Archive for the Southern Strategy Category

Rerouting History (February 15, 2016)

Posted in Civil War, Dollar - World's Reserve Currency, Iran, Race, Slavery, Society, South, Southern Strategy, Uncategorized on February 15, 2016 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Any GPS system will take you to the intersection of Ronnie Reagan Road and Saddam Hussein Highway without hesitation or reflection.”

J          “Or irony or regret.  But Quantrill was a domestic terrorist whereas Hussein threatened the supremacy of the U.S dollar as the world’s reserve currency and was not nice in an area with many not nice people.  We Americans should celebrate our own.”

K          “Our own what?”

. . .

K          “Changing the names of streets and schools does not rewrite history, it changes the names of the individuals who are celebrated on streets and schools.”

J          “I have found that those people who want to keep William Quantrill Circle are also those people who claim that the Civil War was about state’s rights rather than about slavery.”

K          “Streets and schools should be named after heroes not villains.  The history books should be written to reflect the actual history including the actual exploits of the heroes and the villains.”

. . .

K          “Not only are Stuart and Lee going down the road, Washington and Jefferson also will be sent down a trail renamed after someone else.”

J          “Rename the ‘Washington Monument’ on the Mall as the ‘George Washington Carver Monument’?”

K          “Then we could still refer to it generically as the ‘Washington Monument’ on the Mall.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at The Confederate Flag:  What Does It Mean To You? (July 6, 2015) and Columbus And The Redskins (October 14, 2013).]   

[See the e-commentary at Has Scalia Gone Feral (March 4, 2013) and One Gun Per White Adult Male?  A Flintlock Musket?  The “One Man, One Gun” Decision (October 4, 2010).]

 

Bumper stickers of the week:

Happy Presidents’ Day

Celebrate heroes on streets and schools; chronicle the activities of the heroes and villains in the history books.

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Midterms 2014: A Verdict On Race (And Concerted Ineptitude) (November 10, 2014)

Posted in Blue States / Red States, Citizens United Decision, Civil War, Dollar - World's Reserve Currency, Elections, Marijuana, Minimum Wage, Race, South, Southern Strategy on November 10, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

M          “The election came down to the Republicans putting an elected official who was not even running for office on every ballot in America.”

L          “And putting him on trial.  This race was about race.  American politics is a perennial battle between fear and hope.  The midterm elections were a verdict on whether a Black man should be President of the United States.  And the verdict is in.  Those American people scared into voting are more than uncomfortable with a Black man and his very Black woman in the House for Whites.  And then toss in Ebola and ISIS or ISIL or whatever it is and fear cripples the citizenry.”

M          “In recent decades, every President who has won a second term and had a Senate majority to lose has lost the Senate majority.”

L          “The Republicans could not say that a candidate is in the same party as the ‘n-word’ guy.  ‘Reggin’ and ‘monday’ are too blatant.  They unleashed a cacophony of dog whistles. ‘Romney – Obama Care’ passed as the ‘Affordable Care Act’ and was excoriated as ‘Obamacare.’  Republicans accused all incumbent Democratic Senators over and over and over and over of casting the deciding vote for ‘Obamacare.’  ‘Obamacare’ is the socially acceptable substitute for the ‘n-word’ today.”

M          “Money carried the message and the day.  They say the sword is mightier than the pen, but the pen that writes the campaign checks is mightiest.  Justice Roberts’ plan in Citizens United is unfolding like a carefully choreographed chess game.”

L          “It is always about money.  Obama won in 2008 in substantial part because he rejected public financing and substantially outspent McCain.  Americans were fearful then, but in the perennial battle between fear and hope, hope triumphed over fear.  Bush had made such a mess of the economy and foreign affairs that a continuation of Bush was frightening.  The fear of another Bush combined with the hope espoused by Obama was right for the times.  In this race, spending by the mega PACs bought the elections for Republicans by appealing to race and avoiding any concrete policies.  Few of the Republicans were honest enough to concede that the Republicans have used all available resources to stymie legislation and then blamed Obama.  The public voted against what they were told is ineptitude in Washington.”

M          “In 2008, in their gut, many devout Republicans said they simply could not stomach ‘President Palin’ at the helm.”

L          “Many pundits proclaimed that America was ‘post-racial’ then, yet America was and is still very involved in the racial mix and maelström.”

M          “When the finals are held in 2016, virulent racism will not be on the national exam.  Gender is much less incendiary.  America is much closer to a ‘post-gender’ electorate.”

. . .

M          “Maryland and Massachusetts are lapis lazuli blue and yet both elected Republican governors.  At some point, citizens tire of taxes and regulations.”

L          “I was heartened to see that four red states – Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska, and North Dakota -–adopted provisions to increase the minimum wage.  And the blue city of San Francisco joins the Emerald City in adopting a minimum wage.  You cannot spend money if you do not have money.”

