Remember back when republicans thought segregation was cool?

[bigtree]

Strom Thurmond 1948

"There's not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."


Trent Lott 1980

"You know, if we had elected this man (Strom Thurmond) 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today."


Trent Lott 2002

"I want to say this about my state: when Strom Thurmond ran for President, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."



from Media Matters: http://mediamatters.org/items/200611160006

In 1982, Lott voted against the extension of the Voting Rights Act, which authorizes the Justice Department to review election law changes in Mississippi and other Deep South states and to monitor elections.

In 1983, he was one of 90 House members who voted against creating a national holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Six years later, Lott was one of seven senators who voted to abolish the King holiday commission, and in 1994, he was one of 28 who favored scrapping its federal funding.

Lott was one of 34 senators who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1990, which reversed five Supreme Court rulings that had limited the ability of minorities to win job discrimination lawsuits and damages. After President George H. W. Bush vetoed the bill, Lott voted for a different version in 1991.



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[Erika]

1. And Strom Thurmond's black daughter shows up after his death

Republicans worship the buck. That's it in the entirety.

[bigtree]

21. true. Dana Milbank spells it out

"In the end, though, Republicans didn’t forgive Lott out of a concern for his personal growth. They forgave him because, thrust into the minority, they need his nose-counting and dealmaking skills. In the process, they risked another round of bad press (“roll the Strom Thurmond tape,” a TV reporter called out after the vote) and delivered a rebuke to the White House, which orchestrated Lott’s ouster."

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/nation/politics/16036849.htm

[MADem]

24. Well, she showed up well before that. She just kept her mouth shut while he was alive.

Wise is the woman who knows her own father--and she knew who her daddy was, from her teenage years. There was no mistaking it--she resembled him greatly.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/17/60II/main589107.shtml

Essie Mae Williams:
I met my father in 1941 when I went to South Carolina. I was about 16 years old. At that time my mother had taken me over to see him and introduced us to each other. And since that time, I was in contact with him constantly.

Dan Rather:
I want to follow up on that, but what do you remember of that first meeting when your mother took you over to meet your father?

Essie Mae Williams:
Well, I was very glad to meet him because I was raised by an uncle. And that's why I had the name of Washington. I took on the name of my aunt and her husband. And yet I knew I had a dad somewhere. But I had never met him, and nobody ever talked about him. Because I didn't live with my mother, and she was the one who knew most about him. She had told me a few things. So I was very glad to meet him..... Well, when we went there, she had gone to see him to arrange the meeting. And she said, "I'm going to take you to introduce you to your father." And of course she did that. At that time he was a young attorney. And he was glad to meet me, because of course, he had never seen me. And it was a very nice meeting. And we talked about various things such as what I planned to do in life.

And since then, he had also given me a lot of counseling. And he was the one who had recommended South Carolina State College, because I didn't have any particular college in mind at the time. And I was down there at South Carolina State College for about three years. And during that time, I would see him periodically. .....

[davidinalameda]

2. Strom wasn't alone in 1948

let's not forget the Democratic Party played a big role in keeping segregation alive in the south

of course, now those Democrats would be Republicans but you get the picture

[JeffR]

3. dwickham beat me to it

I was going to point out that I'm old enough - and Southern enough - to remember when a lot of Democrats felt the same way. It makes me sick, but I can't pretend it wasn't the case.

[WilliamPitt]

4. Wheee! That's when the segregationists were all Democrats!

Glass houses and shit...

C'mon, bigtree. You bend over backwards for the Dems, even more than I do. A little historical honesty won't sting...too much.

[bigtree]

11. Okay. I'm not that dumb. I thought it was enough that they're republicans

It was a play on the fact that the republican party supports Lott who supported Strom who supported segregation. The rest can easily be sorted out. I didn't see any need to cover them with the fact that Strom and his democrats were the first idiots.

It's the same type of play on words which glosses over relevant facts, even obscures them to make the point that many would agree with, that republicans employ. I don't feel a whit of wrong in using the tactic against them.

