(09-24-2018 10:41 PM)Momus Wrote: (09-24-2018 10:36 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (09-24-2018 10:01 PM)Momus Wrote: (09-24-2018 09:40 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (09-24-2018 09:30 PM)Momus Wrote: Obama never had a chance to unite with a right-wing fully dedicated to diminishing the first black American president. The racism of the right is the single most destructive factor in our nation.
Total BS. You really don't have any idea how offensive that comment is, do you? Neither does the rest of the left.
The truth is offensive to those who desperately want to deny it.
No, it is offensive because it is not true. You've been on this kick of branding everyone to the right of Chairman Mao as a racist for some time. It's simply false.
And you’ve been on this kick is denying the deep, ingrained racism of the right-wing in general and Trump in particular. So if you claim to not be racist but you line up shoulder to shoulder with them, tolerate them, decline to criticize them, and support their policies, then what’s really the difference? Claim whatever you want. Those with eyes see the truth.
Those who are old enough know that the party of segregation was the Democratic party. That the party that rounded up Japanese Americans during WWII and interned them was the Democratic Party. That Franklin Roosevelt supported segregation in the Armed Forces even though his wife Eleanor opposed it. And that it was the combat experience that helped to break segregation in the United States Armed Forces. I grew up with integration in a military family when most of the United States still practiced segregation. And that my friend was in the North, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest, and on the West coast. It's just that it depended which area of the country you were in that determined who was segregated from whom.
Dr. King using Gandhi as a model for non violent protest exposed it, sickened a nation with it, and much like the Mahatma helped to start change. Change that democrats fought until Robert Kennedy as Attorney General decided to do something about it. Until that point it had been the Democrats that supported the institution of Slavery and the Black Republicans who grew out of the abolitionist movement and fought a war to free them. Democrats in the South stuck by segregationist policies until well past the mid 70's in any regard not specifically covered by Federal Law.
What the Republicans decided to appeal to in the South once the segregation issue was put to rest was the so called Moral Majority which was an appeal to the largest demographic of voters in the South, church goers. The range of topics dovetailed into a wide range of Republican topics from the "morality" issues to the guns rights crowd.
So what transpired was politics. Just like it was politics that began to divide the Democratic party at the same time as first civil rights issues were adopted by the Democrats, and then social justice issues in general. That base grew disproportionately to the old Democratic base which it was in many ways diametrically opposed to. As a result the polarization of the Democratic party has been basically moved away from the old fiscal issues into civil rights, and now is virtually dominated by the advocacy issues that have galvanized a new base. Just because the Democrats now push advocacy it doesn't mean that those they claim to help are necessarily discriminated against. In some cases they are, but not in sufficient numbers to justify that work on a national platform. So the Dems have to have an oppressor whether there is one in reality or not.
So Son of Nyx the issue here isn't that the Republicans have been historically racists, since that distinction is owned by the Democratic party, but rather that the Republicans must be oppressors or the new dominant wing of the Democratic party has no organizing principle.
I would strongly suggest that is why the current Democratic leadership can't lead the nation. They can't be a party of arbitration and compromise because zealots can't compromise with those they demonize. The NET effect of this strategy will ultimately lead to conflict. That is why I call it seditious and that is why as a grandfather I cannot support its position. I know it is finger nails across the chalk board but I must agree with Rodney King here, "why can't we all get along?" The answer is having an enemy galvanizes the Democratic base, in much the same way as the Communists once galvanized both parties against the Reds, and much in the same way that Reagan purported that an "alien threat" might galvanize the world.
When we don't know what it is we believe and we can't unite around an ideal or plan, we need an enemy. For Hitler it was the Jews and Communists. For the U.S. from 1946 on it was the global Communist threat. For the Democrats its conservative white males who must be guilty of something whether it is homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, or Christian bias against Muslims. Heck that's the whole basis for the Rainbow coalition. The only problem is just as it is with racism you can't paint everyone with the same broad stroke. Some whites worked for civil rights. Some whites have supported gay rights and some whites have been tolerant of other religions. Andguess what? Many of those were white men, and many of those were Republicans.
We are a Republic. We are not a democracy. If we were minority status wouldn't matter. But we try to rule by the law which supports not only diversity but the rights of all. That kind of rule implies some form of compromise and consensus.
The current political situation is intentionally drawing battle lines through nothing else but intransigence. It won't end well. And furthermore in a Republic those who promote division are guilty of sedition. There is legal redress for all conflict. It is why the Supreme Court exists and their rule is law. We don't support any one aggrieved party. We support the rule of law.
Law is our organizing principle. Not group politics.
![[Image: 2w23rle.jpg]](http://i63.tinypic.com/2w23rle.jpg)
