I think you're all missing Dean's point. He doesn't say anything about race, guns, God or gays. He's talking about the issues they should vote on but don't vote on, not the issues they do vote on that they shouldn't vote on.
People in this thread seem to be reversing the implications of his statement most likely because they want to see Dean fail. You're putting words in his mouth because you want to believe he's wrong.
The truth is, he's right. Economically speaking poor southerners would most likely be better off voting for a Democrat.
And yes, he apparently has no tact.
Bunge, the following quote is taken verbatim: "Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Tuesday that Southerners must stop basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays" and forge a multiracial coalition that focuses next year's presidential election on jobs, health care and a foreign policy reflecting American values."
You're right in thinking that the emphasis is obviously on Dean's alternative of better education and health care. But he also says explicitly that southerners should stop "basing their votes on race, guns, God, and gays." It's pretty much understood that to start basing votes on one thing means to stop basing it on another. It's the whole nature of his appeal, so I think you're wildly off the mark in that regard.
As far as my intentions, I'm one of Dean's biggest supporters. To concede that Dean is not always tactful is not really a harmful attack, so I'm not sure where you're going with that one if it applies to everyone.
Yes, to place greater emphasis on what southerners should not vote for is clearly indicative of wanting Dean to fail. It's clear that Dean's emphasis is on what he can provide for them: better education and health care, rather than on what southerners have traditionally voted for. In fact, some place so much emphasis on it to the point where they even deny that it's true. People in this thread deny that southerners generally base their votes on race, guns, God, and gays in order to accuse Dean of stereotyping.
Personally, I think that's generally true. But, I did a bit of research on the internet last night and found that the term "southerners" is really a generalization that pertains to the voting habits of the people from a specific geographic region of the United States. You might think Dean is referring to all Southerners as "basing their votes on race, guns, God, and gays." But I think it's not so clear that he doesn't mean every single Southerner always bases voting on those issues. He means Southerners generally do.
If you take a look at the voting habits of white southerners versus black southerners, you'll find that black southerners generally vote for Democrats and white southerners generally vote for Republicans- especially white male southerners, I think it can be agreed upon that the bloc of white southerners has more voting power than black southerners. The Presidents the south has voted for during the past 30 years can prove that assertion. (Although it gets more complicated with Democratic Presidents from the South. In that case, I would look at the kinds of policies enacted by elected officials in the South). So, when Dean talks about "forging a multiracial coalition," he is advocating for the voting habits of black southerners and white southerners to come together to vote for Dean based on his policies of better education and health care.
"She said he is appealing to "a tiny, arrogant elite who will pick the Democratic nominee."
My question is: Why isn't anyone upset about Florida Republican Party Chairwoman Carole Jean Jordan comments about Democratic party primary voters as "arrogant?" I mean that's not empirically verifiable like voting habits. Now, that's a stereotype! Does anyone really believe that Democratic party primary voters have an "assumption of one's superiority toward others?" All in the same Tallahassee Democrat article that Fellowship originally quoted no less! "The hits keep on coming..."
You see, your remarks are just what midwinter was getting at before. You're assuming that "basing votes on race, guns, God, and gays" is bad and you're speaking out against it. Paradoxically (and ironically), YOU'RE the one who is truly offending southerners here. Isn't it ingenious how that works out? Meanwhile, Dean is reaching out to southern conservatives with promises to improve education and health care. This looks pretty good for Dean to me...
EDIT: Even though Dean obviously thinks "basing votes on race, guns, God, and gays" is bad, he's reaching out to southern conservatives with an alternative. He's building a bridge in your own words. Can you not see this?
This is hilarous.
I suppose if Dean said blacks have to stop basing their votes off of "Getting welfare, getting high, and getting 40 acres and a mule" Then I would really be the closet racist for being offended at such sentiments being expressed.
The Dean statements are profoundly stereotypical and claim not only to know the voters, but their motivations in voting as they do as well. It is outright wrong and has been handled so hamhanded that if he does get the nomination, not only will he not get the white male vote, I predict a depressed black turn out as well and they are less energized by his attempts to appeal to the voters they see as causing them to be treated in a secondary manner.
Rev. Al said it best himself. He said blacks were not going to be the mistresses of the Democratic party. It was either time to get hitched or time to move on. I'm sure Dean "appealing" to Southern Whites by claiming the Confederate flag supporters should support him, while also telling them everything they supposedly base their vote on is bunk, will do so much to enfranchise black voters.
I suppose if Dean said blacks have to stop basing their votes off of "Getting welfare, getting high, and getting 40 acres and a mule" Then I would really be the closet racist for being offended at such sentiments being expressed.
How do the two situations even compare?
Quote:
Originally posted by trumptman
The Dean statements are profoundly stereotypical and claim not only to know the voters, but their motivations in voting as they do as well.
How are they "profoundly stereotypical?" "Profoundly" now; Don't be shy.
Quote:
Originally posted by trumptman
It is outright wrong and has been handled so hamhanded that if he does get the nomination, not only will he not get the white male vote, I predict a depressed black turn out as well and they are less energized by his attempts to appeal to the voters they see as causing them to be treated in a secondary manner.
How is it "outright wrong?" How is advocating forging "a multiracial coalition that focuses next year's presidential election on jobs, health care and a foreign policy reflecting American values"- how is that bad for black southerners?
Quote:
Originally posted by trumptman
Rev. Al said it best himself. He said blacks were not going to be the mistresses of the Democratic party. It was either time to get hitched or time to move on. I'm sure Dean "appealing" to Southern Whites by claiming the Confederate flag supporters should support him, while also telling them everything they supposedly base their vote on is bunk, will do so much to enfranchise black voters.
