O'Connor to Retire From Supreme Court

Ditto on the mysterious, lamentable appearance of microencephalics. They do seem to be a convenient entourage for one, eh?

Oh, I did see that Au chimed in here. So here's my list of the track record on Republican 'racism'. Can you Democrats come up with anything comparable?

Republican Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves

1866: first civil rights act passed by Radical Republicans over a Presidential veto, blacks granted citizenship, segregation was forbidden

1868 Republicans passed the 14th amendment passed granting equal protection

1871 Republicans passed voting rights

Republican Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to invite an African-American to dinner in the White House.

1920s, the Democratic platforms didn't even call for anti-lynching legislation as the Republican platforms did.

1957 civil rights act pushed by Ike, passed . Sen Kennedy voted against it, A Democrat Senator filibustered it for 24 hrs, Senator Johnson watered it down so that it lacked enforcement

Eisenhower sent Federal troops to Little Rock to integrate Central High

1960 another civil rights act, again Dems kept enforcement measures out of it

1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Kennedy and Johnson get credit for this one. More than eighty percent of Republicans voted for both--due to Democrat opposition, neither would have passed without Republican support despite the fact that the Democrats held substantial majorities in both houses of Congress.

Nixon created the EEOC and expanded civil rights law.

Ronald Reagan signed the bill making MLK day a public holiday

Today the three highest ranking black government officials are all Republicans (Powell, Rice and Thomas)

You actually think that racism is a trait specifically tied to democrats? Wow.

Lash


Don't try to finese you way out of it. Can you dispute that statement? The Democates that you speak of are now now the backbone of the southern Republican party

Nah, au. Racists are smattered all through both parties, all races and everywhere.

But TODAY, the racist behavior is seen in the Democrat party.

ANTI-racist behavior is evident in the Republican party.

I just disputed it Au. Now produce your own list if you think you can better ours.

Here, I'll go really slowly for you. If Obama runs for the Presidency one day, that will be a factor in Republican estimation of him as a risk (risk to win a lot of votes) because he is black and that will have voting probability consequence with a large black population. Likewise, for either party, when the first woman makes a run for the Presidency. To acknowledge that factor is not racist in any coherent sense of the term.

On the other hand, to make the charge that Republicans or their party would be guilty of racism simply in acknowledging the unique danger that Obama would pose would be inaccurate and morally repugnant.

Lash

Yes, racism is a fact of life. However, you will note it is the republican party that has done it's best to put obstacles in the way of black voting. Florida is a good example.
And I will reiterate and only because you brought up the subject. The solid democratic south is now the hotbed of republicanism because the Dems were champions of the civil right movement.

Foxy
What do you mean chimed in.

I'll explain patiently for you.

I cannot believe you are condoning barring a man from serving in a high, honorable position simply because he is Hispanic. No matter what the twisted logic, the effect is racist in the extreme.

He's not running for elected office. He deserves to be considered on the merits of his record, not barred by Democrats because they are afraid too many Republican minority nominees are showing them up for the paternalist racists they are.

That you are making excuses for this outrageous racism ...I have to say I really am shocked.

Au writes


I wasn't going to hijack your thread with a debate on racism, Au, but your participation was implied permission to include that. Actually in a way it does have a bearing as that will certainly be a part of the debate if the president nominates a woman or minority person. And again the debate won't be presented as racist, but will be framed that the candidate is 'not qualified' as Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and Condi Rice were all accused.

The south is now predominantly Republican because the Democrats abandoned their conservative base and the GOP filled the void they left there. Your assertion that it was all about civil rights simply won't wash as testified by the list I posted an hour or so ago.

When Obama runs, which seems likely, there will be no whisper of a thought in RNC circles regarding the electoral consequences of his color? Heck, folks won't even notice, not to mention worry or speak explicitly? Would that be your claim then?

Of course, there will be conversation about how his race will affect voting. And, his sex appeal, and what his wife wore on Tuesday.... They won't want to prevent him from the Presidency due to his blackness, however. Stay with me here---it will be because of his party affiliation. (C'mon, you are better than this. Your hate is muddying your thinking.)

A Supreme Court nomination is not running for elected office. A man or woman should be considered on the merit of their record when being considered for Justice.

To be blocked from consideration due to ethnicity is racism, no matter how you dress it up.

Lash, the poor thing can't distinguish between acknowledging the strengths and weaknesses of a legitimate opponent and blocking a nomination of a person because his ethnicity might be appealing to too many people.

Foxy
List shmist. Can you deny that the Democrats were in the forefront of the Civil rights movement. Can you deny that the southern democrats broke away from the party because of the championing of civil rights by that party? Can you deny that the once solid democratic south is now the republican south because of it. Can you deny it was the liberals for whom the conservatives have so much disdain were the driving force behind the civil right movement.

Robert Byrd wears a sheet.

She innumerated Republican strides for civil rights.

Why is the KKK party boy, Byrd, still such a Democrat icon?

Au writes
.

Yes, Au, I can deny that the Democrats were at the forefront of the civil rights movement more than Republican were.. The Democrats, more particularly the southern Democrats, were far more obstructionist to the civil rights movement than were the Republicans, though both had their element of resistance. Southern Republicans are no more racist than are Northern Republican, they even may be less so, and that fact alone shoots your theory that Southern Democrats morphed into Republicans full of holes.

While some, maybe many, of our current heroes have a history of racism and have evolved out of that along with the rest of society, I think the Democrats can still claim a lion's share of that legacy.

