The Catholic Church’s Acceleration into Irrelevancy Continues
CARDINAL GEORGE: Well, I go with the pastor. I mean, he’s telling us that they won’t be able to have Church services on Sunday, if that’s the case. You don’t want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism. So, I think if that’s what’s happening, and I don’t know that it is, but I would respect the local pastor’s, you know, position on that. Then I think that’s a matter of concern for all of us.
This somewhat reminds me of the argument that Democrats are the party of racism because Robert Byrd was a KKK member in 1947. The Klan threatened Catholics with its intolerance and hate in 1923. Therefore, anyone who the Catholic Church opposes must also be a purveyor of hate, even though the Catholic Church is the institution attempting to repress the rights of others.
Cardinal George’s attempt to walk back his comments is also fantastic:
Obviously, it’s absurd to say the gay and lesbian community are the Ku Klux Klan, but if you organize a parade that looks like parades that we’ve had in our past because it stops us from worshipping God, well then that’s the comparison, but it’s not with people and people — it’s parade-parade.
The noted parade threat. It was indeed the parade itself and not the legislative action or acts of violence that was the real threat of the KKK. Evidently it doesn’t matter the reason, the act of organized walking in a street past a Catholic Church is the real threat!
No one’s paying less attention to the Catholic bishops than everybody else in the Catholic church.
My local Bishop (Matthew Clark) is pretty okay.
I once again had to tell my grandparents this year that the I won’t even consider returning to the Church, even pro forma just on Christmas and Easter, until Benedict is either in jail or in Hell (preferably in that order). They’ve started to understand this position but it doesn’t stop my grandmother from worrying about the state of my soul.
It is odd. For as long as I remember, Catholics have always held the bishops in the lowest esteem of all the clergy. They often come across as an ugly mix of CEO and corrupt politician.
The KKK!
Really?
The KKK?
Jeez…
I guess they don’t want the “real moral degenerates,” you know, the nancy-boys and butch-girls, ‘looking for love in all their own right places,’ prancing and mincing too close to their holy child-schtupping Priest’s, with whom the Church hierarchy has been playing ‘hide-the-sanctimonious-salami-stuffer’ in a new parish for decades, as if their followers will look forward to finding some new child-schtupper in their local church as if he was the prize in a their Catholic Cracker Jack box? The only question when he appears on the scene seems to be was will he, always a HE, be a boy, or a girl, schtupper?
At least politicians get to surprise us every once in awhile as to whether the sexual abuser was male or female, since none of the Catholic Church members that were accused that I’ve ever heard of have been Nun’s.
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
If I remember right, I think someone named Jesus had something to say along those lines. And last I looked, that Jesus wasn’t some Hispanic dancer in a gay male strip club, – but if that Jesus they supposedly followed ever ran across this other Jesus person, he would forgive him any sins he may or may not have committed along the way.
I hate to use a Yiddish word for a Catholic Cardinal – but what an evil, ignorant, putz!
And I’m being very, very, kind here.
Is there a KKK analog to Godwin’s Law?
There is now.
There was some horrible, if not directly sexual, abuse by Irish nuns, and I seem to remember similar stories from Canada.
there was a movie about this — The Magdalene Sisters, I think
Except that was in Ireland, but yes, the good sisters in many parts of the world were more like dominatrices than saints.
EF was talking primarily about Ireland, I think. Canada was secondary
There was a major scandal involving abuses by nuns and priests in the Canadian Indian boarding schools which were church run, but at least some of those were Anglican. At this point I cannot remember what the denominational breakdown was.
if you organize a parade that looks like parades that we’ve had in our past because it stops us from worshipping God
The martyrs of earlier centuries were not deterred from worshiping god by the threat of death under torture–but Cardinal George gets stopped by a gay pride parade.
Fun fact about all sorts of conservatives: they are simultaneously brave brave warriors (for God, for Mammon, for Empire) and timid pearl-clutching fraidycats who might faint if you look at them too hard.
The toxic mix of self-aggrandizement and victimization would be funny if (a) the stenographers in the media didn’t repeat it uncritically as if it these two things were OF COURSE AND ALWAYS both true together and (b) these asshats weren’t so unbelievably destructive.
Give the recent sex scandals in the church, I can think of a few reasons that the clergy might be terrified by the prospect of an assault by thousands of out gays.
My religious freedom has been infringed!!!!
The Gays want a parade! OMG!!!!!
It is my right of free exercise of religion to prevent any and all contact with actual gay people in any sort of situation where I have to acknowledge their existence as human beings.
Its bad enough that the current political situation already conflicts with my Christian Identity beliefs. My religious freedom was infringed by the fact I have to accept living in a nation run by a black man.
Now what will I do?
Order one of my do-it-yourself home crucifixion kits. Some assembly required.
I would try the self crucifixion thing, but getting in that last nail is always the hard part.
