By Mark from St Paul

January 25, 2012 5:33 PM | Link to this

Raoul, if you wanted to be just a teensy bit honest about all of this, you’d acknowledge that my argument from the beginning hasn’t been about racist Republicans, it’s been about THE RACIST SOUTHERN DEMOCRATS WHO HAVE TAKEN OVER THE GOP. Does that increase your comfort level any? Seriously, can you imagine the Republican party prior to 1970 ever touching someone like Newt Gingrich with a ten-foot pole? The southern Democrats remade YOUR party (and mine) in their image. I left, and you started rationalizing. Enough is enough. They’re in your party, they’re your problem, I wash my hands of them, your party and you. Congratulations on reelecting Barack Obama to a second term.

By Raoul

January 25, 2012 4:21 PM | Link to this

OK, now we are down to some Republicans being racist, but hardly any Democrats. Where can one find the actual statistics for this phenomena? I believe about 99% of black voters voted for Obama. Are you going to suggest race had nothing to do with it? Racism is bad, correct? Are we supposed to ignore the possibility that, just maybe, black voters chose Obama simply because he’s black? I think your hatred for racism is a little selective and filtered through the free pass the left gets for all of their brilliant analysis of world events. The left justifies losing elections to Republicans by calling Republicans racist and that’s the narrarive that the MSM gets to put out there. So, if that’s how it must be, prepare to defend yourself and that narrarive, which is why I am carrying on this argument. So far, you have only regurgitated the old myth about Nixon and his ‘Southern Strategy’, which I believe I have put into serious question with my comments. You persist in saying that Democrats have mostly purged themselves of racism without any shred of proof. A large contingent of Democrat voters seem hell bent to end ‘Zionism’, throw Christianity out the window, and exact revenge on the rich. Not all of that can be called racism, but make no mistake, it’s all based on raging hate. Democrats are seemingly allowed to declare themselves innocent of racism. So, what is with all the hate?

By Mark from St Paul

January 25, 2012 1:41 PM | Link to this

More debating tricks? Again, I’ve never said ALL. I keep saying the problem is that the GOP welcomes racists and shields them from intraparty criticism, and you keep answering, “No, we’re not 100% racist!” Fair warning: the biggest meme on the left right now is how closely Gingrich’s campaign is paralleling George Wallace’s, issue-wise. You can refuse to “get” my point all you like, but if there were ANY high profile Republicans ripping on the racists, I’d seriously consider returning to the party of my birth. But there are none. However small the percentage of racists in the modern Republican party, it is a number that dwarfs the number of racists left in the current Democratic party. The migration BEGAN with Nixon, but did not hit full stride until Reagan.

By Raoul

January 24, 2012 4:40 PM | Link to this

I need to retract something from my earlier post. Wallace did not drop out of the race in ‘68’. But, his numbers dropped dramatically by election day, and Humphrey’s numbers went up by that same amount. If Nixon had a ‘Southern strategy’ to get the votes of racist Southerners, he failed miserably. Democrats like LBJ, Byrd, Sam Ervin, Gore (Sr.) all voted against every piece of civil rights legislation while in Congress, while Nixon and most Republicans voted for it. The Congressional Record is where these facts can be found, so it can hardly be a case of ‘revisionism’. In a country where roughly 40% of Americans call themselves conservatives, 20% liberals, and the rest somewhere in between, how does Obama get elected if there is so much racism in our country? The long truth of American politics is that Democrats resisted civil rights until they realized that they were missing out on a lot votes. They used to stand in the school house door and cater to racial hate against Blacks for the votes; now they cater to minorities and call Republicans racists. For every Strom Thurmond (exactly one) there are numerous examples of segregationist Democrats who stayed Democrats, and voted against all the civil rights legislation. I don’t want to make you feel bad for bringing this to your attention, but for the sake of argument, LOOK IT UP, and stop reading anything that suggests otherwise.

