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To: koan who wrote (7418)	1/25/2012 11:21:39 AM
From: longnshort	5 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 85487

"Critics of Republican Senator Barry Goldwater who ran for president against Democrat President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, ignore the fact that Goldwater wanted to force the Democrats in the South to stop passing discriminatory laws and thus end the need to continuously enact federal civil rights legislation. Those who wrongly criticize Goldwater, also ignore the fact that President Johnson, in his 4,500 State of the Union Address delivered on January 4, 1965, mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only thirty five words were devoted to civil rights. He did not mention one word about voting rights. Then in 1967, showing his anger with Dr. King’s protest against the Viet Nam War, President Johnson referred to Dr. King as “that Nigger preacher.” Contrary to the false assertions by Democrats, the racist “Dixiecrats” did not all migrate to the Republican Party. “Dixiecrats” declared that they would rather vote for a “yellow dog” than vote for a Republican because the Republican Party was known as the party for blacks. Today, some of those “Dixiecrats” continue their political careers as Democrats, including Democrat Senator Robert Byrd who is well known for having been a “Keagle” in the Ku Klux Klan. Another former “Dixiecrat” is Democrat Senator Ernest Hollings who put up the Confederate flag over the state capitol when he was the governor of South Carolina. There was no public outcry when Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd praised Senator Byrd as someone who would have been “a great senator for any moment,” including the Civil War. Democrats denounced Senator Trent Lott for his remarks about Senator Strom Thurmond. Senator Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan and defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats. If Senator Byrd and Senator Thurmond were alive during the Civil War, and Byrd had his way, Thurmond would have been lynched. The thirty-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party began in the 1970’s with President Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” which was an effort on the part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were still discriminating against their fellow Christians who happened to be black. Georgia did not switch until 2002, and some Southern states, including Louisiana, are still controlled by Democrats."

To: koan who wrote (7418)	1/25/2012 11:23:21 AM
From: Win Smith	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 85487

Well, I put up the Johnson quote here recently, and I agree with you in general, but Tim is right about a few things. Not many elected Democrats switched to Republicans around '64, or since then for that matter. Strom Thurmond was the only one in '64, Jesse Helms and Trent Lott switched in the '70s , but before they were elected. A few more in the '80s and '90s, oddly there seemed to be more defections in the Clinton years than in the Reagan years. There's a list at en.wikipedia.org But the larger point remains. The post-reconstruction South was solidly Democratic till 1964 and the Voting Rights act and other civil rights legislation. The south hated Republicans before 1964, primarily because the Republican party was indeed the party of Lincoln and civil war resentment never died there. After '64, the present reality finally started to overcome the historical antipathy, much aided by Nixon's southern strategy. The switch to Republican wasn't instant, but was pretty inexorable. It seemed to go hand in hand with the rightward move of the Republican party- there used to be liberal Republicans and conservative (mostly southern) Democrats; now, not so much. I'd argue that the Democratic party hasn't moved left anywhere near as much as the Republicans have moved right, but there is a much cleaner split than there used to be. Saying the Republicans are the party of Lincoln these days means about the same as saying the Democrats are the party of Jefferson. It's a different world. A funny postscript: There was this bit from 2004: Few African Americans voted for George W. Bush and other Republicans in the 2004 elections, although it was a higher percentage than any GOP candidate since President Ronald Reagan.[ citation needed] Following Bush's re-election, Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager and Chairman of the RNC, held several large meetings with African-American business, community, and religious leaders. In his speeches, he apologized for his party's use of the Southern Strategy in the past. When asked about the strategy of using race as an issue to build GOP dominance in the once-Democratic South, Mehlman replied, "Republican candidates often have prospered by ignoring black voters and even by exploiting racial tensions," and, "by the '70s and into the '80s and '90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African-American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out. Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong." [37] [38] en.wikipedia.org And then Mehlman was succeeded by Michael Steele. But that went nowhere, Obama's election pretty much sent it all back in the other direction. I know Republicans resent any implication of racism in their antipathy toward Obama. And in a sense there's some justification for that- they seem to hate all Democratic presidents going back to Roosevelt pretty much equally. Excepting maybe Truman and Kennedy a little, but I can't think of any other Democratic president ever given the least little respect by current conservatives. Of course, if current conservatives looked at Reagan's record as president compared to current dogma, they'd have to put Reagan in the RINO category too. The quest for ideological purity is pretty brutal.