Hmm. Actually it will if you assume that Dean's other policies include support for the enfranchisement of black voters. If southerners vote for Dean based on health care and better education, naturally, they lend support for any of Dean's other policies.
You know Shawn your whole reply was a serious of questions. As I mentioned in the other thread. Questioning the source, poster, motivations, etc. Isn't a convincing argumentive technique.
Ewww.. you got me... someone might not think Dean is "profoundly" stereotyping, they might only think he is sterotyping.
Yep, you and the smokey smilie are just so cool. You are a joke.
Keep "questioning" instead of arguing. Meanwhile Democrats lose more seats by the day and folks like me who actually have some issues we coule be convinced on by moderate candidates on the Democratic side will just keep voting Republican.
Now that truly is funny! (And for the record, I just want to know how Dean's comments stereotype southerners at all... you're the one who is saying that it's not just stereotyping but "profound stereotyping." Well, I'll be here if you want to discuss it lol.)
So Al Sharpton knows how every black voter will vote now?
Southern white men have been voting republican.
It's not that Al Sharpton knows how every black voter will vote. It is that for the Democrats to be competitive, they need the black vote to turn out heavily and vote about 85-90% Democratic. Any change in this and the Democrats sink pretty badly on a national scale since they have lost so much of the white male vote.
The reason they have lost that vote is not because Republicans appeal to
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The issues the REPUBLICANS push are race, guns, God, and gays.
but because when you blame one group for pretty much everything that is wrong with every other group, you can't expect to get their vote. When you look at who the Democrats blame on issues involving minorities and women it is only one group. That group isn't going to vote Democratic.
Likewise those issues assume that for example no other group cares about those issues. Tammy Bruce is an example of a feminist who cares deeply about gun issues and so is Camille Paglia. Black voters are highly organized and motivated by "religious/God" issues and their churches. In fact the whole history of the civil rights movement pretty much was run through black churches.
Likewise with gays, if anything most studies I have read have found most minority communities much less accepting of the homosexual lifestyle than whites in general or white males specifically.
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You can't seperate the party's campaigns from why they get the vote.
True, but you don't have to listen to the other parties mischaracterizations of your positions either. Clinton had the opportunity for example to deal with homosexuals in the military. He punted. Clinton went to church every Sunday and sought religious counciling during the Lewinsky scandal.
Dean earns a perfect rating from the NRA and claims different standards for different states. (If that's not the guns in the Republican "guns" argument, then I don't know what is) Dean signed civil union laws, but didn't recognize homosexual marriage. (I have Dean's very position myself and have watched you rant on about it.)
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Remember how well Pat Buchanan went over at the convention talking about a moral and cultural war with the left?
I remember that he went over so well he wasn't allowed to speak during the opening night of the next convention. (I should know, I was there.) I remember the him running again and getting a marginal amount of the vote. However Buchanan did do one thing that was important. He showed that these aren't just "policy" issues but well beyond that.
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This debate is about what buttons the republicans push to get the vote.
The Republicans don't push buttons, they just don't blame white men for all evils on the planet.
Meanwhile the Democrats continue to claim and ask "Please vote for us but we know you are the problem, likely a closet racist, and also please change everything you believe about yourself and become a self-loathing person who gladly gives up all privilege we claim you have, while also needing the government programs we advocate because you are so broke."
If you cannot see what that is not a compelling argument, then so be it.
O.K., I've got a question. If southerners aren't voting "god guns and gays", ie. cultural positioning, what are they voting? Cause it can't be economics, and the two, culture and econonics, are pretty much it, no?
I say it can't be economics because the Republican notions of taxation and spending clearly do not benifit the relatively impoverished south, which of course is what Dean wants to address.
So how about "cultural economics"? That is, the linking of certain economic policies, such as progressive taxation, social spending, and "income redistribution" with the percepion of certain cultural tendencies.
In other words, I can be convinced to vote against my own immediate economic interests because it seems to me that the very policies that would put money in my pocket are part of a "world view" I abhor.
The relentless right-wing construction of the "liberal" as a sort of dissapated god-hating lotus-eater serves as a front line defense against progressive policy in America by presenting the voter with the false dichotomy of "shares your values" conservatism and "would sell you to the homosexuals" liberalsim.
It is the great magic trick of American reactionary forces of the last 30 years to subsume class into "values".
I applaud Dean for addressing this bullshit directly, and I don't care that much if he is doing it clumsily. I just hope he is willing to follow up by keeping it on the table, hammering home the point that poor and working people can change the rules of the game if they can shake off the siren call of "god guns and gays".
Wow. I must be self-loathing because I'm a democrat?
Thanks. Do I pay you $100 on the way out for you succinct psychological analysis?
How is the democratic party blaming whites for anything?
Blaming big donor rich republicans perhaps... who happen to be white.
Dean has stated that he had to be educated about gays. That he saw civil unions as a rights issue. You can't force churches to perform marriages.
And then you have Bush come out with PROTECT THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE WEEK. Was he advocating gay right to civil unions? Nope. Making it clear with the religious right where he stood on gays. They portray Gays wanting a recognized union as some sort of attack on your marriage as a straight person.
The Republican's didn't invite Buchanan back because they don't want the real conservative agenda out in the open. They want to appear moderate. The Republican's have to get out their core vote too... the christian right. They just don't want to energize that core on national TV.
tr: "Meanwhile the Democrats continue to claim and ask "Please vote for us but we know you are the problem, likely a closet racist, and also please change everything you believe about yourself and become a self-loathing person who gladly gives up all privilege we claim you have, while also needing the government programs we advocate because you are so broke."