By Mark from St Paul

January 24, 2012 1:55 PM | Link to this

Raoul, please review my comments and show me where I ever said ALL. Dismissing my remarks by escalating them is a time-honored debating trick. Voice sympathy for a person accused of murder and you’ll be accused of wanting to set all murderers free. The migration of racists to the Republican party over the past forty years is undeniable. That the migration didn’t gain momentum until the early to mid-70s doesn’t mean Nixon wasn’t pitching in the late ’60s. And the fact that many southern Democrat racists became Republicans doesn’t make ALL Republicans racist anymore than the entire Democratic party was racist when it clearly controlled the South. But the FACT is that the racism of the Southern Democrats tore the old Democratic party apart. Recruiting and coddling those same racists after they were ejected from the Democratic party hasn’t divided the Republican party — hell, it hasn’t even come up for discussion! Fact: the GOP is very comfortable with the presence of racists within their ranks. That doesn’t make them all racists, but it hardly gives you clean hands. What is so hard about acknowledging facts, then saying, “but I disagee with racism and that doesn’t apply to me or my friends or any of the Republicans I know”? Instead you go to war with me because you cannot tolerate any criticism of a party that is all too easy to criticize. Today Mitt Romney gave Obama the 2012 election on a silver (platinum?) platter. The bomb-throwing Newt Gingrich made Romney do it: Obama never said one word about Romney’s taxes. Racism/religious bigotry is tearing your party apart, but you’d rather argue with me. Good luck with that.

By Raoul

January 24, 2012 7:27 AM | Link to this

Now that you are actually reading history, tell me why Nixon’s poll numbers did not change when Wallace left the race? Where did all the Wallace racist vote go? To Hubert H. Humphrey (who if you are keeping score, was a liberal Democrat). Go back farther and you will see that the Republican party has sponsored nearly all the Civil Rights legislation going back to the Civil War, including 1964. You can look all this up of course. But I want to know why all the Southern voters are racist when the vote Republican, but when they vote for Carter, and Clinton, nothing is ever said about racist, Southern voters. Of course you cannot explain this, nor can the NY Times, Media Matters, Move On, etc. It’s a myth that people like you believe because you cannot accept that everyone who votes Republican is NOT a racist. I would suggest to you that you know absolutely nothing about politics and racism, except that which has been programmed into you by ‘revisionist leftists’ who seem to control all the magazines, newspapers, publishing houses, TV News, etc. It’s nice to know one can actually look into the record books to see which party has stood for civil rights all along, and which party switched to it after the votes (from minorities, thanks to Republicans)started to count.

By Mark from St Paul

January 23, 2012 5:16 PM | Link to this

Well, not trusting my memories from 40 years ago, you made me look. And what I found was what I thought I remembered. Nixon was legally bound to enforce the laws LBJ had passed, but he did so while issuing countless dogwhistles to the southern Democrats he was wooing. Nixon’s DOJ would not “force integration,” they would simply enforce desegregation laws. Current historians (not being paid by the Heritage Foundation) say that Nixon accomplished “de jure” desegregation, while leaving the barn door wide open to “de facto” segregation. Not just wide open, but they posted lots of signs letting southern Democrats know that the barn door was open. But common sense should have told you this, Raoul. Why would you view Nixon, of all people, in this way? You do know he is the only President captured on tape saying “n*gger” don’t you? I would encourage you to read Tom Edsall’s piece in today’s NYTimes, and the companion piece that ran a week ago. Edsall speaks directly to the modern right’s inability to say anything nice about anyone who isn’t them (and if you don’t believe him, read the comments). Personally, I’ve come to believe that 20% of this country would like to secede or, better yet, start a new Civil War. We’re still fighting the first one, and I for one wonder if it ever ended. The Democrats purged the worst of their racists and the GOP picked up their option. Yours is the party that welcomes racists with open arms, and if you don’t like hearing that I’m sorry. I don’t say it to anger you, I say it to put our current political miasma into a more accurate context. I’ve spent my entire life affiliated with whichever major party stands against racism. That currently is not the Republican party, and it’s sophistry to pretend otherwise.

