How the left forgets

[alienlovechild 75]

However, there are some significant differences - most notably, the anti-war crowd were endorsing peace, while many of the Tea Party crowd endorse violence as a means for political change. - it felt like Bush and his cronies were giving us the finger.

He also had to fight a propaganda machine from the insurance lobby that spent millions of dollars in trying to defeat HCR. He won a difficult and hard fought battle on an important domestic issue that impacts our economy, which compared to the costs of starting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the cost of American lives, makes people getting angry and talking about government overthrow over HCR look silly and trite.

The antiwar crowd really wasn't that interested in peace as we still have 2 active wars after 9 years and for the most part they petered out very early on and have largely vanished from the public eye. Why? No draft so most people haven't been affected by the wars enough really get a damn.

A lot of people think Obama has been giving America the finger but he thinks he's right and laughs off any dissent.

The insurance companies stand to make billions from forcing people to buy health insurance so all of Obama's talk about evil insurance companies was for the suckers in the crowd.

Lastly, heathcare and the military aren't connected unless you count Bush's defense spending as softening up the public to blow more money on healthcare. Most wars led to more social spending so Bush inadvertanly is the godfather of healthcare reform. Check how how many posters here justify healtcare spending on Bush's defense spending.

[Sc0tt28 26]

Often the ant-war protesters hide behind the peace flag but many of the protests that took place were not peaceful or civilized.

At the time a majority of the people supported the Iraq war, so to say it wasn't popular I dont think is accurate. We went to war because we thought eventually we would have a worse incident than 9/11 and preventing that was necessary. If the intel had been accurate many would of found the war justifiable. We were going on notion from a lesson we learned on 9/11, we can just sit around and let these thing fester anymore. I mention all this because you just blew past all that by saying Bush started two wars, I think when discussing this it is important that we remember that aspect of what happened.

OK, as far as the war in Iraq was concerned, it was extremely unpopular. Particularly in 2006 when Democrats regained control of Congress and passed the funding bill with the exit time limits which Bush promptly vetoed. The people wanted out of there, the Democrats tried to make it happen, but Bush thumbed his nose at the country and said "I'm going to do whatever the heck I feel like and if you don't agree with me then you are just unpatriotic". And that is the confusion many people have when they say that the war was popular. Anyone that disagreed with Bush was branded as unpatriotic or "allowing the terrorists to win". Nearly everyone was supportive of the troops and the job they are doing but wanted them out of Iraq. Bush couldn't even give them the common decency of having as much "home time" as they had war time. 15 month deployments but only 12 months at home.

[alienlovechild 75]

OK, as far as the war in Iraq was concerned, it was extremely unpopular. Particularly in 2006 when Democrats regained control of Congress and passed the funding bill with the exit time limits which Bush promptly vetoed. The people wanted out of there, the Democrats tried to make it happen, but Bush thumbed his nose at the country and said "I'm going to do whatever the heck I feel like and if you don't agree with me then you are just unpatriotic". And that is the confusion many people have when they say that the war was popular. Anyone that disagreed with Bush was branded as unpatriotic or "allowing the terrorists to win". Nearly everyone was supportive of the troops and the job they are doing but wanted them out of Iraq. Bush couldn't even give them the common decency of having as much "home time" as they had war time. 15 month deployments but only 12 months at home.

The Iraq War started in 2003 and most Democrats voted for use of force fearing if they didn't it would be unpopular. In fact, one of the lines antiwar protestors used was that Bush is going to war to boost his popularity. I heard that many times.

Where are those Bush quotes calling his opponents unpatriotic? That charge went back to least 2004 and is largely a myth. It's as phony as the nonexistent "Saddam caused 9/11" quote.

[Danno 1,228]

The Iraq War started in 2003 and most Democrats voted for use of force fearing if they didn't it would be unpopular. In fact, one of the lines antiwar protestors used was that Bush is going to war to boost his popularity. I heard that many times.

Where are those Bush quotes calling his opponents unpatriotic? That charge went back to least 2004 and is largely a myth. It's as phony as the nonexistent "Saddam caused 9/11" quote.

Amen Bro.

Thats what I want to know..... where are those quotes from Bush calling dissenters "unpatriotic"?

Every time someone echo's that line I ask to see it..... and they come back with nothing.