That's reading ALOT into "I want that guys vote" statement. Sounds like you're sterotyping to me.
And if you've noticed the latest national polls. 50% say they want Bush out and 44% say they want to re-elect him.
Thanks, but Presidence is not for me : AO is sufficiant for my happiness
Powerdoc while it would be refreshing to have you as President I would never wish that on you I know you would rather prefer to enjoy your life without all of the dirt and pandering that derail what politics / leadership could be.
Powerdoc for president is an archetype that will always live to be a desire for ole Fellows here.
If only the "real world" candidates could live up to the Powerdoc standard.
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Albert Einstein
O.K., I've got a question. If southerners aren't voting "god guns and gays", ie. cultural positioning, what are they voting? Cause it can't be economics, and the two, culture and econonics, are pretty much it, no?
Well I'm not from the South so I can't claim to know what their issues are for voting. I can tell you though as a white male in California that the Democratic party has repeatedly turned me off by letting special interests declare that I am the "problem" and they are the cure.
Democrats have adopted a mentality that since white males have had the "spoils" for so long, they can't even be part of the debate about society since they are the problem and the debate is, "how do we get rid of this problem?"
You see this around here in these forums as well. Take for example immigration,trade, and unionization. Issues that would likely go soundly white male in the South. I even started a thread a long time ago about how Dean could win by declaring a moritorium on immigration for a while, advocate fair trade instead of free trade, and then of course promote unionization of both minority and white voters who earn low/tolerable wages in semi-skilled jobs.
Those issues had nothing to do with "God, Gays, Guns, etc." but you should have heard the progressives around here. Any time you stand against wide open immigrations, you are racist. Anytime you stand against free trade you are advocating American interests to the detriment of other countries which makes you... yep...racist....
The union thing doesn't end up as only racist, but varies between "well U.S. workers would never let themselves be exploited like that" (as if exploitation is okay) to, well you just want to protect white workers at the expense of undocumented workers, (racist), to well go after the white owners who exploit these undocumented workers (they are white and racist) etc.
To me the South really is the "blue dog" Democrats that they formerly were and are still likely. There are also a lot of union workers who vote Republican (myself included) when some of their views would have more easily fit into the older Democratic party.
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I say it can't be economics because the Republican notions of taxation and spending clearly do not benifit the relatively impoverished south, which of course is what Dean wants to address.
So how about "cultural economics"? That is, the linking of certain economic policies, such as progressive taxation, social spending, and "income redistribution" with the percepion of certain cultural tendencies.
In other words, I can be convinced to vote against my own immediate economic interests because it seems to me that the very policies that would put money in my pocket are part of a "world view" I abhor.
Or perhaps as I said, the worldview happens to abhor you.
However the Democratic party really hasn't sort of "selective" progressivism going on. I see this because of issues I have advocated myself. For example paternity law reform. Any claim against the fact that most father's are not "deadbeat," should be given equal parenting rights, shouldn't be just seen as a paycheck, etc. are met with cries of sexism.
Democrats aren't really any different from Republicans with regard to supporting unionization or trade. They claim to support unionization, but then undermine it with support of massive illegal immigration which holds down wages.
Affirmative action is an issue the Republicans have taken away by taking the racism out of it. They simply asked to have it based on financial need instead of purely by race. To Democrats this is racist. Why then would white males vote for a universal health care program when it is clear that financial need will not be the only determining factor. For example as many men die of prostate cancer as do women from breast cancer. Yet advocating more money on men's studies or on medical research toward men is "sexist." Even though the money spent on research about breast cancer dwarfs the amount spent on prostate cancer.
When you watch a system (federal government) that repeated declares you the problem, and then seeks to take your money to solve problems, you vote against it, even when they argue you would gain from it. It just doesn't have credibility.
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The relentless right-wing construction of the "liberal" as a sort of dissapated god-hating lotus-eater serves as a front line defense against progressive policy in America by presenting the voter with the false dichotomy of "shares your values" conservatism and "would sell you to the homosexuals" liberalsim.
It is the great magic trick of American reactionary forces of the last 30 years to subsume class into "values".
I applaud Dean for addressing this bullshit directly, and I don't care that much if he is doing it clumsily. I just hope he is willing to follow up by keeping it on the table, hammering home the point that poor and working people can change the rules of the game if they can shake off the siren call of "god guns and gays".
Perhaps liberals should honestly ask themselves why when Democrats go to black churches it is okay, but when they go to white churches it is "seperation of church and state."
It isn't about being sold out to homosexuals or things of that nature either. For example, here in California there was a recent change in a sexual education law. Before the schools had to inform the parents of the upcoming education and get a permission slip for the child to attend.
Now they have reversed it. You have to find out about it, seek out the permission slip and then sign it to deny your child program.
That, in my view isn't a partnership. That is actively working to ignore the wishes and will of the parents.
Likewise with the claim about class and values. Can you honestly declare that your values have no affect on what you are likely to earn? If one person values education and another values entertainment at the expense of education, the former is likely going to earn more. They are generalizations of course, and there are always exceptions. However married families with college educations, for example typically earn more than say, single parents (man or woman) with high school education and no additional training.
When you see institutions attempting to undermine these values. (For example schools where they don't want to assign grades, force sex education that isn't in line with parents values, etc.) People are going to vote against that.
I don't think Dean is addressing it. I think he is using the same sort of guilt tactics that drive white male voters away from the Democratic party. Until he declares that economics are above racial politics himself, he is just trying to get everyone to buy a line. As we can see from the reaction, no one in his own party, or any other party is buying it.
Wow. I must be self-loathing because I'm a democrat?