Many of the cretins still wish we were back in those days like Lott, like Strom, still wishing for their old segregationist past. Now their republican partners seem 'cool' with that wistfulness Lott expressed for those segregationist days. I won't stretch myself to give them cover by assuming they don't agree with his wistfulness, just the public exposure of it. I won't assume the republican party gives a damn about black people because they just let a segregationist lover back into their leadership fold.

So, I remember (back in 2002) when republicans thought segregation was cool. (Lott, and others, defending Strom - defenders of Lott then, defenders of Lott now)

For you Will, fleshed out. For republicans letting the likes of Lott back into their leadership fold, I don't have any need to wrap it all up pretty for them. They should all be ashamed to have Lott in the same room with them as far as I'm concerned. Some things mean just that much to me. I won't apologize for the distortion in the title. Let them clean the impression up. I won't let them run from it. They chose the cretin. They will have to live with it.

It's like this. Republicans thought segregation was cool (okay

[Chipper Chat]

5. Strom was a democrat in 1948.

Actually he ran as a dixiecrat and was not afraid to use the word n****r throughout the campaign.

[WilliamPitt]

6. Seems like

bigtree is pissing up the wrong rope with this topic...

[Chipper Chat]

8. Methinks me sees planks in democrat eyes.?

Ann Coulter had a column about this following the Lott 'botched joke.'
Actually she was on the mark about Thurmond and the racist past of the democratic party. Of course she spoiled it by trashing Ted Kennedy at the end.
Sorry, Annie - you'll never win us over.
www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/coulter121902.asp - 13k
edited to include link to A** C****** article
(mods: I promise never to do this again!)

[bigtree]

14. coulter had it right?

bullshit. How many of those folks back then would consider themselves Democrats as we represent our party TODAY? The label certainly said Democrat back then, but those dixiecrats bear more resemblence to the black-hating republicans and their black-hating policies of today.

[bigtree]

12. do you really think any surviving segregationists would be Democrats now?

Who is supporting the republican racist who supported the republican segregationist? Who has elevated the republican racist who supported the republican segregationist?

republicans. They're exactly the right rope to piss on

[hexola]

7. Has Lott started whipping any minoritys yet? (nt)

[bigtree]

16. I like that. Good one.

I'm feeling much better now, thank you

[MADem]

9. Strom was a DEMOCRAT back then....but when LBJ ushered in civil rights

they all jumped like they'd been tossed on a hot griddle. The party of Lincoln became the party of stinkin'....racists. A little history here: http://www.counterpunch.org/gray12112004.html

As for Trent, he started out in his youth as a Democrat, too.

And after the Strom fiasco, he went on BET and apologized. I almost never agree with Pat Buchanan, but his remark that he 'did everything save genuflect to Tavis Smiley in a dashiki' made me laugh. He also said something along the lines that they were all drunk and he was trying to say something nice to an old man and "bungled the joke."

Here's the thing--we KNOW where Trent sits on those sorts of issues. It ain't a secret. Better he's out there in the open rather than skulking around with mealy-mouthed phrases, big lies, and smarmy, insincere gestures.

And what's GOOD about Trent? Well, a few things. He HATES Rove. He HATES the White House. They SCREWED him, even after he begged forgiveness and many said to hell with it, we know what he is, no big deal.

And now he's (oh, the irony) minority WHIP (why not call him overseer and be done with it?).

That old saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?

Think of Trent Lott as a FRIEND to the Democratic caucus. If he and his state are taken care of, he'll screw the executive branch as soon as look at them.

After all, they did just that to him.

[bigtree]

13. Lott as a friend?

no.

If he's now decided to screw his own, fine. That doesn't make him a friend, ally, or anything else I want to get close to.

[malaise]

15. The key point here is that Lott

still felt this way in 2002 and this should be a much repeated Dem talking point. How did he vote for the trade with South Africa bill in the 80s?

Edit- add.

[MADem]

22. Oh, YES. You simply don't understand the collegiality of the Senate if you insist on that sort of

anger-in-perpetuity. That sort of attitude ensures nothing save gridlock.

Despite all the rancor of late, the Senators speak to one another way more than those in the House. And thank HEAVENS for that.

Guess who was the FIRST Senator to call Trent after his house blew away in Katrina, and who sent down a planeload of supplies for him and his neighbors?