M          “Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia adopted more rational and realistic marijuana policies.  Reduce civil rights violations, increase tax rolls and cut spending on prisons.  Regulate marijuana like alcohol and discourage and dissuade the use of both.”

. . . .

L          “Save your Confederate dollars.  The South is rising again.”

M          “Will they substitute as the world’s reserve currency?”

. . .

[Fall of the Berlin Wall:  Yesterday – 25 years]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Deal race, buy votes

Save your Confederate dollars.  The South is rising again.

Lee surrendered.  I didn’t.

The New Confederacy – Same Old Same New

The New Confederacy – Same as it ever was

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Centrist-Conservative Beats Corporatist-Culture Warrior (November 12, 2012)

Posted in Blue States / Red States, China, Elections, Iran, Journalism, Newspapers, O'Bama, Political Parties, Presidency, Press/Media, Romney, Russia, Southern Strategy, Spending on November 12, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

C1        “Or should the headline read ‘Black And Browns Outwit Whites And Green (Paper).’”

C2       “Or ‘Ascetic Triumphs Over Bully.’  The election was a ‘campaign’ conducted in ‘battleground’ states by ‘operatives’ operating in a ‘war room’ who unwittingly are continuing to prosecute the ‘Great American Civil War.’”

C1        “The ‘Republican Southern Strategy’ is the ‘Republican National Strategy’, yet the Republicans were not able to conquer more than the ‘Contemporary Confederacy.’”

C2       “For two score or perhaps two score and four years since Nixon patented the policy, the ‘Southern Strategy’ was the go to play in the Republican playbook but may now need to be revisited.”

C1        “America is divided between the ‘Educated States’ that vote Blue and the ‘Uneducated States’ that vote Red.  States such as Massachusetts, Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, Virginia, New Hampshire, New York and Minnesota are the ‘Educated States’ that vote Blue.  States such as West Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Nevada, Indiana, Tennessee and Oklahoma are the ‘Uneducated States’ that vote Red.  Those who are less educated are motivated by and respond to fear.”

C2       “Nevada is the only exception in that group.  The citizens may not sport as much formal education, but Nevadans are a spunky group of transplants.”

C1        “And O’Bama and Reid also ran a great ground game in Nevada and in all the other battleground states.”

C2       “The residents of the upper Midwestern states such as Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois and the pivotal Ohio do not sport as many sheep skins, but they exercise horse sense in abundance.”

C1        “Wherever you find oil and gas, you find racism and corruption.  Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, North Dakota and Alaska.  With the discovery of oil, Alaska transitioned from Minnesota to Mississippi.  Astute pollsters note that these states tend to vote Red.  And then along comes North Dakota that elects to elect Heidi Heitkamp as a Senator.  Dead dinosaurs are destiny.”

C2       “Demographics are destiny.  Demo-graphics versus Republica-graphics.  And the outcome is graphic.  The Last Great White Hope is hopeless.  The rich White boys who want power are facing a reality that even the Red States are becoming Browner and Blacker.”

C1        “A strategic planner who seeks to locate a business that exploits the workers and despoils the land migrates to a Red State.  An enterprise that requires an educated populace searching for a sustainable quality of life migrates to a Blue State.  There are exceptions in pockets like Austin and a thousand other havens and oases, yet the general rule is true.”

C2       “Virginia’s senatorial contest between the Klan and Confederate Party candidate George Allen and the Centrist Party candidate Tim Kaine reveals the schism in many states that are described as Purple.  North Virginia went with Kaine and South Virginia went with Allen in a state where there are now more North Virginians than South Virginians.”

C1        “The educated electorate in North Carolina did not do it this year because it is so desperately small.  Curious that Bank of America’s decision to locate in Charlotte years before the 2008 election may have provided enough additional voters to provide the margin for O’Bama in the state in 2008 but not in 2012.”

C2       “South Florida is populated by transplanted Northerners who voted for O’Bama and North Florida is an appendage of Georgia and voted for Romney, but there are more Northern voters in South Florida than South voters in North Florida.”

C1        “And a few Browns.”

C2       “And a few Browns.  In an election that looked like it would be bought by a few faceless billionaires showering money from above and using Anger Mongering radio, billions of ordinary citizens on the ground really did made the difference for O’Bama.”

C1        “And two candidates shot themselves in the foot and then put the foot in their mouths and proclaimed that rape is akin to a sprained ankle or a trick knee.  New Hampshire was in play until Tuesday night and after the smoke and mirrors cleared on Wednesday morning, the smarter gender is in control in the first all-women delegation.  And the neighboring Bay Staters are banking on Elizabeth Warren.”