Ages 8 and up.
Also, mean comments from Obama are causing billionaires to not enjoy their billions quite as much as they used to, totally infringing on their freedom.
I think he may have gotten the Gay Pride parade confused with these ones
The Catholic Bishops, in general, are a loathesome lot of bigots.
About 20 years ago the Vatican decided that a bishop needed to be loyal and small minded rather than thoughtful and intelligent. How could such a brilliant plan possibly go wrong?
As an Atheist Jew with a vested interest in a pluralistic and welcoming society, I still mourn the deposition and monastic exile Ratzi, in his role as JPII’s head inquisitor, imposed on Seattle’s Archbishop Hunthausen for the crimes of being too closely associated with Sanctuary and too ready to embrace the Gay members of his flock.
Actually upholding the expressed teachings of the Rabbi Yeshua bar Yosef is the most heretical view of all!
They came down hard on the nice priest from the Native American Catholic church near where I grew up. He was supporting the have-nots in a tribal political squabble back in the 90s. (He let them use the rectory when they were occupying the adjacent tribal center and seemed quite convinced that Jesus took a dim view of power grabs.)
He seemed like a good fellow, used eagle feathers in mass and knew Ojibwa curse words.
yeah they evidently had to stop liberation theology. Priests like Rutilio Grande and Oscar Romero walked a little too much of the walk
Any challenge to ecclesiastical authority is an intolerable assault on the fundamental freedom of religion (to discriminate at will and bugger altar boys).
Men in skirts afraid of queers.
Hey, watch what you say about the Scots!
My dad called yesterday, and a bit of the family news was that one of my uncles was still not divorcing the sociopath he married because he thinks he’s too Catholic to lower himself to divorce. I guess he’ll do anything for that wafer that sticks to the roof of your mouth and a taste of cheap red wine. My poor grandmother has been listening to him bitch about this for years. If she’s thinking that one of them should die via poison, and one in a fire then I cannot blame her. I felt like that after listening to one of his tirades about the horrors of his self-imposed dilemma once.
He should talk to a priest and leave his mother out of it. Why someone would allow an organization that enables child rape and that has been an underground organization for the sale of babies, is beyond me.
My grandmother is not a member of any organized religion, though she has been an editor of a Catholic newsletter, and oh the stories she can tell. I have no idea how Uncle Joe became Catholic, but I suspect he converted for his wife— a sociopath who would benefit greatly by a church in which one only has to tell a priest all the juicy bits to be forgiven, and in which divorce is a “sin” worthy of banishment from the church and “god”.
Why someone would allow an organization that enables child rape and that has been an underground organization for the sale of babies to call the shots in his/her life, is beyond me.
To all commenters here, I would just say:
Bitch, bitch, bitch! Sounds like a bunch of 7th graders.
Pray, explicate.
A bunch of 7th graders have detailed opinions on the interaction of Catholic hierarchy with the big political questions of the day? What kind of supergenius middle school did you attend?
To be fair, there are countless thousands of 7th graders who have every justification for bitching about the Roman Catholic Church, though most of its priests do like ‘em rather younger.
Yeah, I’d figured out that most of what I was hearing at Catholic church was foolishness by the time I was in seventh grade. I think it was around that time that my mother started referring to John Paul II as “That g.d. old sexist” and stopped being so militant about us going to church.
I also used to let my mind wander during most of the service and when I was wasn’t checking out girls, I was imagining that some of the columns looked like missiles. Tom Clancy books and puberty, egad.
“…when I was wasn’t checking out girls…”
It’s strange. When I was a teen in the 1970s, church was the only place I ever saw girls my age in anything but jeans. They’d wear short, low-cut dresses. This was long before my conversion to heathen, and it left me very conflicted.
Your trolling is weak; we eat nastier people than you for hors d’oeuvres. Scamper along, elevate your game and try again.
I had no idea that parades had the power to end church services.
Think of it! The Rose Parade. The Thanksgiving Parade. The Easter Parade. It is a positive war of church services. Somebody should tell BillO.
That would be “war on church”.
Bill D is surely on the case.
I think they’re confusing Pride parades with this. Which would suggest that George is easily dumb or disingenuous enough to be archbishop of Chicago.
The Rose Parade is the greatest attack on Catholicism since parades celebrating Georege Washington’s inauguration.
I used to be a liberal, but after I saw what happens at a gay pride parade, I joined Opus Dei.
so we know that Mal is really Antonin Scalia (or perhaps Sam Brownback).
I can’t make much sense at all of what the cardinal means. Maybe I could if I actually read the link, but just as it’s quoted, it’s hard to tell, although I know that I disagree with his stance on gay marriage.
One thing we probably have to keep in mind–although it might not change anything here–is that the Klan in the 1920s was anti-Catholic as well as anti-black and anti-semitic.
