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| Traditional Democrat Party soiree in Pennsylvania |
From Jeffrey Lord at the American Spectator:
The DNC's Bold Lies
By JEFFREY LORD on 9.4.12 @ 6:09AM
DNC website caught lying about party's civil rights record: Wasserman Schultz, Virginia Senate nominee Kaine involved.
The lies are big, bold and prominent.
Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been caught. And the website scandal may also impact the Virginia U.S. Senate race that has former Governor Tim Kaine as the Democrats' nominee against ex-Senator and Governor George Allen. Why?
As reported in all manner of media outlets in September of 2010 (here at the Huffington Post, here on The Today Show and here in a 25-minute presentation at George Washington University posted on YouTube) it was then-DNC Chairman Kaine on whose watch the new DNC website was launched.
Now the fibs are the centerpiece of the Democratic National Committee's revamped Obama-saluting website as the Democrats gather for their Charlotte convention. And Wasserman Schultz, of course, is the DNC chair -- succeeding Kaine --by the grace of the Obama White House. Which certainly had the ability to block or change the contents -- and hasn't.
What are the lies?
Lie Number One: Check the "Our History" section, found here of the DNC's website. See it? The history section -- now written to reflect the history of the Obama administration -- begins with this breathtakingly bold lie:
For more than 200 years, our party has led the fight for civil rights…..
Lie Number Two: Then check here to see the DNC's "Issues" section on civil rights. That section begins with a second bold lie. This one:
Democrats have a long and proud history of defending Civil Rights and expanding opportunity for all Americans.
The DNC website in both its history and issues sections is literally wiped clean of any reference that this is the party that spent platform after platform after platform building a culture of racism.
Playing the race card, as it is politely called today.
There is zero indication on the revamped DNC website that not only are those first lines in each section blatant untruths, but that in those "more than 200 years" the party was a ferocious supporter of every race-judging idea imaginable, including slavery, segregation, and lynching.
Kaine even agreed to a short video version that begins by briefly saying:
Democrats are the party of Jefferson, who declared that we are all created equal. And we worked long and hard to make that real.
...[N]either the new history and issues sections of the Obama-controlled, Wasserman-Schultz-run DNC website, not to mention the video, ever whispers a hint that the Democrats:
· Supported slavery in 6 platforms from 1840-1860.
· Opposed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution that successively wiped out slavery and gave both legal rights and voting rights to black Americans.
· Supported segregation actively or by silence in 20 platforms from 1868-1948.
· Opposed anti-lynching laws, specifically supported by the GOP in four platforms between 1912 and 1928.
· Opposed the GOP-sponsored Civil Rights Acts of 1866, which focused on legal equality for blacks.
· Opposed the GOP on giving voting rights to blacks in the District of Columbia in 1867. The legislation was passed over the Democrats' objection..
· Nominated an 1868 presidential ticket of New York Governor Horatio Seymour and ex-Missouri Congressman Francis Blair. The Democrats pledged they would declare the Civil Rights laws passed by the GOP "null and void" and would refuse to enforce them. They lost to Ulysses Grant.
· Opposed the Enforcement Acts, three laws passed by the GOP between 1870 and 1871 targeting the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and making it a federal crime to block the right of blacks to vote, hold office, serve on juries and have equal protection of the laws with whites.
· Opposed the GOP Civil Rights Act of 1875, which prohibited discrimination of blacks in public accommodations.
· Used the Ku Klux Klan as what Columbia University historian Eric Foner calls "a military force serving the interests of the Democratic Party." Nor is there reference to University of North Carolina historian Allen Trelease's description of the Klan as the "terrorist arm of the Democratic Party." Nor is there mention of the infamous 1924 Democratic Convention -- the "Klanbake" as it is known to history because hundreds of the delegates were Klan members. The Klan-written platform mixed the traditional Democratic message of progressivism and racism in the Klan-written platform.
