[Vision2020] Say What?

Thu Mar 4 16:24:45 PST 2010

Without question, Gary, the people who contributed most to the civil rights movement were those Black Americans, and secondarily their supporters in either party, who risked beatings and imprisonment in their fight to gain the kind of civil rights and protections previously available only to white men and women, and before that, white men.  I didn't think that needed to be stated.  Frankly, as I said before, neither party did as much as they could to further the cause.

However, it seems I was careless -- I repeat myself here -- in my history by failing to recognize that some of the biggest opponents of justice and equality were Blue Dog Democrats.  They aligned with Republicans, except for the moderate Eastern Seaboard, Ivy League, and Eisenhower Republicans you name, to keep the racist status quo intact and were hardly representative of the Democrat Party that did, however imperfectly, work toward civil rights.  The GOP men on your list did right.  But they wouldn't last a minute in today's GOP, which, its name notwithstanding, is a far different, far uglier, far less-committed-to-justice-and-equality group than the Republicans you name, and for today's GOP to co-opt Rosa Parks, and for the Tea Party Nation to co-opt Rosa Parks, is disingenuous at best.  My errors don't negate that, but I apologize for them just the same.

One other thing, Gary.  I think a lot of Democrats are absolutely on the wrong course.   Still, the hands-down winner in the bigotry sweepstakes of the last 50 years is the GOP.  That too many Democrats-in-name-only have flocked to their side in decades past is despicable, but not surprising.  Men in power, whatever their official party affiliation, rarely take perceived threats to their majority status lying down, and few Americans of any party or any race have shown the courage of Ms. Parks and her civil rights-era compatriots.

Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com

From: lockshop at pull.twcbc.com
To: kjajmix1 at msn.com; thansen at moscow.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Say What?
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 15:55:34 -0800

"I still contend that those Blue Dogs not only followed 
the lead of the dominant GOP then, but also helped influence Reagan's "Southern 
Strategy" a decade or so later and modeled the Trent Lott-style of bigotry 
common now to the Republican Party."

Respectfully, I don't think you know what you are talking 
about. The 1964 civil rights act would not have passed were it not for the 
efforts of Republican senate minority leader Everett Dirksen 
and whip Thomas Kuchel. Dirksen was even presented with a civil rights 
accomplishment award by the head of the NAACP that year for his efforts. Dirkson 
also broke the filibuster of the 1957 Civil Rights Act that was signed into law 
by Dwight Eisenhower, another evil member of the GOP.

The foolish notion that all democrats are rays of sunshine 
and any that aren't are under the pall of republican rain clouds is naive 
in the extreme. To claim that civil rights was the sole handiwork of either 
party is a fallacy and ignores those who worked the hardest to bring about 
change in race relations in this country, that being black Americans 
themselves.

g

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: 
  keely emerinemix 

  To: lockshop at pull.twcbc.com ; Tom Hansen ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Thursday, March 04, 2010 2:32 
  PM
  Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Say What?

  You are, of course, that the men listed below were all not Republicans.  
  They were hardly friends of justice, equality, and the expansion of civil 
  rights to the disenfranchised.  And, yeah, they were all registered 
  Democrats or Independents.  The Democrats, of the Blue Dog stripe, those 
  who were "D" in registration only, were puppets for the entrenched bigotry of 
  the old South and were hardly Democrats in the same vein as those who fought 
  -- and perhaps not as strongly as they should have -- for civil rights.  
  I was careless in suggesting that only Democrats of that era cared about civil 
  rights, yes.  But I still contend that those Blue Dogs not only followed 
  the lead of the dominant GOP then, but also helped influence Reagan's 
  "Southern Strategy" a decade or so later and modeled the Trent Lott-style of 
  bigotry common now to the Republican Party.  

After all, when 
  Klansman David Duke sought political legitimacy in the 1980s and 90s, not many 
  were surprised that he aligned himself with the GOP, which was dipping into 
  the sewer of racially divisive politics with Lee Atwater and Ralph Reed, 
  Jr.  Only the politically uninformed would ever have wondered which of 
  the two parties Duke would gravitate to.  I think that says 
  something.

Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com

  From: lockshop at pull.twcbc.com
To: kjajmix1 at msn.com; thansen at moscow.com; 
  vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Say What?
Date: Thu, 4 
  Mar 2010 08:39:15 -0800

  Disgraceful behavior of the GOP during the civil rights 
  era?

  What did Robert Byrd, Howard W. Smith, James O. 
  Eastland, Albert Gore, Sr., J. William Fulbright, Jimmy Byrnes, Hugo Black, 
  Ernest Hollings, Sam Ervin, Richard Russell, George Wallace, Orval Faubus, 
  Lester Maddox, etc, etc, etc, all have in common? Heres a hint for the 
  slow, the young, and those with an excess of sanctamony, it wasn't an R 
  following their names.

  40% of the House Democrats voted against the 
  Civil Rights Act, while 80% of Republicans SUPPORTED it. Republican support in 
  the Senate was even higher. Pretending that Democracts were the only 
  Americans with an interest in civil rights legislation is either a display of 
  willfull ignorance or a blatant distortion of fact.

  g

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: 
    keely 
    emerinemix 
    To: Tom Hansen ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
    Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2010 8:57 
    PM
    Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Say 
    What?

My, what a disgusting co-opting of Rosa Parks, about whose 
    position on gay marriage nothing is known whatsoever.  What is known, 
    though, is not only the disgraceful behavior of the GOP during the civil 
    rights era, but its current eagerness to appropriate heroes of equality and 
    justice in its fight against basic civil rights for lesbian and gay 
    people.

Which is something I think most of us could safely conclude 
    Ms. Parks would oppose.

Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com

> 
    Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2010 15:05:25 -0800
> From: 
    thansen at moscow.com
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: 
    [Vision2020] Say What?
> 
> "Rosa Parks did not move to the 
    front of the bus to support sodomy,"
> 
> - Congressional 
    candidate Barb Davis White (R-MN), on marriage equality.
> 
> 
    http://minnesotaindependent.com/55645/barb-davis-white-gay-marriage-rosa-parks
> 

> 
    -----------------------------------------------------------------
> 

> Seeya round town, Moscow.
> 
> Tom Hansen
> 
    Moscow, Idaho
> 
> "The Pessimist complains about the wind, the 
    Optimist expects it to change
> and the Realist adjusts his 
    sails."
> 
> - Unknown
> 
> 
> 
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