I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Pelosi!
Mine!
Good morning.
Arg, tricksy.
El Secundo!
Pelosi!
/another Atrios
Given the sheer degree of the efforts to recast and mythologise Vietnam, it doesn't surprise me to find a try at casting the negatives onto the group that was at the time seen as empowered by the outcome. (With Nixon removal, ending of the draft, etc.)
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I see yellowbar has deserted us again.
:sigh:
Say, is there a prize for the first non-"first!" post?
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Jane looked scrumptious on Letterman the other night. And she was wearing hemp pants.
"Vietnam destroyed the Democrats" is another canard along the lines of "hippies and the 1960s were the root of all evil" that republicans have been peddling ever since. When conservatives were in the ascendancy, the notions gained "conventional wisdom" status in the MSM -- but both have always ben pitiful lies.
Then as now, democrats rescued the country from grips of ill-founded war, that was recognized across the board. I never heard this premise Atrios is putting up.
In the late stages of Vietnam war, no one was for it.
not that the prose is deathless or anything (in fact it seems to have finally killed the o'night thread)
On his watch.
el, silver | 05.12.07 - 9:05 am
nagahopun, brudda...
gonzales is more useful to the regime as a distraction than as a martyr...
they don't need martyrs...they need distractions...
also, pretty soon you'll start to hear from Rove and Meirs that they are unable to comment on questions about their propriety in office because of an 'on-going' investigation...
nothing is gonna change one fucking iota before Jan 20, 09, and by then it will already be too late...
./
WoodyG'sGuitar, tokin' librul | Homepage | 05.12.07 - 9:09 am | #
Gravatarmore than 140 graduates of Regency U's 'law school' are employed by the Bushevik regime...
there's no fucking way that we're gonne get all of 'em out of govt before 2040, when they fucking retire...
.
WoodyG'sGuitar, tokin' librul | Homepage | 05.12.07 - 9:10 am | #
yours truly
.
I blame Jane Fonda for the "surge" in popularity of chevron striped leotards.
What new information, if any, was there in Moyers report on Regent U.?
teh republics are simply using that line to brainwash the moronic-minions...i don't blame anything that caused people to regress and become MORE christofascist and attempt to go backwards to the 1950's...i only blame asshole people
It's bizarre.
When I was growing up, right through 1984 Barry Goldwater would be trotted out at the Republican National Convention and use this line...
"THIS CENTURY HAS SEEN FOUR DEMOCRATIC WARS..."
He was bleating about how Democrats were war mongers.
So you are right, Atrios. After Reagan and the First Gulf War the Democrat "Coward" meme really started and reached a crescendo with the current war.
Another 5 dead soldiers, 3 missing!
Things are going swimmingly!
this whole "Vietnam destroyed the Democrats" myth seems to be one which has recently taken hold.
Master Broder, which costume shall I wear today? Dirty hippy, limosine liberal or welfare queen?
I blame Jane Fonda for the "surge" in popularity of chevron striped leotards.
Back in the day, Jane in leotards made a lot of men surge. Probably still does, come to think of it.
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mogwai | 05.12.07 - 9:13 am
didja get yer coffee yet?
if not, it's en route...
./
I've heard some contards blame everything on "baby boomers" too.
Of course they're from the same generation so it's doubly stupid.
I hear that K-Lo wanted to reenact Jane Fonda's Colbert appearance with Mitt Romney.
Bob Dole always loved saying "Democrat Wars", too. Yeah, we spawned Hitler, all right.
Dear Atrios: You are correct. I was there. Vietnam did not destroy the Democrats. Jimmy Carter's failure to resolve the Iranian hostage crisis is the root of the "Dems weak on national security" concept. The journalists who maintain otherwise are merely displaying their own ignorance.
See the Cubs got their asses handed to them again last night.
They never fail to surprise.
Jimmy Carter's failure to resolve the Iranian hostage crisis was the direct result of Republican meddling in foreign affairs -- as the GOP claims Pelosi is uo to.
mogwai | 05.12.07 - 9:13 am
didja get yer coffee yet?
if not, it's en route...
./
WoodyG'sGuitar,
ya didn't have ta'...but I will appreciate it anyway...i'll let ya know when it arrives
Jane Fonda = GILF.
The Civil Rights Act destroyed the Democratic Party, turning the south from solid Dem to solid Republican. It just took a few years for the re-alignment to take place.
ah, now i see it's working. stupid haloscan.
The undoing of the Democratic party beginning in the 1970s had far more to do with having been in power for most of the previous forty years than with the after effects of Viet Nam.
Power corrupts. It doesn't matter where you fall along the political spectrum. The only difference between the two major parties in this respect is that the Republicans accelerated the process fourfold.
This is a GREAT Musical Cartoon on Bush & Cheney -- and this theme
Thor, maybe that's why the fundies want the Rapture, Armageddon, and Jesus to return - so that the Cubs will finally win pennant and Series.
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attaturk's got mail!
Okay, it is early but I will try.
The Democratic Party as it existed prior to the VietNam War was indeed "destroyed." The "Dixiecrats" left to join the Republicans in opposing Civil Rights and other "Leftist" positions. The war was included tertially but not fundamentally.