· Repealed the Civil Rights laws enacted by GOP Congresses and presidents, already damaged by the Supreme Court. When Democrats gained control of both Congress and the White House in 1892, the Democrats' President Grover Cleveland signed the repeal on February 8, 1894.
None of this stark, vicious and frequently violent racial history, much of it detailed in Bruce Bartlett's Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past, is mentioned on the new website.
There is no polite way to put it. This DNC website presentation is a lie.
A deliberate, willful and very big lie. Hiding from the young, the innocent and the unwary the cold, hard and true facts of the Democratic Party's horrific racial history.
As we noted in this space four years ago when the Democrats were preparing to nominate then-Senator Obama, America's liberal party was ruthless then when it came to concealing the long, ghastly tale of their culture of racism.
Here's the party's history section as preserved on their website in 2008. Alas for the DNC, this fancy-tale is still findable on the webhere.
As we wrote at the time, the 2008 party history skips neatly from pre-Civil War 1848 and picks up again when "the 19th Century came to a close." Effectively skipping all the history noted above. This is the same formula adopted by the 2010 video, except the video moves the clock further back to Jefferson's presidency before performing the same trick of skipping to the dawn of the 20th century.
The party made another version of this same lie when redoing their website for 2010, saying, as captured by the Romantic Poet's Weblog:
"Democrats are unwavering in our support of equal opportunity for all Americans. That's why we've worked to pass every one of our nation's Civil Rights laws…."
Now.
Given the sheer boldness of the lie -- literally akin to writing a history of Germany that ends in 1933 and resumes in 1946, neatly skipping those historic trivialities of Adolf Hitler, the Nazis, and the mass murder of six million Jews (not to mention that small skirmish called World War II) -- why is there any surprise, any surprise at all, at the recent repeated surfacing of the culture of racism -- judging others by skin color -- by Obama media allies and politicians?
This cultural rot has been the backbone of American liberalism and its political party the Democrats -- for 212 years.
Lord doesn't even mention that the Civil Rights revolution of the 1960's was fought entirely against Democrats-- every Southern bigot who was excluding/terrifying/assaulting/murdering blacks was a Democrat.
The Democrat Party is the party of race-baiting. It uses racism as a political strategy. And Democrats have no scruples whatsoever about telling astonishing lies about the history of their party.
How could the party of slavery and the KKK and Jim Crow and Bull Connor get away with lying so shamelessly? Democrats know that the people to whom they are lying have been educated in a Democrat-monopolized public school system and are informed by a Democrat-fawning mainstream media.
Their lies are safe, and they know it.
***
We have a dear family friend who is a retired teacher. She's a very intelligent and well-informed woman, and she's a passionate Democrat. One evening after dinner our discussion ran to Republicans and Democrats, and of course I defended Republicans from bizarre charges of racism.
I pointed out to her that slavery was a Democrat institution, that Jim Crow laws were Democrat laws, that the KKK was an arm of the Democratic Party. She was incredulous. She was sure that slavery and Jim Crow and the KKK were Republican in origin. (!) The Democrat Party is always against racism!
I had to google it to show her.
I had to google it to show her.
Keep in mind that she is a very well-educated Democrat. Imagine what the dumb ones believe.
Of course the Democrats have been the champion of civil rights for the past 60 years, while Republicans, starting with the Southern Strategy, have been the party that embraces racists.
ReplyDeleteOne has only to look at the two national conventions to see how manifestly true this is. While Republicans provide a parade of minorities for a turn at the podium while they check off little boxes to make sure everyone is covered, their lily-white delegates are throwing penults at the only black person they can find, taunting “this is how we feed the animals”. The contrast to the truly diverse and inclusive crowd at the Democratic convention couldn’t be more obvious.
The difference in racial attitudes of the two parties is so stark it’s not surprising that people under 70 would find it hard to imagine that it has ever been any other way. I find it amusing that the Republicans have to fire up their time machine every time they need to defend themselves on race; fighting against long dead Democrats instead of dealing with the realities of today.
