My take on Dean's Rebel Flag issues.......

[Postman]

Pick-up truck rebel flag boys are your average working American. Due to many reasons, not the least of which is that we don't have a spokesperson on the radio 6 hours a day like the republicans, these good-ole boys have been tricked into voting against there own best interest by flim-flam artists like Limbaugh and Hannity.

The Democratic Party has been the problem also. The party has been pushed soo far to the right that it doesn't represent what it tradionally had in the past.

Educating people is the key. If your poor, your interests are not the same as Bill Gates yet the right-wing has been successful in getting these people to think they represent them. Shouldn't be surprising though. This is the same group (right-wing) that was successful in getting the poor southern farmer to go to war (in appealing to racism) for the preservation of slavery, an interest of the wealthy, though most southern family farmers had no slaves.

[papau]

1. on NPR Jody Powell sang the Zell Theme and made it quite reasonable

on NPR Jody Powell sang the Zell Theme and made it quite reasonable

Namely that the problem is not the symbol, but how ithe symbol is used.

And for most in the South - white and black- the Confederate flag is a Symbol of a past history of living in the south - meaning pride in one's parents and one's region.

When used in a racist way - as a racist symbol - of course it must be put down and the folks using it must be put down.

But on most occassions, for most people, it has limited racial meaning, and a great deal of regional meaning.

And to ignore that fact means the Dem party in the South will become a black and upper middle class white liberal party - which means getting nowhere near 50% of the vote - and that means never winning elections again.

Deans words were clumsy - but if rephrased as folks in pick-ups that hunt and have flag decals on the window - it is the equivalent of Joe Sixpack in the urban North. And we need Joe Sixpack and folks in pick-ups that hunt and have flag decals on the window to vote their economic interest. And to do that - for the Dems to win elections - they need not be told, should not be told, that in the past they voted GOP for racist reasons.

Dean is correct - we need all the folks being screwed by the GOP to vote Dem - and we do not need to lose any votes because we phrase our message in a way that insults a region, or insults the parentage of the voters of the region. North and South folks know their was war about race - but their were other reasons - and more important - we do not at this time need to rub anyone nose in anything. Save our angry for the next KKK march. And in 04 win the election with Joe Sixback - in all his variations.

[OrAnarch]

2. I agree....

And it is quite a good message...that being, many in the south, as all over, don't have decent health care and eduation, which democrats would have a field day talking about if thats how they decided to represent themselves and sell themselves to those people. Such a message fell flat due to the normal political practices. Instead, other candidates will stick to the wedge issues republicans have introduces to divide the South, instead of the viable niches they can fill, which Dean has mentioned.


The whole "issue", as its being made out to be, is getting old. It was a symbolic reference, taken out of context, and inferred as a literal statement to make Dean look bad. Oh yes, not the most PC symbolism in the world, but symbolism none the less. Being from the west, but attending a very traditional southern school, I know all too well how that symbol represents a heritage and the south in general to the many whites that stand by it. Whether such a representation is fair, etc, is irrelevant to this discussion. What is relevant is that it remains, in many white southerners eyes, and many others, a symbol of the South. Dean used such to represent this class of people, and the truck to represent a subclass: the middle-lower class workers. People are foolishly taking this much to far in the name of politics.

[rumguy]

3. The old axiom

says that there are no accidents in politics. If this is true, one must ask what was Dean trying to accomplish? Just think - all of a sudden the guy that the mediawhores are slandering as being to liberal, etc...all of sudden he is the guy getting attacked by other Dems for not being PC enough...also the statement is being bandied about all of the right wing radio shows...not everyone one that listens to thos shows is necessarily lock-step in march with Bush

[newyawker99]

6. Hi rumguy!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Northwind]

4. Good points here

I get a kick out of those who claim that anyone who has a confederate flag on their truck, a tattoo, or whatever is automatically racist. That the symbol itself is inherently racist, as if its meaning is an objective one rather than subjective to the observer. That sort of closed minded thinking is what is supposed to characterize conservatives, and it is always disturbing to find it among those who claim to be liberal (although a more accurate term for them is the dirty word "progressive").