They were anti-immigrant, as well. They tried being anti-Finn in Upper Michigan, but according to my seventh-grade history teacher, that didn’t go so well.
i thought everyone loved a parade.
a little background: the gay pride parade in chicago was re-routed and changed to an earlier start time this year, in order to protect the children from the gays. never mind that that the parade goes through ‘boystown’, chicago’s main gay community, so any children who do live in the area would be pretty well inured to all the gayness.
so, if chicago’s gay community hadn’t agreed to change the route and time, for the children, the parade route would never have gone past this church (which is also in boystown, just not on the main drag (ba dum chi)). as thanks for their working with the larger community, they get compared to the klan by chicago’s leading catholic.
to sum up, the gays are the real racists.
[scratches head]
The Catholic Church’s policy requiring bishops to submit their resignation upon turning 75 apparently has some good reasons behind it. Cardinal George’s remarks show that they may want to move up that deadline by at least a few months, however. Years might have been good, also.
Thus says The Lord your God: You shall not desecrate My Sabbaths, nor the seventh day of the week, which I have commanded you to remember!
Thus says The Lord…
As I had spoken it to Moses, so shall it be done…
As I had spoken it before the congregation, so shall it be done…
Yea, with the blowing of the great trumpet,
With lightnings and thunderings, had I spoken it upon Mount Sinai…
In the presence of the tribes of Israel,
And before the holy angels, did I trumpet My Law.
The Lord your God had written it, with His own hand…
Yea, by My own finger was it engravened and given to My people…
Behold I, even I, have written it upon the hearts of the penitent,
By the power of My own Spirit.
For The Son of Man came to redeem you from your sins, from your transgression of that burned into the stone of the Everlasting Covenant, by which man shall live… Of which none have kept… By which they shall surely die.
Lo, a New Covenant have I sent to you, in Christ Jesus, to save you from the penalty of that which you have forsaken. Has then your Christ died, whereby The Law has also died?… Not so!… Shall you crucify your Savior, again and again, putting Him to an open shame?!… NO!… You shall live because of Him, and by that which He upholds and has magnified in Himself!… Being the only One who is without sin, having kept every tittle of The Law.
For it is written, as The Lord Christ had spoken it,
“It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tittle of The Law to fail”…
For the spirit of The Law is shown in His vesture…
He, being the same One who taught you The Law anew,
By His example and by His every word and deed…
For The Law is fulfilled in Christ, The Messiah…
Indeed, He is the goal at which the Torah (Law) aims.
He is The Lord of The Law, also being The Lord of the Sabbath.
So then, if He is The Lord of the Sabbath, having obeyed every command of The Father, why do you not follow Him? You say you follow Him and honor Me… Verily, I say to you, you shall all be found liars in the Day of Reckoning. For every word spoken by God, and His Son, stands forever… Without any variableness or shadow of turning.
Oh church of adulteries, how We mourn for you… You have been judged, and shall be left utterly desolate in the Day of The Lord’s wrath. You say you speak for Me, and have Christ’s authority. You have trampled upon the grave of The Resurrected One, making His sacrifice of non-effect!… Woe to those who blaspheme the Spirit!
Your whoredoms are piled to Heaven! Every Law you have broken!… Even to this day, do you embrace all the sins I hate! In all you do, do you crucify The Son of Salvation, again and again!… Denying His name by all your deeds, you call mighty and true…
Oh unholy church of men, mother of all fornications and lies,
Your destruction comes nigh!…
You have become Egypt!…
Let My people go!
Stop desecrating My Sabbaths, cease from your heresies, hold your tongue from your blasphemies!… And repent!… And I may yet have mercy on you. Saturday is the seventh day and the Shabbat (Sabbath), which I have ordained from the beginning!
The Holy One comes quickly, and will take from you His own…
He shall snatch them from your very breast…
NO MORE shall My children receive nourishment from you!…
NO MORE shall they sit in your deceptions!
The light is taken from you!… You are left alone, estranged by your false doctrines. Your fate lies with him who is coming, who shall lead many into perdition and death. You shall bear him a son, a man who bears the number of his name, his prophet. You will not be alone when desolations come… You and your enemy, Ishmael, shall be destroyed, along with the father that bore you both, the father of lies. And so shall it be done… Even so, amen.
The Mighty and Strong One shall return!…
And great recompense shall fall hard upon the nations!…
Behold, He shall come in all His glory!…
And Judgment shall sit…
Yet anyone, who calls on the name of The Lord in that Day, shall be saved.
3/29/06 From God The Father – A Letter Given to Timothy, For All Those Who Have Ears to Hear
http://trumpetcallofgodonline.com/index.php5?title=The_Heavens_and_the_Earth_Shall_Pass_Away%2C_Recreated_Anew._The_Law_Stands_Forever%2C_Unchanged_and_Unchangeable._Neither_Has_God_Blessed_Any_Other_Day%2C_The_Seventh_Has_He_Blessed…Keep_It_Holy
How cute.
