Post by Spirit of the Owl Woman on Sept 19, 2009 5:23:13 GMT -5
Upon being told that my grandfather, Alfred Clement Smith was a Republican, I found it difficult to understand that political stance; knowing that today the statistics solidly support and prove that Indians are 95% Democrat. So I began to do some research in order to attempt to understand the conflict in REASONING and to ANAYLIS the LOGIC of such a change from the THOUGHT PROCESSES of THEN to NOW.
The following is an example of historical facts and the REASONING PROCESS that have led American Indians from the once political affiliation of the Republican party to the now overwhelming support they give to the Democratic party. I hope this will offer you a good read in history with an understanding and acceptance that it is OKAY to change your mind about something, once you have gathered more knowledge and information in support of that change. Change is constant, and it is a natural and consequential part of MATURING, both as individuals and as a WHOLE nation.
Excerpt:
"The participation by Indians in the political life of the United States is, admittedly, a fairly recent development. In part it was the natural result of being made citizens – the last Indians to get the franchise received it in 1924. Increased participation also sprang from Indians’ realization that they could only protect their interests by working with and within the American political system.
As a result, despite their well-known regard for the Great Father, Indians had to wait for Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade in 1905 for the opportunity to march down Pennsylvania Avenue. Because Roosevelt thought the Indians would add a little color to the presidential pageantry…
img268.imageshack.us/img268/4179/1905siouxdelegateswashiu.jpg
(A.C. Smith, my great-grandfather, was part of this Sioux delegation of 1905, so one of the men in white mans dress is probably him. The traditionally dressed men are: Yellow Thunder; Black Thunder; Charging Bear; Hollow Horn; Eagle Track and Shooting Hawk. Photographer is Carl H. Claudy)
One of the Indians featured in the Roosevelt inaugural parade was Chief Hollow Horn Bear of the Brule Sioux. This prominent and respected leader, who was subsequently honored on the fourteen-cent postage stamp, issued 1922, also participated in Woodrow Wilson’s inaugural parade in 1913. He developed pneumonia the following day and died soon after, thus adding his name to a list of tribal leaders who gave their lives paying homage to the Great Father.
Although Indians had received the right to vote in time for the presidential election of 1924, the following election held more meaning for them. For the first time in United States history, someone with Indian blood was one of the contenders, albeit the vice presidency. This was Charles Curtis – Hebert Hoover’s running mate on the republican ticket – who boasted one-eighth Indian blood through his Kaw grandmother.
The news of the Hoover-Curtis victory electrified the Indian community. The election results had been scarcely tabulated before Indians began clamoring for a role in the inaugural ceremonies. Daniel Pretty Bird of St. Francis, South Dakota, who had been active on behalf of the Republican Party, asked the commissioner of Indian affairs for a seat on the reviewing stand. Alfred C. Smith (my grandfather, son of A. C. Smith and first elected tribal chair of the Yankton Sioux tribe) or Washo Shay, speaking for all “Dakota Sioux Republicans,” urged the commissioner to ensure that Indians were suitably recognized in the upcoming festivities. “A number of us are personally acquainted with the Vice President,” he wrote, and “we are proud to see a genuine American be the Vice President of the United States.” Smith recalled that thirty Indians were in the first Wilson inaugural parade, while twenty-three were in the second. “If the democrats were able to recognize Indians on such grand occasions,” he declared, “why can’t the republicans do the same.”
Few Indians wrote directly to Curtis, “We Santee Indians are proud of you,” declared Charles Frazier and William Whipple. Although we have never seen you personally, we know you are part Indian and are the best example for Indians, and that you will do anything in your power to help us Indians.” Their first request was for assistance in getting to Washington for the inaugural ceremony. Curtis sent their letter to the commissioner of Indian affairs, who added it to the already bulging file of similar solicitations from Comanches, Otos, Blackfeet, Sioux, Crows, Pawnees, Cheyennes and Kaws.
The wishes of the Indian community were finally acknowledged on January 11, 1929, when the Hoover-Curtis Inaugural Committee asked the bureau to arrange for a delegation of Indians to march in the parade. The committee wanted one hundred Indians, but no more than eight could come from each tribe. All participants were to be “in native costume.” Although this requirement flouted more than one hundred years of bureau policy, the commissioner immediately issued a circular urging the various tribes to accept the invitation. His only admonition regarded travel money; Indians who accepted the invitation would have to pay their own expenses.