Thanks. Do I pay you $100 on the way out for you succinct psychological analysis?
You might not be, but when it comes down to issues that address you over time, you would reject that loathing, and seek out someone who doesn't advocate it. That is what has happened in the south.
I see from your profile that you are a couple years older than me, and I don't know if you have any children yet. But when they enter school/society and begin having opportunities taken away from them because of who they are, and not because of what they can do, you might reject the loathing that they will attempt to use to justify it to you. (I.E. it's okay because we have enough whites)
Even moreso since it happens most often with programs that are supposed promote those who just need a hand up (saying a program that helps buy a house by granting the down payment, etc.) You become less likely to support them since it will actually cause competition against you since you don't get those programs.
So a poor single mother can afford college, but a poor single white male can't. So lets advocate raising the tuition so we can take more from those who can pay, and give it back to those who can't in the form of financial aid.
That is a progressive idea, but since I am the white male that can't get financial aid, I won't support it.
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And if you've noticed the latest national polls. 50% say they want Bush out and 44% say they want to re-elect him.
I don't believe Bush can be re-elected no matter what. However right now it is true that a lot of banging is going on that Bush doesn't respond to since it is part of the Democratic primary process. That same poll still showed that no Democratic candidate could beat him either. Likewise Bush and his $150 million will do some damage when the process begins for both sides.
However let me reemphasize this last point. You can't expect people to buy into "selective" progressivism. It stinks of cronyism. Don't advocate fairness for all, and then set up a system of additional gains for "historically disadvantaged" groups or anyone else that wants to jump in and make a claim.
A great example of this is the Indian gaming issue here in California. Most tribes rake in millions and number under a couple hundred members. It is a 5 billion dollar industry heading toward 10 billion. Yet if you suggest they should provide their workers with health care, you get called racist. Their workers are anything but Indian, mostly a mixture of white, black and hispanic pretty much in equal amounts. Yet Indians don't have to be progressive because they were historically harmed.
No one is going to vote for that brand of progressivism.
From Salon an opion peice about Dean and the Reagans:
"In March, Dean described his thinking more fully: "I think the Republicans, ever since 1968, with Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, have divided us on race issues. Look, when I go to the South, I talk about race deliberately ... If we're going to have elections about race, we might as well talk about it openly. I want white males, particularly in the South, to come back to the Democratic Party. And the case that FDR made was, look, when was the last time you all got a raise? When was the last time your kids got decent health insurance? What kind of schools do your kids go to if you can't afford a private academy?" ...
"Certain crucial events in the rise of Ronald Reagan are noticeably missing. His actual words on race and civil rights, essential to his political success, are absent, though the RNC chairman has not complained about that.
Consider just a few true-life scenes that never made "The Reagans": Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (calling it "humiliating to the South"), and ran for governor of California in 1966 promising to wipe the Fair Housing Act off the books. "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house," Reagan said, "he has a right to do so."
After the Republican Convention in 1980, Reagan traveled to the county fair in Neshoba, Miss., where, in 1964, three Freedom Riders had been slain by the Ku Klux Klan. His appearance there was urged and planned by a young congressman named Trent Lott, who had switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Before an all-white crowd of tens of thousands, Reagan declared, "I believe in states' rights" -- the code words that were used in the Civil War to justify slavery and the secession of the Southern states from the Union. These words are at the center of the bloody conflict through American history over the essential idea of the United States.
As president, Reagan put his Justice Department on the side of segregation, supporting the fundamentalist Bob Jones University in its case seeking federal funds for institutions that discriminate on the basis of race. In 1983, when the Supreme Court decided against Bob Jones, Reagan, under fire from his right in the aftermath, gutted the Civil Rights Commission.
Reagan consolidated the Southern strategy that Richard Nixon formulated in response to the civil rights movement. This Republican Party has created the radically conservative Southern presidency of George W. Bush. Another scene: When Bush's candidacy was threatened in the Republican primaries of 2000, he rescued himself by appearing at Bob Jones University and wrapping himself in support of the preservation of the Confederate emblem on the South Carolina state flag.
Dean's remarks were awkward, but his challenge to the Republican Party's basic character and the need for a strategy for defeating it will inevitably be revisited by whoever becomes the Democratic nominee, if that nominee cares about winning.
"Consider yet another scene: On the day before Dean's last apology, Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the third biggest lobbyist in Washington, was elected governor of Mississippi. He had campaigned at an event sponsored by the Council of Conservative Citizens, an overtly racist group and successor organization to the White Citizens' Council that led opposition to civil rights in the 1960s. In his lapel Barbour wore a pin of the Mississippi state flag, a matter of controversy because of its incorporation of the Confederate flag. On election night, even before he was announced as the winner, Barbour received a congratulatory telephone call from George W. Bush. Look away, Dixieland.
As the great novelist William Faulkner, of Mississippi, wrote: "The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past."
How is wanting a better public school system, a better health care system and more jobs selective progessivism?
The laws would have to change in order to govern Indian reservations. Which essentially exist and nations within a nation. I agree that all those benefits should be supplied by the businesses tat operate on Indian reservations.
But then again... how many working uninsured are there in this country? Millions. And only a small percentage of them work on indian reservations.
Would be nice if healthcare was provided for everyone... no matter where they worked.
Everyone should fight to end racism. Racism has no place in our society. Racism is nothing more than ignorance, but yet it is more... it is hate, it hurts people.
Comments
Anyone watch McGaughlin Group this morning?
They're take on the issue... 3 say draw... 1 says big bonus and one said disaster.
"Flaggers" will never vote for a democrat. But that's not who he was saying he wanted the votes of.
Are the issues... Abortion, Religion, Taxes and Patriotism?