However, the new party that emerged was actually stronger than it had been previously. Gone were the days of the Solid South but in its place there was renewed vigor in the urban areas and the North.
Nixon's strategy of dividing the country over race and economic discrimination was carried further by Reagan and the Republicans and the gap grew: but this had little to do with the war and a lot more to do with institutional racism.
The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts saved the American soul, imo.
I was surging looking at Jan's slacks the other evening.
However, she did tell some tales of bear related incidents around her NM home that involved the improper handling of firearms to protect the homestead.
That was bit of a "turn-off".
iirc correctly, and I was just in my early teens when Vietnam ended, what destroyed the Democrats back in the day was a bit of corruption (nothing on the scale of what we're currently seeing) coupled with the roots of the current Republican noise making machine taking hold.
I hear that K-Lo wanted to reenact Jane Fonda's Colbert appearance with Mitt Romney.
attaturk
I want to reenact Jane Fonda's Colbert appearance with Jane Fonda.
We saw her at an event the other night, and DAMN, she looks good.
Thor, maybe that's why the fundies want the Rapture, Armageddon, and Jesus to return - so that the Cubs will finally win pennant and Series.
Like I've said, any team can have a bad century . . ..
SOme time in ~ 1972-1973 some Peace Accord was signed in Paris between the USA and N&S Vietnam. We were supposedly getting out. It was announced on the evening news. A spontaneous parade broke out in the MA town where I was living. Probably 100+ cars went to the Town Common and drove the streets of the town around for ~ 2 hours, horns blaring, people hanging out the side windows screaming and cheering. People came out to the curb to wave and cheer.
In retrospect it was obviously a total farce of a peace treaty, but that shows what the average American felt about that war.
his is a GREAT Musical Cartoon on Bush & Cheney -- and this theme
Ricky Williams can't stop smoking pot.
DWD, you're right. "kits" it is.
There are about 10,000 people running by my house in a 25K run today.
Seriously.
The wheelchairs were the first to come through a little bit ago, followed by the awesome Kenyan runners.
I can't leave my house until the race is over, which will be sometime after noon (they keep the streets closed until everyone is done...)
There was a terrible backlash against the dirty liberals during and after the sixties. The "silent majority", who had nothing to say anyway, chose to follow the idea that the libs were "tearing up the country". The rightwing conspiracy of propaganda, money, supporting religious schools, badmouthing the welfare queens, destroying Carter, were all a part of trying to never allow the populace to disobey again.
Ah, yes: Peace with Honor -- just what Crashcart's trying for now.
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Cats, anyone?
.
Like I've said, any team can have a bad century . . ..
Supreme Commander Thor
My father used to say "Damn Cubs would choke on the bones in animal crackers"
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Based on how the Dem leadership appears to treating labor's interests in the trade bill negotiations, maybe the Dems began losing it when they did not fight tooth and nail to prevent Reagan's game of destroying unions.
Not in so many words, but by their actions in not defending and protecting the right to unionize.
A-Man has mused recently on why Dems are so easily dissed by the MCM--looking back, perhaps Reagan's destruction of the air traffic controllers' union, PATCO, back in 1981 marks the beginning of the slide.
Not sure--press sure did diss Carter, even before the Iran hostage situation. Anyone remember the laughs they got when Carter was photographed using an oar to push away a rabbit swimming toward a rowboat he was in (the rabbit was probably exhibiting unusually aggressive behavior and thus might have been rabid...)??
After labor was shown to be defeatable, it became a major corporate and even state and local campaign to weaken their unions. In Milwaukee, the school board actually hired union busting specialists to do the "negotiations." Unions were bad. Unions prevented workers from being as productive as they could be. You name it: Unions were The Problem.
Without strong, large unions, the Democratic Party was simply not as dependably strong. And weakness invites bullying from Rethugs and their MCM*.
*Mainstream Corporate Media--it says so much more than MSM.
Jimmy Carter's failure to resolve the Iranian hostage crisis is the root of the "Dems weak on national security" concept.
_____
What was the mechanism that kept this noose around Carter's neck until the moment he stepped down? Why did the Iranians see merit in regime change from Dem to thug?
The Democrats were only destroyed in the Faux/gooper version of the Vietnam war --the version told by the Bigot Buchanan where antiwar people are responisble for pol pot and not him and Nixon. Delusional
hm. haloscan being very odd.
Ya know, I just looked out the window.
Maybe I should go for a while and observe all of these gorgeous, physically fit people*cough*males*cough*people run by my house.
Mmmmm mmmm mmm mmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
alright, one more cup of coffee and then it's off to the office I go...
hm. haloscan being very odd.
quel surprise!!!
hm. haloscan being very odd.
Yes. It is.
We saw her at an event the other night, and DAMN, she looks good.
jac | 05.12.07 - 9:18 am
if there's a better looking 70-yr-old woman walking the planet, i'd be surprised...
.
Based on how the Dem leadership appears to treating labor's interests in the trade bill negotiations, maybe the Dems began losing it when they did not fight tooth and nail to prevent Reagan's game of destroying unions.
