We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Does this make members of the Democratic Party uneasy I wonder?

There is an interesting video well worth a watch here called: What LBJ Really Said About Selma.

Considering the people being protested against by the Civil Rights marchers were members of the Democratic Party, there is a certain sense of irony to be had when looking at who seems to have wrapped themselves in the mantle of those times now.

25 comments to Does this make members of the Democratic Party uneasy I wonder?

  • Paul Marks

    Yes.

    In the 1950s Senator Johnson helped block Ike’s Civil Rights Bills.

    Then he pushed the 1964 Act so that “the n……. will vote Democrat for a hundred years”.

    A charming man.

    As for Selma.

    The authorities do not seem to have read “The Prince”.

    Either treat people honourably or slaughter them.

    Do not insult them (beat them up), but then let them live.

    Do that and you doom yourself – not them.

    As can been seen by a look at the town of Selma today.

  • PersonFromPorlock

    The short answer is no. Up until the 1990s there were still a few Democrats who knew that reality was more than politics, but their party’s brutal demand for lockstep parroting of the daily Clintonista talking points broke their spirit. Now, Democrats just think and say whatever they need to think and say to get through the day’s news cycle.

  • lucklucky

    Of course not.

    Democratic party today is fully in neo-Marxist orbit, so it can change its spots any way it is convenient to them. The Marxist left have no causes.

  • NickM

    You’d be staggered (and he is no hero of mine) by the number of folks on this side of the pond who merely assume Lincoln was a Dem. Just assume because the Republicans are always the baddies and he is the goodie. And yeah, I think lucklady has more than an ounce of truth in her statement. Much more. They have no genuine causes other than the lust for power.

  • It is not the same Democrat Party. The South went Republican in response to LBJ. Nixon’s lust for power did everything possible to encourage that. And funny enough, of all the candidates so far in the running for President in 2016 only Rand Paul is speaking out on the racism of Prohibition enforcement. The very racism encouraged by Nixon.

    “[Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks” Haldeman, his Chief of Staff wrote, “The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/sharpton-rand-paul-presidency-could-depress-black-dem-turnout/

  • Rand Paul: Drug war targets minorities
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/06/24/rand-paul-marijuana-arrests-column/2452259/

    The rumblings among the Democrats is how little Obama has done against Prohibition. It is a constant sore point these days.

  • Bruce

    And keep reminding the morons that Martin Luther King was a LIFETIME REPUBLICAN.

  • Jan Hards

    Paul Marks:

    In the 1950s Senator Johnson helped block Ike’s Civil Rights Bills.

    Actually, Johnson, as Senate Majority Leader, was primarily responsible for the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the first federal Civil Rights legislation to be passed since Reconstruction. Yes, 1957 Act was pretty weak compared later acts (it mainly provided reform in relation to voting rights) and it was watered down from the draft act sponsored by the Eisenhower Administration that year. But its passage was a watershed and demonstrated that Congress could pass Civil Rights legislation, something it had repeatedly tried and failed to do for decades.

    Most remarkable of all was how LBJ was able to get the 1957 Act through the Senate dominated by powerful segregationist southern senators and their conservative allies. This is the main topic of Robert Caro’s magnificent “Master of the Senate”, book 3 of his The Years of Lyndon Johnson series.

  • Zarba

    We should never let the people forget that the KKK was the militant arm of the Democratic Party; that Jim Crow, poll taxes, literacy tests, segregation, and the like were ALL Democratic Party policies. Likewise, George Wallace and and the rest of the Segregation governors were all Democrats. Robert Burd was a KKK Grand Dragon, and Bull Conner was a member of the Democratic National Committee.

    Make the Democrats answer for their racist past. As Instapundit says, “Punch back twice as hard.”

  • Paul Marks

    Jan Hards – I stand by what I wrote, including the quotation (which, I note, you do not deny).

    MSimon – whatever else Nixon was (big government spending, endless regulator….) he was fully committed to civil rights, so no more of the stupid B.S. about Nixon exploiting racism.

