Racism Part 2: What they don't teach you in school

Babies are racists. LOL - OK not really, but read #5 on that list. (From Cracked.)

The history of how White, Southern Racism shaped this country from the beginning. (From Kos.)

The Case for reparations. (From the Atlantic)

And Racism is still worse than we realize. (Cracked.)

Now lets examine the effect of the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

For this exercise I am going to focus on two geographic areas in particular: The SOUTHEAST, defined as Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia; and the NORTHEAST, defined as Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.  (For their parts, the MOUNTAIN STATES have always been Republican strongholds, and that hasn't changed. The MIDWEST has always been a contentious battleground and that hasn't changed. The PACIFIC STATES, with the exception of Alaska (which votes like a Mountain State) DID flip, from Republican to Democrat, but did so much later, in the 1990's, so they're not relevant to the discussion either.)

I am going to look at two time periods. The first starts in 1876 which was the first post-Civil War in which the Democrats were able to challenge the Republicans with a unified party and a single candidate.  It ends in 1960, the last Election before the passage of the Civil Rights Act. The second period begins with 1964 and goes through to the present day.  In this exercise I am looking the results of the States' PRESIDENTIAL Elections.  This oversimplifies a bit, but I spot-checked a few of the Southeastern States' Gubernatorial races once when a Tea Party friend of mine challenged it and the pattern held pretty solid on the states he had me check.  I may do Governors, Senators or Representatives one day, but for now let's just look at Presidential results.

From 1876 to 1960, the Southeast held 300 total Presidential Elections. This takes into account that North Carolina was not part of the Electoral College following the Civil War until 1908. In these 300 Elections, the DEMOCRATIC Candidate (Tilden, Hancock, Cleveland (3x), Bryan (3x), Parker, Wilson (2x), Cox, Davis, Smith, Roosevelt (4x), Truman, Steveson (2x) and Kennedy) won 255 of them.  That's a winning percentage of 85%.  So.. Pretty clear that the DEMOCRATS were strong in the Southeast following the Civil War and Prior too Civil Rights.

In the Northeast, in the same time period, there were 242 total Presidential Elections. In those, the same Democratic Candidates took home only 79 Victories, for a 32.6%  Winning Percentage.

NOW... Since the signing of the Civil Rights act, what has changed?

Well, since 1964, the Southeast has held 182 Presidential Elections. In that time, the Democratic Candidate (Johnson, Humphrey, McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton (2x), Gore and Obama (2x)) has won a mere 43 of these, dropping their winning percentage from 85% to a paltry 23.6% - a decline of 61.4%!  Meanwhile, of the 156 Presidential Elections held in the Northeast since the signing of the Civil Rights act, those same Democrats won 108 times. That's a 69.2% Winning percentage, up from 32.6% - a gain of 36.6%!  So clearly...

1) There has been significant ideological drift in both the Northeast and Southeast.

2) This shift is shown to have happened almost immediately after the signing of the Civil Rights act.

3) The Democratic Party (the one who's President SIGNED the Civil Rights Act) moved North, while the Republicans became the darlings of the Old Confederacy and Segregationist States.

A coupe of notes:

1) I counted DEMOCRATIC Victories, so that no one could call Bullshit if I tried to lump Independent such as Strom Thurmond or George Wallace in with the Republicans.  As it is, they were not counted. Also, if I was counting Republican victories, what do you call Teddy Roosevelt in 1912?  Seems wrong to count the Bull Moose Candidate, but it seems just as wrong to leave him out. So we'll use the Democratic performance to show the trend.

2) Surprisingly the biggest exception to the trend in the Southeast is actually NOT Florida: It's WEST VIRGINIA!  West Virginia has gone to the Democrat SEVEN TIMES since the signing of the Civil Rights act.  Florida has gone only five, and three other have gone four times. The STRONGEST Republican States since the signing of the Civil Rights act (in the Southeast) are Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Since 1964 a Democrat has only won ONCE in each of these States.

3) Prior to Barack Obama in 2008, the only Democrats to win ANY of the Southeastern States were themselves Southerners :Johnson, from Texas, Carter from Georgia and Clinton from Arkansas. (This was no help to Gore, of Tennessee, who failed to win any in 2000, though we won't discuss Florida.)

4) If you ignore the influence of NATIONAL LANDSLIDES, which say little about any one regions politics and more about the politics of THE DAY, the trend gets even more stark. If I remove the Four Franklin Roosevelt land slides on '32, '36, '40 and '44, the Johnson landslide of '64, the Nixon landslide of '72 and the Reagan landslide of '84, here's how it breaks down:

Southeast, 1876-1960: 244 Elections, 199 Democratic Victories, 81.6% Winning Pct.
Southeast, 1968-2012: 140 Elections, 34 Democratic Victories, 24.3% Winning Pct.

