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Obama speaks on Iran
Today as Iranian protestors were swept from streets in Tehran with tear gas, President Obama issued a more forceful statement to the Iranian government:
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
back to top56 Comments to “Obama speaks on Iran”
I saw a report that as many as 150 people have been killed, but I don’t know if it’s true or not.
They seem very determined to force their government to listen to them. May God grant them success.
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I concur, DJ. Those Basij — a special group within the Republican Guard, I think — seem to have been given the green light to doing anything they want. Very nasty.
When you think about the “Supreme Leader” — how old could he have been at the time of the last revolution when our hostages were taken? He seems to have forgotten what that was all about, or at least what they said it was all about.
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Townhall and Redstate are reporting that Chuck Colson is teaching the Basiji their dirty tricks. Colson is advising them how to turn the street violence into a long-term political grievance against educated elites. Colson is an expert in how to make rural, religious folks look at pictures of the young getting their heads cracked open by cops, and conclude that the young are attacking law and order. Colson will show religious Iraqis how to use “The 00’s” as a slogan against urban, elitist stophisticates, for the next three decades, the way Evangelicals use “The 60’s” as a slogan here.
Pray for him. Send him money.
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Scroop Moth: Do you have a link? I took (an admittedly) cursory look on Townhall and couldn’t find it.
thanks.
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Finally Obama said something. The problem is that everyone knows there is nothing behind his words.
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Sounds as if the situation in Iran is deteriorating very badly and quickly.
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#5
I am not necessarily a big fan of Obama. I think the jury is still out.
However, the type of statement in #5 is not helpful or impressive. “Everyone knows”… seems to mean, “My opinion is and every right thinking person agrees with me and anybody who disagrees or even questions is nobody. This is typical of worldmagblog close to its worse: purely reflexive hostility, and an utterly closed mind.
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What would be “something” behind his words? Are we going to invade Iran? I think we are a little busy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Something behind his words would mean that someone might believe Obama would actually do something. Instead all of the world’s “Baddies” are laughing up their sleeves at Obama. Much like they did at Carter when he declared himself to be the last hostage,, where he holed himself up in the white house. It took Reagan or rather the threat of Reagan to get the Iranians to let our hostages free. And Ahmadinejad was one of the ones who held the Americans hostage at the embassy.
Obama is a joke. A bad joke.
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Monty: What do you propose Obama do?
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He doesn’t propose, he disposes:
FISH: Obama is a joke. A bad joke. A very bad joke. The worst. Trouble.
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XION- Behind every word Obama says there’s ice cold will, a balance of audacity and caution, and a wager about history.
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Xion: The problem is that everyone knows there is nothing behind his words.
Again I have to ask you … just what should there be behind his words? As Random Frederick Name asks (#8), do you think we should be threatening to invade?
You are good with the easy criticisms, but how would you suggest he do anything different?
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The major flaw in this Iranian uprising is that there is no discernible leader of the opposition.
Moussavi has now got a target on his forehead and there seems to be hardly any mention in the Tweets and YouTube videos of him being any kind of a major player.
Russia had Yeltsin (a bumbling alcoholic), Poland had Walesa, but Iran lacks a legitimate opposition leader.
Doesn’t look good for the “revolution.” The tanks belong to the government and it’s starting to look more like a messy Tianamen.
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we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
Obama is the barest witness you can find. That we could figure out from all those “present” votes he made.
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Any type of material support for the protectors will delegitimize them due to the infamous 19563 CIA coup;;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
hence, Obama is caught in the middle with little room to maneuver.
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Obama is caught in the middle with little room to maneuver.
Obama was supposed to be ‘the one’ The man with the plan, the groove with all the moves. Turns out that Obama is just a tin plated fake, a flake and a fruit.
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Obama is a catalyst, not an element in the political reaction that is taking place.
Obama seeded the revolution in Cairo. He said everything that America can and must say. This is the effect.
Egypt’s next, folks.
FISH and JOEL MARK are as obnoxious, inappropriate, and tragically counterproductive as the US troops who draped a US flag on the toppled statue of Saddam.