Neither the commissioner nor the inaugural committee could have expected the response of the Indian community – outrage. William Whipple and Charles Frazier, once so anxious to attend, rejected the invitation in blistering language. “Most of our tribe have discarded the War Bonnet and feathers and breech clout for the clothes of the white man,” they replied, “We will try and do what the commissioner wants us to do but we will not parade for anybody dressed in native costume.” The rejection of the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma was less caustic but conveyed the intended message. The tribes could not take advantage of the invitation because they had long ceased wearing native clothing. They promised, instead, to send a dozen or so representatives to watch the parade.
The Hoover-Curtis Inaugural Committee got more than enough marchers, but they were by no means representative of the Indian community. Except for a few Sioux in native dress, the marchers were “show” Indians – an all Indian band with one hundred members under the direction of Chief White Buffalo (Bright Roddy), a prominent Oklahoma Republican, and a troupe of twenty-five Indians under Major Gordon W. Lillie, the popular “Pawnee Bill.” Unfortunately, most Washingtonians never knew there had been an Indian boycott….
The indignation of the Indian community at the idea of "playing Indian" should not have surprised the commissioner of Indian Affairs. After generations of indoctrination, many Indians by the 20s had finally come to accept white values as their own. In their efforts to emulate life in mainstream America, Indians were cutting their hair, giving up the blanket, and wearing store bought clothes. Ironically, at the very time Indians were trying to make this painful transition, white Americans were discovering the romantic West. Now they wanted to see Indians in traditional dress, which they no longer considered a symbol of intransigence. If anything, just the opposite was true...."
SO....
America has always been a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde nation. The struggle between our two 'selves' once became outright war when, a mere 87 years after the founding of this democracy, "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal", became "engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure".
On the one hand-- by day if you like-- we were a brilliant, experimental scientist. As Lincoln observed, our founders had "brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty." For the first time in history the foundations were laid for the development of modern liberal democracy. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are the finest examples of political theory ever composed. Contained therein are the premises that all men are equal under the law, and that under this law they are endowed with such inalienable rights as life (and the right to the means of self-defense), liberty (freedom of speech and conscience, due process before juries of our peers, freedom from un-warranted search and seizure, habeas corpus), and the pursuit of happiness (as well as the privacy to pursue it).
By night, on the other hand-- we became the hideously transformed Mr. Hyde--utilizing, for centuries, other humans as property and draft animals based solely on the color of their skin, while using Industrial Age weaponry to wage genocide against the native Stone Age hunter/gatherers of this continent who were armed with wood and flint for the purpose of stealing their land. From time to time have waged war against other nations, for the purpose of controlling their national resources for our own use and profit.
Our crimes cannot be denied, nor excused. The fact that some of the men who wrote our founding documents also owned slaves and killed natives for their land will always be a black spot on those documents, but remember- the US was born out of European Feudalism, not set on Earth by some Federation of Intergalactic Peace Lovers from the planet Utopia. It was never intended to be anything less than colonial rape of a new world, inhabited by Hunter/Gatherers, armed with sticks and rocks, for the benefits of Kings and Bishops in England, Spain, the Netherlands, France, and Portugal.
History is a real function of human life, action, and experience. You cannot change the past, nor force the future to come any faster than it will. This nation was born a child of it's times, which were bloody, and wracked by absolutism, worldwide feudalism, and ideological dictatorships of every kind- and all of these things were present here from the beginning. We engaged in a struggle here from the outset, between those who had a vision of a future without Kings and Bishops under a government of, by, and for the people, and those who desired to maintain the status quo of Lords and Serfs/Slaves for the purpose of economic exploitation. America is now, and always has been, a split-personality nation. There can be no doubt about this. Our crimes cannot be denied, nor excused-- but neither can our contributions for the good. These contradictions were not solved by our 'Revolution'. They came closer to being decided in our 'Civil War'. Yet we fell short there as well, because of the treachery of Southerners whom we were too willing to forgive, and now we must decide the issue once and for all, or the bad old days will return for good, and we shall once again have Kings and Bishops, or Sultans and Caliphs.