Northeast, 1876-1960: 198 Elections, 47 Democratic Victories, 23.7% Winning Pct.
Northeast, 1876-1960: 120 Elections, 93 Democratic Victories, 77.5% Winning Pct.

So they go down 57.3% in the Southeast, a little less than before, but go up 53.8% in the Northeast - a LOT more than before.

Take either methodology, as you prefer. AND, if you're going to make the argument that the Democrats are the REAL racists, you're going to have to explain THIS phenomenon away first, if you expect to be taken seriously. Robert Byrd or no Robert Byrd.

Now for something a bit lighter, here are Five Shockingly Racist Scenes in Famous Superhero Comics. (Cracked.)

Jim Jubak's recipe for recovery

I don’t consider myself to be a huge fan of Jim Jubak. It’s not that I think he’s conservatively or liberally biased, it’s just that he’s always struck me as a bit of an alarmist. When I read him, it always seems like the sky is falling. He’s not Glenn Beck crazy, mind you. His analysis is usually pretty sound. It’s just that his presentation always seems to have the tone of “OH MY GOD!” At least to me anyway.
But he wrote a fantastic piece yesterday about how we should fix the US economy, and I think it’s well worth a read. He has a lot to say about our place in the world, our need to get over our xenophobia and ‘exceptional’ delusions of grandeur. In short, he prescribes a good dose of reality that I don’t think ANY politician out there, of ANY party is prepared to deal with. So please check it out, because he really makes some critically important points.

Backtrack... Backtrack... Backtrack...

Upon further review of the play, it has been determined that "Niceguy" Eddie may have overreacted.

Yeah.

Unlike my right-wing contemporaries, I do admit when I'm wrong, or when I go too far, and yesterday night, I went too far, RE Umpire Jim Joyce.

Don't get me  wrong - it was still the worst, and most significanlty bad, call in MLB history.

But Joyve showed a lot of class after the game, and at today's game.  And Galarraga himself showed a lot of class both on and off the field.  No dramatics, no whining.  Hey: HE knew he threw a perfect game, so what does the rest of it really matter, huh?  But I would be remiss to continue to rant and rave about Joyce after he had admitted his mistake, apologized to - and was forgiven by - Galarraga.  My anger was REALLY aimed at the umpires of old that I remember, who would stedfastly refuse to acknowledge even the most nboneheaded calls as mistakes.  So I have been shamed by the class and sportsmanship displayed by these two men.  And as pationately as I feel about this, it just goes to show that you shouldn't go writing anything - that anyone else will see- when you're REALLY angry.  This is the third time in my life that I've broken that rule and each time I've written something that I've regretted.

And while I would have reversed the call, I'm not surprised that that spineless jellyfish Commissioner Selig did not.  But you know what? I'm not even sure that would be the right thing to do anyway. The moment is past.  And Galarraga doesn't need his name in the record books to know what he accomplished.  (I still would have done it though!)  And like Craig said, in resonse to my last post - this will likely be far more memorable anyway! 

Plus, I'm sure Joyce will love the fact that for the rest of his life, he'll be known as "the guy who screwed up the perfect game." LOL. 

So every now and then, there is SOME justice. :)

Jim Joyce singlehandedly Justifies the use of Capital Punnishment

This might be THE worst call of all-time.

Jim Joyce should be fined $10 Million Dollars, permanently banned from Baseball, and beaten to death in the public square.

A once in a lifetime opportunity for a pitcher and and this waste of donor organs blows it on a call lke THAT?!

To channel Al Capone: I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his HOUSE burned to the GROUND!

I don't care how many times this asshole gotit right, this ONE CALL renders his entire career a colossal joke. He is now the Bill Buckner of Umpires.  Actually, my apologies to Mister Buckner, his error was nowhere NEAR this level.  So on second thought, calling Joyce that is an high insult to BUCKNER.

Baseball should have instant replay, period.  What the hell, if the call stands then eject the challenging manager.  But this is a level of incompetence rivalled only by BP's Crisis Response Team.

Next time Galaraga throws to First, with Joyce making the call, he just just drill him right in the back of the head.

What a fucking asshole.  Armando Galarraga threw a PERFECT GAME tonight.  I don't care what the history books say.  They SHOULD say "Jim Joyce is a useless piece of shit umpire who has no business putting on the uniforn unless he's going to a halloween party."

Congratulation on your perfect game, Armando.  May Jim Joyce burn naked in the 9th circle of hell, the incompetent, half-blind, fucknut.

Un-be-fucking-lievable.

Jim Bunning Relents!

I just read that Jim Bunning has relented his obstructionism for the moment.

I guess there's not much of a future in routing against America after all, is there?

The man finally stands up and almost takes down his whole party in doing so.  And they gave him the beat down.  I love it.