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The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. D’uh! They also understand that with a wimp like Obama the US will do nothing and the rest of the world will do nothing.
We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. have you ever seen Obama shed a tear for anything??? Frankly Obama does not care about Iranians.
We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. Obama likes to ‘phone it in’ by calling on them. The sentence is also much much weaker than it should be.
The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, Obama is ignorant that the rest of the world does not believe that. and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights. Obama rhetoric. When Obama stands with you he stands behind you. Far far behind you.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. My wonderful speech in Cairo. Which of course meant nothing. And which the Iranians were less than thrilled about. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. Obama rhetoric. A tautology. A weak statement. In fact the Iranians have already judged their government and found it to be so horrible they risk death to protest it. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion. Why? The international community means nothing. Russia buys Iranian regardless. China buys Iranian regardless. The fact is considering the amount of ‘coercion’ in the 2008 election, Obama shows himself to be a lame hypocrite here.
Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Who in Iran cares what Martin Luther King said??? Obama is pandering to weak US minds here. MLK jr is turning in his grave over this misuse of his quote.I believe that. Sure he does. The international community believes that. Do they? The ‘international community’ believes in precious little. And all the whole it is a very weak quote. It tells everyone that it will be a long long time before ‘justice’ (whatever that is) can even be approached, How terribly weak is that? And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, Hey Obama, these people are bearing witness to death of friends and loved ones. and we will continue to bear witness. We , meaning Obama, will continue to do nothing.
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#12 Scroop “XION- Behind every word Obama says there’s ice cold will, a balance of audacity and caution, and a wager about history.
Huh? How do you know that? My comment was based on the fact that Obama has been apologizing for America everywhere he goes, bowing low to the Saudi prince and gushing praise for Islam. Will he now show strength against Iran or North Korea? Not on your life.
Obama’s foreign policy is to show weakness and flatter our enemies and hope they don’t attack. It reminds me of a beaten wolf who lies on his back in a position of submission hoping the strong wolves will leave him alone. The beaten dog mentality might work temporarily, but it is a signal to our enemies that they can do whatever they want and America will not respond.
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Although I find Obama far too centrist in his approach, I perceive, based on past performances, a backbone behind the rhetoric.
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Obama urinates, too, XION. That’s an important element of submission.
Listen, the protesters many days ago decided to march silently. They want the world to watch and listen. They don’t need Republicans to sermonize, because Republican sermons are what they are up against, XION. The ayatollahs are all WorldMag zealots who believe that God is establishing a kingdom administered by true believers. The protesters are up against Republicans who are determined to reward righteousness and punish wickedness and unbelief. The ayatollahs use your posts as the excuse for killing liberals in the streets.
We’ve got plenty of neo-cons setting bad lyrics to the solemn music of Iranian resistance, but you’ll have to sing it yourself, because Obama is not going to spoil the event.
XION, please let me know when you get tweets from Persians who are begging for the US to meddle in their politics, and I’ll change my tune. Let me know when you find out that Obama is rejecting the pleas and advice of the resistance leaders who talk to the CIA.
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You guys are such pathetic sorry whiners. Every time I read one of these whiney, UNSUBSTANTIVE, antiObama posts I am more and more thankful that conservatives are out of power.
Obama gives a very gracious speech in Cairo trying to avoid another war and bring peace through diplomacy, and all you guys can do is whine, whine, whine. After Cairo, Hezbollah fails to win in Lebanon, and Iranian hardliners are put to shame in Iran—yet all you guys can do is whine, whine, whine.
While others are spilling their blood, you whine, whine, whine.
God is great anyway.
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#22 Um, yeah Scroop. The Ayatollah’s are Republicans?
#23 Who’s whining? The Obama Effect
“Our president’s public flagellation of America only emboldened the junta in Tehran — leaving Iran’s power brokers more defiant, determined and dismissive than they’ve been in years.”
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The ayatollahs are neo-cons, XION. Neo-con guns shoot both democratization and theocratization brand bullets. Neo-cons are at war with their own societies for the sake of greater militancy. They curse the peacemakers as submissive urinators.
