Later in his speech Tuesday, Dean appeared to backtrack. "I'm not asking to go back to the '60s; we made some mistakes in the '60s," he said. "If you look at how we did public housing, we essentially created ghettoes for poor people" instead of using today's method of mixed-income housing.
Another mistake Democrats made in the '60s, Dean acknowledged, was that "we did give things away for free, and that's a huge mistake because that does create a culture of dependence, and that's not good for anybody, either," he noted, a reference to the Great Society welfare programs created by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s.
"Those mistakes were not the downfall of our program," Dean added. "They helped a lot more people than they hurt. But we can do better and we will do better and our time is coming." See Video
Alternating between references to the "McCarthy era" of the 1950s, which he accused the Bush administration of reviving, the decade of the 1960s and the current era, Dean explained that he was "looking to go back to the same moral principles of the '50s and '60s."
That was a time that stressed "everybody's in it together," he said. "We know that no one person can succeed unless everybody else succeeds."
Dean's comments Tuesday came at a religious gathering convened in the nation's capital to discuss ways of eliminating poverty. After stating that America "is about as divided as it has been probably since the Civil War," Dean declared that "we need to come together around moral principles, and I'm talking about moral principles like making sure no child goes to bed hungry at night."
"I'm talking about moral principles like making sure everybody in America has health insurance just like 36 other countries in the world," he added. "This is a moral nation, and we want it to be a moral nation again."
As one method of accomplishing that goal, the DNC chairman called on Congress "to raise the minimum wage until we have a living wage in this country." He dismissed criticism of a minimum wage hike as "economists' mumbo-jumbo."
"We're simply asking to give the people who are working for minimum wage the same raise that Congress has had every year for the last 20 years," he said.
Dean also stated that the Democratic Party helped give people "the opportunity to become middle class" during the 1960s.
"I do think that empowering people to help themselves is what we should be doing in the 21st century," he added, stating that the Democratic Party now emphasizes the value of work.
"If you work hard, you ought to be able to support your family," the DNC chairman noted, and "in America, you need the opportunity to work hard, and that means some level of support from government -- no handouts, but some level of support so that you really do have a genuine opportunity to contribute to the country."
The DNC chairman pointed to President Bush's tax cuts as a major obstacle to what he called "tax fairness." He also criticized the Republican Congress for being "the biggest 'big government' government we've ever had," though he did make at least one positive comment about the GOP.
"How about if I'm a wild-eyed radical liberal who is willing to say the conservatives had some good ideas?" Dean told his audience. "But let's go back and make what we wanted to work, using some of their ideas to make sure that the mistakes don't get made again," he added.
"It's nice to see that Howard Dean's hostility to the religious community ends when people of faith vote Democrat," Republican National Committee spokesman Josh Holmes told Cybercast News Service.
Holmes added he was not surprised that "Howard Dean's political perspective is derived from a 1960s counterculture view of the world. What is surprising -- and disturbing -- is that he can urge a massive expansion of government and denounce the Democrat mistake of creating a 'culture of dependence' in the same speech."
"He may want to revisit that mistake to update his talking points and the Democrat policy manual," Holmes said.
Before leaving Tuesday's conference, the DNC chairman thanked those in attendance for giving him "a big lift."
"I came in the wrong door when I first got here," Dean said. "I came in the back, and everybody was talking about praising the Lord, and I thought, 'I am home. Finally, a group of people who want to praise the Lord and help their fellow man just like Jesus did and just like Jesus taught.' Thank you so much for doing that for me."
Have said all along these are aging hippies longing to relive their youth. Thanks for supporting that opinion Dr. D
I oppose giving Congress a raise too. How 'bout you, Dean?
The only way the 60s happen again is if the draft is reinstated. Otherwise, young people are going to keep doing what they are doing now, and protests will be more limited and attended by people who don't fully know what they are protesting against.
The American 1960s represented a Counter-Enlightenment, not an Enlightenment. That's when it became fashionable among many Americans to promote counter-culture instead of civilization, tyranny and social democracy instead of capitalism and liberal democracy, and social engineering instead of the Rule of Law.
In some ways, their victory has been total and complete. Jefferson, Brahms, Newton, Bourguereau, Tennyson, Euler -- are all considered old dead white people, and there's nothing the multicultural left hates more than that. Better to promote the eternal adolescent, they think.
"'We're About to Enter the '60s Again'"
OMG!!! NOOOOOOO! Please God, NOOOOOOO....
(And I thought the '90s were bad enough....)
"Howard Dean's political perspective is derived from a 1960s counterculture view of the world."
The counterculture BECAME the establishment and has infested every vestage of our lives, including pro-homosexuality, pro-extramarital sex, pro-abortion churches.
"Finally, a group of people who want to praise the Lord and help their fellow man just like Jesus did and just like Jesus taught."
HE didn't teach praising government or government programs. HE taught giving to others out of charity, not fear of prosecution for protesting taxes.
"we made some mistakes in the '60s,"
The entire '60s was a "mistake" (more politically incorrectly, "wrong"), from the drugs to the welfare state to the non-war to the protesting-just-to-be-cool to the Indian-instrument music to the tie-dyes and the bell-bottoms.
His cure for this? Death. The older libs are incurable - they will hold these views until they die.
The 60s are not coming back.
Not yet. First we have to finish the 30's, and then do the 40's and 50's.
Groovy man...
Not
"What is surprising -- and disturbing -- is that he can urge a massive expansion of government and denounce the Democrat mistake of creating a 'culture of dependence' in the same speech."
Hey, it makes sense to the DemocRATS.
"There's nothing sadder than an aging hipster."
Yeah, that's been a real treat. I can look out my office window and see the "mixed-income" apartment complex across a once-beautiful creek now filled with Big Wheels and other assorted trash. There's an 8-foot high steel fence surrounding the "mixed-income" apartment complex, the only structure in the area with such a security fence. Gee, I wonder if it's meant to keep the surrounding upper-income people from harrassing these "mixed-income" folks?