Jim Bunning

First off, I would like to say a few GOOD things about Hall of Fame Right-Handed Pitcher, Jim Bunning.  He won 20 Games for Detroit in 1957, and 19 in 1962.  He won 19 games in a season three years in a row for the Philadelphia Phillies, from 1964 to 1966.  In 1964 he pitched one of the only 17 perfect games in Major League history.  He struck out of 200 batters in a season six times, leading the league three times.  When he retired he was second on the All-Time strikeout list behind only Walter Johnson.  He was an All-Star Seven times - that's a ton, for a Pitcher.  For his efforts, the Phillies retired his #14 and in 1996 he was deservingly inducted into Baseball's Hall of Fame.

Now I'd like to say a few things about Jim Bunning the Right-Leaning Senator from Kentucky.  In 2006, Time Magazine listed him as one of the five worst in the Senate.  Among other things, this honor was bestowed because, in their words, he was a Senator who basically did nothing and accomplished nothing.  So it's worth noting that now, with nothing but retirement pending and nothing to lose (or gain) politically he has done his best single handedly decide that the ENTIRE SENATE will become a body that, like his, does and accomplishes NOTHING.

One has to wonder if he felt is was in the best interests of the 10.7% of the workforce in Kentucky right now that is out of work, and has been for so long that their unemployment benefits have run out, despite not being able to find new jobs in this slowly improving economy, to stand up as a one-man road block to a bill that was sure to pass (seeing as most of his colleagues ARE up for re-election) that would have extended thier benefits, possibly long enough until work became more plentiful.  I guess those thousands of Kentucky families must be feeling tremendous relief, despite their mounting debt and impending poverty, that Senator Bunning has decided that fixing the Federal Budget Deficit is more important than helping them stay in their homes, put food on the table and maintain a dignified standard of living, despite the economic down turn that Senator Bunning's party played no small part in creating.  I'm sure they're glad that the Senator had the best intersts of their great-grandkids in mind, even though their children are hungry today.  (Of course, I'm only talking about the National Debt here, not Global Warming!) And I'm sure that they are in no way bitter about this last parting shot, this one time that their Senator FINALLY stood up to represent them... by pissing in their well.

Of course... one has to wonder... Where the heck were all these deficit hawks during the Bush years?  How many times did the good Senator Bunning stand up and speak out as President Bush added $4.3 Trillion Dollars to our National Debt?  How many of Bush tax breaks did he oppose?  How much of Bush's spending did he oppose?  How much did he stand up to the expansion of the Government that the Department of Homeland Security represented?  How often did he protest the spending that the War in Iraq forced us to incur?  Um.... that would be: NONE and NEVER.  Not ONCE.  So I do find it curious that the deficit is suddenly this man's legacy-breaking issue, seeing as how (1) There's a Democrat in the White House, (2) He in a Democratically controlled Senate and (3) He's retiring, and has nothing to lose in the way of a future political career.

Now don't get me wrong: I too am concerned about the deficit.  But when you listen to these idiots on the Right, do you ever notice how they always follow up their concern about the Deficit by saying, "And that's why we're proposing these TAX CUTS?"  *ARGH!*  TAX CUTS DO NOT LOWER THE DEFICIT, MORANS!  Cutting taxes can only, CAN ONLY, CAN ONLY, CAN ONLY INCREASE the deficit!  Oh, they'll help the economy.  No doubts there.  But they'll do so by reducing the amount of money the Gov't collects in taxes.  THAT MAKES THE DEFICIT WORSE!  Now... I will say this: The right always talks a good game when it come to CUTTING SPENDING.  But do you notice how, whenever their in power, they never seem to actually cut any spending?!  There's a reason for this, and it goes beyond just disagreement over WHAT spending to cut.  It's a lot more sinister than that.

You see... there are two things the government can do to help the economy.  CUT TAXES and RAISE SPENDING.  And while most economist agree that you get more bang for your buck increasing spending, the fact is that BOTH will help the economy.  But: Both will also increase the budget deficit.  Conversely, there are two things the government can do to reduce the budget deficit: RAISE TAXES and CUT SPENDING.  Either (or both) of these will reduce the deficit, but either or both will harm the economy.  And economist also generally agree that cutting spending will be MORE HAERMFUL to the economy that RAISING TAXES will.  There are reasons for this, both in practice and in theory.  I'm not going to into them right now, but if you don't believe me, just ask yourself: WHY then, do the Republicans NEVER, not since 1980, cut spending or balance the budget?  The answer is simple: They know it would wreck the economy.

Now... we all know they don't want to raise taxes.  And I can't say I blame them.  Although this does less harm to the economy, the political effect is so much greater because we can all see, once a year and in every paycheck exactly what we pay in taxes.  We're reminded of it on a regular basis, and we have an exact number to value it at.  It's a little harder to determine what percentage of our pay derives from gov't spending.  (But it's approximately, for most people, it's just about what you pay in taxes, minus the % of the budget that pays for the National Debt; which you'd have to pay, even if the gov't spent NOTHING.)  But that number has a lot less impact on most people, at least everyone (con and lib alike) who doesn't receive a check directly from the government.  So raising taxes in out.  For them, I mean. Fine.  So that leaves cutting spending.