I've read many opinions all over the internet... and there is no consensus among southerners.
If anything this hullabulloo early on could help Dean to better form his message.
Originally posted by bunge
I think you're all missing Dean's point. He doesn't say anything about race, guns, God or gays. He's talking about the issues they should vote on but don't vote on, not the issues they do vote on that they shouldn't vote on.
People in this thread seem to be reversing the implications of his statement most likely because they want to see Dean fail. You're putting words in his mouth because you want to believe he's wrong.
The truth is, he's right. Economically speaking poor southerners would most likely be better off voting for a Democrat.
And yes, he apparently has no tact.
Bunge, the following quote is taken verbatim: "Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Tuesday that Southerners must stop basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays" and forge a multiracial coalition that focuses next year's presidential election on jobs, health care and a foreign policy reflecting American values."
You're right in thinking that the emphasis is obviously on Dean's alternative of better education and health care. But he also says explicitly that southerners should stop "basing their votes on race, guns, God, and gays." It's pretty much understood that to start basing votes on one thing means to stop basing it on another. It's the whole nature of his appeal, so I think you're wildly off the mark in that regard.
As far as my intentions, I'm one of Dean's biggest supporters. To concede that Dean is not always tactful is not really a harmful attack, so I'm not sure where you're going with that one if it applies to everyone.
Yes, to place greater emphasis on what southerners should not vote for is clearly indicative of wanting Dean to fail. It's clear that Dean's emphasis is on what he can provide for them: better education and health care, rather than on what southerners have traditionally voted for. In fact, some place so much emphasis on it to the point where they even deny that it's true. People in this thread deny that southerners generally base their votes on race, guns, God, and gays in order to accuse Dean of stereotyping.
Personally, I think that's generally true. But, I did a bit of research on the internet last night and found that the term "southerners" is really a generalization that pertains to the voting habits of the people from a specific geographic region of the United States. You might think Dean is referring to all Southerners as "basing their votes on race, guns, God, and gays." But I think it's not so clear that he doesn't mean every single Southerner always bases voting on those issues. He means Southerners generally do.
If you take a look at the voting habits of white southerners versus black southerners, you'll find that black southerners generally vote for Democrats and white southerners generally vote for Republicans- especially white male southerners, I think it can be agreed upon that the bloc of white southerners has more voting power than black southerners. The Presidents the south has voted for during the past 30 years can prove that assertion. (Although it gets more complicated with Democratic Presidents from the South. In that case, I would look at the kinds of policies enacted by elected officials in the South). So, when Dean talks about "forging a multiracial coalition," he is advocating for the voting habits of black southerners and white southerners to come together to vote for Dean based on his policies of better education and health care.
My question is: Why isn't anyone upset about Florida Republican Party Chairwoman Carole Jean Jordan comments about Democratic party primary voters as "arrogant?" I mean that's not empirically verifiable like voting habits. Now, that's a stereotype! Does anyone really believe that Democratic party primary voters have an "assumption of one's superiority toward others?" All in the same Tallahassee Democrat article that Fellowship originally quoted no less! "The hits keep on coming..."
Originally posted by ShawnJ
You see, your remarks are just what midwinter was getting at before. You're assuming that "basing votes on race, guns, God, and gays" is bad and you're speaking out against it. Paradoxically (and ironically), YOU'RE the one who is truly offending southerners here. Isn't it ingenious how that works out? Meanwhile, Dean is reaching out to southern conservatives with promises to improve education and health care. This looks pretty good for Dean to me...
EDIT: Even though Dean obviously thinks "basing votes on race, guns, God, and gays" is bad, he's reaching out to southern conservatives with an alternative. He's building a bridge in your own words. Can you not see this?
This is hilarous.
I suppose if Dean said blacks have to stop basing their votes off of "Getting welfare, getting high, and getting 40 acres and a mule" Then I would really be the closet racist for being offended at such sentiments being expressed.
The Dean statements are profoundly stereotypical and claim not only to know the voters, but their motivations in voting as they do as well. It is outright wrong and has been handled so hamhanded that if he does get the nomination, not only will he not get the white male vote, I predict a depressed black turn out as well and they are less energized by his attempts to appeal to the voters they see as causing them to be treated in a secondary manner.
Rev. Al said it best himself. He said blacks were not going to be the mistresses of the Democratic party. It was either time to get hitched or time to move on. I'm sure Dean "appealing" to Southern Whites by claiming the Confederate flag supporters should support him, while also telling them everything they supposedly base their vote on is bunk, will do so much to enfranchise black voters.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
This is hilarous.
I suppose if Dean said blacks have to stop basing their votes off of "Getting welfare, getting high, and getting 40 acres and a mule" Then I would really be the closet racist for being offended at such sentiments being expressed.
How do the two situations even compare?
Originally posted by trumptman
The Dean statements are profoundly stereotypical and claim not only to know the voters, but their motivations in voting as they do as well.
How are they "profoundly stereotypical?" "Profoundly" now; Don't be shy.
Originally posted by trumptman
It is outright wrong and has been handled so hamhanded that if he does get the nomination, not only will he not get the white male vote, I predict a depressed black turn out as well and they are less energized by his attempts to appeal to the voters they see as causing them to be treated in a secondary manner.
How is it "outright wrong?" How is advocating forging "a multiracial coalition that focuses next year's presidential election on jobs, health care and a foreign policy reflecting American values"- how is that bad for black southerners?
Originally posted by trumptman
Rev. Al said it best himself. He said blacks were not going to be the mistresses of the Democratic party. It was either time to get hitched or time to move on. I'm sure Dean "appealing" to Southern Whites by claiming the Confederate flag supporters should support him, while also telling them everything they supposedly base their vote on is bunk, will do so much to enfranchise black voters.
