Liberal roots of the KKK

[didymus]

.

Hugo Black… Mason AND member of the KKK… one of the most liberal, anti-Constitution justices we’ve had…

Oliver Wendal Holmes…

i think he was the one who decided to sterilize a young girl he looked upon as an imbecile… because “3 generations of imebiciles is enough”… Come to find out she wasn’t an imbecile after all but it doesn’t matter… “imbeciles” have rights too…

well… they SHOULD have rights, that is…

hmmm… “3 generations of imebiciles is enough”…

sounds kinda Hitler-like… doesn’t it… ?

No, that was Oliver Wendell Holmes, typical Boston Brahmin eugenics enthusiast. The line comes from Buck v. Bell, 1927 before Black was appointed.

As for the KKK being liberal – bushwa. Lots of things don’t fit on our left/right spectrum. At the time of the second Klan the moneyed interests, the Trusts, were even more powerful than now. They owned State legislatures, which at the times still chose US Senators.

Bluntly, farmers, workers and the middle class were being screwed by big business and the government alike. Popular anger was channeled into the Progressives, the Socialist Party, the KKK and other groups. They had the same agendas not because they’re both “liberal” but because they were responding to the same circumstances.

As for the Klan itself, it was far from just a Southern phenomenon, quite strong in the Midwest, esp. Ohio & Indiana. Respectable, middle-class members tried to steer the Klan away from violence and build it up as a political force. Black himself gave speeches at rallies about staying w/in the law.

I am not, repeat, not justifying the Klan. But as I said, it populism doesn’t really fit on the left/right spectrum. We usually think of it as a good thing but it has its ugly side.

I haven’t read Goldberg’s book but I’ve seen him on C-SPAN and I was, to say the least, not impressed.

 

[AwGusTeen]

snip…
and tht is still their goal… except that since Sanger 1st started out, they have added more groups of people to their list of “undesirables”, Catholics being one…

If such a list exists I would like to see it. Can you give us a link or some other citation?
Thanks!

 

[distracted]

If such a list exists I would like to see it. Can you give us a link or some other citation?
Thanks!

I got most of my information from the book Grand Illusions… forget the author name…

interestingly, i’ve heard that Sanger was against aboriton… but Grand Illusions doesn’t say that and seems to imply otherwise (been a long time since i read it)… IT’s pretty interesting book,…

 

[distracted]

No, that was Oliver Wendell Holmes, typical Boston Brahmin eugenics enthusiast. i said it was him.

I haven’t read Goldberg’s book but I’ve seen him on C-SPAN and I was, to say the least, not impressed.

maybe you are more impressed w/ Sinclair Lewis who admitted he lied about things…

 

[distracted]

I’m
If you read original Klan hate literature, they berated Liberals for promoting racial integration ne.

well, Blacks are apparently against integration themselves…

they seem to only want to socialize w/Blacks…

of course i probably would too if i had been through waht they’ve been through…

but its wrong to always imply that it is only White Supremecists who are against integration…

 

[ChadS]

I’m sorry, but as a historian, I know that this is nonsense. The KKK has its roots in racial segregation, not political liberalism. Yes, many Klansmen in the 1920s were Democrats. That was because virtually ALL white southerners were Democrats. And they were Democrats precisely because the hated President Lincoln had been a Republican. White southerns remained (most uneasily) in the Democratic coalition until Nixon’s successful “Southern Strategy” in the 1972 elections. Now most white southerns are Republican, which ideologically makes more sense. Southern conservative Democrats nearly also voted with Congressional Republicans on domestic issues from the early 1940s through the 1960s.

If you read original Klan hate literature, they berated Liberals for promoting racial integration and being for making common cause with “Jewish Intellectuals” and blue-collar Catholic union workers.

The KKK was and remains a reactionary movement, not a liberal one.

Excellent post! You didn’t mention this specifically but it should also be remembered that from the time of the New Deal onwards the Democratic Party was far from unified and in many senses were two distinctly regional parties sharing the same name. One was northern and liberal the other southern and conservative. Many southern Democrats had to be cajoled and bribed to vote for many of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. For example one reason southern Democrats voted for Roosevelt’s labor reforms was because it specifically excluded agricultural labor and in the south most agricultural labor was conducted by black sharecroppers. Also, the age of retirement for Social Security was set at 65 since at that time the average life span for black males was something like 62 or 63, thus limiting the number of blacks eligible for SS and more palatable to southern Democrats (in fairness the average life span for white males was something like 66/67, so it was no great boon for whites either).

LBJ, when he signed into law the civil rights act, he was viewed by many in the south not only as a traitor to his race, but also one to his party and region. I think at that time either LBJ or somebody else remarked that due to this the south would vote Republican for the next 40 years.

ChadS

 

[moonletters]

Is distracted actually arguing for anything?

And I do not understand the whole “white people raped the world” thing.

 

[distracted]

Is distracted actually arguing for anything?

And I do not understand the whole “white people raped the world” thing.

i don’t appreciate your implication that it was ME who said anything about white people raping the world…

you don’t mention any post i wrote so i can’t answer tht first thing…

 

[moonletters]

I was referring to post #38:

Whites have “raped” the world…

And I was referring to the fact that you will say something, someone else tries to follow it up, and then you start your next post with something totally unrelated, and usually hard to read because you do not even use proper spelling, grammer, capitalization, etc. I have to thank you, I suppose, because I have learned a few things that I had never know before from the other gentlemen. Otherwise, what is your actual beef? You seem to be using the forum just to rant some random things, instead of actually contributing to any conversation that has been started.

This isn’t an attack, I’m genuinely interested in what you think is going on here.

 

[CHESTERTONRULES]

Thanks so much for taking time to post the above. Too bad some folks don’t want to hear it. The very idea that the KKK was ever liberal (liberals being for equality, not racism and discrimination) is nonsense. A lot of folks don’t understand about the Dixiecrats and other conservative Democrates - that it was only when the Demoncratic party came out of desegretation and civil rights that many of these folks started voting Republican - which is why most Southern states are red states today. A Democrat didn’t automatically equal a liberal, especially back then.

Liberals are very race centered. Liberals want to divide Americans into racial groups and use their political power to distribute the money they confiscate through taxation.

If racism and poverty go away, liberalism will be destroyed.

Liberals need racism and poverty.

 

[tpw]

Liberals need racism and poverty.

And conservatives do a very good job making sure they continue to exist…

 

[distracted]

I was referring to post #38:

And I was referring to the fact that you will say something, someone else tries to follow it up, and then you start your next post with something totally unrelated, and usually hard to read because you do not even use proper spelling, grammer, capitalization, etc. I have to thank you, I suppose, because I have learned a few things that I had never know before from the other gentlemen. Otherwise, what is your actual beef? You seem to be using the forum just to rant some random things, instead of actually contributing to any conversation that has been started.

This isn’t an attack, I’m genuinely interested in what you think is going on here.

i used quotes on the word “rape”… That was NOT my terminology… but considering theh istory i know of theUS… doesn’t seem like an exaggerated one…

i have no idea why spelling and punctuation is all that important…

ad hominem i guess

 

[distracted]

Liberals are very race centered. Liberals want to divide Americans into racial groups and use their political power to distribute the money they confiscate through taxation.

If racism and poverty go away, liberalism will be destroyed.

Liberals need racism and poverty.

kinda makes sense…

they keep poverty around by keeping people dependent on the gov’t

(sigh)…

they keep racisim around by accusing conservatives at every turn of being racist…

Beam me up Scottie