Well alrighty then. Have they finally come to agreement on which day the sabbath is so we can all be guaranteed some of that pie in the sky bye and bye.
Criminy! I’m a Christian and this stuff pisses me off.
IIRC, I was taught that one of the ten commandments was “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy”. Now, obviously, we’ve seen a lot of strife about the whole “keep it holy” part, but the remember part is also amusing. Obviously if we can’t even agree which day it is, we must be flunking that commandment.
We keep it holy by watching pro football.
Or college football, depending.
that’s what she said!
Tell me, when you encounter the characters “tl;dr”, does it fill you with a warm glow of satisfaction?
I mean, honestly, some people desperately need to lose their copy/paste privileges.
God Hates Shrimp.
land shrimp are presumably kosher, though. So long as you don’t boil them in their mother’s milk. Unless they violate some other rule I’ve forgotten, which wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest.
Nope, only certain locusts can be kosher. The rest are unclean.
If memory serves, actually, one may within the bounds of kashrut legally chow down upon the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. That’s according to pinko liberal Leviticus, of course. Deuteronomy is made of sterner stuff, ruling flatly that every creeping thing that flieth is unclean. (Though that does seem to leave us free to feast upon silverfish till we can eat no more.)
I’ve never quite figured out how the ancient Israelites were able to enjoy honey, seeing as bees didn’t make it onto even the namby-pamby Leviticus list of Stuff Jews Can Eat. I suppose it’s one of those Mysteries Of Faith. Like, for example, why we must believe that it is Teh Gays who are like the KKK when we are told as much by bigoted reactionaries who dress up in gaudy robes to perform sinister rituals.
(Though that does seem to leave us free to feast upon silverfish till we can eat no more.)
I had somehow made it to 42 years of age without *ever* thinking about eating a silverfish.
Ooh, tell me the one about Lot and his daughters! That always gets me hot.
Does the Sabbath go by time zones, or is it set to “Sinai-mean-time”?
http://scalzi.com/whatever/003530.html
[I love that article, again, thanks Malacalypse for pointing it out]
My Jesus forgives the lack of Christ in your Jesus
My Jesus forgives the homophobia of your Jesus
-He would forgive this Jesus, who would demand His followers declare some people unfit to love, to care for children, to serve their nation, or to be full members of their society.
My
Conservatives are always claiming that the great and deplorable change that has taken place in our history is the triumph of secularization. If you could ask the founding fathers, however, I expect what would really upset them is the power and influence of the Roman Catholic church has attained in today’s American society. Whether or not the U.S. was a Christian nation in 1789, it is beyond cavil that it was fiercely anti-Papist. Why don’t we ever hear about that?
Just as Italians and Irish are now “white” and many are eager to preserve white privilege, Catholics are now “Christian”, maybe even “Judeo-Christian” and are eager to preserve that privilege.
Anti-Papism problem solved.
“and many are eager to preserve that privilege.”
Er… I don’t know about anyone else, but all my history texts in middle and high school at least mentioned the fact that in every era of American history prior to the later half of the 20th century, the country was fiercely anti-Catholic.
They didn’t really go into detail, of course, because they were history texts for children in public schools and so by definition you got extremely broad strokes where you didn’t get things that were flat-out wrong. But the Know-Nothings, the Klan, the opposition to Kennedy because he was a Catholic, the Founders being deeply suspicious of Popery, that was all in there.
Yeah, it’s all in the history books and hardly news to anybody who paid attention in high school. My point is that we don’t hear about the anti-Catholicism of the early Republic from the right wingers who endlessly call for a return to the Faith of the Founding Fathers, a faith that vehemently despised Rome and all that Rome stood for. These guys are mighty selective when it comes to historical precedents.
It’s difficult to tell if the lack of interest in Newt’s Catholicism is because the country is less anti-Catholic, or because Newt’s conversion is so obviously a fraud.
As far as I can tell, Newt became a Catholic in order to increase his number of marriages. Henry VIII would be impressed by the gall of it.
About that being a Christian nation thing, I think this pretty well puts played to it:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,
- Treaty of Tripoli, 1797, signed by Pres. Adams and unanimously ratified by Congress.
“The Catholic Church’s Acceleration into Irrelevancy Continues”
Erik, how do you expect to be taken seriously when you write things like this. That’s the kind of thing a moody highschooler at Kos writes. I don’t think one pathetic, petulant bishop creates any further danger of a church with a billion adherents becoming “irrelevant”.
Yea, no danger at all. Loomis is just a big meany.