    And IT IS THE SAME DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

    It gets people to vote for it on the basis of RACE.

    It used to target white voters and now it targets black voters.

    But it is still RACE – race, race, race.

    Governor Bilbo of Miss (a century ago) targeted white voters by saying that “big business” and “the Jews” (he meant people such as Julius Rosenwald – who funded so many schools for blacks, with his own money) wanted equal rights for blacks.

    These days it is the same sort of stuff – but this time targeted at black voters.

    Nor was Governor Bilbo an isolated figure.

    The KKK (Senator Byrd and co – and he only died a few years ago) hated “big business” and “the capitalists” from day one.

    Sure people like President Johnson tried to get “nigger” (their word) votes.

    But they tried to get these votes the same way that that Democrats tried to get “white trash” votes in previous decades.

    By promising government benefits – at the expense of “the rich” or “big business” (even while telling these people that they would not really need to pay as the money would just appear by magic).

    Sure there was a libertarian element in the Democratic Party – for example in New York State in the early 19th century (the “Barnburners”).

    But the idea that the KKK or the Populists was part of this libertarian wing is nonsense.

    As is the idea that “LBJ” was – he just went from targeting “white trash” voters with promises of government benefits and services (paid for by magic) to targeting “nigger” (his word) voters with promises of government benefits and services (paid for by magic).

    It is the same Democratic Party in that sense.

    After all, even in the north, people like the Mayor of Cleveland were pushing this shit (and it is shit) more than a hundred years ago.

    Henry George, Karl Marx – whatever……

    It is always the same B.S. – “you, the poor, can have more stuff – the rich and big business corporations will pay”.

    Still I am reminded why I do not read comment threads much any more.

    “It is not the same Democratic Party”.

    As if Governor Bilbo and Senator Byrd were not pushing the same basic garbage that Dems are pushing right now.

    Sometimes the same people switch from targeting “white trash” voters to targeting “nigger” voters.

    Governor Wallace of Alabama went from spending every speech denouncing “niggers” to campaigning for their votes.

    And it worked – he won. They voted for him.

    He won the same way he had with his old “white trash” voters.

    Promising them stuff – to be paid for by “the rich” and by “business”.

    This game is as old as the hills – Pericles (really the destroyer of Athens) and even Cyrus the Great of Persia played this game. With Cyrus it was “support me and I will give you, the Persians, the stuff of the rich people next door”.

    Governor Lester Maddox, the last segregationist Governor in Georgia, played the same game – more government benefits and services for all……..

    They have not fundamentally changed.

    They may have gone to college and read some Karl Marx.

    But they are still the same rabble rousers (blaming everything on “the rich” and “big business” and promising voters free stuff) they were.

    Yes there were libertarian Democrats in early 19th century New York State.

    And yes there were conservative “Bourbon” Democrats in the South.

    But they were never the backbone of the KKK and they are not the backbone of the Democrats now.

    The people who are the backbone of the modern Dems now peddle the same stuff that Wallace and co pushed in Alabama in 1965.

    More government services.

    More government benefits.

    Whether they target “white trash” voters or “nigger” (their word) voters, is not relevant.

    It is the same message.

    They do not stand for self reliant individuals and families and business enterprises.

    They stand for BENEFITS – GROUP BENEFITS.

    “What are you going to do for me?”

    That is the sort of voter they want.

  • Paul Marks

    Read the Constitution of New Hampshire – 1784.

    Read what it says about frugality and so on.

    Does this sound like the Democratic party of today?

    No it does not.

    But it is not the Democratic party of Governor Wallace either.

    Nor of Governor Bilbo a century ago.

    And it is not the Democratic Party of President “LBJ”.

    “What Is Wrong With Kansas?” asks the sub Marxist attack on Kansas conservatives.

    The attack on people for NOT voting for their so called “economic interests”.

    For all its many and various faults the Republican Party REJECTS the idea that “the poor” have different long term economic interests from “the rich”.

    It REJECTS the idea that “business” has different long term economic interests from “labor”.

