Time to kill the Southern Strategy
It is time once again for the Democratic Party to be the moral leaders of those “Old Timey” issues such and race and poverty.
It is as relevant today as it was at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. That the poor in New Orleans did NOT have a Cadillac to escape and now the government by Executive Order is not allowing then to earn the prevailing wage.
We can not let the Republicans demonize EVEN MORE African Americans and the poor. After hearing Pat Buchanan spew “looting, raping and welfare checks” in the same sentence… I see this is where it is heading.
Democrats must resuscitate the issues and ideologies that we are good at.
This time around we need to take the lead in the framing wars. No longer can we tolerate rhetoric like Reagan’s “Welfare Queen who picks up her welfare check in her big new Cadillac”… The Republicans have played this myth so well that now the mere mention of taxes sends off dog whistles to whites that their money will be given to welfare queens.
The crying call of the Democrats should be:
No Representation without Taxation
Sometimes I wonder if the real purpose behind the taxes cuts is to thwart representation of the average citizen…
Democrats can no longer unravel the Safety Net with policies like Bill Clinton’s “Reform welfare as we know it” that pandered to the lies and fears of far right.
Democrats keep America safe
- Safe from immoral wars
- Safe from attacks on Americans civil and constitutional rights
- Safe to have equal opportunities in the workplace as well as the classroom
- Safe to grow old with dignity
- Safe from corrupt policies and laws that favor the powerful and hurt the powerless
- Democrats will save Democracy and the Constitution in the United States
We are not going to get this new vision from the DLC/NDN types who want to do away with “Old Timey issues and ideology” … the mainstay of the Republican winning streak.
Reform is NOT about throwing overboard women, minorities, labor, gays…yunno the Democratic base.
Reform is NOT about getting rid of special interest groups or even having them to suppress their issues for the greater good…
It is about creating a common value within all of these interest groups. Reform must be about reframing liberal and progressive values and policies into a coherent whole: what affirmative action has to do with progressive taxation, what abortion has to do with affirmative action, what environmentalism has to do with feminism, what labor has to do with education etc.
We must reweave the safety net so that those who walk the straight and narrow path, who defend this country in battle, who work, who pay taxes… will not be left to drown if they slip.
to wake up to this!
Hear hear! No Representation w/o taxation!
Right on Parker! A coherent message must be framed now but not just for the sake of framing the issues but for the future of our country. We have an opportunity here and my question is What the F are they waiting for?
Coherent is a great adjective to apply to Parker’s diary, Aloha … very good and very powerful.
reach the point of forming a third party? How do we as citizens subvert the monied elitist control of the two parties?
Check out the diaries on DKos attacking Nagin…
Why? because he has vowed to bring the poor Blacks back to NOLA…
That is what the monied elitist control of the two parties do…
Parker…you’re doing a great job, btw, with your diaries. I feel the power of your anger channeled, if I may say so.
I don’t trust Nagin. That said, I’m glad he said what he said. I don’t like that he is coziing up to Bush, and scapegoating Blanco. Nagin bears much responsibility for not getting the people out of harms way before the storm. On Meet the Press he blamed the lack of drivers. bullshit. Morial got the people out on buses before Hurricane George.
We’ll see if he is strong enough to withstand the enormous pressure to eliminate low-income housing in New Orleans. I have my doubts…
We’re mobilizing here to fight this, and you can help by continuing to cover the issue.
Check out the diaries on DKos attacking Nagin…
That’s because you’re not dealing with liberals, you’re dealing with partisan Democrats. What that actually means is deliberately vague and open to debate, but after watching them (at dKos and elsewhere) for a couple of years, my gut feeling is that the dominant type of partisan Democrat would have been completely comfortable with the Democratic Party of 1965. That is, they are more liberal than Republicans, but not in any way you’d notice if you’re not a middle-class white guy. They seem to be operating on the belief that substantial progress is not possible anymore, and they are desperately looking for non-essentials to jettison in order to retrench around their core value: the welfare of middle-class white guys. They are theoretically in favor of improving the lot of the poor, women, and minorities (and maybe even gays), but not at the expense of the Core Value.
It’s a testament to the phenomenal egos of middle-class white guys that they haven’t quite flashed on the fact that the poor, women, minorities, and gays, collectively, are a majority of the population. They are aware of Republican divide-and-conquer tactics, but unaware that they have fallen for the biggest divide-and-conquer tactic of them all. I think they really believe that the Republican Christo-fascist juggernaut will stop when it is done with all of the nonessential special-interest groups. You’re either with the middle-class white guys, or you’re Czechoslovakia. Too bad that middle-class white guys are Poland.
This is why Democrats are no longer guaranteed my vote by default. It so happens that I am a middle-class white guy, but I’m not a Christian, and I have no doubt that when the Republicans and their Democratic appeasers are done putting the poor, gays, women, and minorities “back in their place”, they’ll be coming for me next. Give me a Democratic liberal, and I’ll vote for her or him. Give me another party hack, and I’ll find a new party.
Lavish tastes of card-carrying lowlifes
Nationally syndicated Clear Channel radio host Glenn Beck referred to survivors of Hurricane Katrina who remained in New Orleans as “scumbags.” Also, after acknowledging that nobody “in their right mind is going to say this out loud,” Beck attacked victims of the disaster in general and the families of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying: “I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims.”
From the September 9 broadcast of The Glenn Beck Program:
BECK: Let me be real honest with you. I don’t think anybody on talk radio — I don’t think anybody in their right mind is going to say this out loud — but I wonder if I’m the only one that feels this way. Yesterday, when I saw the ATM cards being handed out, the $2,000 ATM cards, and they were being handed out at the Astrodome. And they actually had to close the Astrodome and seal it off for a while because there was a near-riot trying to get to these ATM cards. My first thought was, it’s not like they’re going to run out of the $2,000 ATM cards. You can wait! You know, stand in line. Maybe it’s because I’m the kind of guy, when I go to a buffet, I either have to be first in line, or I’m the very last. Because I know there’s going to be extra food, and I just won’t stand in the line. I’ll wait until all the suckers go get their food, and then I’ll go get mine. Or if I’m really hungry, I hate to admit this — and really, I don’t even have to be really hungry. If I’m really being a pig, I will kind of, like, hang out around the buffet table before the line is — you know, chat with people right around the table: “Oh, they just opened the line! Let’s go!” And then you’re first in line.