By Raoul

January 22, 2012 9:57 AM | Link to this

So Nixon is now a revisionist? Like when his administration integrated public schools and signed Affirmative Action into law? Was that all part of the ‘Southern Strategy’? It’s just myth-making by the left to explain why Americans vote for Republicans. The same voters that went for Nixon later went for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. I wonder what their ‘Southern Strategy’ was? The only way the left can justify losing to the right is by calling them racists and somehow you get away with it. Sorry for the revisionism.

By Mark from St Paul

January 20, 2012 3:36 PM | Link to this

Raoul, I’m finding it hard to respond to you because it’s like trying to hit a moving target. I cut and pasted all of your comments into one document so I could study them to figure out what you’re trying to tell me. You began by telling me that I was saying Republicans were racist for not sucking up to minorities. I said no such thing, but I’m sure that you’ve heard it said that “liberals believe….” I think almost all of our differences of opinion would vanish if you simply read what liberals themselves wrote instead of having someone else chew our words for you first (if you did, you wouldn’t accuse the left of “despising” black Americans). The sites I frequent like Media Matters use extensive quotes to analyze Republicans’ own words, but the party of Karl Rove seems to specialize in highly misleading shorter quotes, usually ripped out of context with never a link to the original source (Media Matters documents their articles extensively — you don’t have to agree with their findings, but their scholarship is transparent and beyond reproach, which is why the right hates that site). You have mangled Dr. King’s words, but in the exact same way conservatives always choose to do so, conveniently ignoring the fact that Dr. King was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers (unionists!). He was trying to achieve a color blind society, but we still haven’t gotten there. You insist that Democrats are the haters because we disagree with the African American tokens who preach the Southern Democratic line to GOP audiences. Apparently the 1% of blacks who support Republicans outweigh the 99% who do not. The only Republican blacks who get ripped by the left are the ones who lie about who they are. I’ve never seen Thomas Sowell casually dismissed. The left doesn’t always agree with him, but we respect his scholarship, unlike the sloppy opinions of Clarence Thomas, a third-rate justice on a fourth-rate court. You eventually dismissed my ’60s Southern Democrats = GOP 1980-2012 by saying “I don’t care!” Then you turned around and continued to argue that it’s all just politics and that racism will be with us always. Possibly, but that’s no reason for either major party to embrace racists. Also, I watched the SC debate last night and was horrified at how a smug jerk with the emotional maturity of an eighth grader belled the Romney and Gingrich cats over and over again. Sorry, I’m not ready to elect a President who is so eager to tattle on his colleagues and who values his church more than he does the U.S. Constitution. The venue itself was shameful, with a guy out front “warming up” the crowd like it was the David Letterman show. That’s not politics, that’s show business and the media has noticed that the GOP crowds at these debates cheer the ugliest lines while hissing at efforts to promote comity. These audiences don’t want a united country, they want everything on their terms and eff anyone who says elsewise. You have chosen your party, now lay with them. I have rejected my party and am looking for a saner alternative, but it won’t come from your party, that’s for sure. The reasons why I left the Republican party in the early ’70s are still valid today: yours is the party of racist dogwhistles, and the comments at rightwing political sites prove my point in copious and explicit detail. For you to say otherwise in a thread devoted to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is odious and offensive. Enough sir, have you no decency? MLK would have never endorsed your Republican party, and if he had, your party would have run from him like a scalded cat (as they did when King was alive). King’s mantle does not belong to you or your friends no matter how much you think black Americans should kiss Republican behinds because of something Lincoln did, something the GOP has been trying to undo for over 40 years now (and not just for blacks, but for all working people who under GOP rule would be paid almost enough to raise a family in this, the richest nation on earth).

