
of who are the racists. Any charge of racism is easily deflected by
conservative racists by them simply saying that they have black friends
and have taken pro-black steps such as appointing blacks to political
office. When a conservative Republican has virtually never voted for any
progress Civil Rights legislation and indeed has actively worked against
the passage of any progressive legislation, he ought to be called a
"racist." But apparently the liberals, both black and white, are too
scared to support some measure of racism so we could get a better handle
on the racism of the Republican party.
At the present there is no effective Democratic spokesperson who can
defend the party against the destructive moralism of the Republicans.
There is no liberal who can effectively come out and expose the Republican
party for its pact with the racist-moralist devil. This has left the
Democrats pretty defenseless and considerably hopeless.
Americans love to go on witch hunts. The country experienced the Salem
witch trials, the McCarthy era, the crazed search for child molesters in
our kindergarten systems, and now the witch hunt for moral failings of
politicians, and including, people who are even just considered "role
models." Witch hunts are only stopped by people standing up to the fanatic
hunters and telling them they have gone too far.
Frankly, the Republicans so misused their racism moralism once they got
control over the legislature, that it would be better for the Democratic
party to, in an era of divided government, to try to capture the
legislature and let the Republicans have the presidency. Nothing much will
get done, but that is normal in divided government. At least, we would not
have to go through the nonsense we had to go through when Clinton was in
office. There is only one president and so he is an easy target. There are
too many Democratic legislators for them all to fall to charges raised
against their personal morals by the moralistic Republicans.
The Republicans have certainly won this game of "moralism." Hopefully,
Democrats will learn that it is impossible to out-moralize the racists.
Instead, they should abandon extreme moralism as a destructive force in
American life.
Loading Image...When President Johnson helped pass Civil Rights legislation in the 1960s
he commented that: "Well, there goes the South." He meant, of course, that
now the South would become Republican as they now saw the Democrats as the
party standing up for the blacks.
Following the Civil War, the South defeated what little there was of
Reconstruction when in a contested presidential election the Republicans
under Hayes agreed to pull out Federal troops from the South in exchange
for Hayes being president. After the troops wee gone, the whites took back
any remaining outstanding power that blacks had and placed blacks in a new
type of slavery: this one an economic slavery through the share-cropping
system.
Southerners have traditionally dominated American politics to a greater
extent than their proportional representation entitled them, because,
although they were largely members of the Democratic party (because the
South was poor), they could quickly shift their weight to the Republican
party to pass conservative legislation or to block liberal legislation.
They voted virtually as a block and this ability gave them legislative
power. Southern Democrats were pretty solidly racist and voted to keep the
racist system in place.
Following the Civil Rights legislation, the South temporarily lost some of
its legislative power as its voters and politicians switched inexorably to
the Republican party. This, of course, has made the Republican party even
more conservative and racist than it had ever been following the death of
Reconstruction.
The South also changed its religion. As the former Democratic South
changed it allegiances in politics, so did it also start to change its
allegiances in religion. In the days of the anti-slavery movement, when
the Anglican ministers in the South would not support racism and
pro-slavery sentiment, the South changed its religions to the more
personal, evangelical religions whose ministers did support racism and
slavery. An insistence on maintaining a racist structure leads also to an
insistence on racists values and hence racist religions. Similarly,
today's Southerners are abandoning the more staid evangelical religions
for the highly personalized religions characterized by the phrase
"born-again Christians." Whereas, many a Methodist or Baptist preacher
would not now condone racism, the Southerners don't have to worry about
this with their new preachers of born-again religion.
With the abandonment by the Southern Democrats of the Democratic party,
blacks became somewhat more influential in the Democratic party, because
the party was now much smaller than it had been. As a result, the
Democratic party is somewhat more liberal than it used to be.
So the division between the two parties grew. The Republican party
represented the wealthy industrialists and other rich persons, the South,
and a good proportion of the working class and middle-class who were
concerned that blacks were getting too much privilege in this country. (I
watched a lot of coverage of the 2000 elections and I heard no one discuss
the obvious: the entire old Confederacy went for the Republicans, plus the
more rural parts of the Midwest -- with the exception of Ohio. So Bush won
the election with a combination of the two R's: ruralism and racism. The
networks are both too biased and/or too afraid of losing ratings by
offending the South and Midwest, apparently.)
The Democratic party, although losing the South, did retain some of its
traditional base, working class, some of the middle class, and the blacks.
But by and large, the Democratic party was much weakened by the overall
abandonment of the party by the South.
The end result was that the two parties now grew very far apart from each
other ideologically speaking. The Republicans now had a very strong racist
backing which made the party take very conservative stances. The Democrats
had a cadre of liberals that kept its ideas in the liberal camp.
Since the two parties were so far apart from each other, many Americans,
more in the ideological middle, not solidly racist, but certainly not
pro-active for Civil Rights legislation, did not trust either of the
parties. So the middle areas decided to practice split government. If the
Democrats had the legislature, the voters would give the executive to the
Republicans. If the voters gave the legislature to the Republicans, they
tended to give the presidency to the Democrats. It was and not a perfect
pattern, but the general trend is still true. The voters figure that it is
better to have political stalemate than to have either party do something
"radical," either to the political right or the left.
The new racism of the Republican party has expressed itself in some very
ugly ways. Since the voters were not giving the Republicans a clear hand
and they wanted to stop any more pro-Civil Rights legislation, they
decided to take a strategy that would ultimately prove very destructive of
the United States as a whole.