Excellent comment, and one of my contentions with the Democratic leadership.
Unions are reorganizing right now, and growing stronger, from a grassroots level, again.
*Mainstream Corporate Media--it says so much more than MSM.
jawbone
until the dems realize that teh media is AGAINST them, they will struggle mightily
.
Whither Yellow Bar?
"The undoing of the Democratic party beginning in the 1970s had far more to do with having been in power for most of the previous forty years than with the after effects of Viet Nam."
They weren't in power the previous forty years (as they like to lie about) and they start their forty years willy nilly for whenever they want to make their lying point.
Good morning my peeps.
Whither Yellow Bar?
Removed, it would seem, so that HalScan may function at all. (It's a buggy l'il bugger.)
Whither Yellow Bar?
Butterbar has fled for a quiet life of homeschooling the children, keeping a clean house, and spanking.
if there's a better looking 70-yr-old woman walking the planet, i'd be surprised...
Sophia Lauren is not aging poorly, iirc.......
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Jane Fonda was stalking me once. It's a long story though.
Based on how the Dem leadership appears to treating labor's interests in the trade bill negotiations, maybe the Dems began losing it when they did not fight tooth and nail to prevent Reagan's game of destroying unions.
i dunno where anyone gets the idea that the Dems are actually populists...
they're every bit as beholden to the corpoRats as the Pukes; they just sell out for less money...
./
A large part of the process of destroying the unions is rooted in convincing the working class that they aren't actually working class, but middle class, and so will vote against theie own interests. Needless too say, this is not restricted to the US.
What was the mechanism that kept this noose around Carter's neck until the moment he stepped down? Why did the Iranians see merit in regime change from Dem to thug?
el, silver
Ronnie played "Let's Make a Deal."
They weren't in power the previous forty years (as they like to lie about) and they start their forty years willy nilly for whenever they want to make their lying point.
plain white has some 'splainin' to doooooooo!
maybe the Dems began losing it when they did not fight tooth and nail to prevent Reagan's game of destroying unions.
________
dunno, I thought this was a huge Dem weakness, to hang onto corrupt unions and their bosses. Maybe not fighting tooth and nail, but Dems stood up for unions while the Reagonites correctly identified the more progressive path of taking them down.
Sophia Lauren is not aging poorly, iirc
And she's doing it the natural way. No recognizable plastic surgery there.
(made faux Scampi with Olive Oil, like rors said.
Damn, it was good, even if the red pepper flakes have seen better days.)
They weren't in power the previous forty years (as they like to lie about) and they start their forty years willy nilly for whenever they want to make their lying point.
plain white has some 'splainin' to doooooooo!
Yes, without some explanations and definitions and examples, this is all just, err, white noise.
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Ronnie played "Let's Make a Deal."
_________
I remember that, but how did he make that deal before even elected? The "how" is what I've always been curious about.
So is Bush going to listen to his generals on the ground?
Jane Fonda was stalking me once. It's a long story though.
trifecta
Are you sure that wasn't Glenn Close?
the Reagonites correctly identified the more progressive path of taking them down.
el, silver
nah...you ain't no trool, nah...
reagan, CORRECTLY? but of course there is no mention in your post about corrupt corporations fucking america....nope, nothing there..without unions you'd be at work today
I can't recall, was the Congress Democratic majority under Eisenhower?
faux Scampi
What is faux Scampi? Pollock bits?
Saturday Goddess Blogging to go with your coffee.
Nah, it was 1973. Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden were on a search party for me. I was a precocious youngster.
Jane Fonda was stalking me once. It's a long story though.
trifecta
________
do tell
Faux Scampi contained real shrimp, but Olive Oil rather than butter.
I remember that, but how did he make that deal before even elected? The "how" is what I've always been curious about.
el, silver
Cloaked in secrecy. We'll never know.
Nah, it was 1973. Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden were on a search party for me. I was a precocious youngster.
Were you pretending to be an airline pilot?
All this time, I thought it was supposedly Lyndon Johnson and the Voting Rights Act of 64 that destroyed the Democratic Party?
Morning fellow moonbeams. I know it's moonbats, but I like moonbeams better.
Most of what I have seen on the "demise" of the D party post VietNam makes the pretty accurate point that it was only the "Presidential" party that was severely hurt, having to do with the electoral college, demographics, and the "southern strategy. The "Congressional" party was weakened by our support of the Civil Rights movement (LBJ said as he was signing the Civil Rights or Voting Rights Act "I've lost the south for a generation), but not as much as D's were in presidential elections. Congressional Dems eventually lost because of 40 years of control and the resulting culture of entitlement and corruption. All the R's had to do was find an acceptable way to say n***er, slap lipstick on their economic pig, and buy out and/or intimidate the (ahem) independent press. State organizations were hurt by the venality/stupidity of the national Dem. Party organizations.
From Watertigers LA Times link:
Iraq's Interior Ministry said 234 people men whose bodies were found throughout the capital died at the hands of death squads in the first 11 days of May, compared with 137 in the same period of April...
Calling the increase "very minimal," U.S. military spokesman Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV said that "there has been a slight uptick, and we're obviously very concerned about it."