[_Simpson_ 250]

OK, as far as the war in Iraq was concerned, it was extremely unpopular. Particularly in 2006 when Democrats regained control of Congress and passed the funding bill with the exit time limits which Bush promptly vetoed. The people wanted out of there, the Democrats tried to make it happen, but Bush thumbed his nose at the country and said "I'm going to do whatever the heck I feel like and if you don't agree with me then you are just unpatriotic". And that is the confusion many people have when they say that the war was popular. Anyone that disagreed with Bush was branded as unpatriotic or "allowing the terrorists to win". Nearly everyone was supportive of the troops and the job they are doing but wanted them out of Iraq. Bush couldn't even give them the common decency of having as much "home time" as they had war time. 15 month deployments but only 12 months at home.

I think it was pretty obvious I was referring to the start of the war.

[Sc0tt28 26]

Amen Bro.

Thats what I want to know..... where are those quotes from Bush calling dissenters "unpatriotic"?

Every time someone echo's that line I ask to see it..... and they come back with nothing.

You know darn well that no politician is actually stupid enough to call anyone "unpatriotic" but it has been implied many times. The problem with implied comments is that it takes some time to put together the quotes in such a way that the meaning is clear. I don't have time tonight but I'll get it to you tomorrow hopefully.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Revolt? The right wing nuts already revolted

[Dan T 8]

And again I am slapped with a stark reason why this right vs left eye gouging really annoys me. there are a much broader spectrum of political views than just racist unrestricted free trade christian war waging bible thumper on one end and aethesit communist union member pacifist on the other. and they did this to our guy so its fare game for us to do this to their guy. all this gets us is one extreme agenda after another crammed down our throats and most people are lost to vote against incumbants on that basis alone instead of actually getting to vote for someone they agree with. I honestly cant say if im on the right or the left because the most public people from both sides are the extreme fringe, and it crates an environment where people avoid conversation because they assume anyone passionate enough to speak out is one of these 2 flavors of nut-job loony. For instance I am a nature worshipping pagan who believes in american exceptionalism, having the strongest millitary on the face of the planet, having the highest gdp on the planet, and creating an environment where people all have a chance, regardless of color, to put their god given talents to work and acheive their best possible outcome whether it be billionaire mogul or middle income family person. And if you have no ambition to provide for your own survival you should rightly wither away and die with no safety net. Should we provide a leg up for people with ambition but restricted means? sure on some level yeah, but its a fine line between giving a leg up and creating a ward of the state in perpatuity. Government should be as small and unintrusive into peoples lives as possible which means no lectures about sexual prefrence, abortion or church attendance, but it also means no guilt for having the good fortune of being gifted by god to be a top acheiver either. my pagan bretheren all think im nuts whenever i speak in favor of any gop candidate because of images of a rascist aristocracy that seeks to enslave and exploit as many working class people as possible, and any republican I speak to think Im crazy when I tell them I talk to my gods on my own terms in my back yard with candles and incense instead of attending some abrahamic church edifice. Mention pagan to some people and they get visions of mass orgies in the woods and consuming human flesh of a virgin sacrifice. All of this that I get from both ends of the people I associate with in various circles is complete lunacy, and its reinforced by the news media who are simply out for ratings putting up the most extreme people in the public eye and they do everyone an injustice. I do think that every living person needs to formulate a political/religious idealology that they would pick up a gun and fight until death to defend, but this is quite different than picking up a gun with the intent to force it on anyone particularly in a foreign country. The thing is that if political parties were abandoned completely that the real ideas the average people hold would probably find a lot more common ground of agreement instead of what is happening now when people assume anyone the supported bush on any issue is nothin but a klansman, and all people who support obama are nothin but communists union members. both statements are equally false and have no place in a civilized debate. attacking the individual candidates is different though because when youre dealing with a single person you can rightly attack or defend a specific policy that he is on record with, but you have to be careful with attacking stereotypes that individual people do not exhibit. All sides lie, all sides exagerate, all sides spin the truth to support their agenda. It is more important to know where you stand than demand that a news agency report the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth because that just isnt likely to happen.

Edited April 4, 2010 by Dan T

[luckytxn 2,263]

Revolt? The right wing nuts already revolted

Better check your facts as the KKK was very deep in the Democratic party and are still there.

[Dan T 8]

Better check your facts as the KKK was very deep in the Democratic party and are still there.

robert byrd anyone? dixie crats? blacks are 3/5ths of a white?