Right; there are any number of problems with the Catholic Church–its abandonment of the poor in Latin America which has opened the doors to mass conversion to evangelicalism, the unwillingness to let priests marry or ordain women, a right-wing pope who has openly said he doesn’t mind a leaner meaner church, the walking back of most parts of Vatican II, the new mass that uses odd and difficult language that has alienated many, the continued opposition to birth control, etc. All of this is undermining the church’s relevancy in America and the world.
Maybe I need to stop assuming knowledge in my readers. Or stop assuming they will look into things before they make annoying comments.
…and the tantrum that follows. Yeah.
Yes, why not ignore all the actual evidence I provided.
Because Papa Ratzi with his dress and red Pradas told him to.
not to mention that in chicago, george’s archdiocese, dozens of churches and catholic schools have been shuttered in the last fifteen or so years (george’s and the previous cardinal bernadine’s watch) due to lack of attendance and money. the lack of money stems from it all going to the vatican to pay for raping altar boys. the lack of attendance most likely has a lot to do with that, too.
and to take it back out from the local level to the vatican, nazi pope benedict recently issued a warning to his flock to not get sucked in ‘by the superficial glow of the season’. issued from his diamond-encrusted throne in the wealthiest ‘country’ on earth, the vatican. merry xmas, and do as i say, not as i do.
And those who haven’t left often ignore the church’s teachings on things like birth control, divorce and gay rights. And the death penalty, to be fair.
He sees em pope-in
He hatin
That was my initial reaction as well, but it is wrong. The Catholic Church is very far from irrelevant, but it is headed in that direction at an increasingly rapid rate.
The birth control issue alone will eventually doom the church. Birth control is an absolute necessity for improvement in living conditions for the poor. The Catholic Church demands misery. It will vanish as the world rejects misery if it does not change that vicious policy.
I would like to see a quote of someone making this argument so I can add my voice to the howls of protests.
I mean, I appear to be the only RWInger here who routinely accuses Liberals of engaging in racist historical revisionism. There are so many low-hanging fruits to pluck in regards to Byrd…he was an unrepentant segregationist when he was made Senate Majority Leader, as late as 2005 he was whitewashing the Klan, etc…that it is painful to see such a stupid argument as above.
Isn’t the fact that you see it as stupid a point in its favor for the reality-based community?
Manju clearly needs to write more about Robert Bryd. Why, this is a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.
It would…if someone (preferably a prominent republican) actually made that argument against Democrats.
I look forward to your disquisition on how Ron Paul is a poor, misunderstood, kindly old man who has been vilely defamed by those evil, racist, homophobic, misogynist Liberals. Also you discussions of Tom Tancredo and Joe Arpaio, not to mention your spirited defense of Republican voter suppression laws targeting minorities.
Sorry, Dr Dick…defending racists is your job, not mine.
Aren’t you the historically illiterate fool who tried to use Byrd’s ’68cra vote as evidence of him no longer being a segregationist?
Perhaps you would like to take this opportunity to retract?
Keep fucking that chicken, Manju, keep fucking it. We all know, even you apparently, which party is the home of the racists today and it does not begin with a “D”.
Ron Paul is clearly a well-closeted Democrat, because Robert Bryd!
Just to be clear about this. The issue is not and never has been whether there were ever racists in the Democratic Party, as everyone concedes that there were. The point is that, since the late 1960s, the Democratic Party has been the champion of civil rights and that, since Nixon’s Southern Strategy, the Republicans have been the party of racists and bigots. No amount of equivocation, shifting the goal posts, or revisionist historical nitpicking on your part is going to change those facts in any way. You need to openly embrace the fact that you have aligned yourself with the forces of evil in this country.
“as late as 2005 he was whitewashing the Klan”
Or, you know, not:
Byrd also said, in 2005, “I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don’t mind apologizing over and over again. I can’t erase what happened.”
Or was:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/18/AR2005061801105_pf.html
Thats a Trent Lott moment. He should’ve been reprimanded by the Senate.
You do realize that quoting from an unfavorable book review is not actually the same thing as quoting from a book’s author, right?
“The Klan chapter which I organized and led did not, at any time, engage in or preach violence, nor did we conduct any parades or marches or other public demonstrations.”
Oh, so he was not discussing the entire WV Klan, as you edited the WP quote to clearly state that he was.
So I’m sure we can safely trust the rest of your uncited quotes.
His was the only WV Klan at the time. IIRC, he wrote to the National Klan in order to revive their organization in WV.
The quote is from his 2005 autobio: Robert C. Byrd: child of the Appalachian coalfields.
IIRC
HA HA HA.
The way Trent Lott was?
Yes. Lott was forced to resign his leadership position.
Byrd should’ve been taken out of the presidential line of succession.
Yes. Lott was forced to resign his leadership position.
Ah, so, not reprimanded by the Senate.
Byrd should’ve been taken out of the presidential line of succession.
You mean the way Strom Thurmond was?
I don’t care what you call it, as long as you punish him.
Neither should’ve been put in.