-KW
KW, we've debunked this Southern Strategy myth over and over. It's time to retire this one.
DeleteDemocrats have always been against equal treatment. The only thing that has changed has been which group of people they think is undeserving of equal treatment. It used to be blacks, now it's whites. It used to be Catholics and now...wait, it's still Catholics.
But let's set one thing straight. You're talking about the last sixty years, since 1962. This woman is talking about the last two hundred years, since 1812. Let's examine some of the things the Democratic Party has supported in the mean time: poll taxes, segregation, slavery, the KKK, and anti-miscegenation laws. Let's look at some of the things they've opposed: anti-lynching laws, and permitting Catholic schools to even exist.
TRISH
@KW:
DeleteDemocrats race-bait. They use race to gain advantage.
The struggle for civil rights has always been a struggle against Democrats.
In the later half of the 20th century, Democrat strategists came to understand that blacks were more valuable to them as voters than as tree ornaments. So they used different kinds of race-baiting tactics.
But it's still race-baiting.
Long dead Democrats? Bob Byrd died in 2010. Need I remind you that he was in the KKK? When Bill Clinton eulogized the old kleagle, he even excused his membership in the organization saying that he had to do it to get elected in West Virginia. So It's okay, see?
DeleteByrd hasn't been dead as long as that long dead ex-Democrat turned Republican the Democrats like to cite as their example of racists "switching sides." I'm talking about Strom Thurmond, of course. He died in 2003.
When you say "long dead", it makes you sound as if you don't like history and so you'd rather dismiss it.
But you're right, the difference in racial attitudes is stark. Republicans want equality, Democrats want blacks and other minorities to receive special treatment. There's a wide margin between these two policies. Which one are you for?
Little John
Trish, did miss my point that the Republicans need to go back three generations to find the kind of blatant racism in the Democratic Party that is so pervasive in today’s Republican Party? Because that’s exactly what you’re doing. It’s undeniable, southern strategy or not, that it used to be red states in the north and blue states in the south, then over a period of time the colors switched. Nobody moved. The culture and tradition of a people who, only a hundred years before the civil rights movement of the 60s, fought a civil war so they could continue to own black people, simply switched party allegiance.
Delete-KW
Robert Byrd was a senator until the day he died. he died two years ago.
DeleteAnd no, I don't have to go back three generations. They support affirmative action, today, on September 7, 2012. That's racism, plain and simple. They don't mind voter in intimidation either, so long as the people being intimidated are white, and the candidate they're being "encouraged" to vote for is a Democrat.
"It’s undeniable, southern strategy or not, that it used to be red states in the north and blue states in the south, then over a period of time the colors switched."
There are alternative explanations for this. Southerners today aren't jonesing for a return to Jim Crow. They do, however, see the Democrats as a party that is hostile the religion and wants to take their guns. They hear Obama talking about "bitter clingers" and they know that his party is not for them.
It's also true that the Democrats have done well in the South in election years when they have chosen a Southern Democrat, even after the supposedly pivotal 1972 election, when Nixon supposedly appealed to racist Southerners with his Southern Strategy. Carter swept the South in 1976. He lost there in 1980, but then again he got thumped all across the country. Bill Clinton did very well in the South in 1992 and 1996.
So, are they still racist? Did they stop being racist for three elections, and revert to being racist for all the others?
TRISH
KW, this election is going to be about Obama's record, particular in regards to his feeble attempt to jumpstart the economy. He has failed in this regard, and that's why the failed candidate has to resort to race-baiting.
DeleteIf Obama could brag that he was the one who got it all back on track, he'd be doing it. Instead he's stooped to telling black people that the Republicans want to put them back in chains and telling women that Rick Santorum's going to take away their birth control pills.
Distractions, distractions.
JQ
KW, It's also not true that nobody moved. Yankees have been moving south for years, taking advantage of cheap land. My uncle retired to Charleston, South Carolina after a career in the Navy. His three daughters still live there. One of them married another Yankee transplant from Rhode Island. Some southerners believe that the migration from the North has really changed the face of the South.