Edited April 4, 2010 by Dan T

[luckytxn 2,263]

robert byrd anyone? dixie crats? blacks are 3/5ths of a white?

David Duke.

[Niels Bohr 72]

You better check your facts that Congress doesn't listen to the people since Congress listened to me.

Better check your facts as the KKK was very deep in the Democratic party and are still there.

Edited April 4, 2010 by Niels Bohr

[luckytxn 2,263]

OPEN LETTER FROM AFRICAN AMERICANS TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

FreeRepublic | this spring | Frances RIce

Posted on Mon Aug 02 2004 12:50:02 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by hoosiermama

Open Letter from African Americans to the Democratic Party

Open Letter from African Americans to the Democratic Party

Email from the author | 6/3/04 | Frances Rice

By Frances Rice

We, African American citizens of the United States, declare and assert:

Whereas in the early 1600’s 20 African men and women were landed in Virginia from a Dutch ship as slaves and from that tiny seed grew the poisoned fruit of plantation slavery which shaped the course of American development,

Whereas reconciliation and healing always begin with an apology and an effort to repay those who have been wronged,

Whereas the Democratic Party has never apologized for their horrific atrocities and racist practices committed against African Americans during the past two hundred years, nor for the residual impact that those atrocities and practices and current soft bigotry of low expectations are having on us today,

Whereas the Democratic Party fought to expand slavery and, after the Civil War, established Jim Crow Laws, Black Codes and other repressive legislation that were designed to disenfranchise African Americans,

Whereas the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, and their primary goal was to intimidate and terrorize African American voters, Republicans who moved South to protect African Americans and any other whites who supported them,

Whereas, according to leading historians (both black and white), the horrific atrocities committed against African Americans during slavery and Reconstruction were financed, sponsored, and promoted by the Democratic Party and their Ku Klux Klan supporters,

Whereas from 1870 to 1930, in an effort to deny African Americans their civil rights and to keep African Americans from voting Republican, thousands of African Americans were shot, beaten, lynched, mutilated, and burned to death by Ku Klux Klan terrorists from the Democratic Party,

Whereas Democratic Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman rejected anti-lynching laws and efforts to establish a permanent Civil Rights Commission,

Whereas the Democratic party has used racist demagoguery to deceive African Americans about the history of the Republican Party that: (a) started as the anti-slavery party in 1854, (b) fought to free African Americans from slavery, © designed Reconstruction, a ten-year period of unprecedented political power for African Americans, (d) passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution granting African Americans freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote, (e) passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 granting African Americans protection from the Black Codes and prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations, passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 granting African Americans protection from the Jim Crow laws, (g) established Affirmative Action programs to help African Americans proper with Republican President Richard Nixon's 1969 Philadelphia Plan that set the first goals and timetables and his 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act that made Affirmative Action Programs the law of our nation, and (h) never sponsored or launched a program, passed laws, or engaged in practices that resulted in the death of millions of African Americans,

Whereas Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka (a 1954 decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was appointed by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower) was a landmark civil rights case that was designed to overturn the racist practices that were established by the Democratic Party,

Whereas after Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt received the vote of African Americans, he banned African American newspapers from the military shortly after taking office because he was convinced the newspapers were communists,

Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Law, opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was later criticized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for ignoring civil rights issues.

Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy authorized the FBI (supervised by his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy) to investigate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on suspicion of being a communist,

Whereas Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, made a 14-hour filibuster speech in the Senate in June 1964 in an unsuccessful effort to block passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and was heralded in April 2004 by Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd as a senator who would have been a great leader during the Civil War,

Whereas when the 1964 Civil Rights Act came up for vote, Senator Al Gore, Sr. and the rest of the Southern Democrats voted against the bill,

Whereas in the House of Representatives only 61 percent of the Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act as compared to 80 percent of Republicans, and in the Senate only 69 percent of the Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, compared to 82 percent of the Republicans,

Whereas Democratic President Bill Clinton sent troops to Europe to protect the citizens of Bosnia and Kosovo while allowing an estimated 800,000 black Rwandans to be massacred in Africa, vetoed the welfare reform law twice before signing it, and refused to comply with a court order to have shipping companies develop an Affirmative Action Plan,