Why, John Kerry. Liberal old John Kerry from the People's Republic of Massachusetts.

Here's the quote, to allay those untrusting, suspicious minds:

LOTT : John Kerry called my wife Tricia and me at our home -- I don't remember -- two or three days ago and said he and Teresa wanted to help. And I identified what we needed and he said, "Where can we land the plane?" And I told him. And I assigned a staff member to coordinate with him.
http://lott.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=194&Month=9&Year=2005


The enemy of my enemy IS my friend.

[regnaD kciN]

10. Why, it seems like it was just yesterday...

...wait a minute, it was just yesterday! :evilgrin:

[Buzz Clik]

17. George Wallace, not a Republican

Wallace was anti-desegregation's loudest spokesman.

[bigtree]

18. why go around MY point?

Strom supported segregation. Sure, they were 'democrats' in name, but, NO ONE can argue that the democratic party back then resembled ANY aspect of the Democratic party NOW.

Strom didn't retire a Democrat, he retired as a republican. Lott isn't a Democrat, he's a republican. Many of his party and his republican supporters thought it was just fine that he was wistful for the old days when blacks were treated like second-class citizens by law in his comments supporting the segregationist Thurmond.

The republicans who ran to his defense over the comments were just fine with Strom. To me he was an abomination, perpetuated by rEPUBLICAN support. To me, that support was an undercover way of approving and identifying with Strom's racist, segregationist past. I NEVER accepted any repudiation Thurmond may have attempted to make about his past.

I think it's one more reflection of the republican's support of racism and racists that they would allow a man who was openly wistful for the segregation era, and was wishing segregationist Thurmond had been successful back then, to ascend to a position of leadership in their party.

Wallace is another story entirely. Republicans and their reelevation of the man who openly longed for the racist past of segregationist Thurmond should be condemmed for their tolerance of the cretin as they castigate folks in our own leadership for past indiscretions.

[MADem]

23. The point is, though, that if you take race out of the equation, you are left with

historical and sometimes false old-time cartoons of the party positions. To whit, Democrats are the Big Government guys, Republicans are the Small Government guys. Democrats are taxers, Republicans are tax cutters. When those segregationists jumped, they brought those big spending, porkish ideas with them to the GOP, and in the case of a guy like Lott, they took them too far to the point that they are steroidal--that guy is the king of pork! No one spends taxpayer dough on his own folk better than Trent.

Back before the Civil Rights Act, the bulk of the discrimination, the eagerness for segregation, was hosted and enriched by the overwhelmingly Democratic southern caucus. These weren't "Democrats in Name." They were dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, who also had an awful logic about separating the races. Racism, back then, was NOT a GOP trait. The GOP back then took PRIDE in their abolitionist bona fides. They were, after all, the Party of Lincoln.

In fact, the tendencies toward discrimination and segregation were very regional, and the fact remains that most of the legislators from the segregation-loving south were Democrats. And we, the Democratic Party, ALLOWED them to be segregationists, and we didn't protest their anti-integration legislation, because they were a very powerful caucus. Hell, look at Senator Russell's background on this issue, you'd be appalled (and they named a Senate Office Building--yes, an S-O-B, after him).

We should NOT run away from that uncomfortable fact of our failures on this matter, or try to blame the GOP in any historical fashion for the ills of segregation and discrimination. Our party of social programs and public works projects was also a party of southern racist pigs, once upon a time. It was our shame.

That said, we've done a damned fine job, IMO, of first OWNING that, ATONING for it, and CORRECTING it.

LBJ was right when he said that his signing of the Civil Rights Act ensured that the South was lost for a generation. Actually, he should have said two or three, but his basic point was right on the money. But here's the important thing--he knew it, and he signed the legislation anyway. That took guts. He did it, knowing it would cost the party and hurt the party, and change the balance of power in the near term, but he did it simply because it was the right thing to do.

[formerrepuke]

19. Dixiecrats.. the ball and chain that we're now glad to be rid of....n/t

[WI_DEM]

20. Thank Goodness Democrats have turned the corner and it's the GOP

who are now the party that Racists call home.