Ditto for Richard Russell, Allen Ellender, James Eastland, and John C. Stennis.
I would also add Carl Hayden and Jim Wright.
But DrDick tells me they all became Republicans or the Dems got rid of their segregationists.
Sounds to me like they promoted them.
Don’t they have retractable goalposts nowadays to prevent this sort of thing?
Manju would have nothing to say if he could not simply move the goal posts and lie at will. He would then have to admit that his Republican Party is the current home of the racists and bigots, while the Democrats have been the champions of civil rights since the late 60s.
It’s possible to overstate the speed of the shift. Senators and representatives with lots of seniority don’t lightly change parties, especially when their party is in the majority, because that damages their ability to carry out the Prime Directive (bring pork to the home state), so Stennis, Eastland et al. hung on for another ten years or so until they retired and were replaced by Republicans with very similar political views, like Trent Lott.
And if there’s anything senators respect more than pork, it’s senate customs and traditions, one of which is that the president pro tem is the longest continually serving member of the majority party. No one thought that Eastland’s holding that position was an endorsement of his politics, any more than they thought Ted Stevens holding that position meant that Republicans approved of his character. (And if presidential succession is a big issue for you, you might want to start your litany of complaints with Henry Kissinger, who was fourth in line and wasn’t even eligible to serve as president. Apart from, you know, the war crimes and all.)
Watch ‘em go!.
you do realize that quote is in the past tense — meaning they refer to what he thought at the time. Given his subsequent change of mind and apologies, this is in no way whitewashing the Klan in 2005.
Its what he thinks now (in 2005) of his 1940′s WV Klan:
Just as what Trent Lott said of Thurmond is what he thinks “now” of Thurmond in the 40′s.
how is saying that the group he participated in did not perform acts that others did while also apologizing for being tertiarily associated with groups that did the things his didn’t a whitewashing? Unless you have proof they did these things.
But you don’t, you just have a couple of quotes from an anti-Byrd internet screed
DrDick,
Just out of curioisty, why do you say “late 60′s” rather than early? I’ve noticed that you consistently put the pivotal date at the 68cra, not the usual 64…even at one time saying that Strom left the dems after the 68cra (he left after 64).
I’m not trying to catch you or anything. I’m just curious if there is a reason. 64 is the major cra, most Liberals like to include Kennedy in the mix, and while there was resistance to civil rights post 64, I think most southern senators (and only the senate matters) knew resistance was futile (I don;t think there were any really sustained filibusters).
I imagine it is because DrDick keeps mentioning Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and you keep ignoring it.
Ahhh. That makes sense.
He thinks all those racist politicians started to move once Nixon opened the door in ’68 and ’72…yet he can’t name any (tho you gave me some Phili cop!).
Still, I would think Goldwaters ’64 run was more pivotal and more obviously racist. Strom switched then.
Nixon won I suppose but you had a Wallace run in ’68.
I gave you the mayor of Philly. He became mayor by running a police department renowned for police brutality. He presided over the first MOVE massacre.
So, yea, some random cop.
Actually the only person killed at the first MOVE assault was a cop, James Ramp.
I thought two MOVE members died as well? That will teach me to rely on the memory of something that happened when I was 6.
Yes, he’s a horrible guy, Mal…but he’s ain’t exactly a major data-point in the Southern Strategy.
I wonder if Byrd would let him in his non-violent Klan chapter though?
It is also because the period between 1964 and 1968 was transitional. I have never claimed that that transition occurred before then. Nor have I ever claimed that the shift from Democrat to Republican was instantaneous, but rather that it took place over a decade. It is only Manju who has insisted that all racist Democratic politicians had to resign immediately and en masse after one of the Civil Rights Acts or Nixon’s Southern Strategy. The fact that a handful of racist politicians hung on perhaps a bit longer, for reasons Hogan cites above, is totally irrelevant, as the racist voters did switch parties, which is why the South is now dominated by the GOP. His focus on politicians is just another smoke screen to hide the fact that he supports the party of racists and bigots.
And to be clear, 1964-1968 marks the transition to solid (if not universal) support for civil rights. The move of the racists to the Republican party took place between 1968 and the early 80s, when Reagan sealed the deal started by Nixon.
Let test this theory using the 22 Senators of the 11 Confederate states. Here they are in 1982:
AL Denton, Jeremiah [R]
AL Heflin, Howell [D]
AR Bumpers, Dale [D]
AR Pryor, David [D]
FL Chiles, Lawton [D]
FL Hawkins, Paula [R]
GA Mattingly, Mack [R]
GA Nunn, Samuel [D]
LA Johnston, John [D]
LA Long, Russell [D]
MS Cochran, Thad [R]
MS Stennis, John [D]
NC East, John [R]
NC Helms, Jesse [R]
SC Hollings, Ernest [D]
SC Thurmond, J. [R]
TN Baker, Howard [R]
TN Sasser, James [D]
TX Tower, John [R]
TX Bentsen, Lloyd [D]
VA Warner, John [R]
VA Byrd, Harry [I]
Allow me to eyeball this list, as waiting for DrDick to do 22 wiki searches is quite time consuming.