SLIGHT UPTICK? It's up like 75%!
i don't know either
but i'd say Reagan pretty much ruined this country.
of course he had a lot of help.
I remember that, but how did he make that deal before even elected? The "how" is what I've always been curious about.
el, silver
Talk about myths - this whole "Ronnie made a deal" bullshit is way overblown.
Jimmy Carter blew that election the old-fashioned way. He wasn't effective at working with the Democratically-controlled Congress, he responded too cerebrally to the Iran situation, and he adopted a "Rose Garden" strategy of not campaigning at all in 1980.
In spite of all that, he barely lost.
The myth persists because the hostages were released at the moment of Reagan's inaguration. Republicans created the story that the Iranians were scared of dealing with Reagan - more bullshit.
I don't know, maybe I'm whack, but I have always been a huge proponent of unions. I think it became particularly clear to me that, in spite of union politics and dues, the union at my former place of employment did work for the people. I remember that, during the 90s, the company hired a high-powered attorney to attempt to oust the union. While the union never ended up leaving, what this guy did was dismantle, systemically, components of success that the union had previously held with the workers.
His method was fear and scare tactics, and it was delivered from the corporate HR department.
Selket was a golden girl from King Tut's tomb, one of few naturalistic 3-D sculptures as I recall.
this whole "Vietnam destroyed the Democrats" myth
It is a recent myth. If anything hurt the Democrats, it was their support of civil rights, which lost them the South. But it was worth it. Maybe, in hindsight, it should have been coupled with massive, massive infusions of cash, a second and bigger WPA to build up the South and maybe that would have taken some of the sting out of it for white Southerners. But standing up for civil rights was the right thing to do.
Vietnam didn't destroy the Democratic Party -- but the Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, and the Dirty Fucking Hippie social unrest in the 1960s DID fracture the old New Deal coalitions, and the party has never been the same.
Back in the day, the hard hat, social conservative, blue collar Democrats had significant animosity to the DFH's and the uppity minorities, and eventually became the core of the "Reagan Democrats".
Things did change, but it was the right wing mythology of the wimpy, dirty fucking hippie anti-war Democrats that caused the long term damage.
Don't underestimate the corrosive power of the Civil Rights movement -- in a 1938 Fortune Magazine poll (published in LIFE Magazine) FDR had a 98% approval in the South. Poor Whites AND Blacks supported him -- they didn't call it the Solid South for nothing. In fact, the electoral map (and party identity) has just about flipped since then -- the Great Society social reforms drove the Dixiecrats and Archie Bunker crackers into the arms of the Nixon/Goldwater GOP. This was a change -- the Republicans took the political lead in passing the 1957 Civil Rights Act. But as the Democratic Party became reformers under LBJ, the reactionaries found a home in the GOP.
Vietnam didn't destroy the Democratic Party, but it did hasten the realignment. The GOP saw what was happening, and made the most of the wing nut haters; the Democratic Leadership took their supremacy for granted, and lost their way once the GOP became the majority.
Jane Fonda and her then husband Tom Hayden were speaking at an anti war lecture at the Unitarian church in Palos Verdes, CA which sits over a large canyon that has coyotes in it. I was 4. I ditched the baby sitter room, wandered outside and passed out in the bushes.
They realized I was missing, the whole church looked for a few hours, including Fonda and Hayden. The police were about to put a helicopter in the air until somebody discovered me snoring under a nice big bush.
SLIGHT UPTICK? It's up like 75%!
These are just numbers.
They realized I was missing, the whole church looked for a few hours, including Fonda and Hayden. The police were about to put a helicopter in the air until somebody discovered me snoring under a nice big bush.
You little bastard! Scaring the nice actress lady like that!!!
The GOP "Southern Strategy" of sopping up disaffected racist whites "worked", but was unworthy of the Party of Lincoln.
It was my parents fault though WT. I was 4, the thing ended at 10. It was around midnight when they found me. I was tuckered out.
It was my parents fault though WT. I was 4, the thing ended at 10. It was around midnight when they found me. I was tuckered out.
Hangin' with the coyotes can be exhausting!
It was my parents fault though WT. I was 4, the thing ended at 10. It was around midnight when they found me. I was tuckered out.
trifecta
Jus lak uh librul - allus blamin others for your mistakes.
Calling the increase "very minimal," U.S. military spokesman Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV said that "there has been a slight uptick, and we're obviously very concerned about it."
SLIGHT UPTICK? It's up like 75%!
Ah, but you see, Attaturk, the good General is an Original Constitutionalist,and so those Iraqi fatalities only count as 3/5ths of a human being.........
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"...it's not entirely clear whether being pro-war, anti-war, or just being split over the war was what "destroyed" the Democratic party".
The GOP and their media lapdogs blamed the Democrats for losing Vietnam and for the Vietnam Syndrome. Having done this nasty thing, the party was obviously "destroyed". Oh, dirty fucking hippies are all Democrats, too. At least according to todays conservatives and the GOP.
Faux Scampi contained real shrimp, but Olive Oil rather than butter.
plantsman
So you made fake shrimp with... shrimp?