By Raoul

January 20, 2012 9:20 AM | Link to this

Mark, I totally accept your explanation of why you parted ways with the GOP. I don’t have any issues with it. I, on the other hand went from leaning liberal Democrat to conservative Republican. It makes neither of us wrong. We just disagree. Nixon’s so-called ‘Southern Strategy’ was a politcal move to gain more votes and win an election. The Democrats do the same thing. You never answer my question about why liberals hate successful, self-made Black men and women. It’s because you have no answer, and it proves my point. You have rejected the very principle this country was based upon…a free and equal society of humankind able to live, prosper, and grow according to their own desires, needs, and wants. You have replaced this principle with one that demands justice in the form of elitist, statist government, where the state has all the answers and should dictate it’s will upon it’s citizens because the state knows what is best. Until you come to terms with that, you will find racism and hatred in all those that oppose your elitist, utopian world view. If it makes you feel better, I will try to go to the propagandist link you provided to see what horrors Fox News is perpetrating on the world, but for the last time, I don’t get my talking points from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, or anyone else. I have been around the block enough to know who is scamming who, and there is a lot of it coming from both sides. But my friend, most of the scamming comes from the left. The OWS movement was an interesting look into mob rule; wealthy elitists in one zone refusing to share food, drugs, etc., middle and lower class wanna-be’s in the other zone engaging in all kinds of group debauchery, and little cooperation between the 2. Is that your utopian society?

By Mark from St Paul

January 19, 2012 5:50 PM | Link to this

Btw, here’s a top media critic on how things work at Fox News: tinyurl.com/RomeneskoVsFox. If you get your news from Fox, you should follow that link to some facts that might surprise you.

By Blowfly

January 19, 2012 5:23 PM | Link to this

The story of race relations and politics is about as mixed up as any other story about race. In the 1960s there were republicans like George Romney, Charles Percy, and John Lindsey who were not just civil rights supporters but leaders as well. Not all racists lived in the south as MLK found out when he made his way to Chicago in the spring of ‘68, and LBJ found out very quickly when he watched Watts burn in ‘65 (just a few months after his landslide election) and when he faced devastating white backlash on school desegregation and open housing legislation from members of his own party. It wasn’t just George Wallace and Lester Maddox who were the problem (both malignant racists of the southern democratic kind that never had anything in common with northern liberals like Humphrey, RFK, McCarthy, and the like). Nixon made his deal with the devil in the form of Strom Thurmond in ‘68 to make sure his support didn’t go to Reagan - Nixon agreed to go easy on segregation and select a VP agreeable to Strom - but Nixon was more amoral than racist. Elements in the civil rights movements like the Black Panthers and Stokely Carmichael didn’t exactly help their cause with their incessant calls for violence. But, in general before the civil rights movement most blacks identified themselves as republicans, not because the republicans were doing anything for them but because it was the party of Lincoln. Then FDR came along and things started to change. He understood that to win elections you had to identify with peoples’ resentments (Nixon perfected it), and people resented being poor, out of work and powerless, and nobody was more poor, out of work, and powerless than blacks. Then the civil rights movement emerged and it wasn’t clear how it would shake out. JFK and LBJ made it a democratic issue and blacks shifted from republican to democrat and those opposed shifted the other way. Battle lines were drawn by the late 60s, and things haven�t changed a whole lot since. I met a woman from the Soviet Union one time who told me she didn�t understand the whole black white thing in America because there was no racism in the USSR. I doubted that and she said everyone was treated like a dog. I guess that�s one solution.