I see some 2nd generation Dem Senators, meaning after the segregationist retired the state remained under dem control. At least one (hollings) voted against a major cra.
Heflin wasn’t exactly palling around with MLK’s heirs and you still have Stennis, Long and Co. H. Byrd was caucusing with the Dems.
The Rs have now added Helms to their list of A-holes (Thurmond, Tower), but there is also Baker, a pro-civil rights senator who married Dirksten’s daughter! I think Warner is good to go too.
11 D’s, 1 I, and 11 Rs from the former Confederacy in 1982. Dr Dick is full of it.
So between 1968 and 1982 the Republicans went from holding three Senate seats in the former Confederacy (including Thurmond’s, who had been a Democrat until very recently) to holding eleven. And this proves your point how?
It “proves” his point because BYRD BYRD BYRD BYRD’S THE WORD! He keeps slapping down the dead guy in any and every thread like it’s a universal trump card, and won’t stop just because he can’t take the trick.
Actually, Byrd is not on that list b/c WV was not a former confederate state (it was split).
Hogan speaks for me, as does Halloween Jack.
My major point is that folks here are engaging in racist historical revisionism. Since as late as 1982, ½ the former confederacy was Dem, and we still have known segregationists on the D-side (including one who was the leader of Senate Dems), all this by DrD:
And this by Joe from Lowell
is denialist dribble.
Probably because in the early 1960s, there were still members of the Republican Party who were not hostile to civil rights, and did not engage in racist demagoguery. There was no one party of civil rights in the early 60s.
As opposed to the late 60s, when the self-selection of pro- and anti-racists into one or the other party had pretty much cemented itself.
Demonstratively false, Joe. Spectacularly so. Below, list of Senators who opposed the 1968 cra:
Byrd, Harry [D]
Eastland, James [D]
Ellender, Allen [D]
Ervin, Samuel [D]
Fannin, Paul [R]
Fulbright, James [D]
Hill, Joseph [D]
Holland, Spessard [D]
Hollings, Ernest [D]
Jordan, Benjamin [D]
Long, Russell [D]
McClellan, John [D]
Russell, Richard [D]
Smathers, George [D]
Sparkman, John [D]
Spong, William [D]
Stennis, John [D]
Talmadge, Herman [D]
Thurmond, J. [R]
Williams, John [R]
Please retract.
Again, just more irrelevant BS. As I say above, it is the movement of the racists in the electorate from Democrat to Republican which is really important. As Hogan points out, there are numerous institutional factors, especially in the Senate (I note you do not list the vote in the House), that impeded the migration of sitting politicians.
So your most recent story is that almost all the racists in the electorate moved to the republican party while almost all the racist politicians stayed Dem.
So who voted for the racists in the primary? And did all the R’s reach across party lines to vote back in the old racist Dems? Or did the non-racist Dems continue to vote back in racists?
Republican representation in the South went from about 18% in the US House, 11% in the US Senate, and 2% in the state senates in 1964 to 58%, 48%, and 30% in 2000. A rather remarkable increase, especially give that blacks were increasingly able to vote and dominate many regions of the South.
You have to control for Jim Crow. The region was close to 100% dem.
All things equal, you would expect about a 50% migration. So there is nothing remarkable at all there. That is what is to expected after the fall of a racially coercive political monopoly.
Treating this monopoly as normal is perverse, but quote common in liberal quarters.
i believe Krugman hero Larry Bartels makes this point when he does his number crunching on the southern shift. I would like to get into that scholarship with you, but if you can’t acknowledge plain facts in front of your face, I’m not confident you will be able to handle this (all liberal) scholorship.
You have to control for Jim Crow. The region was close to 100% dem. All things equal, you would expect about a 50% migration.
So, you are claiming that the increase in people voting for Republicans was because blacks started voting, and voted Republican? Has anybody ever believed you when you claimed this? Are you drunk right now? Did you fall and hit your head? Do you know the warning signs for stroke, or concussion?
Manju forgot to take his meds again. The GOP in the South is almost exclusively white and largely racist.
There is also this. As I said before, keep fucking that chicken, Manju. Reality is not on your side (not that you have ever actually met it).
More importantly, the Democratic leadership shifted to embracing civil rights during this period, alienating the racist Southern Democratic electorate in the process. Nixon then deliberately sought to recruit them with his Southern Strategy and Reagan openly embraced them with his constant coded race baiting. That is why the South went Republican after over 100 years as solidly Democratic.
I included “WV Klan” b/c most people would think Klan full stop, and that would make Byrd’s whitewashing beyond ridiculous.
