It wasn't just southern racists. I grew up in 1960's Milwaukee in a working class family. My grandfather and uncles worked in the heavy industry that dominated the southeastern Wisconsin economy. They were racists -- they hated black people -- and when the civil rights movement happened, and then the anti-war movement and hippies came onto the scene, these white men -- who had always in the past voted Democratic because of the New Deal and their support for unions -- became adept decoders of Nixon's and Reagan's dog whistle politics.

These were the Reagan Democrats.

Their change in voting was based partly on race and partly on culture. It wasn't based on economics. They hated their bosses just like any rational worker does. They had zero tolerance for the white-shoe wearing, golf playing, martini sipping, prep school and private-college-for-their-kids, country club members that people in management (and union leaders) tended to hang out with.

And they didn't really get all that heated up about environmental regulations or inheritance taxes. Many of them were hunters and fishermen and saw clearly that they didn't want their access to game or fish to be cut off.

My white working class relatives (of that generation) hated what they called hippies, niggers and New York jews: the people they thought had come to the University of Wisconsin and made trouble with their kids, impregnated their daughters, and/or turned them on to drugs.

That generation has mostly died off, at least in Milwaukee. I loved many of them dearly, but I'm not sad to see them pass from the (political) scene.

Posted at October 29, 2007 4:23 PM in response to The awful truth, and the better future

As much as I enjoy reading inflammatory writing, and Amanda's in particular, I have to agree that the last thing the Edwards campaign needed was to spend a lot of its time defending itself over its decision to hire Amanda. I also agree that bloggers -- especially bloggers on the left -- should expect that Republicans will use their words, even twist their words unfairly, against them.

The question for the candidate, though, is where to draw the line. If the Republican archipeligo has shown us anything, it's that it can turn a high school basketball foul into an issue of moral turpitude. And the manufactured issue is then enthusiatically amplified by the media. Clinton rules apply to all Democrats.

So how can a candidate possibly screen a potential hire, especially a relatively low level hire, for every conceivable fact in that person's past that operatives like Donahue could inflate into an "insult" to some right wing community that feeds on feeling victimized?

At some point all Democratic candidates will have to make a stand to defend the Amandas, Joycelyn Elders or the Lani Guiniers they hire. To dump them when attacked makes the Democrat look weak and wimpish. Which, as Digby constantly reminds us, feeds precisely the frame Republicans feed on.

That said, a candidate can still try to pick in advance what his or her campaign doesn't want to have to defend. It would be politically dumb not to do so.

Posted at February 21, 2007 4:55 PM in response to Your Blog Will Come Back to Haunt You

It's strange that Ed's post and most of the comments that follow take on the way Sirota said what he said, and don't address the substance of what he writes, the implications for democracy in our country, and how Ed and the people here think we can address or fix the problem.

What can you do when big money has corrupted not only politics in general but the very vehicle by which most of us think to address this problem -- the Democratic Party? How do you break the stranglehold concentrated wealth has on policymaking in the United States? How can we make our country truly democratic again?

These are much more interesting things to discuss than whether Sirota is uncouth or too intense of fanatical or not cool.

I agree with Ruy Teixiera that the message can't be a play on crude class-based resentment because people here aspire to become rich and think they have a shot at it. Kurt Vonnegut was very wise when he posed the question: "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"

I think many, many people are very angry at being screwed by their health insurance companies. Many understand that politicians are bought by these interests. I think it may be possible to harness this anger by appealing to a sense of fair play and democracy -- why should a giant insurance company have more political influence than a nurse who works for it?

People may not now make these connections or, if they do, it may not be a very salient issue for them. But that's partly our fault for not getting out there and finding ways to educate them.

We should be thinking of how to do that rather than criticizing the messenger for not being nice to us.

Posted at May 3, 2006 8:33 PM in response to Playing Morpheus

Hey JP:

I suggest you take the advice Deadeye Dick Cheney gave to Senator Leahy. Nobody with any self respect gets pissed on by somebody (or that somebody's "team") and turns around and endorses them.  Calling up major donors and urging them not to contribute to Hackett -- what kind of team work is that?