By Mark from St Paul

January 19, 2012 3:14 PM | Link to this

Raoul, I envy you your ability to take what you choose from what others write with no effort made to figure out what they meant as opposed to what you choose to decide they meant. How many times do I have to state in this forum that as a child I was a Republican because I despised the Southern Democrats? And that when Nixon brought the Southern Democrats into the Republican party, I left the Republican party? What part of this equation baffles you? Do you question my youthful support of Eisenhower, Nixon and Goldwater? Or are you having trouble reading past my rejection of the older, more cynical Nixon? Would it make any difference to you if you saw the Barry Goldwater record album in my collection, or the Goldwater in ‘64 button on my car’s dashboard? The only thing — THE ONLY THING — that keeps me voting Democratic (with the occasional Nader exception) is that the Republican party has become America’s RACIST party. It’s not a complicated thing to understand, and I keep citing why I believe this. You, Raoul, in turn keep telling me crap that Fox News viewers think Democrats think, crap that doesn’t bear even a casual resemblance to fact. FACT: many current Democrats are former Republicans who couldn’t stand the racism and hypocrisy (like me). FACT: many current Republicans are former Democrats who switched parties as a result of LBJ outlawing legal racism in the USA. FACT: every single “hand out” program you cite is more heavily used by poor whites than by blacks. (a higher % of blacks perhaps, but the bottom line is that the biggest group on welfare in this country by total numbers is WHITE). Those are FACTS. Your BELIEFS are something else altogether, but thanks for sharing them so we can all see where you’re coming from. But whatever you choose to believe, today’s Democratic party is roughly the ideological counterpart of the 1960s GOP. It is a party that is moderate to conservative with almost no liberal tendencies whatsoever. You fail to notice this because you refuse to acknowledge that the GOP has gone from center-right to hard right to extremist right over the past 40 years. Your party ruthlessly purges itself of moderates, and then uses ridiculous rhetorical inflation to create their own bubbleverse where conservative moderates like Obama become socialists, and economy-wrecking multinational monopolists like the ballet-funding Koch brothers become patriots. Enjoy reading about how much money Mitt has squirreled away in offshore banking havens, and be sure to let us know what you think about Newt’s “open marriage” request to his second wife. Yes, Republicans talk about values all the time, but in the case of your leadership, it’s all to distract you from their personal lack of values. Enjoy your time in the Grand Old Southern Democratic Party — they’re not who you think they are, and everything they say that you like is probably a campaign promise/lie. Or you could focus on facts over rhetoric, and recognize that the best chance we have to beat Obama would come from a left-right coalition forming around Ron Paul. The door is open but you keep slamming it in our face but someday you’ll come to appreciate that the differences between Obama and Romney are much less than you think, and that the real threat to this country comes from the 1%, and not the 99% who actually do all the work (for a very small share of the money).

By Raoul

January 19, 2012 1:52 PM | Link to this

If I offended you Iowans in any way I apologize. I said nothing disparaging Iowa, and it sounds like a great place, with great traditions. I only meant to convey the sense that Iowa was probably pretty far removed from all the civil rights movement drama. I wish I could say the same. Since you won’t address my challenge as to why liberals don’t like self-made Black Americans, I will address yours about Nixon’s ‘Southern Strategy’. I don’t care! Period! Racism and politics have gone together for as long as this country has been around. If you despise the GOP because of racism, the least you can do is despise Democrats equally for theirs. Let’s not pretend all the great Democrat leaders in the past few generations like the Kennedy’s, FDR, Byrd, LBJ, etc., were virtuous in their devotion to minorities, especially Blacks. I am sure you found evidence in your research of the slave trade how Africans sold their own kin into slavery. Doesn’t that suggest that we humans all are victims of our own human frailty’s? Did that get written about in your paper? By the way, Fox News was not around to lie to me during the 60’s and 70’s, so I am not sure why you would bring them up. But if you ever want to read about real-life civil rights clashes between Black and White I would be happy to chronicle some of my experiences and send them to you. You might find them interesting.