I'm gonna scoot off for Scottish opium burritos, as is my due at the end of the week. 
Then, refuel, and go lookie for a new spark plug.
bbl
.
reagan, CORRECTLY?
_______
I'm being honest, mogwai, I remember at the time thinking the ironclad power of big unions needed a correction, and I was not against Reagon's tactic with air traffic controllers.
Unions had a different place at their inception than once they were expanding wages and benefits beyond belief and beyond what the economy could bear.
Now, pendulum has swung the other way.
We need some new principle to give us health care, retirement security.
somebody discovered me snoring under a nice big bush.
That reminds me of my sex life in high school. Thank Ba'al I finally came out!
Don't underestimate the corrosive power of the Civil Rights movement
I don't think I'd call it corrosive. I get your point, but it's too damned bad if the racists in the South (and anywhere else) were offended by the Civil Rights movement. Civil rights is the right thing to do, they're wrong, and that's that.
The real problem and a huge threat to our democracy then and going forward is the corporatists.
No. Classic Shrimp Scampi is made with butter, which as a diabetic I am counseled to avoid in favor of Olive Oil. Clear?
Mmmm . . . Jane
This photo was taken at the event I mentioned.
The myth persists because the hostages were released at the moment of Reagan's inaguration.
The question is, why were they released?
but i'd say Reagan pretty much ruined this country.
of course he had a lot of help.
charley | Homepage | 05.12.07 - 9:32 am
the worst day in American history was the day that John Hinkley failed to kill Raygun...
interesting: it is i think more than possible that hinkley was as able to get as close to Raygun as he did because he was part of a family which was socially connected to the Bushes, pere...
.
Butterbar has fled for a quiet life of homeschooling the children, keeping a clean house, and spanking.
watertiger
You had me in stitches on last night's thread. Then I got really sad.
WoodyG, Dems thought they had to court Big Bidness and all that because they saw their support, monetary and human efforts, lessening with the decline of unions.
Without those unions, we would not have had a large middle class at one time in the 20th C.
More Jane, with the guest of honor
Based on my DVD viewing last night, it is a tragedy Stephen Colbert wasn't nominated for his performance as a Born-Again Fundy/Homosexual/Passive Aggressive in "Strangers With Candy"
Whether we like it or not, the figures don't lie. If you look at the number of troops in Vietnam during the Johnson presidency, the graph tracks in a perfect upward line without a single decline, a constant escalation. From the minute Nixon took over, it goes into a perfect downward line of de-escalation without a single increase.
The only real criticism you can have about Nixon is that he didn't do it faster, but he did pull the troops out continuously throughout his presidency. As for LBJ, there is absolutely no excuse; he owns the Vietnam War. Kennedy sent a few advisors, LBJ made it what it became, Nixon did end it.
Like it or not, that's why the Vietnam War 'destroyed' the Dems. When it comes to revised history, it has become fashionable to blame Nixon and not even mention it was LBJ who made it all happen. We who were in the peace movement back then do remember well exactly who was responsible. You can sugarcoat it all you want, but it was a Democratic president who was responsible for Vietnam.
I just hope our next Democratic president will work faster than Nixon did to pull our troops out of Iraq. But somehow, based on the candidates now running who say they will end the war (as Nixon said), I doubt that will happen in a hurry. I am already prepared to be disappointed for the next several years.
Neil Bush and his wife were actually scheduled to have a couple's date with Hinkley's brother and his wife the day after the shooting.
The Bush and Hinckley clans grew up together in Houston, and socialized quite a bit.
Good morning moonbats...I like moonbeams too! Missed y'all this week. i hope you are well.
Without those unions, we would not have had a large middle class at one time in the 20th C.
This is true.
Nixon was an anti-war liberal responsible for genocide in Cambodia.
Or something.
atta, did you ever see that L&O criminal intent with Colbert acting in it, as a handwriting expert?
I thought Jane Fonda never looked more beautiful than in "In the Cool of the Day," where she plays a vulnerable young neurotic (rival to Angela Lansbury, typecast as a bitch, for Peter Finch's affections)
Then she said in her autobio that she was at the height of her self-destructive anorexia that year. Oops
BTW, the movie's title is an odd inversion of "In the Heat of the Night," which it predated. The movies have nothing to do with each other.
Based on my DVD viewing last night, it is a tragedy Stephen Colbert wasn't nominated for his performance as a Born-Again Fundy/Homosexual/Passive Aggressive in "Strangers With Candy"
i dunno, he's got so much great competition among the pundit class......
-
The myth persists because the hostages were released at the moment of Reagan's inaguration. Republicans created the story that the Iranians were scared of dealing with Reagan - more bullshit.
jac
Jac,
I am not a conspiracy believer: I think that MOST of them are bullshit. This particular one stinks to high heaven though. With CIA's Bush running with Reagan, I simply do not believe that a deal was not cut.
But as Lime Ricky says, we will probably never know. You believe what you will. I will believe what I know.
Has it not been proposed the Hostages were released because spare parts and materiel for Iranian weapons the Shah's regime bought from the US were supplied to the mullahs?
atta, did you ever see that L&O criminal intent with Colbert acting in it, as a handwriting expert?
trifecta
No, had no idea.
atta, did you ever see that L&O criminal intent with Colbert acting in it, as a handwriting expert?
