Posted on 12/26/2007 4:11:35 AM PST by IrishMike
In his new book, "The Conscience of a Liberal," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman makes a strong case for his belief that the political success of the Republican Party and the conservative movement over the past 40 years has resulted largely from their co-optation of Southern racists that were the base of the Democratic Party until its embrace of civil rights in the 1960s. A key piece of evidence for Mr. Krugman is that Ronald Reagan gave his first speech after accepting the Republican presidential nomination in 1980 near Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. In the course of this speech, Reagan said he supported "states' rights." Mr. Krugman says this was code declaring his secret sympathy for Southern racism.
Others, including Mr. Krugman's Times colleague David Brooks and Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, have come to Reagan's defense, denying that he was a racist or had any racist intent in his 1980 speech. That's fine but unlikely to change the minds of those like Mr. Krugman who are determined to smear the Republican Party with the charge of racism, and who are adept at finding racist code words like "law and order" by Republicans that are completely convincing to liberals and Democrats in support of this accusation, even though they are invisible to those with no political ax to grind.
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Following are some quotes from prominent Democrats largely drawn from my new book, "Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past." Even with the exclusion of all quotes that contain the N-word, it is clear that many of the Democratic Party's most important historical figures have long made statements that reduce Reagan's alleged transgression to a drop in the ocean.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
--Robert C. Byrd, 1946
Democratic Senator from West Virginia, 1959-present
Something the MSM never fails to ignore. Yet if he were a Republican, each and everytime he would be quoted the line would start off with "..former racist and Ku Klux Klan leader..."
Ku Klux Klan founded Dec. 24, 1865
The name combines the Greek word for circle (kyklos) with the Gaelic word clan.
In 1871, a Republican-led Congress passed the Ku Klux Act, authorizing President Ulysses Grant to use military force to suppress the terrorist group.
Under the act, nine South Carolina counties were placed under martial law.
In 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Ku Klux Act unconstitutional.
By that time, however, with Reconstruction at an end, the KKK had largely faded away.
In 1915, a new group formed using the same name.
Its white-hooded members advocated white supremacy, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, racism, homophobia, anti-Communism and a virulent form of nativism.
The Klan’s popularity fell during the Depression. Membership further declined World War II in reaction to its support of Nazi ideology.
A few years ago, I presented similar information to my liberal, democrat, African-American colleagues. I sent the info by email to about 6 or 7 of them. Not one, and I mean not one of them, responded. They all ignored it as if I never had sent it.
The truth, best ignored when denial is not possible.
What I could never understand is that Republicans and conservatives never bring up the Democrat past....the Democrats are the party of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, lynching, etc..
The real reason many Southern Dems left for the GOP was because of the Dems further adoption of socialist programs
Why would alleged racist Southern Dems bolt to a party that ended slavery.....pushed the 14th Amendment...and supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
I would like to see a GOP House or Senate member bring this up sometime
Wasn’t Al Gore Senior a segregationist ?
Not that 'pubbies shouldnt bring it up when the Dems accuse them of being the racist party, but Republican hands aren't all that clean, either.
What really shocks me is that not only do some ‘Rats justify their past but some will actually deny it and dismiss it as conservative propaganda.
That’s blatant disregard
The elder Gore voted against the landmark civil rights legislation of his time, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which repudiated the Jim Crow laws.
It’s not a cheap shot when even Jefferson worried about the Creator’s view of him as a slaveholder. Slavery troubled Jefferson because he knew it was wrong even before he sat down to help draft the Declaration of Independence.
That’s a cheap excuse, not a cheap shot, regardless of the times.
What else would one suspect from the dishonest Mr. Krudman?
He didn’t just vote against it, he was the very vocal leader of the Congress-critters who were opposing it.
Really, who cares what Raging Krug Boy thinks?
Heard this racists-turned Republican cr@p since Nixon’s landslide in 1972. Fact is that since then, there has been tremendous progress toward racial harmony in the South, (calling Captain Obvious!) and race relations are better there than in any of the `blue’ states.
I’m waiting for someone to declare “White Christmas” racist. It can’t be long now.
When Pelosi wrote legislation condemning Turkey’s genocide of Armenians, I wrote a proposed resolution to condemn the Democrat’s support of slavery and sent it to a republican representative.
The reply I got was nice: “very clever” But it went nowhere.
Another liberal moron, hiding behind a beard.
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