Whereas Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore created harmful racial division when he falsely claimed that the 2000 presidential election was “stolen” from him and that African Americans in Florida were disenfranchised, even though a second recount of Florida votes by the “Miami Herald” and a consortium of major news organizations confirmed that he lost the election, and a ruling by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission declared that African Americans were not denied the right to vote,

Whereas the Democratic Party's soft bigotry of low expectations and social promotions have consigned African Americans to economic bondage and created a culture of dependency on government social programs,

Whereas the Democratic Party's use of deception and fear to block welfare reform, the faith-based initiative and school choice that would help African Americans prosper is consistent with the Democratic Party's heritage of racism that included sanctioning of slavery and kukluxery, a perversion of moral sentiment among leaders of the Democratic Party whose racist legacy bode ill until this generation of African Americans,

Now, therefore, for the above and other documented atrocities and accumulated wrongs inflicted upon African Americans, we demand a formal written apology and other appropriate remuneration from the leadership of the Democratic party.

#####

Frances Rice is an attorney and an African-American woman who served in the Army for 20 years before retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. While in the Army she served as a company commander, an adjutant in a basic combat training brigade and a prosecutor in courts-marital.

Upon retiring, she was awarded the Legion of Merit. She is currently serving on the Board of the Military Officers Association of Sarasota, the SaraMana Black Republican Club and the SaraMana Community Development Corporation, a non-profit organization that helps low-income residents become homeowners and small business owners. In these positions, she puts both her Juris Doctorate and MBA degrees to good use.

She was recently appointed by Governor Jeb Bush to serve on the Medal of Merit Board for the state of Florida. Frances is married to Peter Rice, a retired diplomat from the U.S. Department of State.

Link http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1183525/posts

[luckytxn 2,263]

The Democratic Party’s Legacy of Racism

Editorial

December 2002

by: Mackubin T. Owens

Under pressure from fellow Republicans, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott recently stepped down from his post as Senate Majority Leader because of racially offensive comments he made earlier in the month. He was persuaded to take this step by Republicans who believed that his comments were at odds with the principles of their party.

Of course, Democrats have used the Lott affair to pillory the Republicans as racists. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who had first dismissed the idea that Sen. Lott was a racist, later claimed that his stepping down did not really address the Republican Party’s inherent racism. "Republicans have to prove, not only to us, of course, but to the American people that they are as sensitive to this question of racism, this question of civil rights, this question of equal opportunity, as they say they are," Senator Daschle told CNN. Among high-profile Democrats, Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer offered similar comments.

It’s about time that Republicans quit #####-footing around on the issue of race. They need to point out that in both principle and practice, the Republican Party has a far better record than the Democrats on race. Even more importantly, they need to stress that on the issues that most affect African-Americans today, the Democratic position represents racism of the most offensive sort—a patronizing racism that denigrates Blacks every bit as badly as the old racism of Jim Crow and segregation.

Republicans can begin by observing that their Party was founded on the basis of principles invoked by Abraham Lincoln. He himself recurred to the principles of the American Founding, specifically the Declaration of Independence, so we can say that the principles of the Republican Party are the principles of the nation. In essence these principles hold that the only purpose of government is to protect the equal natural rights of individual citizens. These rights inhere in individuals, not groups, and are antecedent to the creation of government. They are the rights invoked by the Declaration of Independence—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—not happiness, but the pursuit of happiness.

We should remember that the Republican Party was created in response to a crisis arising from the fact that American public opinion on the issue of slavery had drifted away from the principles of the Founding. While the Founders had tolerated slavery out of necessity, many Americans, especially within the Democratic Party, had come to accept the idea that slavery was a "positive good." While Thomas Jefferson, the founder of what evolved into the Democratic Party, had argued that slavery was bad not only for the slave but also for the slave owner, John C. Calhoun, had turned this principle on its head: slavery was good not only for the slave holder, but also for the slave.

Calhoun’s fundamental enterprise was to defend the institution of slavery. To do so, he first had to overturn the principles of the American Founding. He started with the Declaration of Independence, arguing that "[the proposition ’all men are created equal’] as now understood, has become the most false and dangerous of all political errors....We now begin to experience the danger of admitting so great an error to have a place in the declaration of independence." Thus Calhoun transformed the Democratic Party of Jefferson into the Party of Slavery.