Hmm. Actually it will if you assume that Dean's other policies include support for the enfranchisement of black voters. If southerners vote for Dean based on health care and better education, naturally, they lend support for any of Dean's other policies.
Well that was fun.
Ewww.. you got me... someone might not think Dean is "profoundly" stereotyping, they might only think he is sterotyping.
Yep, you and the smokey smilie are just so cool. You are a joke.
Keep "questioning" instead of arguing. Meanwhile Democrats lose more seats by the day and folks like me who actually have some issues we coule be convinced on by moderate candidates on the Democratic side will just keep voting Republican.
Nick
Southern white men have been voting republican.
The issues the REPUBLICANS push are race, guns, God, and gays.
You can't seperate the party's campaigns from why they get the vote.
Remember how well Pat Buchanan went over at the convention talking about a moral and cultural war with the left?
You can't seperate the Republican party from the strategy.
To pretend that this debate is about stereotypes is wrong.
This debate is about what buttons the republicans push to get the vote.
Now that truly is funny! (And for the record, I just want to know how Dean's comments stereotype southerners at all... you're the one who is saying that it's not just stereotyping but "profound stereotyping." Well, I'll be here if you want to discuss it lol.)
Originally posted by chu_bakka
So Al Sharpton knows how every black voter will vote now?
Southern white men have been voting republican.
It's not that Al Sharpton knows how every black voter will vote. It is that for the Democrats to be competitive, they need the black vote to turn out heavily and vote about 85-90% Democratic. Any change in this and the Democrats sink pretty badly on a national scale since they have lost so much of the white male vote.
The reason they have lost that vote is not because Republicans appeal to
The issues the REPUBLICANS push are race, guns, God, and gays.
but because when you blame one group for pretty much everything that is wrong with every other group, you can't expect to get their vote. When you look at who the Democrats blame on issues involving minorities and women it is only one group. That group isn't going to vote Democratic.
Likewise those issues assume that for example no other group cares about those issues. Tammy Bruce is an example of a feminist who cares deeply about gun issues and so is Camille Paglia. Black voters are highly organized and motivated by "religious/God" issues and their churches. In fact the whole history of the civil rights movement pretty much was run through black churches.
Likewise with gays, if anything most studies I have read have found most minority communities much less accepting of the homosexual lifestyle than whites in general or white males specifically.
You can't seperate the party's campaigns from why they get the vote.
True, but you don't have to listen to the other parties mischaracterizations of your positions either. Clinton had the opportunity for example to deal with homosexuals in the military. He punted. Clinton went to church every Sunday and sought religious counciling during the Lewinsky scandal.
Dean earns a perfect rating from the NRA and claims different standards for different states. (If that's not the guns in the Republican "guns" argument, then I don't know what is) Dean signed civil union laws, but didn't recognize homosexual marriage. (I have Dean's very position myself and have watched you rant on about it.)
Remember how well Pat Buchanan went over at the convention talking about a moral and cultural war with the left?
I remember that he went over so well he wasn't allowed to speak during the opening night of the next convention. (I should know, I was there.) I remember the him running again and getting a marginal amount of the vote. However Buchanan did do one thing that was important. He showed that these aren't just "policy" issues but well beyond that.
This debate is about what buttons the republicans push to get the vote.
The Republicans don't push buttons, they just don't blame white men for all evils on the planet.
Meanwhile the Democrats continue to claim and ask "Please vote for us but we know you are the problem, likely a closet racist, and also please change everything you believe about yourself and become a self-loathing person who gladly gives up all privilege we claim you have, while also needing the government programs we advocate because you are so broke."
If you cannot see what that is not a compelling argument, then so be it.
Nick
Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook
Grenoble: L'esprit d'innovation
I want Powerdoc for president.
Fellowship
Thanks, but Presidence is not for me : AO is sufficiant for my happiness
I say it can't be economics because the Republican notions of taxation and spending clearly do not benifit the relatively impoverished south, which of course is what Dean wants to address.
So how about "cultural economics"? That is, the linking of certain economic policies, such as progressive taxation, social spending, and "income redistribution" with the percepion of certain cultural tendencies.
In other words, I can be convinced to vote against my own immediate economic interests because it seems to me that the very policies that would put money in my pocket are part of a "world view" I abhor.
The relentless right-wing construction of the "liberal" as a sort of dissapated god-hating lotus-eater serves as a front line defense against progressive policy in America by presenting the voter with the false dichotomy of "shares your values" conservatism and "would sell you to the homosexuals" liberalsim.
It is the great magic trick of American reactionary forces of the last 30 years to subsume class into "values".
I applaud Dean for addressing this bullshit directly, and I don't care that much if he is doing it clumsily. I just hope he is willing to follow up by keeping it on the table, hammering home the point that poor and working people can change the rules of the game if they can shake off the siren call of "god guns and gays".
Thanks. Do I pay you $100 on the way out for you succinct psychological analysis?
How is the democratic party blaming whites for anything?
Blaming big donor rich republicans perhaps... who happen to be white.
Dean has stated that he had to be educated about gays. That he saw civil unions as a rights issue. You can't force churches to perform marriages.
And then you have Bush come out with PROTECT THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE WEEK. Was he advocating gay right to civil unions? Nope. Making it clear with the religious right where he stood on gays. They portray Gays wanting a recognized union as some sort of attack on your marriage as a straight person.