Now... I've already pointed out that Republicans never have any intention of reducing spending in any meaningful way when they're in power.  My Feb 1 posts pretty much proved THAT.  And I've already explained why: If they do, they'll get blamed for the resulting economic fallout.  So what do they do? Simple: They force the spending cuts to happen when the DEMOCRATS are in office, that way the Democrats can get blamed for the fallout, while Republicans can take credit for being "fiscally conservative."  Here something to remind all those "fiscal conservatives" you meet out there: ANY actions that reduce the deficit will harm the economy.  And pretty much any gov't action that's good for the economy will increase the deficit.  That's why you only ever see a deficit hawk in the minority party, or one that's retiring when his term is up.  This is a political and economic fact of life that both Liberals and Conservatives alike need to come to grips with.

So... Why then, given that rising deficits seem to help the economy, at least in the short term, should we be concerned? Well... every year you run a deficint, more of your budget NEXT year will be spent financing the every-increasing National Debt.  So unless you raise taxes or cut spending somewhere, you will not have as much money to spend on the things that HELP THE ECONOMY.  Put simply, a day of reckoning must come and the longer you put it off, the worse it will be.  And despite Bill Clinton's best efforts, the Republicans have managed to put it off for THIRTY YEARS now.  Think about that: There are people getting married and having children who have lived their entire lives and have only seen a balanced federal budget twice, both times under a Democrat, and yet they remain convinced that the Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility! *barf*

The real key is WHEN you do these things.  The time to do them is DEFINITELY NOT when the economy is still shaky.  Just ask Herbet Hoover!  Amazingly, Bill Clinton manages to pull off both: He raised taxes AND cut spending and didn't kill the economy doing it!  Of course, Al Gore's pet-project-come-to-fruition had something to do with that, but the economy was booming in a way that would not be slowed by increased taxes or reduced spending.  Now... we may get there again.  Bush had a few chances, not the least of which was when he first came into office.  But you don't reduce the deficit, or even help the economy really, by giving all of the money away to people who don't spend any of it!  (That would be "tax breaks for the rich" for any Con's who don't know what I'm refering to.)  So he blew it.  BIG TIME.  And President Obama will have is chance as well.  But that time is definitely not now. 

You see, the last thing the Republican's want is to see any economic recovery under the Democrats before November.  THAT'S what this is about.  Bunning's vote is not about the deficit.  It's about rooting against America while they Dem's are in office.  It's about making sure things don't get any better and then blaming the Dem's for not fixing anything!  And this far form the first time they've done this, and it's amazing that America keeps falling for it.  (Gotta love that Liberal media, keeping the Right-wing honest!) *barf*

So my best hopes go out to the families of my home state of Michigan and of the rest of the country.  Hang in there.  Things are getting better.  Just hold on a little longer and good things will come your way, despite Jim Bunning's best efforts to insure otherwise.  As for the people of Kentucky? You elected this bastard EIGHT TIMES, so: SCREW YOU.  You're getting what you deserve.  It's just too bad the rest of the country has to suffer while you lot learn the hard way what the Republicans really think about working class families.  To you, all I can say is that I hope next time you'll consider NOT voting against your own economic interests.  If you elect another Republican after THIS insult?  Then you really are a bunch of illiterate, brain-dead red-necks down there.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
PS... Just a bit more on Bunning: I found this on wikipedia:

On December 18, 2008, the Lexington Herald Leader reported that Sen. Bunning's non-profit foundation, the Jim Bunning Foundation, has given less than 25 percent of its proceeds to charity. The charity has taken in $504,000 since 1996, according to Senate and tax records; during that period, Senator Bunning was paid $180,000 in salary by the foundation while working a reported one hour per week. Bunning Foundation board members include his wife Mary, and Cincinnati tire dealer Bob Sumerel. In 2008, records indicate that Bunning attended 10 baseball shows around the country and signed autographs, generating $61,631 in income for the charity.[37] "The whole thing is very troubling," said Melanie Slone, Executive Director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Yeah... I'd sure as hell say this is a bit "troubling." His "charity" takes in $504,000, of which he helped them get $61,631, or about 12%, himself.  For that they PAY HIM $180,000, or about 36%, while paying out just 25% ($126,000) to actual charitable causes.  That's either a really obvious crime, or the worst run charity in the entire world!  Way to give back to the community you scum-sucking son of a bitch!

And, once again, to everyone out there who's benefits have now run dry?  Please remember who's responsible for this: the Republican Party and the people of Kentucky.