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“They don’t need Republicans to sermonize, because Republican sermons are what they are up against, XION. The ayatollahs are all WorldMag zealots who believe that God is establishing a kingdom administered by true believers.”
Oh brother.
You castigate others for their unsubstantiated rhetoric, and then turn right around and engage in it yourselves…
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This may be hard for many readers to accept, but I don’t think the President has had any major influence on the events that are now taking place in Iran either way, and I don’t think there is any way that he could have any significant positive influence. Our country is not the center of the universe. People in other countries often do things primarily motivated by their local situation without concern about our opinions on the matter. We just are not strong enough to impose our will on absolutely everyone else in the world, and that is a good thing. People in other countries will do things that we don’t like, and there really isn’t much we can do about it in most cases. This situation is one of those cases.
Summary: the President really has not done very much to influence or support pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran, and it really would not be appropriate for him to do much more than he has. He deserves neither praise nor condemnation for the current situation, and what he says about the situation is pretty much irrelevant. The best He can do is to observe what is going on and pray that justice might prevail, just like the rest of us.
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XiON you still haven’t told us why Obama should speak on behalf of protesters who are making a point of marching silently, or why you believe Obama is rejecting the pleas that the CIA is passing on from Iranian dissidents.
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Didymus,
Thank you, well-put.
(You realize, of course, that talk like that may well draw the ire of the American-exceptionalist, manifest destiny, “Empire? What empire?” types … )
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I perceive, based on past performances, a backbone behind the rhetoric.
Obama and backbone don’t belong in the same sentence.
What past performances????????????????????
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We’ve got plenty of neo-cons setting bad lyrics to the solemn music of Iranian resistance o/” The Merry Go Round Broke Down o/”
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#26 Didymus, I agree with you when you say that Obama is pretty much impotent. He thinks himself impo’t'nt but truly he acts impotent. And I guess for the next few years our country is going to be seen as just that.
I just wish Scroop Moth could see the protesters in Westwood.
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#29 Dealing with the American right.
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#32 yeah right.
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by DickM
I would predict that these clerics in control will have no conscience about using every method at their disposal to destroy opposition. Clerics have a long history of crushing opposition, although there are certainly some fine exceptions. Try reading,for instance ‘Death by Government’ by R.J. Rummel for the terrible goings on in Yugoslavia during WWII, and that from so-called ‘Christian’ clergy. The trouble is that they think their divine right excuses anything, despite the sweet words the Scripture they claim. How much more Moslem clergy who have no such restraints.
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#25 Scroop. The ayatollahs are neo-cons, XION.
Your knowledge of political philosophy is upside down.
Do the ayatollahs want small limited government, separation of church and state, personal freedom, equality under the law regardless of race or creed? If so, then they are conservatives.
Or do they want a totalitarian regime with heavy handed government control that provides for social welfare and dictates what is considered politically correct? If so, then they are not.
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Conservative Iranians are very much like conservative American evangelicals. The core values of the Islamic Republic are family values. Iranians are devoted to their traditions and fearful of secular humanism (Hollywood, universities, gold coast materialism, and media elites), just like American evangelicals.
James Dobson and the ayatollahs disagree over the Koran, the Prophet, and the Zionist entity, but they share the same social project. They all want government to erase the distinction between sin and crime, and they want to dominate the “public square” by speaking for and imposing a tyranny of the majority. Neither Dobson nor the ayatollahs take kindly to judges who use constitutional abstractions to shield individuals from state power. In the Islamic Republic, judges aren’t a separate branch of government with the power to check the legislative and executive branch, rather, they are a tool of majoritarian tyranny. Mullah justices are bearded Antonin Scallias.
How much conscience do Evangelical mullahs display over the methods that Bush used to destroy perceived opponents? The US lost fewer than 3,000 people in 9/11. Iran lost 250,000 dead in a war against an enemy which was supported by the country that previously overthrew an Iranian government and installed a dictatorship that tormented the people. The US has more to apologize for, and less to excuse its nationalism and paranoia.
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ROTFL!
I am laughing so hard I can hardly stay in my seat. I just heard John McCain say that maybe the Iranians will look and Afhgahanistan and Iraq and be inspired because of THEIR democracy!!!