To: koan who wrote (7418)	1/25/2012 11:26:37 AM
From: longnshort	4 Recommendations Respond to of 85487

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." -- Josef Goebbles "Democrats are unwavering in our support of equal opportunity for all Americans. That’s why we’ve worked to pass every one of our nation’s Civil Rights laws..." -- Democrats.org I keep getting challenged to back up the LBJ quotes in my sign line and even though Ive done so repeatedly (I still get no credit for leaving out LBJ's "uppity Negroes" quote), I thought now would be a good time to once and for all lance the stinking boil of Democrat lies around Civil Right Hero LBJ. In short, LBJ was as racist, always was, always will be. He was Senate Majority Leader when President Eisenhower put forth a Civil Rights Bill and Voting Rights Bill and send in the 82nd Airborne to Little Rock to make the Democrat Governor comply with integrating the public schools. LBJ knew that the South could not keep blacks down forever and that should the Republicans be successful in pursuing the passage of Civil Rights and Voting Rights, Dems would lose the black vote forever. Again, in order to break the racist ways of Southern Democrats, it was Republican President Eisenhower who sponsored both Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act and it was LBJ lead Senate who fought tooth and nail against them. Ike finally signed a watered down Civil Rights Bill. Yes, let me repeat that, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower sponsored and signed the first Civil Rights Bill. Did you know that? "Civil rights became a critical concern during Eisenhower’s administration. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, but the decision was not universally accepted. The people of the South resisted, and racial tensions mounted. In 1957 the governor of Arkansas ordered National Guard troops to prevent a group of African-American students from enrolling at an all-white high school in Little Rock. Eisenhower was forced to send federal troops to escort the new students to school. Eisenhower also proposed and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which was intended to guarantee the voting rights of all African Americans. This was the first civil rights legislation to pass since Reconstruction. It was followed by the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which was an attempt to further strengthen voting rights by mandating federal inspection of local voter registration polls." Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) When he became President after participating as a co-conspirator in the assassination of JFK, LBJ had a chance to co-opt the Civil Rights Legislation as his very own, knowing full well he was trading the white votes in the South for the black votes throughout the nation. Eisenhower would have only lost the white votes in the South which was solid Democrat KKK Country anyway. "This civil rights program about which you have heard so much is a farce and a sham--an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I fought it in the Congress. It is the province of the state to run its own elections. I am opposed to the anti-lynching bill because the Federal Government has no business enacting a law against one kind of murder than another...(And) if a man can tell you who you must hire, he can tell you who not to employ. I have met this head on." Austin, Texas May 22, 1948 quoted in Quotations from Chairman LBJ, Simon and Schuster, NY 1968 "...LBJ biographer Robert Caro notes that prior to 1957, Johnson “had never supported civil rights legislation—any civil rights legislation,” including anti-lynching legislation. His private behavior toward blacks was appalling. Robert Parker, LBJ’s longtime black employee and limousine chauffeur, claims that Johsnon blasted him daily with a blizzard of bigoted slurs. And even as LBJ was being praised by liberals for his appointment of Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court, behind closed doors LBJ’s cynical brand of “identity politics” became clear. As presidential historian Robert Dallek recounts, LBJ explained his decision to a staff member by saying, “"Son, when I appoint a nigger to the court, I want everyone to know he's a nigger." "The Unknown History of Civil Rights" - Wynton Hall, Hoover Institution The LBJ "voting against anti lynching" quote is found in several place including the Senate record and his campaign speeches. "I'll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." -- Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One Ronald Kessler's "Inside The White House" "These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.” -- LBJ Some more interesting reading here: black-and-right.com and here Quotes From Democrats On Race & Anti-Semitism - Right Wing News (Conservative News and Views)

To: koan who wrote (7418)	1/25/2012 2:45:29 PM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 85487

OT You should read some history, rather than politically distorted stories about it. The south went to the Democrats after reconstruction. In the late 40s it slightly pulled away, but mostly to third parties (such as the States' Rights Democratic Party / Dixiecrats). Then even Republicans (at least Eisenhower) picked up some of the South, the "solid south" was weakening well before the 64 civil rights act. This continued through the 60s, and into the 70s, it wasn't an overnight thing in '64. At the presidential level Carter won all of the South except Virginia in 1976. Other than races which where Republican landslides the south only united behind a Republican presidential candidate in 1988 and since 2000, and in 2008 Obama won FL, NC, and VA. Also "south" does not equal "racist", esp. not now. Why does the south support Republican presidential candidates much more than Democrats? Largely because of the policies of Democrats. The South tends to support the military more, and not be quite as keen about big expansions of federal government control. And getting back to your earlier point, which you never acknowledged as incorrect, you where wrong when you say the Democratic members of congress who voted against the civil rights act became Republicans, most of them didn't. Your also wrong to equate opposition to the bill with racism. Much of the opposition was because of racism or pandering to racists, but not all.