Thanks a lot, you motherfucking Yanks

[Barrister]

Rax, wiki describes three separate KKK movements.  First was reconstruction era, second was the 1920s, and third was civil rights era.

In that second era the KKK was (mostly) a legal frateral organization, and did contain significant northern membership.  And even in the 1920s it was much more strongly identified with the Democratic party than the Republican.

[Razgovory]

Rax, wiki describes three separate KKK movements.  First was reconstruction era, second was the 1920s, and third was civil rights era.

In that second era the KKK was (mostly) a legal frateral organization, and did contain significant northern membership.  And even in the 1920s it was much more strongly identified with the Democratic party than the Republican.

In the South it was Democratic.  In the North it was more Republican.  The Klan essentially controlled the State of Indiana through the GOP.  Northern Democrats tended to use big city machine politics and their stalwarts were the Catholic vote.  The Klan which was explicitly anti-Catholic wouldn't carry much weight.  The commonality between the Southern and Northern Klans was it's essential conservative populism.  The Klan's opposition to foreigners, and socialists, evolutionists, etc would be familiar to the modern conservatives of the Tea Party.  Other aspects such as explicit anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, racism etc were dropped in the period from the 1950's to the 1970's, though certain aspects of those remain.

[Barrister]

Raz, your argument is on par with Convervatives calling Hitler a socialist because his party was named the National Socialists.

You can make the connection, but it is extremely weak and tenuous.

[The Brain]

Hitler was called a socialist by himself and by others and he was heavily into big government. Hitler was a socialist and an immigrant.

[Razgovory]

Raz, your argument is on par with Convervatives calling Hitler a socialist because his party was named the National Socialists.

You can make the connection, but it is extremely weak and tenuous.

You wouldn't consider the 1920's Klan an essentially conservative organization?  I think the 1920's Klan should be considered a conservative reaction to the Progressive era.  It would be difficult to call them "fringe" since they had a very significant membership.

[Neil]

Raz, your argument is on par with Convervatives calling Hitler a socialist because his party was named the National Socialists.

You can make the connection, but it is extremely weak and tenuous.

You wouldn't consider the 1920's Klan an essentially conservative organization?  I think the 1920's Klan should be considered a conservative reaction to the Progressive era.  It would be difficult to call them "fringe" since they had a very significant membership.

I'll admit you have a point when the Tea Party burns a cross on the White House lawn.

[Barrister]

Raz, your argument is on par with Convervatives calling Hitler a socialist because his party was named the National Socialists.

You can make the connection, but it is extremely weak and tenuous.

You wouldn't consider the 1920's Klan an essentially conservative organization?  I think the 1920's Klan should be considered a conservative reaction to the Progressive era.  It would be difficult to call them "fringe" since they had a very significant membership.

And would you call the Communist Party of the Soviet Union an essentially progressive organization?



No.  I would call the Klan an essentially racist organization.

[Razgovory]

Raz, your argument is on par with Convervatives calling Hitler a socialist because his party was named the National Socialists.

You can make the connection, but it is extremely weak and tenuous.

You wouldn't consider the 1920's Klan an essentially conservative organization?  I think the 1920's Klan should be considered a conservative reaction to the Progressive era.  It would be difficult to call them "fringe" since they had a very significant membership.

And would you call the Communist Party of the Soviet Union an essentially progressive organization?



No.  I would call the Klan an essentially racist organization.

We aren't talking about comparing organizations of different countries. I'm not comparing the Tea Party to say Nazis or French Monarchists. These are movements and organizations that exist in the same country and often include the same people.  The young Klansmen of the 1920's would be the red baiters and Dixiecrats of the 1940's and 50's.  Those people didn't just go away.  They stay dormant for a while and join the next manifestation of conservative populism.

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

    Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

    Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."[6][7]

You don't consider the GOP an essentially racist organization?

[Barrister]

No.

Rather, I consider you a fundamentally stupid person when discussing politics.

[Berkut]

You don't consider the GOP an essentially racist organization?

[dps]

I don't know what Marti's ticked about anyway.  In Poland, how would anyone be able to tell if the economy collapsed?

[Razgovory]

You don't consider the GOP an essentially racist organization?

I messed that one up.  It should have read "Do you consider the GOP an essentially racist organization".  Republican strategist deliberately courted the racist vote in the South.  The people who came up with the strategy openly said so at the time.  I don't consider the GOP a racist organization, but a conservative one.  I consider the Klan a conservative organization in the 1920's.  At that time racism and conservatism often went hand in hand (note that a lot of progressive and liberal types were racist as well).  I genuinely don't see a difference between people who rave about Muslim immigrants and socialism today and the people who rave about Catholic immigrants and socialism in the 1920's.  The second Klan was not as focused on blacks, as they were a largely suppressed by then.  The main focus was on radicalism and non-protestants.  Had D.C. Stephenson not turned out to be a rapist and murder I think the Klan would have had longer tern popularity and perhaps might still be considered mainstream.

I'll admit there was some overlap between Progressives and the Klan.  For instance the Klan was strongly prohibitionist and prohibition was major progressive issue.

[Razgovory]

Raz, your argument is on par with Convervatives calling Hitler a socialist because his party was named the National Socialists.

You can make the connection, but it is extremely weak and tenuous.

Goer
Actually I believe that the Nazis did have a strong socialist wing.  At least for a while.  They were mostly purged during the Knight of Long Knives.

[Admiral Yi]

All stock markets are plunging. Fuck you and your dysfunctional political system.

Special message to Caliga: tell your stupid wife, who voted for the Tea Party, to go fuck herself.

For once I'm in total agreement. Although not the last part, since I don't know her personally. Just with the general seniment.

You've jumped the shark Josephus.

[MadImmortalMan]

All stock markets are plunging. Fuck you and your dysfunctional political system.

Special message to Caliga: tell your stupid wife, who voted for the Tea Party, to go fuck herself.

Marty? The US market is a sideshow to what's happening in Europe. You guys are entering your 2008 crash. Good luck. Try not to keep infecting us with it on this side of the pond. Might want to change the thread title.