I saw that: the "Goat Letter" episode. And his mother was Helen Hunt's aunt from "Twister". Colbert was very twisty in that episode.
You had me in stitches on last night's thread. Then I got really sad.
i went to sleep oddly depressed by the whole thing.
Isn't LBJ quoted as saying, privately, that he knew his Civil Rights bill would destroy to Democratic Party in the South, but it was the right thing to do?
Good morning! Hope nobody is having Monica problems. 
I think this expression is a gift straight from the FSM and hope it will be appropriately utilized.
Based on my DVD viewing last night, it is a tragedy Stephen Colbert wasn't nominated for his performance as a Born-Again Fundy/Homosexual/Passive Aggressive in "Strangers With Candy"
Stole the movie. And when you're up against Amy Sedaris, that's a hard thing to do.
Can you imagine what dinner with Amy and David Sedaris must be like?
Is this thing on?
There are about 10,000 people running by my house
They all spent the night on Liberal Mountain.
The only real criticism you can have about Nixon is that he didn't do it faster,
Well, there is the small matter of those illegal bombing campaigns that led to a genocide....
It's been posited but not proved that Poppy was up to his eyeballs in the Reagan campaign's "working with" the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the election.
Never proved--no smoking gun, so to speak.
Atta, found a youtube clip of Colbert in Law & Order
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e...h?
v=eLvSeIdnWEY
No. Classic Shrimp Scampi is made with butter, which as a diabetic I am counseled to avoid in favor of Olive Oil. Clear?
plantsman
What I was trying to express was that Scampi is an ingredient (a type of prawn), not a specific dish.
Sorry, JR. Too early for fancy thinking, I'm afraid.
I am not a conspiracy believer: I think that MOST of them are bullshit. This particular one stinks to high heaven though. With CIA's Bush running with Reagan, I simply do not believe that a deal was not cut.
The point of the swiftly-hushed Iran-Contra investigations was 'What sort of deal was cut?' Best guess things include Stinger missles for hostages, and ongoing munitions sales for funds to run Nicaraguan black ops, but the level of cover-up is such that the Ark of the Covenant could have been in there somewhere.
Yes, there was an under table deal. what it was prcisely, and where, is NOT going to be clearly shown. Ever.
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I could be wrong, but I think Atrios' point is not when the Democratic was destroyed and why, but that is was never actually destroyed, the media just like saying it because it makes them all tingly.
CNN pushing HP Computers for Mother's Day.
Ah, Capitalism, so sweet.
I am already prepared to be disappointed for the next several years.
Ensley | 05.12.07 - 9:42 am | #>
I think you're right about a Dem prez not ending the war fast. They're almost all susceptible to "reasons" to stay in Iraq.
I wish they'd all take the Dennis Kucinich/Ron Paul line that you don't leave by finding excuses not to, because you'll always find one. You leave by leaving
Thanks Trifecta.
At least three other things "destroyed" the Democrats:
Their support of civil rights gave the Republicans the opportunity to move into the South and go after the white racist Democrats that didn't like all those "librul" changes that were being effected by "outsiders" (read: the big, bad federal government) telling them how they could treat their darkies.
The birth of the "Reagan Democrat" was the result of the Republican Party going after and pandering to the nationalistic and moralistic prejudices of the often unionized American working class. By appealing to their notions of nationalism (tarnished greatly by the Iran hostage crisis), "patriotism," and "traditional values," the Reaganites were able to distract the American working class from issues affecting their economic interests . . . and thus pick their pockets.
Couple that with the Democratic Party's abandonment of economically populist/"working man" issues in favor of a kind of socially liberal(pro-abortion, pro-gay rights) but economically elitist/corporatist (i.e., a betrayal of the working class, pro-union economic concernts of the Democratic Party that characterized the New Deal through things such as NAFTA) agenda, working people no longer had an incentive to vote for the Democrats.
By supporting policies that worked against the interests that unions were set up to protect and advance, the Democrats essentially undermined their post-FDR/New Deal base.
Hence, we now have socially "liberal" Democrats like Hillary Clinton, who are essentially corporatists, who listen to NPR, who inhabit major urban centers and the beltway, who drive SAABs or even Benzes, and who make a lot of money, who have no compunctions about sending poorer folks people off to an unjust war to die, but who embrace a status quo that is economically elitist and "free trade" globalist/neo-liberal imperialist (including support for wars for oil).
So long as working people do not see their bread and butter interests represented by the Democratic Party, they will have no allegiance to it.
Sorry, JR. Too early for fancy thinking, I'm afraid.
plantsman
Do what I always do. Drink more coffee.
And it sounds delicious, I generally prefer olive oil to butter, myself.
The only real criticism you can have about Nixon is that he didn't do it faster, but he did pull the troops out continuously throughout his presidency. As for LBJ, there is absolutely no excuse; he owns the Vietnam War. Kennedy sent a few advisors, LBJ made it what it became, Nixon did end it.
