Comments on: Robert Byrd dies at 92

By: Michael Adams

Michael Adams — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:12:25 +0000

Oh, yeah, what Steve H said.

By: Michael Adams

Michael Adams — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 03:58:45 +0000

For people of my generation (b.1950 it ought to be pretty easy to see that there is not such a contradiction in Byrd’s (et al) attitudes. These politicians sold themselves to the ignorant, Black or White, as protectors from real and invented dangers, whether these threats were another racial group, Capitalists, the ‘Religious Right’ or whatever. I suppose that some used Communists as a convenient scapegoat, although the Venona decripts and other documents would indicate that that danger was far more real. It’s funny, in a sick sort of way, that these same people accused President Bush [whom may God save!] of using the Islamist threat in the same way. That threat, too, is independently confirmed. Projection?
As for actual racism, in the South it has been such a class thing. There were the four percent of wealthier Southerners who made use of Black people, who might have been mildly condescending, but hating? No more than you’d hate your microwave oven. Poor Whites, on the other hand, resented the competition, first with slaves, and later with lower wage workers. In this century, people who studied in school, finished high school and went on to university, learned the scientific facts about the lack of racial differences, and, best of all, got jobs much better than most Blacks would get. The Black people who made it to college were coworkers and (usually) friendly competitors. We have little motivation for racism, so it is no virtue that we are not racist.
So, I despise Byrd for being the sleazy politician that he was, but recognize that his racism was a product of the poverty of his early life. I could no more look down on him for that than I could a hungry man who steals food.
Armed robbery is an individual transgression, but we still look for sociological causes. Racism, an obvious societal problem, we make an individual sin. Byrd was a racist when racism was useful, and a “Liberal” when that would get him votes, and an anti-racist when that came into vogue. It’s not the sheets. It’s the sleaze.

By: Gringo

Gringo — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:12:27 +0000

Michael, thanks for your informative comments. As a North/South hybrid raised in the North during the Civil Rights era, I was ashamed of the Jim Crow attitude of some of my Southern-based elders such as my grandmother. When I later moved to TX, I discovered that the picture was more complex than I had assumed from my vantage point in the North. (I had observed enough from my childhood to know that the South had no monopoly on racism.). An elderly cousin, born circa 1910 in rural TX, told of an example from her childhood where a black was accused of raping a white woman. It was determined that he was innocent, and he was freed. In her 70s this same cousin attended the funeral of a black whom she had worked with. Both Strom Thurmond and George Wallace were racial moderates in their early years. As a judge, George Wallace had the reputation of being fair to all races. As Governor of South Carolina, Strom arrested those responsible for lynching and murdering a black man. Both George and Strom were opportunists who became race-baiters to advance their political careers, and stopped race baiting when they decided that race-baiting hurt their political careers. The Myth of the Racist Republicans points out, among other things, that the first inroads the Republicans made in the South were in the Upper South in areas that had migrants from the North.. Highly recommended.

By: Assistant Village Idiot

Assistant Village Idiot — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:02:37 +0000

1958, the year of Byrd’s election, was the great sea-change in establishing a near-permanent Democratic majority in both houses from that time to this. The swing was huge: Democrats added 16 Senate seats and 49 House seats. Unemployment had briefly risen from 4% to 7%, though wages and inflation were stable, and the Russians launched Sputnik, panicking Americans into thinking the gov’t just wasn’t doing enough.

We got Gene McCarthy and Ed Muskie out of that election as well. Before you roll your eyes, consider that we would be thrilled to have Democrats as reasonable as that now.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 01:11:44 +0000

I’d been thinking, over the past few weeks, how the Leftists like to say that “Conservative Democrats” in the South opposed integration and Civil Rights legislation. This is simply not true. Senator Fulbright, Senator Gore(Sr.), Senator Ervin, and probably more, when I turn over more rocks, voted with FDR and LBJ, for every socialist usurpation proposed. Some of their segregationist fervor was mere opportunism. Remember, the South was not segregated until Redemption (Sounds like something religious, but did not bother to make such a claim.) came to power in 1890-92. Redemption made a Devil’s bargain with the poorest white and Black Southerners: In exchange for election laws that would result in their being disenfranchised, Redemption promised to clean up political corruption. It also promised poor Whites protection from their economic competitors, Blacks.
As a young nurse, I cared for numerous elderly people born in the 1880’s a few even in the 1870’s, whose racial attitudes were complex, but usually not bigoted nor hateful. Most of the next generation, born after 1890, were intransigent in their hatred of Blacks, and then, about 1915-20, a new generation arose who included a lot of folks who cautiously tip toed across the color line. There were some, and this might have included Senator Byrd, who followed the last generation’s line. Or, he could have simply been another opportunist. I observed an interesting phenomenon, in those born across those two periods, that the most bigoted were the most constipated. No, not the obvious. Rather, if a man’s or woman’s mother could afford a laundress, she toilet trained later, leading to less obsession with bowel movements, later in life. If she had to boil those diapers in her own back yard, she potty trained at the earliest possible moment.
Those who had grown up with a Black person around, who made life much more comfortable, and had feared no competition from Blacks, had much friendlier racial attitudes.

By: SteveH

SteveH — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:57:04 +0000

“”I have tremendous admiration for Sen Byrd’s journey in this area. Kudos.””
Gcotharn

He journeyed from saying he disliked Blacks to proving he disliked Blacks. You don’t help destroy the Black family and enslave them to the government because you care about them.

By: gcotharn

gcotharn — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:30:48 +0000

Another something else re MSM reportage:

I’ve seen, at least two places, a description of Senator Byrd as a “conservative Democrat”.

It’s not true, and it is true. Senator Byrd was not conservative vis a vis small government principles. Yet, amongst Democrat Senators as a population, Senator Byrd was on the conservative edge of the group.

Over the decades, many southern Dem voters who shared Sen Byrd’s relative conservative views shifted parties and began voting Repub. I argue that the very descrip of Sen Byrd as a conservative Democrat amounts to a refutation of the MSM and left argument that the Republicanization of the South is largely about racism. It is not. It is about conservative principles and values.

Dems don’t get to have it both ways: the evolution of the Repub South does not get to strictly or largely be about racism even as former racist Sen Byrd is described as a conservative Democrat.

By: Curtis

Curtis — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:28:01 +0000

He voted for Obama. He was a pork barrel specialist. His “change” most likely was not inner but opportunistic.

Nonetheless, he was not a part of the anchorless and clueless haters of the United States.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:25:48 +0000

Colin and Gringo: In my post, I linked to this article about the method for choosing Byrd's replacement. It is still quite unclear whether the special election would be held in 2010 or 2012. But the Democratic governor of W. Virginia will appoint an interim replacement till then.

By: gcotharn

gcotharn — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:08:31 +0000

Something else — when someone such as Sen Byrd is racist, and their racial opinion is an integral component of their self image, and they later change their mind and refute their former opinion: thats a very big deal and is very admirable. I have tremendous admiration for Sen Byrd’s journey in this area. Kudos.