What a clueless fellow. Every time he opens his mouth, I thank God for President Obama!
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Scroop #36 They all want government to erase the distinction between sin and crime, and they want to dominate the “public square” by speaking for and imposing a tyranny of the majority
True about the mullahs, but you are so wrong about evangelicals that you aren’t even on the same planet. You won’t find a single evangelical on earth who wants a theocracy other than that which will one day be established by Jesus Christ.
Do you have any idea how warped this straw man is of yours? Do you even care? Who wants more government, the left or the right? Who wants government to invade our lives and tell us what we can eat and say and what cars to drive? Have you ever read anything on political philosophy? Have you even read 1984? Have you ever read a history book? Totalitarianism is to the far left.
All Dobson has done is exercise his political voice. And precisely who is it here who wants to silence that voice? In your world are Christians even allowed to vote or express any opinion whatsoever?
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Who is it that wants to bring “heaven on earth”.
There are some on the right, mostly charismatic, who believe that God loves America more than any other country and are praying for revival in America to come back to God. They speak out and vote their conscience like any other American.
But the roots of Social Progressivism in the 19th and 20th centuries had the same goal. Obama uses the same religious language, saying “I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.” This was the goal of all Social Progressives throughout history, to create a utopian society.
The difference is that Christians appeal to God and the charity of men to make this happen. Social Progressives want the Almighty Government to do it. One thing is certain though. All utopian experiments have failed.
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I haven’t seen such a silly thread on worldmagblog for a long time.
Of course, real people are spilling real blood on the streets of Tehran while all of us posture on the Internet.
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First of all, George Orwell was a socialist. His critique is broad enough to cover the darker tendencies of both the Left (government-controlled labor) and the Right (”War is Peace”, the surveillance state).
As I understand it, totalitarianism is the broad term that covers both Right Totalitarianism (Fascism) and Left Totalitarianism (Communism).
The question of who wants more government is a complicated one. I’ll list your questions, then add a few of my own.
Who wants to tell us what we can eat? The Right, to the extent that they support drug laws.
Who wants to tell us what we can say? The Left, to the extent that they support hate speech laws.
Who wants to tell us what cars we can drive? The Left.
Who wants to monitor our phone and email communications without warrants? The Right.
Who wants to tell us who we can and cannot marry? The Right.
Who trusts our government to use torture on prisoners? The Right.
Who gave the government the power to abrogate habeas corpus for people, even citizens, who are deemed “enemy combatants”? The Right.
Who propagandized the American people with ex-military men posing as defense correspondents on major news networks (referred to in internal DoD memos as “message force amplifiers”)? The Right.
Both the Right and the Left in this country support big government. They just want to use it for different ends.
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To the original posting, I think Obama is right to withhold comment on the protests, and his measured comments so far (platitudes, really) are judicious.
Khomeini and Ahmedinejad would love the chance to dismiss the protests as American-backed, -led, or -supported. First and foremost, Obama needs to deny them that opportunity.
Again, I see only naked political games when many on the Right blame Obama for not speaking out more forcefully. First of all, these are the very people on whom the Right was willing to drop bombs just ten months ago! However many have died in the protests, thousands who would have perished as “collateral damage” in the Right’s push to bomb Iran.
I’m not real happy with Obama on some key issues (broken promises on transparency and the continuation of many abusive Bush policies foremost), but I’m completely disgusted with the Republicans of late. I see no principles and no ideas, just a determination to play annoying kid brother and take the contrary stance on any and every issue. If Obama had condemned the regime, they would have dinged him as naively playing into Khomeini’s hands. When they weren’t Twittering that their plight as minority party in the Congress was “just like the protesters.”
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JJF. #41 Not bad. I appreciate the effort. However, your understanding of fascism is severely flawed. Please read about fascism and the progressive socialism movement of the late 19th and early 20th century. Might I suggest the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg.
As I understand it, totalitarianism is the broad term that covers both Right Totalitarianism (Fascism) and Left Totalitarianism (Communism).
Fascism is national socialism (i.e. Nazi). Fascism is only slightly to the right of communism, but still to the far left. The far right is no government at all, i.e. anarchy – think Wild West and unbridled capitalism. That is the complete opposite of totalitarianism, namely “Everything by the state and nothing outside of the state”.