Not So -- Nixon was elected in 1968 on the basis of his "Secret Plan to End the War". The REAL Nixon/Kissinger plan was the same as Bush's plan for Iraq -- kick the can down the road, until someone else deals with it. More Ameriicans died on Nixon's watch than LBJ's; it had become Nixon's war by 1972. The Vietnam war ended when the Democratic Congress cut off funding, and the South Vietnam Government collapsed.
Of course, there is a case to be made that JFK was killed because he insufficiently anti-communist -- the perps were the Bay of Pigs Operation 40 anti-Castro hit team. Vietnam was the price LBJ paid for his aquiescence and/or involvement in the hit.
Then as now, democrats rescued the country from grips of ill-founded war, that was recognized across the board. I never heard this premise Atrios is putting up.
In the late stages of Vietnam war, no one was for it.
el, silver
I agree this was the prevailing view at the time. I was a couple weeks from being drafted in '73 when they ended the damn thing. The history revisionists have been busy the last three decades and the view by many now is that it was the antiwar effort that "lost" the war. I've had more than one person tell me that Jane Fonda was primarily responsible for the Vietnam debacle. They seem to forget the 500,000 troops and carpet bombing of the north.
Can you imagine what dinner with Amy and David Sedaris must be like?
watertiger
You would need a sneeze guard at the table.
That movie had great cameos too, and the guy who plays the Principal is an incredible scene stealer.
Sarah Jessica Parker had a great scene deleted.
American troops were on the hunt in a volatile region south of Baghdad for three U.S.-led military personnel, who went missing after an insurgent attack today that killed five others in an eight-person force. The U.S. military said attackers struck the team of U.S.-led forces -- seven American soldiers and an Iraqi Army interpreter. It occurred 12 miles west of Mahmoudiya -- a city south of the capital in a region that has been nicknamed the Triangle of Death.
CNN pushing HP Computers for Mother's Day.
Ah, Capitalism, so sweet
It's Mother's Day, and wouldn't your mom LOVE a 42" LCD flatscreen TV?!?
Never proved--no smoking gun, so to speak.
jawbone | 05.12.07 - 9:46 am
poppy and casey--one the former head of the cia, the other the prospectiv3e head of the cia--met iranian representatives of khomeni in paris in august, 1980, where the promised extrvagant aid to the iranian regime if the iranians rebuffed Carter's appeals to release the hostages and prevent the 'october surprise' that would have gotten Carter re-elected...
'./
Strangely, when the Democratic Party, Vietnam, elections, and Nixon pop up, everyone forgets the 'Southern Strategy.'
Sorry: Southern conservative whites (especially men) were looking to leave the Democratic Party after LBJ supported Civil Rights.
The reactionary sentiment by many right wing whites against the Civil Rights movement played at least as much, if not more, of a role in Nixon's advances than did the issue of ending the US attack on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
That movie had great cameos too, and the guy who plays the Principal is an incredible scene stealer.
Oh, man, I forgot about him! I'm going to have to get that DVD.
SHEETS
CNN pushing HP Computers for Mother's Day.
Ah, Capitalism, so sweet
that free market...just after teh VT massacre, my tasteless company was pushing information about security systems that the campus police could have used that we resell...and the salespeople were told that they should target uni's...nothing like chasing ambulances to make a buck - but for bizzness it ain't ambulance chasing, it's capitalism!
secret sheets.
about 35 THOUSAND USer troops died of combat injuries between the end of tet (feb, '68 ) and the date in late april, 1975, when the helicopters fled the embassy roof in saigon...
if we accept the 58,000 number as definitive (and many do not), then nixon's war accounted for nearly two-thirds of all the USer fatalities...
/
So long as working people do not see their bread and butter interests represented by the Democratic Party, they will have no allegiance to it.
SpermDonor
Given that the Republicans are even worse at representing the interests of the working class, it may not be ideal (insert "Mouseland"), but the Dems are the lesser of two evils.
But the US working class doesn't really exist anymore. The classic working class has re-defined themselves as middle-class (propaganda works!) and the working class that couldn't swallow that line have been redefined in the discourse as part of the underclass, the scary Other.
I do believe you are right about the origins of the canard. I think it actually dates to the Reagan years. I do not remember opposition to the war hurting the Dems at all in the 1970s (and I was voting then), but rather being linked to the prosecution of the war being their "downfall". Much more important in their ultimate decline is, as jm mentions above, the cumulative effects of being in power too long and the resultant corruption and abuse of power.
Given that the Republicans are even worse at representing the interests of the working class, it may not be ideal (insert "Mouseland"), but the Dems are the lesser of two evils.
"Lesser of two evils" ain't enough to hold a person's loyalty, especially when the Republicans have so many weapons in their arsenal with which to distract working people from the fact that among the two parties, the Republicans will screw them worse than the Democrats will.
When you have leading members of the Democratic Party doing stuff like this:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonl...5/10/102451/
354
"Lesser of two evils," ain't gonna be enough to hold anyone's loyalty.
I wasn't alive in 1972, but reading about it now it amazes me that McGovern today is ridiculed by so many people as a symbol of failure and Democratic weakness. People seem to miss the point that he was completely right (and lost to a criminal), although you rarely see anyone dispute it. McGovern's loss was America's failure, not his.