When I hear this, I challenge these dogmatic extremists with the following:

I have a lot of family in deepest darkest East Texas, they are my Mother's side. Most of them live along the same stretch of a red dirt road that comes right off the state highway. Many live in trailers. Some live in squallor. Two of them stand out in this instance. One is my cousin Chris. He works at a grocery store. He lives in a very small trailer behind his parents home right on that stretch of dirt road. He drives a very old red Chevy pickup that once belonged to my Papaw (grandfather) before he died. The back window of that pickup has one of those mesh screens you can buy that allow you to see through the window from the inside, but have a graphic on it when viewed from the outside. That graphic is, as you may guess, a confederate flag. Chris is no racist. He drives that truck though a tiny little town with a high percentage of african-americans. He receives no grief for his flag. And no, he does not have a shotgun in the truck to intimidate people, nor is he a big tough looking man. But he drives around town with that flag proudly displayed in his back window, because to him it is a symbol of southern heritage, of pride, having nothing to do with slavery. And sitting beside him in that truck with the confederate flag in the back window, is his african-american wife.

Another relative is my Uncle Robert. Robert lives in a trailer as well, way back in the woods behind my Mamaw's (grandmother) house, which is also on that same stretch of dirt road. In the "yard" in front of the trailer there are a number of old non-working appliances, a dead car, and assorted trash and rubbish. He has his confederate flag tattooed on his right arm. He owns many guns. He hunts. He also has a Master's Degree. His IQ hovers somewhere around 145. He works for the forestry service. He keeps population statistics on bald eagles. Many of these birds have started living full time in that area of the country as their habitat elsewhere is overrun . He protects them. His business is conservation.

Neither of these good men match all the stereotypes seen on this board about southerners. They are good men. They are not ignorant. They are not racist. They are not hateful. Chris is very religious, but Robert is an agnostic. Open your minds and start learning about people. Stop making assumptions.

[NashVegas]

5. Here's Another Southernor's Take

In my local newsgroup, there is an older, genteel staunchly Dem, staunchly proud Southern lady who had previously stated her preference for John Edwards, her disappointment that more people weren't taking him seriously, and her desire to see the Democratic Party make a real effort to reach out to the South. She is not a journalist, is not paid to articulate an opinion, and has nothing at stake in being perceived as right or wrong, nor is she campaigning for anyone.

When asked for her opinion, here was the exchange:

"I intend to talk about race in this election in the south because the Republicans have been talking about it since 1968 in order to divide us. And I'm going to bring us together, because you know what? White folks in the south who drive pickups trucks with confederate flags decals in the back ought to be voting with us and not them, because their kids don't have health insurance either and their kids need better schools too."

Exactly, when candidates talk about such issues, these are the people they are talking about who need the help. It is quite arrogant for Gephardt to say he doesn't want to be their candidate. They are the ones who need the Democratics and the Democrats need them! It is also incredibly disengenuous for John Edwards to criticize Dean for this comment when Edwards in his speech declaring his candidacy extolled the virtues of Andrew Jackson; he also advertises on a racecar, I believe, seeking exactly that vote and they are members of a broader demographic towards whom his proposed policies are directed! *Accept it or not,* a goodly number of those folks flying those
flags don't think of race when they look at it, but rather heritage and distinct lifestyle in which race is not a primary thought.

"I don't want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Gephardt said in a statement.

Senator, I don't think you have to worry your little head about that for One minute.

"I will win the Democratic nomination because I will be the candidate for guys with American flags in their pickup trucks."

I actually saw one of those today on my rounds; saw five with Rebel flags.

> Dean's response:

"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags (search) in their pickup trucks,"the former Vermont governor was quoted as saying in Saturday's Des Moines Register. "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats."

> Pandering, attempting to unite the tribes, or naiveté?