The most liberal position among ante-bellum Democrats regarding slavery was that slavery was an issue that should be decided by popular vote. For example, Stephen Douglas, Lincoln’s opponent in the 1858 Illinois senate race and the 1860 presidential campaign, advocated "popular sovereignty." He defended the right of the people in the territories to outlaw slavery, but also defended the right of Southerners to own slaves and transport them to the new territories.

The Democratic Party’s war against African-Americans continued after the Civil War (which many Democrats in fact opposed, often working actively to undercut the Union war effort). Democrats, both north and south fought the attempt to implement the equality for African-Americans gained at such a high cost. This opposition was often violent. Indeed, the Ku Klux Klan operated as the de facto terrorist arm of the national Democratic Party during Reconstruction.

Democrats defeated Reconstruction in the end and on its ruins created Jim Crow. Democratic liberalism did not extend to issue of race. Woodrow Wilson was the quintessential "liberal racist," a species of Democrat that later included the likes of William Fulbright of Arkansas, Sam Ervin of North Carolina, and Albert Gore, father of Al, of Tennessee.

In the 1920s, the Republican Party platform routinely called for anti-lynching legislation. The Democrats rejected such calls in their own platforms. When FDR forged the New Deal, he was able to pry Blacks away from their traditional attachment to the Party of Lincoln. But they remained in their dependent status, Democrats by virtue of political expediency, not principle.

As the incomparable Ann Coulter has observed, when Strom Thurmond, the praise of whom landed Sen. Lott in hot water, ran a segregationist campaign in 1948, he ran as a Dixie-CRAT, not a Dixie-CAN. When he lost, he went back to being a Democrat. He only repudiated his segregationist views when he later became a Republican

Even the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which supposedly established the Democrats’ bona fides on race, was passed in spite of the Democrats rather than because of them. Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen pushed the bill through the Senate, despite the no-votes of 21 Democrats, including Gore Sr. and Robert Byrd, who remains a powerful force in the Senate today. In contrast, only four Republicans opposed the bill, mostly like Barry Goldwater on libertarian principles, not segregationist ones.

Indeed, the case of Sen. Byrd is instructive when it comes to the double standard applied to the two parties when it comes to race. Even those Democrats who have exploited the Lott affair acknowledge that he is no racist. Can the same be said about Sen. Byrd, who was a member of the KKK and who recently used the "n" word on national TV?

"Ah, but this is all in the past," say the Democrats. "Now we push a pro-African-American agenda." But the reality differs significantly from the claim.

Take the issue of education. The single biggest obstacle to the achievement of true equality in the United States is not poverty, but education. If Democrats sincerely wished to help the minority children on whose behalf they claim to labor, they would embrace school choice to help such children escape the trap of sub-standard schools. But that would offend the teachers’ unions upon which the Democrats depend for financial and "in-kind" support. So as has often been the case with the group politics of the Democratic party, African-American interests are sacrificed to other groups who have more pull.

"Affirmative action" has become the touchstone of Democratic racial politics. Democrats portray anyone who opposes affirmative action as racist. But affirmative action, as currently practiced, is racist to the core. It is based on the assumption that African-Americans are incapable of competing with whites. It represents the kind of paternalistic racism that would have done honor to Calhoun. For the modern liberal Democratic racist as for the old-fashioned one, blacks are simply incapable of freedom. They will always need Ol’ Massa’s help. And woe be to any African-American who wanders off of the Democratic plantation. Ask Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, or Ward Connerly. Although they echo the call for a "color-blind society" that once characterized the vision of Martin Luther King Jr., they are pilloried as "Uncle Toms" of "Oreos" by such enforcers of the Democratic plantation system as Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.

If we need the perfect symbol for the true character of the Democratic Party when it comes to race, we need look no farther than Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy. Rep. Kennedy portrays himself as a friend of African-Americans. But his touching solicitude for African-Americans as a group is gross hypocrisy. When inconvenienced by a real African-American woman trying to do her job, Rep. Kennedy shoved her out of his way, giving her arm a yank for good measure. In practice, the Democratic Party as a whole cares as much about real African-Americans as Rep. Kennedy does.

Mackubin Thomas Owens is professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College in Newport, RI, and an adjunct fellow of the Ashbrook Center. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the War College, Navy Department, or Department of Defense.

Link: http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/owens/02/racism.html

[Dan T 8]

You better check your facts that Congress doesn't listen to the people since Congress listened to me.

funny i had you pegged for a single payor guy. i stand corrected