I was fascinated to see the sadly defective, or deliberately decetiful attacks on my praise for the Civil Rights movment. Rather than address the issue, as I’d actually put it:
“…I don’t hear of many other conservatives expressing regret that their movement stood in solidarity with racists and continues to profit from Southern strategy racism.”
They were fixated onthe fact that Southern Democrats (many of whom found a friendly home in the post-60s GOP) were racists. No kidding. But now most of the racists among them vote Republican. The “Southern Strategy” at work.
Let me reprint a reply I made to one of the commenters taken up in ditto fashion by others (the ones who weren’t adding anti-semitism to their racist repertoire–some of those I’ll single out in subsequent posts as a way of demonstrting the all-spectrum repulsiveness of racists. Scratch a racist and you find a Jew-hater under the hood)
But what got to me was that instead of giving credit to liberals of all parties for the great moral movement for civil rights, they assumed I was attacking Republicans, not the conservative enablers of Southern racism.(who can do no wrong). But why is it that so many contemporary racists identify themselves as Republicans? it doesn’t mean all Republicans are racists, but from what I see in the comments the obverse may be true: racists defending the GOP) So as not to repeat myself, here’s my comment on the comment:
“Since many subsequent commenters take up the same obvious distortion (I wonder why?), let me point out that anyone who reads my post will see it’s not about Democrats and Republicans, it’s about conservatives and liberals. Lincoln, who feed the slaves was a Republican–duh! All honor goes to Republicans who, in his wake, supported the civil right movement, all shame to those who betrayed his legacy. The Southern Democratic racists who opposed civil rights were not liberals, even though they were Democrats, they were conservatives. Got that straight? It’s not that difficult if you took history in high school. You almost have to be willfully deceitful (or just thickheaded) not to understand the distinction . Strom Thurman who was a Dem, and then a Repub. was a conservative and a racist in both parties.
The point is that conservatives of both parties found reasons to oppose one of the great moral and political movements in American history; liberals of both parties supported it, and those among Jews for whom the prophetic tradtion of social justice is central saw this clearly.”
What none of the defenders of Republicans (back when they voted for civil rights legislation) has been able to defend is the continuing efficacy of the Southern strategy, which I characterized as “racism lite”. Why do you think the former Confederate, segregationist states suddenly switched to the GOP after the 60’s? Why did so many Democratic office holders in the South switch to the GOP? It’s pretty obvious: it’s because by that time the national Democratic party had become identified with the civil rights movment and the GOP in the south became a haven for racists. That’s not to say the GOP candidates and officeholders themselves were racists, but they benefited from racism. That’s the “Southern strategy”.
Those who seek to avoid the question by saying Southern Dems were racist in the past (duh, again) are afraid to face the facts.
And let me point out since there are so many reading-challenged commenters among the anti-semites and racists, I am not condemning the contemporary South as a whole, (or ignoring racism in the North), just pointing out that those who exploit or benefit from the South’s residual racism are mainly conservative Republicans..
But I must admit the number of unashamed racists and anti-semites who post comments is remarkable. Check that; they’re not entirely unashamed. That’s why they use cowardly anonymous screen names. If they used their real names no civilized person would invite these braying spittle flecked ranters and haters into their homes.
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