The Republican's didn't invite Buchanan back because they don't want the real conservative agenda out in the open. They want to appear moderate. The Republican's have to get out their core vote too... the christian right. They just don't want to energize that core on national TV.
tr: "Meanwhile the Democrats continue to claim and ask "Please vote for us but we know you are the problem, likely a closet racist, and also please change everything you believe about yourself and become a self-loathing person who gladly gives up all privilege we claim you have, while also needing the government programs we advocate because you are so broke."
That's reading ALOT into "I want that guys vote" statement. Sounds like you're sterotyping to me.
And if you've noticed the latest national polls. 50% say they want Bush out and 44% say they want to re-elect him.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
Thanks, but Presidence is not for me : AO is sufficiant for my happiness
Powerdoc while it would be refreshing to have you as President I would never wish that on you
Powerdoc for president is an archetype that will always live to be a desire for ole Fellows here.
If only the "real world" candidates could live up to the Powerdoc standard.
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Albert Einstein
With Respect for all,
Fellowship
Originally posted by addabox
O.K., I've got a question. If southerners aren't voting "god guns and gays", ie. cultural positioning, what are they voting? Cause it can't be economics, and the two, culture and econonics, are pretty much it, no?
Well I'm not from the South so I can't claim to know what their issues are for voting. I can tell you though as a white male in California that the Democratic party has repeatedly turned me off by letting special interests declare that I am the "problem" and they are the cure.
Democrats have adopted a mentality that since white males have had the "spoils" for so long, they can't even be part of the debate about society since they are the problem and the debate is, "how do we get rid of this problem?"
You see this around here in these forums as well. Take for example immigration,trade, and unionization. Issues that would likely go soundly white male in the South. I even started a thread a long time ago about how Dean could win by declaring a moritorium on immigration for a while, advocate fair trade instead of free trade, and then of course promote unionization of both minority and white voters who earn low/tolerable wages in semi-skilled jobs.
Those issues had nothing to do with "God, Gays, Guns, etc." but you should have heard the progressives around here. Any time you stand against wide open immigrations, you are racist. Anytime you stand against free trade you are advocating American interests to the detriment of other countries which makes you... yep...racist....
The union thing doesn't end up as only racist, but varies between "well U.S. workers would never let themselves be exploited like that" (as if exploitation is okay) to, well you just want to protect white workers at the expense of undocumented workers, (racist), to well go after the white owners who exploit these undocumented workers (they are white and racist) etc.
To me the South really is the "blue dog" Democrats that they formerly were and are still likely. There are also a lot of union workers who vote Republican (myself included) when some of their views would have more easily fit into the older Democratic party.
I say it can't be economics because the Republican notions of taxation and spending clearly do not benifit the relatively impoverished south, which of course is what Dean wants to address.
So how about "cultural economics"? That is, the linking of certain economic policies, such as progressive taxation, social spending, and "income redistribution" with the percepion of certain cultural tendencies.
In other words, I can be convinced to vote against my own immediate economic interests because it seems to me that the very policies that would put money in my pocket are part of a "world view" I abhor.
Or perhaps as I said, the worldview happens to abhor you.
However the Democratic party really hasn't sort of "selective" progressivism going on. I see this because of issues I have advocated myself. For example paternity law reform. Any claim against the fact that most father's are not "deadbeat," should be given equal parenting rights, shouldn't be just seen as a paycheck, etc. are met with cries of sexism.
Democrats aren't really any different from Republicans with regard to supporting unionization or trade. They claim to support unionization, but then undermine it with support of massive illegal immigration which holds down wages.
Affirmative action is an issue the Republicans have taken away by taking the racism out of it. They simply asked to have it based on financial need instead of purely by race. To Democrats this is racist. Why then would white males vote for a universal health care program when it is clear that financial need will not be the only determining factor. For example as many men die of prostate cancer as do women from breast cancer. Yet advocating more money on men's studies or on medical research toward men is "sexist." Even though the money spent on research about breast cancer dwarfs the amount spent on prostate cancer.
When you watch a system (federal government) that repeated declares you the problem, and then seeks to take your money to solve problems, you vote against it, even when they argue you would gain from it. It just doesn't have credibility.
The relentless right-wing construction of the "liberal" as a sort of dissapated god-hating lotus-eater serves as a front line defense against progressive policy in America by presenting the voter with the false dichotomy of "shares your values" conservatism and "would sell you to the homosexuals" liberalsim.
It is the great magic trick of American reactionary forces of the last 30 years to subsume class into "values".
I applaud Dean for addressing this bullshit directly, and I don't care that much if he is doing it clumsily. I just hope he is willing to follow up by keeping it on the table, hammering home the point that poor and working people can change the rules of the game if they can shake off the siren call of "god guns and gays".
Perhaps liberals should honestly ask themselves why when Democrats go to black churches it is okay, but when they go to white churches it is "seperation of church and state."
It isn't about being sold out to homosexuals or things of that nature either. For example, here in California there was a recent change in a sexual education law. Before the schools had to inform the parents of the upcoming education and get a permission slip for the child to attend.
Now they have reversed it. You have to find out about it, seek out the permission slip and then sign it to deny your child program.
That, in my view isn't a partnership. That is actively working to ignore the wishes and will of the parents.
Likewise with the claim about class and values. Can you honestly declare that your values have no affect on what you are likely to earn? If one person values education and another values entertainment at the expense of education, the former is likely going to earn more. They are generalizations of course, and there are always exceptions. However married families with college educations, for example typically earn more than say, single parents (man or woman) with high school education and no additional training.
When you see institutions attempting to undermine these values. (For example schools where they don't want to assign grades, force sex education that isn't in line with parents values, etc.) People are going to vote against that.