Let me give you another list of quotes from well-known Democrats and/or their supporters, and again, I will invite you to provide a list anywhere nearly as incriminating from the Republican side of the aisle:

(Affect(ing) a black accent to recount San Francisco mayor Willie Brown asking) "Who is this "Emily List? She's supportin' all these people. She's supportin' Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She's supported Sen. Barbara Boxer....She supported everybody. Why won't she support me?" -- Hillary Clinton. Source: John Broder of the LA Times

"You'd find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva." -- Fritz Hollings (D, S.C.)

"Is you their black-haired answer-mammy who be smart? Does they like how you shine their shoes, Condoleezza? Or the way you wash and park the whitey's cars?" -- Song from the show of left-wing radio host Neil Rogers

Blacks and Hispanics are "too busy eating watermelons and tacos" to learn how to read and write." -- Mike Wallace, CBS News. Source: Newsmax

"In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and [there] were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master ... exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him. Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture." -- Harry Belafonte

"Republicans bring out Colin Powell and J.C. Watts because they have no program, no policy. They have no love and no joy. They'd rather take pictures with black children than feed them." -- Donna Brazile, Al Gore's Campaign Manager for the 2000 election

(On Clarence Thomas) "A handkerchief-head, chicken-and-biscuit-eating Uncle Tom." -- Spike Lee

"He's married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn't want to be black." -- California State Senator Diane Watson's on Ward Connerly's interracial marriage

"Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds." -- Former Klansman and current US Senator Robert Byrd, a man who is referred to by many Democrats as the "conscience of the Senate", in a letter written in 1944, after he quit the KKK.

"I am a former kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County and the adjoining counties of the state .... The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia .... It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state of the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan in the Realm of W. Va .... I hope that you will find it convenient to answer my letter in regards to future possibilities." -- Former Klansman and current US Senator Robert Byrd, a man who is referred to by many Democrats as the "conscience of the Senate", in a letter written in 1946, after he quit the KKK.

"These laws [segregation] are still constitutional and I promise you that until they are removed from the ordinance books of Birmingham and the statute books of Alabama, they will be enforced in Birmingham to the utmost of my ability and by all lawful means." -- Democrat Bull Connor (1957), Commissioner of Public Safety for Birmingham, Alabama

"I'll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." -- Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One according Ronald Kessler's Book, "Inside The White House"

(On New York) "K*ketown." -- Harry Truman in a personal letter

"I think one man is just as good as another so long as he's not a n*gger or a Chinaman. Uncle Will says that the Lord made a White man from dust, a nigger from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice, I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, Yellow men in Asia and White men in Europe and America." Harry Truman (1911) in a letter to his future wife Bess

"There''s some people who''ve gone over the state and said, ?'?'Well, George Wallace has talked too strong about segregation.'' Now let me ask you this: how in the name of common sense can you be too strong about it? You''re either for it or you're against it. There's not any middle ground as I know of." -- Democratic Alabama Governor George Wallace (1959)

"The Jews don't like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well, that's a good name. Hitler was a very great man. He rose Germany up from the ashes." -- Louis Farrakhan (1984) who campaigned for congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in 2002

'Hymies.' 'Hymietown.' -- Jesse Jackson's description of New York City while on the 1984 presidential campaign trail.

"Jews ?-?- that's J-E-W-S." -- Democratic state representative Bill McKinney on why his daughter Cynthia lost in 2002

"I want to go up to the closest white person and say: 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing' and then slap him, just for my mental health." -- Charles Barron, a New York city councilman at a reparations rally, 2002

"Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them." -- Mary Frances Berry, Chairwoman, US Commission on Civil Rights

(I) "will not let the white boys win in this election." -- Donna Brazile, Al Gore's Campaign Manager on the 2000 election

"The old white boys got taken fair and square." -- San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown after winning an election

"There are white n*ggers. I've seen a lot of white n*ggers in my time." -- Former Klansman and Current US Senator Robert Byrd, a man who is referred to by many Democrats as the "conscience of the Senate" in March of 2001

"The Medicaid system must have been developed by a white male slave owner. It pays for you to be pregnant and have a baby, but it won't pay for much family planning." -- Jocelyn Elders

au

Don't bother playing her game. She's had this stuff fed to her from the usual suspects. Simply understand this as a wedge strategy, to attempt to draw black voters away from the Democratic party by suggesting racism there in some greater proportion or in some unique quality not found in the Republican Party.

I don't even think that the RNC is measurably racist or at least any moreso than the set of workers at Safeway. These sorts of generalized smears are intellectually and morally repulsive.

But attention can be profitably drawn to any strategy which attempts to disenfranchise voters, regardless of who that targeted community might be (women, union members, IRA, chinese, etc). Such strategies are not necessarily racist in intent, but they sure are in consequence. They are particularly egregious when that community is disadvantaged to begin with.

Organizing to ensure your voter base gets out to vote is a good thing, good for democracy as more voices get heard and votes counted.

Organizing to suppress voters has the opposite effect and is fundamentally anti-democratic.

This whole discussion started with this statement from Blatham


But naw, he's not accusing the Republicans of racism.

your high twitness

That makes Rove (and others involved) guilty of an electoral strategy which disenfranchises blacks in precisely those numbers noted above. That does not make Republicans guilty of racism. It doesn't make you guilty, or Lash or Laura Bush. It does not even make the RNC guilty necessarily, unless there is a broad and understood agreement to disenfranchise that community. Who is guilty is each of the individuals who would act thusly.