Certainly not naiveté but recognition, as I've noted before, that these folks have much more in common with the Democrats than not. What the Democrats have to offer and, I am hopeful, have in their hearts, these people Need! But consummate, deliberate manipulators, the repubs have used gub and abortion fear mongering to beat them like a drum, to fleece them on economic issues, to attempt to keep the enlightenment of advanced education an unattainable dream (lest they lose their constituency!). repubs mulct them for their naiveté and ignorance of the way that gop policies actually affect them. As Al Franken asks, "Don't people go to hell for this?"

Pandering? Oh, there's always a lot of that going on around here, but it's not directed at SWM.

[Lexingtonian]

7. that may be, but...

People here seem to think that what the flap was about was blue collar whites in the South.

It is to some extent. It is also about black Southerners, and about New South/Old South matters, and also about people outside the South.

The problem Dean has is not that Democrats actually think he's wrong in wanting what he says- to represent the best interests of Southern white blue collar folks who get lured into voting Republican. It's that he doesn't understand the political context properly, the priorities and demands according to which Democrats have had to work in the region.

So, even if the argument is formally wrong, Sharpton and Edwards do have a point that the committed Southern Democratic constituencies have to be listened to before Dean tries to take his portion of the Party in that direction.

The critique is misformulated into a shorthand as "Dean doesn't actually understand the South." I do suspect he does see the South rather more like rural Vermont than most of us do.

But there is a more essential problem with Dean's proposal, which is about him personally. It is that in taking an ahistorical tack on the South he's once again indicating that he doesn't really grasp what all the fighting with Republicans has been about for the past fifteen to twenty years. The Dean campaign strategy is in essence the claim that it's all really about control of money. That is to misunderstand the Culture War in its breadth and earnest as merely a raid for plunder, during which the United States has remained much the same country as it was in 1980 as a place to live.

So the real point of the flag flap is not that Dean is an active racist. The point is that he politically misunderstands the country as a whole as the 85% white country he grew up in, and he assumes the conservative notion that white cultural domination is a given. In a country that is 35% non-white (as the South has been, historically), a proportion which is increasing (even if the federal politician class and voters are still over 75% white), there is a problem. And this is how it plays out.

[HazMat]

8. the GOP did not make them right wingers

they were always right wingers, and the old southern Democrats were to the right of the GOP before realignment in the '60s.

Basically you're saying that the Republicans or some other right wing elites "brainwashed" these people into holding the beliefs they do. I'm afraid you have it backwards. These people are to the right of their own leadership.

Economics is only part of the fight in this country, unless you want to go back to the pre-Civil rights era. FDR's New Deal Coalition was not enough to ensure social justice for all. Economics alone doesn't cut it. The Revolution was necessary, and I'm not about to give up those gains now. Those social changes were brought about by liberal blood, sweat and tears (not to mention the assassination of a few of our leaders).

Poor people differ on issues like any other group. JFK and FDR were wealthy. Tom Delay came from a working class background.

People of the same economic status don't necessarily have the same interests or agree on method. Poor conservatives believe conservative economic principles are the way to wealth, and that the "big goverment" liberals are taking all their taxes to give it to the minority. This is what they believe as much as liberals believe the opposite. This will never change contrary to what some liberals think: "if they were just educated they'd see the light". That's complete fantasy and never works. Look at the GOP going after the black vote. Conservatives think "if those misguided poor liberal minorities finally see the light about how the 'socialists' are 'using' them, they will come around and see how our way works." This Dean argument about getting the confederate voters back is the same shit, different year. It never works.

The only effect this strategy will have will be to further alienate base voters. Black voters ARE taken for granted in this party -- this whole Confederate flag issue is a perfect example. People like Dean assume their vote is not worth fighting for because blacks will vote Democratic anyway. So it is the confederates who get the special treatment. This party needs to rememeber that blacks voted Democrat in the last presidential election at higher percentage than registered Democrats voted Democrat. We need to remember who put us in office before we go pandering to their enemies.