Today, the Southern-dominated, Christian fundamentalist driven GOP represents a rogue coalition of fiends and cutthroats, like the Southern, pro-slavery politicians that controlled Washington and the U.S. pretty much from the time of the American Revolution until Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860. They represent the same forces now which the Confederacy represented then, and have the same political, economic, and social goals in mind. Much has been made in the last three elections about the divide between Blue and Red states here in the US. But Blue and Red should really be Blue and Grey, the colors of the respective uniforms in the Civil War. Just look at a Civil War map and then the map of the 2004 election results by state. You will see, that east of the Mississippi, this is the case. The heart of the old rebel fortress has once again taken over the nation, and with their racist, imperialist, and totalitarian policies, are driving us to the brink of annihilation.
If America is going to avoid total collapse, both politically and economically, and without violent revolution or invasion, it will be necessary for the political opposition here to separate the Midwest Red states from the southern Red states ideologically in order to create a Blue state majority, from which progressives and anti-imperialists can have a chance of prevailing. There is a profound historical, cultural, and philosophical boundary between the two 'Red' regions. I'm proud to be from the formerly Union-Blue 'Free State' of Kansas, where the first blows were struck against the Southern slavers in the 1850s. But I also live close to the rebel Red/Gray Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, and I can tell you that the Mason-Dixon line and all its evils is still as real out here today as it ever was back east in the bad old days. To hell with the damned Johnny Reb's once and for all. It's time for round two, Billy Yank. The truth must keep marching on.
Thomas Frank did a pretty good job in his book 'What's the matter with Kansas?' at showing how illogical it is for Kansans (and the rest of working class, Red-state America) to be Red stater's considering how progressive we Kansans in particular used to be-from leading the nation in the fight against slavery in the 1850s to the various agrarian-populist movements which thrived here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mid-westerners do not share the hate and racism of the South. In fact the only reason Kansas and the Great Plains/Mountain West farm-ranch states remain Red today is because of the legacy of Abe Lincoln and what I call the 'Great American Political Flip-Flop-How Republicans became Democrats, and Democrats became Republicans'. This is how it happened:
The Catholic church and the feudal Lords had an iron lock on a gravy train in Europe for 1000 years before the Protestant Reformation brought the entire process to a crisis. The Inquisition, Crusades, and bloody holy war had cost hundreds of thousands of lives across Europe. The radical Protestants rejected Kings and Bishops, and when the Kings and Bishops figured out they couldn't burn them all at the stake and couldn't torture them all into submission they launched a program to send them to the recently discovered 'New World' to burn off all that energy in cutting down forests and fighting Indians- leaving the Lords of church and state in control of Europe, where they would remain until two world wars brought about by that very system crushed the entire continent and much of the world under the weight of its own contradictions.
In North America, two paths were hewd from the land. In the North, where the rocky ground and temperate climate were not conducive to large plantations or slavery, large numbers of family farms began to spread through the wilderness. These Puritan and Presbyterian Yankees believed that every man was equal before God (except of course, for the Indians). If Man didn't need a middle-man priest/Pope to make faith work, he sure didn't need a King to make politics work. The New Englander's created independent, non-centralized churches, where preachers were elected by the congregations, and where every believer had just as much say as any other, with the Bible as final arbiter of truth. In the South, the Anglican church (the state religion of England) had great power, and most southern colonies had 'state' churches as well, which had to be conformed to-- and nearly all Red-state-pimping fundamentalist televangelist heretics have southern accents today to this day. The Southern Baptists only recently, after the Civil Rights movement, began to allow blacks to join.
Though the radical Protestantism in the North gave birth to constant upheaval and splits among churches, with new doctrines and denominations appearing and disappearing through the years, nevertheless, these religious ideas soon translated into political practices. Officials, Magistrates and militia leaders were elected in the North as opposed to always inheriting power from the patriarch, as occurred universally in the South, and schools and infrastructures were built and maintained with fair and equitable taxes-including on the rich-putting into practice the concept of the Commonwealth (common wealth for the common good- health, education, political power for the common man who makes wealth with his hands, not just for the aristocrats who own it in their banks).
In the South, the pattern of Old World feudalism took root instead. A small minority of hereditary, landed Lords owned most of the land, just like in Europe. They used the un-free to clear and work the land, just like in Europe. They built huge castle-like mansions to live in, just like in Europe. They ruled the land like a House of Lords. They wanted to live like the Dukes, Barons, and Kings back in jolly old England, but instead of serfs to create their wealth, they used slaves. They refused taxes as an article of faith (though Christ taught his disciples to pay all taxes willingly), laughed at those who advocated schools for the poor, or even roads, railroads, canals and hospitals. If they could get their commodities to the river, they could make obscene amounts of money selling them in Europe. That is all that mattered. (Forget common-wealth-- it's all mine). So the South lagged behind the North in every way--infrastructure, technology, education, freedom. This would cost the short-sighted rebels dearly in the coming Civil War.
