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quite agree on the subtleties of several points.
Your comments about early Southern efforts to improve conditions are indeed true. You didn't mention that the slave owners in Southern Louisiana had a particularly good code of treatment for slaves.
The South has and has had many great leaders and thinkers. However, in the end, the big question is what sorts of majority forces tilt the balance in favor of one thing or the other. In the current political South, the conservatives, bolstered by the religious right wing are a major portion of the Republican support in the elections. But, there are many other influential factors. The nature of the DU forum prohibits us from going into deep details. We habitually throw out what we think are the main thoughts and hope that the reader will be satisfied with that.
The real truth, in my opinion, is that everything influences everything else to one degree or the other. But, life is too short for each of us to try to sort it all out. We have to be able to make good decisions about what things could be influence by us. I have criticized my South, that I love dearly. I have planted cypress and catalpa trees in my yard just because they remind me of my happy young days in Mississippi, fishing with my father. I want the South to wake up and start becoming mature philosophers so that they can be part of our solution rather than our problem.
Take, for instance, the bumper sticker, "Support our Troops". In Georgia, where I now lives, that means support sending our troops to war, getting them killed in order to steal oil from Iraq and to influence voters at home that attacking another Country is somehow patriotic. They are contradicting themselves with that slogan.
Or, you might like this one. Thirty years ago, I used to see the bumper sticker that said "Dixie, love it or get you ass out." That means that anyone that doesn't agree with their philosophies should simply leave, no debate or discussions or compromise and accommodations for diverse views, just "get your ass out". That won't work.
Your point about open versus covert racism has often been observed by others and may well be true. A funny thing is that when I attend my high school reunions in Mississippi (all white), my classmates are saying some very racists things that I don't recall them saying when they were teenagers. Either I wasn't noticing it then or they have hardened their position on race. Anyway, they almost dis invited me from one reunion when I challenged the entire class on their asinine idea to boycott French products because they didn't agree with us about Iraq.
My view of the "Southern Strategy" was the Republican plan to lure the former "Dixiecrats", who were angry with the Dems because of Democratic civil rights initiatives away from the Democratic Party into the Republican Party. In other words, the Republicans were inviting the heart of political racism, the DixieCrats and their sympathizers to join them. It worked like a charm and , in my opinion, was the single most significant move that allowed the Republicans to unseat the 40 year control of the Democrats.
As close as the popular votes were in 2004, it is obvious that in order to win, either side will have to draw votes from all over the Country. In the end, it boiled down to the swing states such as Florida and Ohio. The Republicans didn't have to invest anything in the South because they knew that they had it in the bag. Then in Florida and Ohio, fraud more than likely decided the day there.
I believe that if the popular vote in November yields a large majority for the Democrats, say 8% or more, and at least some of the voting fraud can be controlled, the Democrats will regain the house and come close in the Senate. If and when the Dems regain the Congress, Senate and White House, the biggest problem then will be that among the Democratic politicians, smart, honest and courageous ones are scarce. They might not have enough sense and courage to re-establish Democracy.
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