    That employers have different long term economic interests from employees.

    It rejected it in the 1850s – when Republicans were called “religious fanatics” and “tools of big business” (just as they are now) and it rejects it now.

    And it RIGHTLY rejects it.

    CLASS politics is not fundamentally different from RACE politics.

    People who preach “rich versus poor” politics are no different from the KKK with their “black versus white” politics.

    Indeed the KKK ALSO preached rich versus poor politics – and denounced big business all the time.

    “They have changed”.

    No they have not, they have just gone to college and read some Karl Marx.

    If the “parties have changed places” (as the academics in the universities claim) why is eastern Tennessee (Congressional District One and Congressional District Two) Republican today – and Republican a century ago.

    And Republican one and half centuries ago also.

    “Rich versus poor” is the same as “black versus white”.

    It is the same politics of evil.

    The stock-in-trade of the donkeys.

  • Paul Marks

    The same in 1964 as it was in 1936, and the same in 1936 as it was in 1912 with Woodrow Wilson.

    Woodrow Wilson who pushed the “New Freedom” (slavery – based on ENVY and hatred of “the rich” and “big business”) at the same time he pushed different toilets for blacks and whites – the first President to push such things in the Federal service.

    Yes even slave owning Presidents had not been “scientific” racists believing you could catch being black from using the same toilet (or whatever).

    The last free market Democrat President was Grover Cleveland – and he was elected in 1892 (that is rather a long time ago).

    And President Cleveland was not from the South – he was from New York State (and looked who moved against him in the Democrat Convention of 1896).

    And look what happened to Presidents who tried to resist lynching……

    Such as President Warren Harding.

    That “tool of big business” and “the rich”, because he cut government spending and taxation.

    Did Progressives and Populists flock to his banner when President Harding campaigned against lynching?

    Of course not.

    They all spread the story that President Harding was secretly “part nigger”.

    One of many false stories.

    Most of the false stories about Warren Harding are still pushed by the university crowd.

    The same lying scum who praise “LBJ”.

    Just like they praise “FDR” – the man who was always nice to you to your face, and then put the knife in when your back was turned. See his reaction to Winston Churchill’s suggestion to bomb the Nazi extermination camps and the death railways – Franklin Roosevelt mocked the suggestion and repeated, as true, Nazi propaganda against the Jews (whilst shamelessly going for Jewish votes in New York – TWO FACED man), see Paul Johnson’s “A History of the Jews”.

    And “New Freedom” Woodrow Wilson.

    May they, the university crowd, burn in Hell.

  • Pal Marks,

    Nixon exploiting racism was intentional. And you will note that he went to some pains to avoid making it look like racism. The law didn’t target Blacks. It targeted drugs. What is racist about that? On the surface nothing.

    “Look, we understood we couldn’t make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we were making them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue…that we couldn’t resist it.” – John Ehrlichman, White House counsel to President Nixon on the rationale of the War on Drugs.

    Now there is quite a spirited discussion about the racism of the Drug War going on here:

    Yes, the Drug War is in Practice Deliberately Racist and Classist
    http://reason.com/blog/2015/03/09/yes-the-drug-war-is-in-practice-delibera

    And Rand Paul – although not naming names – is explicitly running against the racism of the Drug War. So is this police officer friend of mine.

    “Modern Prohibition/War on Drugs is the most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral policy since slavery & Jim Crow – Retired Police Detective Howard Wooldridge

    ================

    As to Nixon – you might want to look him up in relation to his “Southern Strategy”. He wanted those disaffected racist votes for the Republican Party.

    Yes it is some 40 years later and those racists Nixon wanted are mostly dead. But people still have a very bad taste in their mouths form that Stalinist. He used the IRS against his enemies. Just as the current President has done.

    Now it is more than possible despite the words of his henchmen that he was not a racist. But it is obvious from his maneuvering that he was not above exploiting the racism of the voters.