DeleteThere are plenty of racists in the North too, you know.
Ben
Sure that's mostly true.
ReplyDeleteBut what you're not mentioning is the switch in positions over time between the two parties. The thing isnt "Democrat vs. Republican" its liberal vs. conservative.
Republicans were more liberal in the beginning, with Democrats being conservative, and yes, racist in many ways. Then over time, I believe it took course from the late 19th century to say, to the FDR era, that roles STARTED reversing.
@KW:
"I find it amusing that the Republicans have to fire up their time machine every time they need to defend themselves on race; fighting against long dead Democrats instead of dealing with the realities of today."
Precisely. Granted, certain people are twisting history on civil rights issues of the past, and thats simply political spin to gain votes.
I hate the politics on both sides of the aisle. It further divides this country and gets us nowhere. Egnor, you just make it worse by constantly posting your obvious hatred and resentment against anybody with opposing views of your own, with childish name calling.
"Republicans were more liberal in the beginning, with Democrats being conservative, and yes, racist in many ways. Then over time, I believe it took course from the late 19th century to say, to the FDR era, that roles STARTED reversing."
DeleteThat is such bull. We were against slavery then, we're against slavery now. We were against Jim Crow then, we're against Jim Crow now. We were against lynching then, we're against lynching now. We were against racial discrimination then (against blacks) we're against racial discrimination now (against whites).
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Democrats have changed the flavor of their racism, but they have not ceased to be racist. They mistakenly believe that being racist against white people somehow compensates for hundreds of years of racism against blacks. It doesn't.
TRISH
@ TRISH: Yeah, the old "we switched sides" meme is old. We switched sides on nothing. None of the terrible racism that Democrats used to support is now the policy preference of Republicans. Jim Crow, lynching, etc. We're against them now and we were against them then.
DeleteIf you'd like an example of how little has changed in the Democratic Party, just look at voter intimidation. The Democratic-affiliated KKK used to keep blacks away from polling places by threats of violence. Then, in 2008, two members of the New Black Panthers stand in front of a polling place in Philadelphia, one wielding a billy club, and threaten white voters. "You's about to be ruled by the black man, cracka!!" They shout.
The newly elected Democratic president and his newly appointed Democratic AG do nothing, citing "discretion."
To some people, black intimidating whites at the polls is the opposite of whites intimidating blacks. Those people are mouth-breathing idiots. It's the same. damned. thing. It's two sides to the same coin, it's the same evil's mirror image.
Joey
You misunderstood my point - liberal vs. conservative. That changed sides.
DeleteSo you bring up TWO black panther guys at ONE polling place, and that's supposed to prove your whole point?
And you mention affirmative action as being 'racist.' The only reason that it had to be created is BECAUSE of anti-black racism. And I dont believe for a second that it was ALL the Dems. Do I think affirmative action is completely fair? No.
This quote I find funny: "Democrats have a long and proud history of defending Civil Rights and expanding opportunity for all Americans."
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to think of a way in which my opportunities have been expanded by Democrats. When I apply for a job, they want me to be penalized for my race and sex. Rather than simply comparing resume to resume, they want special treatment--yes, that's what it is--for minorities and women. The effect is that my opportunities for advancement are restricted.
Where else are they expanding my opportunities? They want to restrict gun ownership to an absurd degree. They want more and more of my money to pay for their loyal constituency groups. I'd have a lot more money set aside for retirement if Uncle Sam didn't always have his hand in my pocket.
Government makes my life harder, not easier. Some Republicans are part of the problem, but all Democrats are.
Joey
Joey, when they say "all Americans" they don't mean all Americans. You don't count.
DeleteLittle John
Rep John Lewis tells his black colleagues that a Romney victory will be a return to segregation.
ReplyDeleteYou can't make this crap up.
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/09/06/dem-rep-john-lewis-predicts-the-return-of-segregation-if-romney-wins/
Francisca S.