By Mark from St Paul

January 19, 2012 12:50 PM | Link to this

Me explaining where I am coming from has very little to do with Iowa but then being transparent is a concept alien to the modern right. YOU challenged me and my comments Raoul, so I shared more with you resulting in your mocking me for caring enough about others to learn more about cultures that were alien to me as a young person. My point was that I was isolated from minority culture growing up, but I guess my trying to rectify that makes me a lesser person — am I getting your point yet? But I will defend Iowa, which is not quite as monocultural as the wags make out. Two counties over from our farm was the town of Elkader, named after Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri, an Algerian who led a 19th Century revolt against French colonialist (you remember the French, the folks the right loves to despise?). The oldest U.S. mosque west of the Mississippi is in Cedar Rapids. Iowa is a very rural state, yet we are among the nation’s leaders in education as our heritage does not include writing off poor people like most rural states tend to do (in Iowa a high school education means you can read and write and do basic business math). Iowa is a hotbed of religious diversity with numerous Amish and Mennonite communities coexisting among their more secular neighbors. Tolerance (minding your own business) was chief among Iowa’s virtues, but the rise of evangelicals in our state (Steve King’s base) put an end to that and Iowa’s politics are now as acerbic and nasty as South Carolina’s. Iowa was a rock-ribbed Republican state right up until Nixon welcomed the southern Democrats into the GOP, and Iowa has been less Republican ever since as a direct result. Iowa was one of the first states to outlaw racial discrimination, abolishing miscegnation laws in 1851 (the same kind of laws as were common in the South until the 1960s). Separate but equal schooling was outlawed in 1868. Businesses were prohibited from racial discrimination in 1884. The University of Iowa began admitting women in 1847. Raoul, the real knock on Iowa has always been, “If you had more minorities, you wouldn’t like them so much.” Yes, Iowa treats people fairly, however much that irritates some folks. We have no special entitlement programs, not having systemically discriminated against any groups of people. There are no ghettoes in Iowa (some run-down neighborhoods maybe). Iowa is far from perfect, but close enough that when I moved to Minnesota I was shocked by some of the overt racism and anti-Semitism here (not a big thing but big enough). But seriously, just go on believing in the world according to Fox and talk radio. They’re misinforming you, but so long as you only hang out with other misinformed people, you should do fine. Now reread my comments in this thread and try to figure out what your last comment had to do with anything I wrote. My point, and I repeat it endlessly, is that almost all of the old Southern Democrats are now Republicans. That’s a fact, jack. Show me any study or statistics that suggest otherwise. The Republican party (as personified by Newt Gingrich) is “the” party of American racism now. That’s a betrayal of the GOP’s heritage and the inevitable result of welcoming the most racist part of America into the GOP. Again, reread what I wrote, and show me the dots connecting my words to your rebuttal. There are none. I’m pushing your buttons and you’re reciting Fox News to me. Clearly, only a minority of Republicans are racists, but they are a noisy minority and the party shamefully is not ashamed of being the party that preaches division and hate, however cleverly the dogwhistles are worded.

By Raoul

January 19, 2012 7:44 AM | Link to this

I never realized that Iowa played such a central role in the civil rights movement. Downsized, if you or Mark could just explain why Democrats and people on the left despise black Americans who succeed by lifting themselves out of poverty and not using government provided handouts to reach a decent level of personal success, I guess I would have to admit that I might be wrong. The only path that Dem’s want minorities to take to prosperity is through government sponsored entitlements. FDR saw this as a way for Democrats to keep the “N-vote” forever. But I am sure nothing compares to the horrors of ghetto life on the farms and in the cities of 1950’s and 60’s Iowa. Maybe you can educate us.

By Irishguy

January 19, 2012 7:22 AM | Link to this

DS, FDR’s playbook is filed away next to Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” handbook.

By downsized

January 18, 2012 9:20 PM | Link to this

Having been born and lived in Iowa, I’ve never met a person of color but,I think the Rev. Dr. King would have agreed with Raoul. The biggest fear of the Democrat party is minorities fulfilling their dreams. Which is why they’re so terrified by Mr.Obama being President. I would like to read this playbook written by FDR. Where can it be found?

By Irishguy

January 18, 2012 8:47 PM | Link to this

I’ll never understand why anyone objects to showing an ID to vote. I have to show one to buy beer, is that racist??