El Cid is dead-on correct. It wasn't Vietnam that did in the Dems. It was civil rights and the ensuing slow-motion realignment of the South.
There also was a generational component. Voters who remembered the Depression were dying off, replaced by voters who came of age during the post-WWII era of American prosperity -- a generation of rich brats. Of course they would vote Republican.
Correct, Duncan.
Actually, it was the realization of Civil Rights that destroyed the Democratic New Deal Coalition, which was broad enough in early 1948 to embrace racists like SC Sen. Strom Thurmond and progressives like Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey.
That began to end with Thurmond leading the Dixicrats in rebellion and out of the party in the 1948 convention. It was finally torn asunder completely in 1964 when the white South went for Goldwater in its fight against integration and school desegregation.
Vietnam was only the icing on the cake, and it had an impact on separating part of the white working class from the Democrats. But they continued to vote Democratic until Reagan ran in 1980. And their dissent against the Democrats that year had more to do with Carter's seemingly weak response to the national humiliation of the Iranian Hostage Crisis.
Race not war.
Civil rights split the Democratic party coalition. Dems did the right thing and the Repugs took advantage. White conservatives shifted from the Democratic party to the Republic party.
A 1960 DOB, I remember the deep split in the US over race that I think shifted the coalition Roosevelt built.
Civil rights began to dismantle barriers separating White and Black. Many public places, like Riverview theme park in Chicago, were closed to keep the races from mixing and fighting. Large racial fights at schools in the 70's and tension with white flight as neighborhoods changed over night.
In the 70's, on 12th sreet on the border of Berywn, IL, Whites walk and shopped on one side of the street and Blacks on the other.
Republican's used race to split the Democrats. The Vietnam War is a red herring.
Destroyed in terms of the Republicans basically took over the the terms of the debate after that. Ever since then we've been fighting on their rhetorical ground.
this whole being antiwar didn't destroy the democratic party is really very inconvenient for the cult of republicanism (including the US corporate media enablers) meme so Atrios in other truth tellers should just stop it. All any one has had to know for a generation now:
libruls bad
democrats weak and disorganized
republican cultist, true 'Murkins
repeat
.
More Ameriicans died on Nixon's watch than LBJ's; it had become Nixon's war by 1972
That is more due to the failure of American military leadership, an army of disgusted draftees, and improvement of NVA and Viet Cong strategy rather than having to do with numbers. The peak escalation in number of troops happened under LBJ and started immediately down under Nixon. LBJ is also responsible for the Gulf of Tonkin lies used as the excuse to escalate the war. Those lies were just as morally reprehensible as Bush's continuous lies linking Saddam to WMDs and 9/11.
Sorry, but while I don't give Nixon a pass, it LBJ who is responsible for Vietnam. Period. It was his war. He was the one who changed our troops over there from advisors to combat troops. As I said, Nixon's one fault was not immediately pulling them ALL out. But I'll bet we will have that same problem with Hillary Clinton, or Edwards, or Obama. I'll bet my firstborn that a year after they take office, the great majority of our troops will still be in Iraq -- and maybe Iran since none of the three have any qualms about starting a preemptive war there either according to their comments.
(As for my firstborn, he is negotiable. Tell me how much I have to give you to take him.)
Whatever killed the Democrats, they're not dead. And it wasn't Vietnam. Nixon took his damn time, but by '72, the last combat troops had left. He ended the war by not ending it. He kind of claimed victory, while losing. THEN the Democrats stabbed the South Vietnamese in the back by not going BACK to Vietnam to fight the NVA when they started south. Or something.
I do think that hippies killed the Dems, to some extent. At a certain point, a lot of voters got tired of hippies and communes and dope and free sex and women leaving marriages and sons turning gay and people talking down marriage and mama and papa. Oh, and uppity dark people getting militant and bringing down property values and scaring you when you went downtown.
I think hippies were in about the same bad odor as the religious right is now. Heh.
It wasn't Vietnam that "killed" the Democrats; it was the Baby Boomers...Think about it.
The 70s:
The social activism of the 60s evolved into a semi-permanent structure of advocacy for a number of different groups. What was once seen as more simple moral issues (jim crow, antiwar) began to be perceived as special interest groups fighting for their own advantage and entitlements. Dems began to be perceived as captive party of numerous special interest groups.
Even so, 94th Congress had large Dem majorities (62 Sen, 289 House) and Dem president.
Following Vietnam, Watergate, Church Committee hearings, I think a certain fatigue set in, and the public started to develop a certain callousness towards political scandal and following "causes".
In addition, there was a national dillusionment that the idealistic "causes" of the 60s--ending the war, promoting civil rights, the war on poverty, etc--had failed to achieve the degree of social progress and improvement that many had expected.
Combined with sharp inflation following rapid rise of oil prices, weak Carter presidency, Iran hostage crisis and disco music, Americans began to long for simpler, more idealized images of America's past.
And reagan gave them to us. He basically said that it was OK to be selfish, self-centered and to not care about the rest of society.
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