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The far right is no government at all, i.e. anarchy – think Wild West and unbridled capitalism.
It won’t get any truer if you keep repeating it. JJF ably demonstrated that the right is very much in favor of controlling government, just to different ends and in different arenas than the left.
Your continued denial of that reality won’t make it false.
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On a scale from left to right:
Totalitarianism – Total and absolute government power.
Communism – Having all things in common, managed by the state.
Socialism – Private ownership, but state runs most things.
Fascism – Socialism with national pride. Militancy.
Social Progressivism – Soft fascism, i.e. social experimentation and change through government channels.
Democrats – Favor government solutions.
Republicans – Favor private solutions.
Libertarianism – Very small government.
Anarchy – No government at all.
American Democrats and Republicans are nearly identical, falling in the middle. Obama is a solid social progressive to the extreme left of the Democratic party.
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#44 SteveG – If you mean George Bush, he wasn’t very much to the right at all.
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Xion:
You are using those terms differently than everyone else I’ve ever read. Jonah Goldberg used “fascism” persuasively rather than lexically — that is, he stretched the term beyond its accepted definition in order to make some point. Naomi Wolf did the same thing in her book Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, making the case that the Bush administration was leading the nation to fascism.
Fascism is a movement of its own time and place that doesn’t track perfectly with American political movements. But to the extent that it does, it is more aligned with conservative values than liberal values:
I think you’ve invented your own scale of left to right, defining “left” to be “complete government control” and “right” to be “absence of any government control.” But again, those are your own definitions. “Right” and “Left” come from the seating arrangement of the Parliament after the French Revolution, and they have historically referred to whether the government should protect established social institutions (conservatism, the Right) or dismantle them in a bid for greater equality (liberalism, the Left). They are simply not about how much control the government exercises.
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I’ll also point out that fascism, according to Mussolini (the guy who coined the term in the first place), is essentially corporatism — the use of corporations by the State to exercise control over the people. When you say Republicans “favor private solutions,” you’ve got to see the similarities between that statement and Mussolini’s definition of fascism.
I’m not saying that Republicans are fascists. I’m only saying that when Republican go overboard, they enact fascist-like policies.
Of course, I’d also say that forcing people to buy health insurance from private corporations is a fascist policy (perfectly fits Mussolini’s definition), and the Dems look like they’re gearing up to do just that. So it’s not as simple as Right=Fascist and Left=Communist. I just think there are, in general, stronger similarities that way.
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Forgive my insomnia, here. In retrospect, a large iced coffee at 6:30pm was a bad idea. :\
I guess what I’m saying is that Left-Right and Totalitarianism-Anarchy are two different axes. You’re trying to say they’re the same one (Left=Totalitarianism, Right=Anarchy). But that’s saying that anarchy is the most conservative form of “government” one could have.
And I think you just made Edmund Burke roll over in his grave.
Anarchy is exactly what every good 19th century conservative hated and feared about the French Revolution. It is completely antithetical to classical conservatism, which is all about preserving the existing social institutions — letting them change gradually and organically rather than suddenly and violently — because they were the vehicle for people’s rights and security.
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JJF, thanks for all the research, but there is a lot of conflicting statements in what you say. The seating arrangement is a fun fact, but provides no more useful information than that left was associated with red and right with blue, until these changed during Clinton’s presidency.
I do agree that one can look at politics along more than one axis. Conservatives tend to have more national pride and are more interested in having a strong military for defense. But the economic policy of fascism is socialism. They are not opposites.
It is incorrect to say that the modern terms are as it was during the French Revolution. History is a long slow march to the left. The right end of modern conservationism in America now is the Constitutional party and Libertarian party. They want very limited government and traditional America ideals, which in 1776 was called classical liberalism, i.e. that of Jefferson and Adams. Modern conservatives want to spread democracy. At that time conservatism was aristocracy as you say, but everyone has moved left.