But even as is, the idea of a non-violence preaching Klan Chapter is so ridiculous that you’d have to be a racist or a hack to consider it…especially when you listen to Byrd’s rhetoric at the time:
But, unlike Thurmond or even Reagan, Byrd publicly acknowledged fault and expressed remorse for his earlier race baiting, subsequently supporting civil rights legislation.
Sort of like Reagan saying he was wrong to support the New Deal.
I imagine the sorting of American politics into one racist party and on anti-racist party is very difficult to comprehend if you don’t understand how much individual attitudes changed about race in the decade after the CRA.
You’re improving a little, but still incorrect. Allow me to fill in the details:
In short, like Byrd, Thurmond (and Reagan) “supported” some civil rights legislation (renewal of the voting rights act). Not that this is a big deal but Byrd’s “support” was not either. (and please don’t pull the ’68 facade again. For gods sake this animal was threatening King in 68 and tried to filibuster that act).
Byrd expressed regret over the Klan, as that was a political necessity. And even then he was caught lying about it in the 50′s and I’ve just exposed him again in 2005. Since Strom (or Reagan) did not join the Klan, you will not hear them expressing regret over it.
Byrd, in 2005, finally acknowledged that segregation was wrong. He said he had a change of heart in ’82, tho he kept that to himself. By the time he apologized Strom was already dead.
But yeah, he apologized.
Reagan was an active race baiter throughout his political career, as was Thurmond. That is why he launched his presidential campaign with a speech on states’ rights in Philadelphia, MI, and constantly harangued about “welfare queens” and “strapping young bucks.” Do try to keep up.
What did I say that contradicts that?
You did suggest that if you didn’t join the Klan, like Thurmond and Reagan, you had nothing to apologize for.
Does Manju ever manage to make an interesting point, or is he just a one-track troll? I mean, I see that he posts in sports threads, and I can’t imagine that he is going on about Robert Bryd!!! on those, but I’m just not interested enough in either sports or Manju’s rants to click through.
Manju has a sideline in policing liberal thought based on 1980′s conservative tropes about political correctness and fear of radical feminism.
And that’s when his point can be deciphered.
He has a point? I mean other than the one on his head.
Allow me to use a liberal, Princeton’s Larry Bartels, who has studied the southern shift.
In other words, the monopoly Dems had with whites pre-64 cannot be treated as normal. You are expressing “a peculiar nostalgia for the racially coercive Democratic monopoly of the Jim Crow era”.
That is incoherent even for you.
And if you follow my second link above, you will see that the rise in Republican identification nationally is also linked in part to racism, so it sort of proves my point.
What Bartels is telling you is that you have to subtract from the migration, the amount of whites who were voting Dem because of Jim Crow. That going to be a pretty hefty number, considering the almost totalitarian natiure of Jim Crow.
And most likely that would be high income whites who would’ve voted for the banker party had thye lived in NY. This is a sort-of reverse whats the matter with Kansas scenario.
Unless you think the deep south was more liberal than NY, and thats why they chose Stevenson over Ike, you can’t treat that action as normal.
Would people please stop feeding this troll? I appreciate that it is irritating. But deprived of the oxygen of attention, it will, like all trolls, eventually retreat to its mother’s basement to masturbate.
Taking the pledge.
But he is so cute when he turns bright red, froths at the mouth, and ties himself in pretzels! But, OK.
Using the 22 senators of the 11 confederate states again, 21 were D in 1964. Of those 20, 16 were replaced by other Dems. Only 4 went direct to R (Helms, Mattingly, Cochran, Trible, Jr.) and 1 (Strom) switched.
So you can’t reduce the Dems dominance in the area to seniority, since they added 16 new Senators post 64.
You do realize that Blacks got to vote after 1964 (thanks to Lyndon Johnson) and that not all white Southerners are racists? Just the ones who vote for Republicans. Oddly, the south was the only region where Obama did not carry a majority of the white working class vote.
right. nothing i say is in contradiction with that.
No, he does not realize that. Or he does, and simply does not care. Because Robert Byrd.
robert byrd and his non-violence preaching Klan!
actually i spoke too soon.
i’m wlling to discuss post-94 south with you, but if you can’t grasp that you’ve been spewing demonstratively false narratives about pre-94, i can’t see the point.
Yes, that seems rather obvious to anyone except yourself.
Could you post this data, please?
Manju, son, I want to be the first to tell you that there’s a new tool out there called “Google.”
https://www.google.com/
You can search for stuff to your heart’s content.
And best of all – IT’S FREE!!!
So, you now can look things up yourself, and not depend on the kindness of strangers.
Here’s what might be a useful tip for you:
You might want to consider using it BEFORE you write something idiotic down and make a fool of yourself.
Though I’m not sure even an internet search engine will be able to help out with that.
But, as we say in NY, it sure can’t hoit!