In a sense, they decided to bribe the American public. They took the
stance that the government was a bad thing; that government over-taxed the
public in order to waste money on destructive progressive legislation to
help the blacks and other minorities. The Republicans basically said, vote
for us and we will give the money to you. We will put your money back in
your pocket instead of in the pockets of bad government. This way the
voters would keep more money, and the Republicans would be able to stymie
any further hope for a progressive government.
In a sense, the Republicans made a pact with the devil. They sold their
political soul to the hatred of the government devil, in return for
dominance in American politics. The Republicans demonized government and
the liberals. And no one clearly denounces the Republican Party for being
virtual anarchists -- always promising tax cuts and to hell with
government functioning. Actually, there is a method to the madness of the
Republicans. They claim that government is bad and so taxes have to be
cut, then government functioning does indeed become bad in many areas
because of the lack of funding, and then the Republican use the damage
(that they caused) as evidence that government is no good. It because a
destructive cycle with the government getting worse and the public
becoming more and more cynical.
The conservative emphasis on hatred of government is very attuned with
racism. Racism encourages hatred and hatred of government, especially a
pro-Civil Rights government, is very compatible with racism. The forces of
Republican, Southern, and born-again Christian racism and moralism
reinforces each other in a blend of very nasty, vindictive rhetoric.
Southern racists have always insisted that they were more religious than
any other segment of the population. And Southern religion, largely being
racist, has an exaggerated sense of moralism. Vernon Johns always used to
marvel that the most "religious" part of the country was also the worst
violator of Civil Rights.
This attitudinal mixture of racist moralism, so typical of the South and
now so typical of the Republicans, was practiced by the Republicans in
spades and to excess to paralyze the presidency of the Democratic
president, William Jefferson Clinton. The Republicans were able to
paralyze the Democrats by their constant misuse of legislative committees
and hearings. Somehow the Republicans have been able to substitute their
racist moralism for any balanced sense of decency and fair play. Somehow
they have decided that anyone in political life that they don't like and
who has committed adultery is deserving of being replaced in political
office or paralyzed in their exercise of political office.
It has been a long time since the American political culture has
experienced such vindictive and hateful rhetoric. The moralists, who are
supposed to be more moral than the rest of us, feel that it is justified
to describe the president of the United States as a "scumbag," a "stupid,
fat bastard," an "adulterer," a "rapist," etc. We became used to "hate"
radio, but now with cable we have "hate" TV. Angry white men with a
Republican bent now shout their anger and racist moralisms and accusations
at the top of their lungs. On cable TV, almost the entire Fox News network
is a very conservative, I would even say racist, network.
A great tragedy is that the liberals have not spoken up for themselves.
They have not defended Democratic values and beliefs, but rather have
either remained silent, or, like Senator Joseph Liebermann, have actually
spoken out against President Clinton. (Liebermann wants to compete with
the Republicans for moralism -- something which cannot be accomplished.)
The atmosphere these days is somewhat reminiscent of the McCarthy days.
McCarthy was going around pretending he was more moral, more loyal, to the
United States and that others were "beyond the pale" and had to be
stopped, or at least punished. No one spoke up against McCarthyism until
McCarthy went too far and took on the United States Army.
One reason for the Democrats silence and weakness against the moral
terrorism of the Republicans is that the Democrats have themselves
unleashed moralism by their insistence that everyone use "politically
correct" speech. Liberals can go so far to the left in some areas that
they come to resemble their opponents. The puritanism in the "politically
correct" movement is one with the moralism of the racists. It's hard for
Democrats to speak out against destructive moralists when they have been
acting much the same way -- using moralism to enforce heterodoxy on their
followers and others.
Another reason for Democratic weakness is the failure of the liberals to
find, maintain, and use some measure of racism and hence a determination
of who are the racists. Any charge of racism is easily deflected by
conservative racists by them simply saying that they have black friends
and have taken pro-black steps such as appointing blacks to political
office. When a conservative Republican has virtually never voted for any
progress Civil Rights legislation and indeed has actively worked against
the passage of any progressive legislation, he ought to be called a
"racist." But apparently the liberals, both black and white, are too
scared to support some measure of racism so we could get a better handle
on the racism of the Republican party.
At the present there is no effective Democratic spokesperson who can
defend the party against the destructive moralism of the Republicans.
There is no liberal who can effectively come out and expose the Republican
party for its pact with the racist-moralist devil. This has left the
Democrats pretty defenseless and considerably hopeless.
Americans love to go on witch hunts. The country experienced the Salem
witch trials, the McCarthy era, the crazed search for child molesters in
our kindergarten systems, and now the witch hunt for moral failings of
politicians, and including, people who are even just considered "role
models." Witch hunts are only stopped by people standing up to the fanatic
hunters and telling them they have gone too far.
Frankly, the Republicans so misused their racism moralism once they got
control over the legislature, that it would be better for the Democratic
party to, in an era of divided government, to try to capture the
legislature and let the Republicans have the presidency. Nothing much will
get done, but that is normal in divided government. At least, we would not
have to go through the nonsense we had to go through when Clinton was in
office. There is only one president and so he is an easy target. There are
too many Democratic legislators for them all to fall to charges raised
against their personal morals by the moralistic Republicans.
The Republicans have certainly won this game of "moralism." Hopefully,
Democrats will learn that it is impossible to out-moralize the racists.
Instead, they should abandon extreme moralism as a destructive force in
American life.