  • Gill.R

    Actually a lot of the republican establishment welcomed the black vote turning democrat, as Nixons chief political strategist Kevin Phillips said:

    “The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.”

  • Well Paul,

    All the Republican Party of today has to do to prove they are not racists is for them to give up Prohibition. They are the last major faction among the people holding out for the continuation of that abomination. Government of course loves Prohibition. It is why Obama has done next to nothing about it. There is nothing stopping him from ending Federal Prohibition by reclassifying cannabis. And unlike some of his other acts it would be entirely legal. Congress gave the President that power in the Controlled Substance Act.

    And no matter how correct you are on your points – and I do believe they make an excellent case – the Democrats are going to exploit the Republican fondness for Prohibition. And label Prohibitionists/Republicans as racists.

    And your Problem is the social conservative wing of the Republican Party. The Southern Baptists – who split from the Northern Baptists on the question of slavery.

    Because of how Americans vote – coalitions are made up before elections. The South was allied with the Democrats but voted with the Republicans on certain issues – National Defense being one. Now the South is solidly Republican – although there are starting to be cracks.

    We have the same thing going on today with the libertarian Republicans voting with the Democrats on anti-Prohibition measures.

    It is also a youth vs age problem – 63% of young Republicans favor ending Prohibition.

  • Laird

    Gill.R makes a very good point, and Kevin Phillips’ strategy clearly worked. Most of the Old South is solidly Republican now, but it’s the same “good ol’ boys” in charge; the party designation doesn’t really matter. And of course the blacks are almost 100% Democratic, with gerrymandered political districts to ensure that they have representation (in the state house and in Congress).

  • Eric

    And of course the blacks are almost 100% Democratic, with gerrymandered political districts to ensure that they have representation (in the state house and in Congress).

    A classic example of burning yourself with unintended consequences. By wiring black majority districts, the Democrats actually lost seats in Congress. You’d rather win three districts with 51% of the vote than lose two and win one with 90%. But now it’s politically impossible for Democrats to break up the black districts because racism.

  • lost-lost cousin

    MSimon:

    All the Republican Party of today has to do to prove they are not racists is for them to give up Prohibition.

    Do you ever post anything that is not about weed?

  • Barry Sheridan

    Thank you for posting this video.

    LBJ was a fundamentally a conciliator, his success as Senate Majority Leader was based on his wheeling and dealing, abilities which contributed to the appeal of the Democratic ticket in the 1960 Presidential elections.

    In response to the constant appeals of MSimon, could I bring to the readers attention, assuming they do not already know of it, a recent assessment in the UK of the consequences of regular cannabis use. They determined that it increases the risk of psychosis, due I understand to selective growing that has increased one of its two active ingredients. These findings are soundly based and act as a warning to those who constant advocate unrestricted use. While I well understand the disaster that the war on drugs is imposing, use of any drug is risky (including alcohol). Should the world decide to permit free use of these various narcotics then they had better be fully conscious of the social and economic consequences. It will not be pleasant despite what MSimon thinks.

  • although I am by no means an expert, I’m fairly sure that high -strength cannibis is a response to the market distortion caused by prohibition. Certainly, as a youth the very strong stuff was hard to come by (and expensive) and the cheaper imported resins were the main variety sold.
    now I hear (I don’t touch it anymore) that the high grade cannibis is all you can get, and I have been told that this is because most of it is grown in the UK (in lofts and so on) due to increased enforcement at borders. it is sold herbally because although resins keep longer and are easier to transport they require manufacturing facilities (think raw milk compared to condensed milk) which are harder to move and expensive to abandon. And the rest is the usual arms-race between competing suppliers that you would find in any market, high strength plants being not particularly different to grow in practice than low-strength ones.

  • Julie near Chicago

    I believe that’s exactly the effect that Prohibition had on the strength of liquor: That Prohibition pushed up the price of booze, and also made it attractive to increase the active ingredient in a given dose, so as to get more out of a relatively small volume of the stuff.