To hear Republicans you would think that Democrats made a strategic decision to switch their racism from black people to white people. That’s such a stupid notion I don’t know where to begin. An individual’s tendency toward racism isn’t determined in smoke filled rooms of party strategists, but the pitch to those potential voters is.
ReplyDeleteCase in point, Romney’s totally false “Obama is gutting the work requirements of welfare” attack. This feeds in to the very attitude you display with your great concern that blacks are getting special treatment. Republicans respond to this barley concealed imaging of lazy black people getting hand-outs from a black president like Pavlov’s dog. They don’t worry about the risk of out-right lying because your conditioning is so effective.
-KW
People on welfare not a race. In fact, whites represent a majority.
DeleteYou're injecting race where it doesn't belong. Congress passed and President Clinton signed a welfare reform package in 1996 that required welfare recipients to do something for that check. Obama has done an end-run around those requirements without any approval from Congress. That's a very legitimate criticism and Romney should keep making it. Obama can't actually defend himself from that criticism due to its veracity. So it becomes racism to talk that way. Raaaccist!
Obama to David Axelrod: If we call them racist, will they stop telling the truth about us?
Axelrod to Obama: Sure thing, Mr. President. Works every time!
"An individual’s tendency toward racism isn’t determined in smoke filled rooms of party strategists, but the pitch to those potential voters is."
I don't know about that, but I do know that the Dems have changed their pitch. They didn't do it in a smoke filled room because they're antismoking zealots. But there's really no difference between your theory of how the parties changed over time and this one.
Joey
We'd like to have discussion about policy. Welfare is a policy. The left only wants to talk about race. They claim that discussions are policy are secretly disguised discussions about race, that way we'll stop talking about policy, which is what they really want.
DeleteTRISH
@TRISH:
DeleteThe Dem's invocation of race is of course a distraction tactic. The last thing they want to discuss is policy. That's why Ryan frightens them so.
The really terrifying thing is that the constant use of race-baiting by Dems may well have serious real-world consequences. If Obama loses, I think that race riots are a real possibility. There could be violence. Think of the stoking of racial hatred that Dems and the left did with the Trayvon Martin/Zimmerman killing, even going to the extent of editing a 911 tape to make the motive appear racial.
Dems are willing to inflame racial violence for political gain. They're still doing KKK tactics.
If racial violence breaks out after this election, the Dems bear a direct responsibility for stoking it.
KW: If Democrats are against racism, why didn't Eric Holder press charges against the New Black Panthers?
ReplyDeleteJQ
“KW: If Democrats are against racism, why didn't Eric Holder press charges against the New Black Panthers?”
DeleteBecause they weren’t intimidating voters. I know they look pretty scary to you, but the polling place where they where hanging out was in a black neighborhood, and nobody was put off by their little show of “providing security”, which by the way, was a protest against perceived voter suppression of black voters by whites. You should learn the facts before you repeat racist lies about the scary black men.
-KW
KW:
DeleteThey were obviously intimidating voters.
Ugh. KW, you may be one of the most obtuse people I've ever encountered. Okay, I understand that you believe that the Democrats today are the anti-racism party and the Republicans are the racism party. That's a contention that I can't see, but I'll grant that you see it this way. Can't you at least admit that the Democrats do not have a "proud history" of civil rights that goes back two hundred years. Isn't that blatant historical revisionism?
ReplyDeleteA few months ago I was at one of those big discount stores that sells leftover books. I found a coffee table book about the Democratic Party. I was interested to know if they would whitewash the nastier aspects of the party's history. Surprisingly, they didn't. I thought they were willing to face up to the fact that the Democrats weren't always the good guys. (They seem to think that they're the good guys now, but that's another story.) The foreword was written by Terry McAuliff (sp?). I'm sure you know who he is. He also mention the Democrats' support for slavery, Jim Crow, and the Klan. I was pleasantly surprised that the whole book wasn't a big puff piece about how great the party of the jackass is.