Our modern Red/Blue states are fossils of this by-gone age. Color the red states east of the Mississippi grey instead, and you have redrawn the battle lines from the Civil War-- Union blue vs. Rebel grey. We are still fighting that war. The South never gave up, even though their sorry aristocratic system had been royally trounced by free farmers from the North. Instead of conceding defeat like men, they started the 'stab in the back' myth, like Hitler did in Germany; but less sophisticated than Adolf and the SA/SS they donned sheets and started the night-riding Ku Klux Klan, terrorizing the population and stealing elections to seize and keep power. Every rebel officer should have been shot and every rebel politician hung for treason in 1865. But we let them live, and in their gratitude they shot Lincoln, imposed American apartheid-- Jim Crow, stole the vote from free blacks, nurtured poverty, and gloried in ignorance and superstition. Like an insidious parasite, they bored into the flesh of our nation and waited. In 1964, they saw their chance and the Dixiecrats flip-flopped into Republicans, enraged by Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act. They have voted Republican ever since, and are the real problem which this country needs to address once and for all.
In the North, which under Lincoln had been solidly Republican, the rise of industry, surging immigration, and technological revolution led to unprecedented wealth and upward mobility. The Republicans soon forgot their roots as the party of the common man, however, as the gold piled high, and traded justice and equality for the Gilded Age and the rule of Robber Barons. Lincoln was a tax and spend 'liberal'. He began the graduated income tax. He created the US Department of Agriculture. He launched the Homestead Act, the Transcontinental Railroad, the Land Grant College program. The Democrats who opposed him but could not defeat him, betrayed the Union, seceded, and eventually assassinated him when they could not defeat him in war. Unable to win either on the battle field or with the ballot box, they instead set about crushing black voting rights by organizing such terrorist organizations as the KKK (founded by Rebel general Nathan B. Forest), and waited for their chance to re-gain national power.
Before the Civil War, nearly every President had been a slave-owner or came from the south. Nearly every Supreme Court Justice, Senate and Congressional leader had come from the south. And after the Grant administration (Republican) gave up on Reconstruction, these boll weevils took over the governments of the southern states again, and waited until Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 to 'flip-flop' and become Republicans.
Meanwhile, the reforms (dreamed up by moon-struck theorists) instituted by Lincoln to level the playing field for the little man (those factory workers, mechanics, and farmers) had paved the way for an economic boom in this country, but which had the un-intended consequence (as far as Lincoln was concerned), of creating the first wave of 'Robber Barons', who then proceeded to take over the Republican Party. At the same time, labor unions in the north, swelled by the huge numbers of ethnic immigrants pouring through Ellis Island from southern and eastern Europe, began to support the Democratic Party. Having lost none of its racist underpinnings, the Democratic Party instead supported the opposition of most organized labor to black membership, turning and keeping blacks into a permanent, un-represented, under-class of cheap labor, really no better than slaves.
After the policies of the Republican elites pushed the country over the brink into economic Depression, FDR was elected. Though he had racist sentiments, his wife was very progressive. His second Vice-President-- Harry Truman-- desegregated the armed forces, and slowly the Democrats began to realize that civil rights were going to have to be enacted in this country if we were not to lose all credibility in the world as a bastion of 'Democracy' in our wars with the Soviet Union.
And so, in 1964, Johnson signed the legislation, the southern Democrats became Republicans, the progressives in the north had already become Democrats during the Depression, and we have the harvest today of all these things. This great national/political party flip-flop is not well understood, but if it were, I think it could be the key to turning our nation around. The blue states used to be Republican, the red states used to be Democrat. Only the names have changed, however, and it was not to protect the innocent. Despite the name changes, the philosophies have stayed the same. Lincoln, the first Republican President, was a tax-and-spend liberal. The Democrats (now Republicans) of the day accused his Republicans (now Democrats) of being the party of "filthy operatives (factory workers), greasy mechanics, tight-fisted farmers, and moon-struck theorists" (McPherson, 'Battle Cry of Freedom'- and notice that coalition still pretty much describes the Democrat party except for the 'tight-fisted farmers'). And they were right. Lincoln taxed everyone and created the USDA. He taxed everyone and launched the Homestead Act . He taxed everyone and launched the Transcontinental Railroad and the Land Grant College system. With this enlightened tax and spend policy ("In a nation's early years, debt is a vital and creative collaborator in economic expansion; in late stages, it becomes what Mr. Hyde was to Dr. Jekyll: an increasingly dominant mood and facial distortion"- Phillips) Lincoln paved the way for the US economy to explode and for the nation to become a superpower, for better or for worse. And he is still hated in the South, now the heartland of the Republicans. How ironic. Were he alive today they would kill him again, no matter what he called his party.