C2       “Brown did not do well in Massachusetts.  Tammy Baldwin, an openly gay female Senator-elect from Wisconsin, and Krysten Sinema, an openly bisexual Representative-elect from Arizona of all places, were not the pick of the billionaires.”

C1        “Tammy Duckworth, a wounded veteran from Illinois, finally made it.  Unfortunate that Pete Stark, the lone atheist, lost his seat.” 

C2       “The first Hindu member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, and a combat veteran.”

C1        “With Pete Stark gone, someone else must take up the Carbon Tax effort.  God voted under the name ‘Sandy’ as a single issue voter this year.”

C2       “Without showing any photo id.  The place is going to look like America.  Blue States such as Washington and Colorado have declared peace in the war on drugs and legalized the recreational use of marijuana.  Chalk up another win for freedom and liberty.”

C1        “And Washington, Maine and Maryland now allow an individual to decide if he or she wants to get married.”

C2       “Another win for freedom and liberty.  And Minnesota voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality.”

C1        “Washington state is awfully pushy.  All the talented folks will migrate there.”

C2       “When the Nobel Committee signals that it will reward the conclusion, someone will connect the dots between freedom and liberty in a state and clean and green growth and development.  The Blue States vote for freedom and liberty.”

C1        “In 2004, O’Bama came to national attention aspiring for one United States of America, but only a little more than half of America will ever give him a chance.”

C2       “And now that petty pernicious pol Mitch McConnell is committed to making O’Bama a two-term President.”

C1        “We are the Red States of America and the Blue States of America.  There is no shame in candid self-awareness.” 

C2       “And yet the two countries confront many common concerns.  Iran is still Iran, China is still China, Russia is still Russia, and the fiscal fiasco is straight out of Wile E. Coyote.”

C1        “Europe may implode; the Middle East may explode.  Someone may want to take a look at the numbers that underpin entitlements and unnecessary defense/offense spending.  They still don’t add up.”

C2       “For decades, the Blue States have subsidized the Red States, yet we may see Illinois, California and/or New York, three small Blue countries in America, in need of major subsidies.”

C1        “Someone will say something about immigration.”  

. . .

[See the “e-ssay” titled America Recycles Day, November 15 (November 15, 2010).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Women are people too.

The odds for the election of the first gay Buddhist Brown woman to the White House should be available soon.

George Will:             Romney:         331;    Obama:        217

Michael Barone:      Romney:          315;    Obama:        223

Glenn Beck:               Romney:          321;    Obama:        217

Dick Morris:              Romney:          325

Carl Rove:                   Romney:          279

“I have been assured that everything is in place for a Romney sweep of the Electoral College and the popular vote.  Talk is cheap.  Are you man enough to put your money where your mouth is.  $100 that Romney takes it.”  “I don’t have any assurances.  There is $1000 where my mouth is.  If you are man enough.” 

“I have been assured that everything is in place for a Romney sweep of the Electoral College and the popular vote.  Talk is cheap.  Are you man enough to put your money where your mouth is.  $100 that Romney takes it.”  “I don’t have any assurances.  There is $1000 where my mouth is.  If you are man enough.” 

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Dixie Visited (September 17, 2012)

Posted in Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Civil War, Political Parties, Politics, Race, South, Southern Strategy on September 17, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

H1          “One hundred and fifty years ago today, Northern immigrants battled Southern serfs in Western Maryland.”

H2          “And they could not even agree on the name of the skirmish.  The Northerners named battles after nearby bodies of water and Southerners after nearby towns.  Antietam versus Sharpsburg.”

H1          “Given the outcome, the United States refer to it as Antietam.  They still don’t agree on the name of the Great Campaign.  The War of Northern Aggression or the War of Southern Terrorism.”

H2          “The war was always about slavery not state’s rights in the South.  The stalemate in Miller’s cornfield and on Burnside’s Bridge was enough to cover for Lincoln to expand the endeavor from saving the Union to starting the abolition of slavery in the South and new states in the West.”

H1          “As they always say, tactically inconclusive but strategically significant.”

. . .     

H1          “A person and a society are measured by whether property rights are protected or human rights are cherished.  In the South, property rights were exalted; human rights were actively and systematically violated.”

H2          “Humans want to be free with perhaps some societal restraints to guide behavior, yet humans instinctively desire to colonize property and to enslave others.  True to form, the colonists stole property from the Red man and denied liberty to the Black man.  Civilization emerges when those impulses are restrained by mutual consent.”

H1          “You mean government.  The colonists in America rebelled and obtained independence, yet slavery in many incarnations continued unabated.” 

H2          “The caste system and class condescension continued in the South.  The descendants of the English continued the subtle oppression of the descendants of the Irish and the Scots.  Southern society was an extension of the rigid social and economic hierarchy in the British Isles.”