If we could get the same honesty from the current DNC, that would be an improvement.
Ben
Ben,
DeleteI agree, but I think that the Dems deserve more opprobation than you offer.
The history of the party is horrendous. Slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow, all of it was pure DNC. The 1924 Dem convention was called the "Klanbake" because so many delegates were KKK.
They claim that they've changed-- now they're the good guys. Of course that's nonsense. The only thing that has changed is the race they curry favor with and the race they bash. It's still race-baiting, and morally analogous.
LW is so caught up in his "Dems/liberals are the heroes" that he's blind to the reality of racial animosity in this country.
The Dems are a big part of the problem, and none of the solution.
Ben, I concede your point re the DNC. It’s a crying shame that Democrats can be as ignorant of history as Republicans.
Delete-KW
@KW:
DeleteThe Dem leadership isn't the least bit "ignorant" of history.
They're lying.
If you want to know why the South has exited the Democrat Party, just look at the current brouhaha over including the word God in the platform. Yes, they eventually included it, but only because people were starting to get the (correct) impression that there's no room in their big tent for God or people who believe in Him. Delegates booed when it came up for a vote. That's why I left the Democrat Party. It's slowly becoming hostile territory for believers. I didn't become a Republican, but rather an independent.
ReplyDelete--Francisca S.
Of course you’re right Ben. The southern strategy is now a 50 state strategy. In close swing states like New Hampshire the racist vote could put Romney over the top.
ReplyDelete-KW
@KW:
DeleteThe 'southern strategy' is a myth, perpetrated by Dems who are madly spinning the obvious fact that as soon as the South stopped being racist it stopped being Democrat.
Nixon won the South in 1972 because the Dems nominated a leftist wackaloon, and Nixon won 49 states. It was really the 'Northern-Western-Eastern-Southern Strategy'. Republicans promised to protect the country from far-left Democrats. It worked quite well.
Carter won the South in 1976, and it wasn't until the mid-80's that the South really began to move to the Republican party. That was because race was no longer a seminal issue in the South-- economic and social issues mattered much more, and Republicans were much more attuned to Southern viewpoints.
Bottom line: the South was a Dem lock for a hundred years while it was racist.
When the South ceased being racist, it ceased being Democrat.
that last one should have been a reply for a comment up above
ReplyDelete-KW
How about all those anti-Obama racist e-mails that so many Republicans officials have been caught forwarding? We’ve all seen them, well most of us anyway. You know, the ones with the watermelon patch in front of the Whitehouse, or showing Air Force One with the registration “N166ER”. Don’t think liberals don’t know about these. My conservative co-workers get a real kick out of them; one guy gets several a day from different sources. They used to enjoy sending them to me until I asked them to stop.
ReplyDeleteThese e-mails are so voluminous, yet they have no equivalent on the left. It begs the question, are these garden variety racist hobbyists who have somehow plugged into gigantic conservative e-mail webs, or is this the work of Republican associated P.R. firms?
-KW
@KW:
DeleteRight. People circulating offensive emails is part of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.
Romney makes up the emails at his secret underground Bain Headquarters, with Dick Cheney taking dictation.
It's sooo scary.
To protect us, we need to elect the guy who began his political career in the living room of Bill Ayers and who for 20 years enjoyed Rev. Wright's sermons.
That'll keep us safe from bad emails.
Actually, there was considerable racial acrimony within the Democrat party during the primary race between Hillary Clinton and Obama. Many Democrats accused Bill Clinton of 'playing the race card' in an effort to advance his wife.
DeleteHow sure are you that these dastardly emailers are all Republicans?
Especially given that historically, Democrats have owned racism. Why can't the KKK use email too?
“They were obviously intimidating voters.”
ReplyDeleteNo they weren’t, but they are obviously intimidating to you and all the conservatives that the right-wing media has scared with their picture.
-KW
@KW:
DeleteYour overt support for violent threats at polling places pretty much destroys any claim you can make to support for voting rights.
You guys really are disgusting.