By Raoul

January 18, 2012 4:15 PM | Link to this

Now you have opened up a can of worms, Mark. Democrats seem to love minorities until they stand on their own 2 feet and don’t need the handouts anymore. At that point, love turns to hate. (Alan Keyes, Judge Thomas, Herman Cain, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Star Parker, and countless others too numerous to mention). The Dem’s biggest fear is that minorities will someday realize that they are capable of fulfilling their own dreams and providing for their own prosperity. That’s why they ‘Uncle Tom’ every black conservative they run across. You have been reading too much of one revisionist set of history books while ignoring real life as it happens. MLK’s own niece, a freedom fighter herself, is now an outspoken conservative who totally rejects the revisionist history you have come to embrace. We all recognize the sins of racism past and present; but the Democrat party takes the cake. Not only have they pandered for and received the black vote, they have snubbed them and spited them right in their faces. FDR was right! What has the GOP done for minorities? They haven’t voted for Democrats and Democrat policies, that’s what. Good enough for me. As far as voter ID laws, you of course have it all wrong. If an individual wants to vote, we all have the right to know who that individual is. It requires a minimal amount of citizenship to prove to others who you are. There is nothing racist about it; it is just common sense. Your anger should be at those that cannot prove who they are, not those that want to see the proof. Voting is a sacred gift of freedom and should not be treated irresponsibly. If someone’s vote is ‘supressed’ because they cannot prove their identity, it’s that voter’s fault and not the fault of the mean old GOP. At least that would be true in a sane world of common sense.

By steven1969

January 18, 2012 2:22 PM | Link to this

@mark from st paul.did you go to public school.i went to a public school and i am a owner of a trucking company.its a small company.so i think public schools are fine.get a grip.i bet you went to a non public school??????good for you??????

By Mark from St Paul

January 18, 2012 2:04 PM | Link to this

In my case “or something” amounted to sharing a house with some black friends, minoring in African American World Studies, and writing a research paper on the slave trade in the Americas. But having grown up Republican and witnessed the shameless way in which Nixon whored the GOP out to the Civil Rights hating Southern Democrats, I can’t buy your revisionist history of the Republican party working for a colorblind society. That’s just flat out false, and flies in the face of the monstrously evil “voter ID” movement which is being pushed exclusively by Republicans mainly in states with heavy black and Latino populations despite the almost complete lack of documentation for any effective vote stealing anywhere in the country. Voter ID is, like laws that prohibit felons from voting, a legacy of Jim Crow and it is all about not letting nonwhites vote. The Republican party worked very hard to corral the racist vote in this country, and if you don’t believe me, try reading Perlstein’s Nixonland. Or simply read the transcript of any Newt Gingrich speech and count the dogwhistles. But this is an issue where your personal beliefs do not count. What does count is what the two major parties do, and who they do it to. What, if anything, has the Republican party done for nonwhites in the last forty years?

By Raoul

January 18, 2012 8:03 AM | Link to this

Republicans are racist because they don’t suck up to minorities, is that what you have learned Mark? My guess is you did not actually meet a real Black person until you went to the big city after graduation from high school. You are not the only one who lived through the civil rights era. Conservatives today believe exactly what MLK preached. His main message was that we should judge people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. This translates to a color blind society, which is a concept I beleive is aligned solidly with the conservative movement and best espoused politically by Republicans and Libertarians. The Democrat party is a crazy collection of special interest groups who hate each other as much as they hate the GOP. No one interested in racial equality would ever accept the basic Democrat playbook, which was authored by FDR himself, who said something to the effect of ‘give them enough relief and the Democrat party will own the N- vote forever’. Having been raised in the inner city along the divide between black and white I found myself on the front lines of the civil rights movement, which was often a bloody battleground. Gang against gang, black on one side, white on the other. There was a lot of hate and prejudice, but eventually you grow up and move on. I have a few scars from those years, but also have a few good memories of meeting half way and working out differences. Not sure if living on a farm in Iowa can equate to that, but you know, one can always read a book or something.