I don't think Dean is addressing it. I think he is using the same sort of guilt tactics that drive white male voters away from the Democratic party. Until he declares that economics are above racial politics himself, he is just trying to get everyone to buy a line. As we can see from the reaction, no one in his own party, or any other party is buying it.
Nick
Originally posted by chu_bakka
Wow. I must be self-loathing because I'm a democrat?
Thanks. Do I pay you $100 on the way out for you succinct psychological analysis?
You might not be, but when it comes down to issues that address you over time, you would reject that loathing, and seek out someone who doesn't advocate it. That is what has happened in the south.
I see from your profile that you are a couple years older than me, and I don't know if you have any children yet. But when they enter school/society and begin having opportunities taken away from them because of who they are, and not because of what they can do, you might reject the loathing that they will attempt to use to justify it to you. (I.E. it's okay because we have enough whites)
Even moreso since it happens most often with programs that are supposed promote those who just need a hand up (saying a program that helps buy a house by granting the down payment, etc.) You become less likely to support them since it will actually cause competition against you since you don't get those programs.
So a poor single mother can afford college, but a poor single white male can't. So lets advocate raising the tuition so we can take more from those who can pay, and give it back to those who can't in the form of financial aid.
That is a progressive idea, but since I am the white male that can't get financial aid, I won't support it.
And if you've noticed the latest national polls. 50% say they want Bush out and 44% say they want to re-elect him.
I don't believe Bush can be re-elected no matter what. However right now it is true that a lot of banging is going on that Bush doesn't respond to since it is part of the Democratic primary process. That same poll still showed that no Democratic candidate could beat him either. Likewise Bush and his $150 million will do some damage when the process begins for both sides.
However let me reemphasize this last point. You can't expect people to buy into "selective" progressivism. It stinks of cronyism. Don't advocate fairness for all, and then set up a system of additional gains for "historically disadvantaged" groups or anyone else that wants to jump in and make a claim.
A great example of this is the Indian gaming issue here in California. Most tribes rake in millions and number under a couple hundred members. It is a 5 billion dollar industry heading toward 10 billion. Yet if you suggest they should provide their workers with health care, you get called racist. Their workers are anything but Indian, mostly a mixture of white, black and hispanic pretty much in equal amounts. Yet Indians don't have to be progressive because they were historically harmed.
No one is going to vote for that brand of progressivism.
Nick
"In March, Dean described his thinking more fully: "I think the Republicans, ever since 1968, with Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, have divided us on race issues. Look, when I go to the South, I talk about race deliberately ... If we're going to have elections about race, we might as well talk about it openly. I want white males, particularly in the South, to come back to the Democratic Party. And the case that FDR made was, look, when was the last time you all got a raise? When was the last time your kids got decent health insurance? What kind of schools do your kids go to if you can't afford a private academy?" ...
"Certain crucial events in the rise of Ronald Reagan are noticeably missing. His actual words on race and civil rights, essential to his political success, are absent, though the RNC chairman has not complained about that.
Consider just a few true-life scenes that never made "The Reagans": Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (calling it "humiliating to the South"), and ran for governor of California in 1966 promising to wipe the Fair Housing Act off the books. "If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house," Reagan said, "he has a right to do so."
After the Republican Convention in 1980, Reagan traveled to the county fair in Neshoba, Miss., where, in 1964, three Freedom Riders had been slain by the Ku Klux Klan. His appearance there was urged and planned by a young congressman named Trent Lott, who had switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Before an all-white crowd of tens of thousands, Reagan declared, "I believe in states' rights" -- the code words that were used in the Civil War to justify slavery and the secession of the Southern states from the Union. These words are at the center of the bloody conflict through American history over the essential idea of the United States.
As president, Reagan put his Justice Department on the side of segregation, supporting the fundamentalist Bob Jones University in its case seeking federal funds for institutions that discriminate on the basis of race. In 1983, when the Supreme Court decided against Bob Jones, Reagan, under fire from his right in the aftermath, gutted the Civil Rights Commission.
Reagan consolidated the Southern strategy that Richard Nixon formulated in response to the civil rights movement. This Republican Party has created the radically conservative Southern presidency of George W. Bush. Another scene: When Bush's candidacy was threatened in the Republican primaries of 2000, he rescued himself by appearing at Bob Jones University and wrapping himself in support of the preservation of the Confederate emblem on the South Carolina state flag.
Dean's remarks were awkward, but his challenge to the Republican Party's basic character and the need for a strategy for defeating it will inevitably be revisited by whoever becomes the Democratic nominee, if that nominee cares about winning.
"Consider yet another scene: On the day before Dean's last apology, Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the third biggest lobbyist in Washington, was elected governor of Mississippi. He had campaigned at an event sponsored by the Council of Conservative Citizens, an overtly racist group and successor organization to the White Citizens' Council that led opposition to civil rights in the 1960s. In his lapel Barbour wore a pin of the Mississippi state flag, a matter of controversy because of its incorporation of the Confederate flag. On election night, even before he was announced as the winner, Barbour received a congratulatory telephone call from George W. Bush. Look away, Dixieland.
As the great novelist William Faulkner, of Mississippi, wrote: "The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past."
The laws would have to change in order to govern Indian reservations. Which essentially exist and nations within a nation. I agree that all those benefits should be supplied by the businesses tat operate on Indian reservations.
But then again... how many working uninsured are there in this country? Millions. And only a small percentage of them work on indian reservations.
Would be nice if healthcare was provided for everyone... no matter where they worked.
Originally posted by chu_bakka
From Salon
Everyone should fight to end racism. Racism has no place in our society. Racism is nothing more than ignorance, but yet it is more... it is hate, it hurts people.
Fellowship