Baron Scicluna
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2007
- Messages
- 43,169
Define "benefit."
Um, they don't have kids walking around with amputated hands and the beginnings of black lung disease?
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Define "benefit."
LOL.
You guys want Republicans to own the Democrats racist past, but when you push back against this idea, Stoney asks why it matters and Jay wants to change the conversation.
Bill Clinton eulogized both Fulbright and Byrd. These guys weren't thrown out of the modern Democratic Party, they died as respected, elder statesmen.
When Byrd died, President Obama said, "America has lost a voice of principle and reason."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/us/politics/29byrd.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
Strom Thurmund left the Democratic Party. Name one racist Democrat who was cast out of the party.
In the early 1970s, it was made clear to Dixiecrats such as Byrd and George Wallace that if they wanted to stay Democrats, they had to explicitly repudiate their past racism.
LOL.
You guys want Republicans to own the Democrats racist past, but when you push back against this idea, Stoney asks why it matters and Jay wants to change the conversation.
Bill Clinton eulogized both Fulbright and Byrd. These guys weren't thrown out of the modern Democratic Party, they died as respected, elder statesmen.
When Byrd died, President Obama said, "America has lost a voice of principle and reason."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/us/politics/29byrd.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
Strom Thurmund left the Democratic Party. Name one racist Democrat who was cast out of the party.
So, I guess there's some speech that Byrd gave in the 1970's where he explicitly repudiated his racist past, right?
Could you point me to it? What did he say in it? Did he admit to being a racist in the past?
Because everything I read sounds more like, "I tried it once, I didn't inhale, and I didn't like it."
Every time Byrd was given a chance to minimize his racist past, he instead minimizes the racism that existed within his "klaven".
The closest he comes to apologizing is in his 2005 autobiography, which was published when he was 87-years-old, and worried about his legacy.
Even then, the most he can admit to is sharing the "fears and prejudices" that were prevalent at the time. And, at every turn, he tries to minimize the racist nature of the Klan.
Here's the WaPo on his 2005 book:
The 770-page book is the latest in a long series of attempts by the 87-year-old Democratic patriarch to try to explain an event early in his life that threatens to define him nearly as much as his achievements in the Senate. In it, Byrd says he viewed the Klan as a useful platform from which to launch his political career. He described it essentially as a fraternal group of elites -- doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other "upstanding people" who at no time engaged in or preached violence against blacks, Jews or Catholics, who historically were targets of the Klan.
His latest account is consistent with others he has offered over the years that tend to minimize his direct involvement with the Klan and explain it as a youthful indiscretion. "My only explanation for the entire episode is that I was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision -- a jejune and immature outlook -- seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions," Byrd wrote.
While Byrd provides the most detailed description of his early involvement with the Klan, conceding that he reflected "the fears and prejudices I had heard throughout my boyhood," the account is not complete. He does not acknowledge the full length of time he spent as a Klan organizer and advocate. Nor does he make any mention of a particularly incendiary letter he wrote in 1945 complaining about efforts to integrate the military.
Byrd said in an interview last week that he never intended for his book to provide "finite details" of his Klan activities, but to show young people that there are serious consequences to one's choices and that "you can rise above your past."
A Senator's Shame
When he talks about his membership in the Klan as a "mistake" he sounds like a criminal who is sorry he got caught, not someone who is sorry he committed the crime.
And, of course he didn't join the Klan because of it's racial views, for him it was all about their anti-Communist creed:
Mr. Byrd insisted that his klavern had never conducted white-supremacist marches or engaged in racial violence. He said in his autobiography that he had joined the Klan because he shared its anti-Communist creed and wanted to be associated with the leading people in his part of West Virginia. He conceded, however, that he also "reflected the fears and prejudices" of the time.
His opponents used his Klan membership against him during his first run for the House of Representatives in 1952; Democratic leaders urged him to drop out of the race. But he stayed in and won, then spent decades apologizing for what he called a "sad mistake."
He went on to vote for civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960, but when the more sweeping Civil Rights Act was before Congress in 1964, he filibustered for an entire night against it, saying the measure was an infringement on states' rights. He backed civil rights legislation consistently only after becoming a party leader in the Senate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/us/politics/29byrd.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
And look, his "klavern" conducted white-supremacist marches or engaged in racial violence.
He must have joined the KKK-light.
No wonder he only ever had to apologize for joining the Klan, and never for actually being a racist.