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."
"That was a time that stressed "everybody's in it together," he said"
Right. After the draft stopped, so did the protests. Sure, every spoiled little punk was in it together- to avoid serving their country.
I Didn't realize that the Dems ever left the 60's.
Hippies Smell
Seriously, with each comment Dean makes, I suspect more and more that he is a deep-cover GOP operative who answers directly to Karl Rove.
We couldn't have asked for a better head of the DNC.
"The 60's" = stoned children sitting naked in the mud waiting for the adults to bring them food.
The only "cool" think in the 1960's was the space program. The rest is just a hangover.
I disagree with every thing you say, Howard, but I will defend with my life, your right to say it loudly and frequently. Rant away goofy!
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young rejoiced.....
"We're about to enter the '60s again..."
Please, God, I don't want to see Hillary in a mini-skirt.
Wars and upsurges in patriotism go together. Foreign wars may prove unpopular and lead protest and radicalism. But even if they don't, the public mood tends to shift over time from patriotic celebration to a self-critical attitude and efforts at reform or more radical change. The idea seems to be, "If we're so great, what about _______ [fill in blank] right here at home."
You could see this in the 1950s and 1960s, also in the 1900s and 1910s. Stretching things a little, you might find something similar going on in the 1840s and 1850s. Wars raise hopes and the desire for action which then turn in new directions. If the wars are unpopular or unsuccessful, that's all the more reason for discontent.
Of course conditions are different now than in the 1960s. For one thing, there's no single focus for domestic discontent equivalent to segregation and the civil rights movement. For another, the Sixties grew out of fifty years of liberal intellectual dominance, and conservative opinion is more prominent today. Also, people don't have the feeling that the age of affluence has come to stay or that one could be young forever that economics and demography produced forty years ago.
What Dean makes of this is another matter. It looks like he's caught up in a politics of feelings and emotionality. The Sixties brought a lot of disorder and unhappiness, but Howard Dean wants the experience of surfing through a tumultuous period and doesn't really consider the possible harmful consequences of such upheavals. It's lucky for all of us the Sixties aren't actually "coming back" any time soon.
Free sex and love.
The 1960's.
Last time Howard got laid.
I can still hear the sound the scissors made cutting through the thin newsprint and fabric and the mechanical whirring of her sewing machine. The final result is that my mom and her friends really would end up looking precisely like the ladies drawn on the cover of the pattern packages.
Later on, I'd come sliding into the living room in my socks and get their leftover pins in my foot.
I think that Dean wants to go back to the time of bomb throwing hippies and radical counterculturists. Well, forget that. I would love to go back to the way it was like living in the March AFB married officers' neighborhood. The closest that I think I've ever seen it portrayed in film is from the movie 'Apollo 13'. Still not 'right' but pretty close.
Truman and Eisenhower authoritarians? Oh give me break Deaniac! And to think that he calls the US "authoritarian" during the time just after we had liberated part of Europe and kept the Commies from taking over South Korea. Yeah, whatever ....
Huey Walker: The 90's are going to make the 60's look like the 50's.
The FBI agent is played by Kiefer Sutheralnd, of 24 fame