H1          “Blacks were slaves and three fifths of a human, the most perverse mathematical formula in the history of humankind.  Most Whites in the south were indentured servants, share croppers, peasants and serfs.  Servitude served up along a continuum.  Despite their lower-class status, poor Whites could take comfort in their legal superiority over Blacks.  That was a great palliative and motivator.” 

H2          “From its adoption in 1791, the Bill of Rights rarely protected lower class Whites south of the Mason-Dixon line.  The Thirteenth Amendment changed the laws on the books, but the Hundred Year War of Terror raged in the South from 1865 to 1965.  Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 changed the legal landscape somewhat, although events on the ground changed slowly.”

H1          “Americans have tolerated Made In The U.S.A. terrorism on her soil for over two centuries.  The South ante bellum and post bellum was and perhaps less so today is an aristocracy and oligarchy operated by and for a small elite.” 

H2          “And nothing threatens ignorance like education.  High schools and higher education in the South were reserved for wealthy white males.  By contrast, in the North education is exalted.  At the bequest and behest of Benjamin Franklin and others, the University of Pennsylvania was open to all citizens.”

H1          “Religiosity is provided to supplant free thought and ratiocination.  Religion provides pat answers and precludes probing questions.”  

H2          “The South also reveres the military because of the need to maintain internal discipline by force and fear and to repel threats and challenges to its medieval system.”

H1          “Lincoln and his fellow Republicans sought to maintain the Union over any other goal.  For both strategic and humanitarian motives, he emancipated the slaves in two phases.  His conviction and efforts maintained the Union.  Now the Republicans campaign in the South and exploit anti-African American racism and fears of lawlessness among White voters.”

H2          “If the South had won the rebellion, the United States of America would have fewer stars and perhaps fewer stripes for the departed former colonies on its flag.  The United States of America Sans The South would be a Blue Nation.  Without all the government subsidies from the Blue States to the Red South States, the United States S.T.S. would have a less unbalanced budget.  The South would be a White Mexico today.” 

H1          “Funny how life turns out.  The ‘Southern Strategy’ is an ironic development.  The old Republicans freed the slaves and the new Republicans play on the fear of the freed slaves.  In this election, the Southern Strategy is now the National Strategy.”

H2          “And look at wage rates.  The public relations guys have a clever slogan – the ‘right to work.’  What they should say is the ‘right to work for a pittance.’  Keep them enslaved in subtle ways.”

H1          “Leaves you wondering whether anything really has changed.”

H2          “Demographics are destiny.  Black and Brown are slowly trumping White.” 

H1          “Old times there are not forgotten.”

H2          “Look away.”

. . .

[H1 = Historian 1; H2 = . . . ]

[September 17 is the one year anniversary of the Occupy movement and the four year anniversary to the day (Monday, September 15, 2008) when even those in power had to acknowledge the economic charade and chimera that was on the verge of collapse.]

[See the “e-ssay” titled “The Great National Dissolution: Resolving The Great Civil War (April 18, 2011)“]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Old times there are not forgotten; look away!

Mankind’s Motto:  To Colonize And To Enslave

How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb?  Five.  One to call an electrician, two to mix drinks, and two to talk about how good the old bulb was.

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The Race Is About Race: The (Last) Great White Hope (September 3, 2012)

Posted in Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Elections, McCain, O'Bama, Political Parties, Politics, Presidency, Race, Romney, Society, Southern Strategy on September 3, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

A          “The election of 2008 was not the dawn of a post-racial America.  In 2008, few knew how to attack an African-Irish-American Presidential candidate without appearing to be racists.  In 2012, America is still torn by racial issues.  Now the attack is focused on race because they are not willing to lose this race this time.  The race is about race.”

B          “So they want us to take back America.  To when?  Prior to 1965 and the Voting Rights Act?  To 1964 and the Civil Rights Act?  To 1956 and Brown v. Board of Education?  To 1868 and the Fourteenth Amendment?  To 1865 and the Thirteenth Amendment?  To 1864 and the Emancipation Proclamation?”

A          “To when Whites ruled.  The message is subtle.  Everyone communicates in code and dog whistles.” 

B          “Forty-five percent of the population responds to fear.  They know how to stoke and marshal fear.”

A          “The Republican Southern Strategy attracts White voters by appealing to racist fears and anxieties.  The Southern Strategy is now the National Strategy.”

B          “This will be the last race that is controlled by White voters.”

. . .

AB          “O’Bama declined public financing of his campaign and spent twice as much as McCain.  Romney may spend twice as much as O’Bama this go round.  Follow the money.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

“Take back America = Bring back Jim Crow.”

White using green to defeat Black.

“Do you hate him because he is Irish or because he is Black?”  “Both.  Plus he was born in Niger-ia.  Get it.”

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