Modern liberals aren’t at all like liberals during the French or American Revolutions. Modern liberals have been carried left by the Russian Revolution and Dewey, Marx, Bismarck and even Woodrow Wilson. Social Progressivism in the early 1900s looked favorably on fascism. Hitler was a socialist. Mussolini was a socialist. How can a socialist be right wing?
Modern Progressives want to create a better world through the strong arm of government. They aren’t content to rely on volunteerism and are frustrated with capitalism and individualism and personal freedom that allows people to behave badly. They want to mandate change by enacting laws that force people to behave responsibly.
It is all well intentioned, but in the end we will end up with the opposite of what was intended. We’ll end up with a gigantic powerful corrupt central government that controls every aspect of our lives, taxes us to death and rations services from an inept bureaucracy.
The strong nationalism and militarism of Iran is not the same as a love of country and desire to free the oppressed and spread democracy. So Iran is nothing like American conservatism. And a maniacal dictatorship is not the same as a nanny state that uses legislation and taxation to pressure people to improve their behavior and health and drive the people’s car.
I realize I’ve gone off topic a bit, but I am so sick of the constant accusation that the right wing are fascists. That is simply using the term as Stalin did to label anyone he didn’t like and has nothing to do with actual history or political philosophy.
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Here is a little experiment one can do to see how political philosophy has shifted over time. Look at the ideology of the anabaptists. In the 16th century, they were considered the radical left. They stood for separation of church and state, freedom of religion and thought from government control.
We can follow this line to the Connecticut Baptists who wrote Jefferson asking for a separation of church and state. At that time they were just about aligned with Jefferson in terms of political policy.
Today, modern Baptists who still hold the same beliefs and ideology are considered the radical right.
And so, by using Baptists as a stake in the sand who have moved very little politically in the last 400 years, we can see that the world has shifted dramatically to the left.
An ideology that was once the radical left is now considered the radical right, even though it hasn’t changed much at all.
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Xion: #44 SteveG – If you mean George Bush, he wasn’t very much to the right at all.
No, I am not referring to any one individual. I am referring to the right.
Is it the left that wants the power of government brought in to fight a “war on drugs,” or to criminalize abortion, or to control marriage, ban euthanasia, etc.? These have always been key issues on the right.
Totalitarianism can come from the extreme of either wing. Your revisionism is just another symptom of the hyper partisanship I’ve been harping on lately, where a person ascribes all evil to other political side and denies any wrongdoing on his own side.
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#53 Heaven help us if we ban dismembering children or knocking off old people. How could we do without those?
Fascinating how someone who tries to correct decades of revisionism from leftist historians is himself called a revisionist.
My intention is not to ascribe evil to the other party, but to counter the idea that evangelicals are simply jackbooted fascist mullahs and KKK sympathizers, as we are accused of regularly. Truth be told, fascists are socialists and the KKK was the militant wing of the Democratic party in the South.
This runs counter to incessant liberal revisionism, but the facts of history are all plain to see for those who would bother to care.
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Oh please. I’m not defending those things you mention in #54, I’m just pointing out that conservatives are not opposed to use of government power, when it’s for the purposes they deem suitable.
Both sides are happy to use big government in pursuit of things they want to enact. It’s disingenuous to suggest otherwise. That is not a statement in defense or opposition to any specific issue, it’s just an observation of the way things are.
And by the way, since I specifically oppose abortion, especially late-term, and am more in step with conservatives on end-of-life issues too, I’ll thank you to not slander me again by insinuating otherwise.
Truth be told, fascists are socialists and the KKK was the militant wing of the Democratic party in the South.
Truth be told, as you well know, the Democratic party of the old South has very little resemblance to the Democratic party today. The South became solidly Republican after a Democratic president signed civil rights legislation.
And fascism is characterized by nationalistic dictatorial control, not an economic policy. It can come from either the extreme right or the extreme left.
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Clarification: My statement about the South in #55 is not meant to imply that Republicans are inherently racist either. I’m only saying that the South was largely Democratic for reasons having to do with organized labor and the elevation of individual rights above business and corporations. The racism of many old Southerners had nothing to do with their political affiliation, and many deserted the party in favor of the only other alternative when LBJ, in the eyes of the racists, betrayed them.
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