    As to the point about “Republicans” “hanging onto the War on Drugs.” I wish people would get off their high horses on this issue and understand that a great many people are genuinely frightened or otherwise suffering because of the actual harm they see done to their own families, or friends and neighbors, who, not themselves users, are seriously affected in various ways by drug use. It is perfectly possible to discuss the issues with these people without denigrating their motives, their character, their observational skills, or their brains.

    Actually, drugs really are harmful to many of their users. There are quite a few stories of peoples’ own experiences as druggies on libertarian and certain Objectivist-ish boards, for instance.

    I speak as one who has never used any drugs except alcohol, tobacco (big deal!), caffeine–if you think that’s a drug–ditto sugar and for all I know Vitamin C, AND who has been against anti-drug laws since I was old enough to know they existed.

  • lost-lost cousin
    March 11, 2015 at 3:35 am

    MSimon:

    Do you ever post anything that is not about weed?

    Would you prefer something on the American gulag? Or SWAT raids gone bad? How about institutional racism in America? The prison-industrial complex?

    What? Those are all Prohibition related? My bad.

    Given all the bad effects it is a wonder you do not make more noise about it.

  • Julie near Chicago
    March 12, 2015 at 5:41 am

    Alcohol is by far the most dangerous and deadly drug commonly available. See the work by Nutt on the subject. A third more harmful than heroin according to him.

    If we can tolerate alcoho we can certainly tolerate the currently illegal drugs which are less or much less harmful. BTW it is not the drugs that are the problem it is PTSD. But instead of dealing with the real cause we blame drugs. Clever don’t you think?

    “If they can get you to ask the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.” – Thomas Pynchon.

    People in chronic pain chronically take pain relievers. So in our brilliance what do we focus on? The pain relievers. Wouldn’t dealing with the pain be more effective?

    I grant you that such a move would mean a LOT fewer people would require punishment. So there is that. Who could we hate? It is getting so that there are fewer and fewer legitimate targets of hate every day. Shame really. What would Big Brother do without hate?

    But maybe police CAN solve medical problems. Have you considered turning them loose on cancer? How about obesity? Evidently there are very few problems that can’t be solved by men with guns.

  • Julie,

    You will forgive my intemperateness. We are making war on the traumatized. It bothers me. Everyday. All the time.

    It is obvious that drugs do not cause addiction. But I figured that out 13 years ago. Not everyone has come to that conclusion – yet.

    If you would like my chain of reasoning – ask. The evidence is strong and overwhelming. And it is well covered up with DRUGS. I must say that it is the best feat of misdirection ever performed on the public.

  • Julie near Chicago

    Tell that to Clara Wieck Schumann, one of whose sons became addicted to morphine via a prescription for it as a painkiller (THE painkiller in the 19th century), which addiction IIRC finally killed him. This story is told by Eugénie Schumann (a daughter of Robert and Clara) in her memoirs.

    Tell it to George Smith and Jeff Riggenbach. Both heroin users as young men, and also (I gather) good friends. One fell into serious addiction and insisted that the withdrawal from the drug was intensely painful. The other, who Knows Everything–just ask him (although actually I have the feeling both of them do)–insists the former addict is making the whole thing up. After all he didn’t have any trouble kicking it, no withdrawal symptoms, etc.

    There are other examples, at least one other of which is on the same board where I found the two gents (both, by the way, pretty well-known in libertarian circles) duking it out.

    Some drugs are addictive to some people and some are not. It has been said that most cocaine users eventually give it up on their own, without much fuss or trouble. Same with lots of people who once drank excessively. Apparently, same with heroin. That doesn’t mean the drugs “are not addictive,” but only that they either weren’t or were only mildly saw for some people. So?

    Before there could be a meaningful discussion of the existence of drug addiction, there would have to be rock-solid definitions of “addiction” and “drug,” which the discussants agreed would work for them. Otherwise they would be talking past each other.

    Anyway, my point was not about the existence of the phenomenon of addiction. It was that libertarians put themselves and their cause in a bad light when they treat the people who haven’t yet Seen the Light with such hauteur and disparagement.