Posted on 09/22/2004 4:47:09 AM PDT by beaureguard
Zell Miller wants you to believe that he is dispensing a dose of discipline to his beloved Democratic Party — pointing out the foibles and foolishness that have led to its loss of the South. Miller claims he only wants the Democrats to regain their traditional values before it's too late.
Miller is a hypocrite. As a historian, he knows exactly why the Democratic Party is teetering in the South: It's precisely because the Democrats set aside a century and a half of ugly traditions that it has lost so many rural white Southerners. Miller knows better than most; he was once one of those rural white Southerners who embraced those ugly traditions.
Running for Congress in 1964, Miller dismissed the Civil Rights Act as neither "constitutionally acceptable [n]or fundamentally proper as an approach to the solution of racial problems in America." Even back then, he denounced the Democratic presidential nominee, declaring that Lyndon Johnson "is a Southerner who sold his birthright for a mess of dark pottage." From 1968-71, Miller served as executive secretary to Gov. Lester Maddox, who remained an unrepentant segregationist until the day he died.
In most Southern states, including Georgia, the Democratic Party was so racist that it didn't allow black citizens to vote in its primaries. That's why so many members of the black intelligentsia — including men such as longtime Atlanta Daily News publisher C.A. Scott — were Republicans. Indeed, nationwide, many blacks voted for the GOP. In 1956, Dwight Eisenhower got nearly 40 percent of the black vote.
Black voters' allegiance to the Democratic Party began to take root in 1960, when presidential candidate John F. Kennedy made a simple gesture: He called Coretta Scott King to offer reassurance after her husband, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., was shunted off to Reidsville State Prison following a lunch counter sit-in. That year, 68 percent of black voters went Democratic.
White Southerners' allegiance to the GOP began in much the same way — over civil rights. The ascension of the Republican Party in the South can be traced to Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, which included a states' rights platform that rejected desegregation.
In their landmark book "The Rise of Southern Republicans," political scientists Earl and Merle Black wrote: "With Goldwater's campaign, the [Republican] Party attracted many racist Southern whites but permanently alienated African-American voters. . . . Gradually, a new Southern politics emerged in which blacks and liberal to moderate whites anchored the Democratic Party, while many conservatives and some moderate whites formed a growing Republican Party that owed little to Abraham Lincoln but much to Goldwater and even more to Reagan."
The GOP has built a Southern base by accommodating racists. That doesn't mean most Republican politicians are racists themselves. But they don't hesitate to pander to a constituency that is still uncomfortable with the social changes ushered in by the civil rights movement.
Whether it's denouncing fictional welfare queens, saluting the Confederate battle flag or showing up to speak at Bob Jones University, the GOP knows how to race-bait. Just as the Supreme Court was about to hear a lawsuit against affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan in 2003, President Bush held a news conference to announce his opposition to those policies. He didn't hope to influence the case (and didn't). That was just a sop to his reactionary supporters.
The GOP still has a problem: Its potential is limited. As the nation grows browner, more and more voters will be drawn to the all-inclusive ideals espoused by the Democrats. Meanwhile, Miller, who embraced progressive ideals midcareer, seems to be moving back to his narrow-minded roots. An old mossback like that couldn't be happy in the Democratic Party.
Absolutely! Hey, look at NCGOP. Absolutely NO strategy. Nada!
Southern strategy http://www.free-cliffnotes.com/data/fd/pbk157.shtml
There's no republican strategy where I live either *lol*
This is more what I was looking for,not an opinion essay which will teach me to read things through before I post *lol*
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Southern_strategy
BTW, democrats didn't move anyone out from anywhere. Black people were living in the big cities long before that.
Amen to your post #15.
As compared to the Democrats who've built a party with welfare drama mommas, pathetic minority male role models, and race baiting pimped whores?
Thank God for black conservatives who truly reflect the positive changes and movement in the community.
Oh Cynthia! America grows BROWNER not BLACKER. Ain't that a damn shame?
I submit Marian Carr Knox and Dan Rather as exhibits (A) and (B) that "the political party greatly favored by the great grandsons of the old Confederacy" is the Democrat Party.
Marian Carr Knox is 86 years old, and a yellow-dog Democrat. She was 30 years old when Strom Thurmond ran for the presidency as a States Rights Democrat. Dan Rather, corn-pone Texan, has got Demmi-blue blood running through his veins.
Without checking, I'll posit that the "Southern Strategy" theory was created by a group of Lefty academics, who we now know are completely unreliable when it comes to historical facts.
I'll go even further and say that if one did some deep checking (imagine the Lefty academics doing that!!! ROTFLMPO!), one would find that the remaining Southern racists overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Examine Maryland: most of the state is a Democrat plantation. Its racist denizens were left pretty much alone during the Civil War, and look where they're at now. The Union killed a lot of the Southern racists in the rebelling states during the Civil War, and some of the South's traditions were only barely held together by the Knights before the South went Republican.
Maybe you should write a rebuttal essay for Cliff Notes *lol*
It further occurred to me that blacks who vote Democrat, like Cynthia Tucker, are victims of the longest-running case of Stockholm Syndrome that the world has ever seen.
Actually, some of the "Societal Stockholm Syndrome" hits make for some VERY fascinating reading.
I think some rather take their chances with the democrat party, because of their experiences with republican people. That's why it's important to discuss issues. Cynthia Tucker can't discuss the issues otherwise the cover would be blown off the democrats.
Thanks!
A turtle that is so old that it has moss growing on the back of its shell. Generally used to describe an old-timer.
Hehehe thanks now I have something to call a few of my elected officials in New York!
The so-called "civil rights act of 1964" was a Socialistic travesty. It is responsible for affirmative action which turns around and discriminates against whites, especially white males. Also it tells you who to hire, who to fire, who to do business with, who to promote. who to demote and attacks the right of free association among many other ills.
Ask Walter Williams.
Economic realities in the South would have led to blacks gaining parity with whites in terms of voting, accomodations and employment. In fact, most voting problems were happening only in a few Deep South counties where the Whites did not want to turn over control to a large majority of Blacks, many of whom were illiterate.
This is exactly correct. The left is seizing permanent political power through an overtly racial program of colonialism. They are openly bragging about it. The only people pretending it isn't true, in the face of all evidence, are "conservatives" and Republicans. That's the brainwashing power of the media, backed up by the muscle of the government. Conservatives would rather see their political beliefs be destroyed, would watch their nation and even their civilization be destroyed, hell, would literally rather die than be called racists by those who gloat over their destruction.
The Democratic/nonwhite/leftist definition of racism is only whites can be racist, and all whites are born racist criminals. It takes a lot of gall for Tucker to talk about racism since this is a woman who has spent her entire career and life ignoring (which is to say, given her position, sponsoring and participating in) black on white racist violence. Virtually all the interracial murders in her area are black on white. For rape, it must be approaching 100%. There are vast areas of Atlanta that are no go zones for whites. Of these things Cynthia has little to say, I dare say she has mentioned the reality of racial violence in her career less often than she has mentioned Bob Jones. Thus she helps set up the atmosphere that makes them probable. The accusation here is not mere hypocrisy, but low level war criminality.
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