By Slightly Right

January 16, 2012 6:20 PM | Link to this

Dr King’s work is still being undermined by finger pointing to the past. Americans that really want tolorance are looking at how far we have come, and how far we still need to go. Solutions is what we need, not continued hate. That is exactally what Martin Luther King didn’t want. His peaceful and determined approach is what worked in the fifties and sixties. As far as politics go, there was injustice acts commited by politicians on both sides.

By H. Lee

January 16, 2012 5:54 PM | Link to this

Well, Mark, I think you should tell us how you really feel. Actually, I completely agree with you, and I am even older than you. I was in grad school when MLK was killed. The cities, many of them, went up in flames, although not Cleveland, where I was living. What a wierd, wierd, time in American history. Martin Luther King was one the the rare Americans who not only made a difference, but could have made so much more of a difference had he lived. He was actually figuring this whole game out: that the rich just love to keep the poor factions (poor whites vs. poor blacks) fighting and hating each other. That way, the poor are distracted from seeing who is really exploiting them. The rich (most of them, anyway)love that.

By Mark from St Paul

January 16, 2012 5:15 PM | Link to this

I’d ask for a second example, but I know you don’t have one. From Wikipedia: “In 1997, Byrd told an interviewer he would encourage young people to become involved in politics but also: “Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don’t get that albatross around your neck. Once you’ve made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena.” In his last autobiography, Byrd explained that he was a KKK member because he “was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision —a jejune and immature outlook—seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions.” Byrd also said, in 2005, “I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don’t mind apologizing over and over again. I can’t erase what happened.”” ** The difference between Byrd and Republican racists? We’re still waiting for the first Republican racist to step forward and apologize. The fact is that racist Southern Democrats became Republicans because Nixon honored them for their hate, and told them they didn’t have to apologize to anyone for Jim Crow.

By re: Mark from St Paul

January 16, 2012 5:10 PM | Link to this

Mark, you need to study real history, not the dumbed downed crap taught in public schools, not the revisionist history taught in today’s liberal universities that you clearly buy into. Start reading some personal writings, the congressional records, for example, seek out the truth, real facts and accounts of real events as they occurred. You are the true revisionist. Not too many people are interested in the twisted self-serving words of Mark from St. Paul, because it’s clear where you are coming from. Anyone who disagrees with your post, is prejudged as a racist, a republican, a fox news watcher. But if you believe the modern day democratic party’s values mirror those of MLK, as someone who also grew up in the civil rights era,that is proof positive of one who rewrites history to suit his ideology. You are everything you claim the other side to be. The only factually accurate statement in your entire post was admitting you are long winded. A blowhard to be precise.

By Irishguy

January 16, 2012 12:49 PM | Link to this

Wow, well Mark, Robert Byrd remained a Democrat well past 1980.

By Mark from St Paul

January 16, 2012 11:39 AM | Link to this

As a Billy Graham crusade loving Lutheran kid growing up on a farm in northern Iowa, I was fascinated by the Civil Rights movement. Absolutely everything the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preached was straight from the Bible, and I was horrified by the brutal response of the Southern Democrats to Civil Rights protesters. Later, after King was assassinated, I grudgingly found myself gravitating towards the Democratic party because every racist, piece of crap Southern Democrat either died or became a Republican by 1980. Today’s GOP is comprised of yesterday’s Civil Rights hating Southern Democrats mixed in with northern racist Wall Street embracing faux capitalists. My views on the USA’s horrible record on racism and income inequality have not changed in my lifetime, but keeping my belief in racial equality did require me to switch from the party of Lincoln to the party of FDR/LBJ. And if Lincoln was alive today, he’d be a Democrat. But I don’t mean to be long-winded and I’ll shut up now Vick so that the young folks who read your blog can take turns lecturing me on the history of what really happened in my childhood as told to them by Fox News and the rest of the lying liars who rewrite history to fit their ideology. Those of us who lived through the Civil Rights era know the truth of that fight, no matter how much bilge the revisionists put out there.