Posted at February 14, 2006 12:19 PM in response to Statement from Paul Hackett

This is an interesting position Mr. Sullivan takes.  He should experiment with it.  I suggest the following:  Go to a professional baseball game.  When everyone stands to sing the national anthem (or mouth the words to it) Mr. Sullivan should remain seated and start yelling, "Fuck America!"  Then, when he gets visual, verbal and/or other insubordination from his fellow fans, he can wag his finger and equate their actions with the end of civilization. 

Are you empolyed Mr. Labowski?

Posted at February 10, 2006 11:52 AM in response to War and Cartoons

China is pursuing exactly Mao's (and Zhou's) strategy in international relations -- a hard nosed realism founded on the principle of not interfering in the internal affairs of other sovereign countries, especially those willing to do business with China.  Maoist China did, afterall, join the United States in supporting Pol Pot after Vietnam invaded Kampuchea.  And Maoist China had good relations with the Shah's Iran, Pakistan, Zambia, Tanzania, and (of all things) Communist Albania.

It was Mao and Zhou, after all, who decided to pursue good relations with Nixon once Nixon finally saw domestic political advantage in doing business with China.  Heck, Mao was so not averse to doing business with abusers of human rights that he sat down with Henry Kissinger. 

Through all the reforms since 1978 and all the CCP internal policy disagreements about relaxing state control over society and the economy, the CCP has pretty much pursued the same foreign policy.  What has changed is that the rest of the world (once led by the United States) is not  trying to isolate and boycott China, so China's opportunities for trade and cordial relations are much greater than in Mao's day.

But it was Mao and Zhou who set China on that course.

And, finally, the notion that the bungling foolish shoot-itself-in-the-foot United States has anything to teach the Chinese about foreign relations -- economic, human rights, or otherwise -- is laughable.

Posted at January 30, 2006 7:49 AM in response to China, Africa & the U.S.: Something Old, Something New

Fisk is the mid-east corrrespondent for the Independent (so, by the way is Patrick Cockburn), and you often have to pay for Fisk's stories.  But both Fisk and Cockburn are regularly reprinted for free in Counterpunch.

Fisk had an interesting take on John Burns.  Fisk read through an entire Burns story showing that virtually every fact was attributed to "administration sources."  Fisk suggested that the New York Times rename itself, "Administration Sources Say."

Fisk's larger point was simply that reporters like John Burns could do most of their reporting from New York, since the only people they talk to are government officials (both American and Iraqi). 

Posted at January 30, 2006 7:26 AM in response to Some of the News That's Fit to Print

Why not pay for the Independent or the Guardian, Couterpunch, the Nation, or Pacifica? In the borders-free world of the internet, one does not have to buy local product.  And there are plenty of reporters from other countries (and other media outlets) who actually do report the news even if it conflicts with access to coctail weenies.  Check out Robert Fisk (who has forgotten more about the mid-east than John Burns will ever learn), Anthony Shaidid, Christian Parenti, Aaron Glantz and Patrick Cockburn, all of whom were stationed in Iraq and none of whom were "in bed" with the US military or Bush Administration propagandists sources.

There are many journalists in Iraq risking life and limb who are not in bed with the Bush Administration.  They are the people you should support with dollars. Any competent person can find out who publishes them and how to pay for content.  Put your money where your assertions are.

Posted at January 29, 2006 6:39 PM in response to Some of the News That's Fit to Print

To tie up air travel for the entire western world, all non-symetrical fighters would have to do is change their names to John Smith, Joseph Johnson, Thomas Jones, Susan Smith, etc.

Posted at January 27, 2006 12:26 PM in response to Oops

How can there be clairty?  Was what Iraq faced clear? Europe and the UN said one thing while the United States had it's own agenda.  How can Iran trust that US/Israel won't simply undermine or doublecross whatever the UN says about what Iran must do and what the consequences are if it doesn't?

It's easy to talk about transparency in the abstract, but we live in the world.  And "transparent"  is the last word I'd use to describe this process, both as to how Iraq was treated, and as to how North Korea  and Iran are being treated now.  Nothing is clear.

US unilateralism has so undermined the authority of internationalism that it may be too late to take a clear approach.  America has shown its contempt for international law in so many ways recently, that if Iran is rational it should probably conclude that nothing it does short of committing national suicide will satisfy the United States and Israel. 

In the face of that, what actual steps can Europe or the UN take?

Posted at January 27, 2006 7:42 AM in response to Iran's Options