But almost a century-and-a-half later, what Phillips has called an "alliance of oil, fundamentalism and debt" is sucking the country dry, winning every election by 3 points, and they have to be stopped. Unless some way is discovered to exploit the deep cultural and philosophical differences between my neighbors, the descendants of those hard-working Republican homesteaders Lincoln sent out west, and the putrid leftovers of feudalism slithering around the South who fought his vision and when they lost, killed him, it will be Mad Max time for us all. There is no other choice.
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "
Daniel Parkinson
wiki.answers.com/Q/When_did_republicans_become_democrats_and_democrats_became_republicans
The following is an example of historical facts and the REASONING PROCESS that have led American Indians from the once political affiliation of the Republican party to the now overwhelming support they give to the Democratic party. I hope this will offer you a good read in history with an understanding and acceptance that it is OKAY to change your mind about something, once you have gathered more knowledge and information in support of that change. Change is constant, and it is a natural and consequential part of MATURING, both as individuals and as a WHOLE nation.
Diplomats in Buckskins
By Herman J. Viola
Excerpt:
"The participation by Indians in the political life of the United States is, admittedly, a fairly recent development. In part it was the natural result of being made citizens – the last Indians to get the franchise received it in 1924. Increased participation also sprang from Indians’ realization that they could only protect their interests by working with and within the American political system.
As a result, despite their well-known regard for the Great Father, Indians had to wait for Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade in 1905 for the opportunity to march down Pennsylvania Avenue. Because Roosevelt thought the Indians would add a little color to the presidential pageantry…
img268.imageshack.us/img268/4179/1905siouxdelegateswashiu.jpg
(A.C. Smith, my great-grandfather, was part of this Sioux delegation of 1905, so one of the men in white mans dress is probably him. The traditionally dressed men are: Yellow Thunder; Black Thunder; Charging Bear; Hollow Horn; Eagle Track and Shooting Hawk. Photographer is Carl H. Claudy)
One of the Indians featured in the Roosevelt inaugural parade was Chief Hollow Horn Bear of the Brule Sioux. This prominent and respected leader, who was subsequently honored on the fourteen-cent postage stamp, issued 1922, also participated in Woodrow Wilson’s inaugural parade in 1913. He developed pneumonia the following day and died soon after, thus adding his name to a list of tribal leaders who gave their lives paying homage to the Great Father.
Although Indians had received the right to vote in time for the presidential election of 1924, the following election held more meaning for them. For the first time in United States history, someone with Indian blood was one of the contenders, albeit the vice presidency. This was Charles Curtis – Hebert Hoover’s running mate on the republican ticket – who boasted one-eighth Indian blood through his Kaw grandmother.
The news of the Hoover-Curtis victory electrified the Indian community. The election results had been scarcely tabulated before Indians began clamoring for a role in the inaugural ceremonies. Daniel Pretty Bird of St. Francis, South Dakota, who had been active on behalf of the Republican Party, asked the commissioner of Indian affairs for a seat on the reviewing stand. Alfred C. Smith (my grandfather, son of A. C. Smith and first elected tribal chair of the Yankton Sioux tribe) or Washo Shay, speaking for all “Dakota Sioux Republicans,” urged the commissioner to ensure that Indians were suitably recognized in the upcoming festivities. “A number of us are personally acquainted with the Vice President,” he wrote, and “we are proud to see a genuine American be the Vice President of the United States.” Smith recalled that thirty Indians were in the first Wilson inaugural parade, while twenty-three were in the second. “If the democrats were able to recognize Indians on such grand occasions,” he declared, “why can’t the republicans do the same.”
Few Indians wrote directly to Curtis, “We Santee Indians are proud of you,” declared Charles Frazier and William Whipple. Although we have never seen you personally, we know you are part Indian and are the best example for Indians, and that you will do anything in your power to help us Indians.” Their first request was for assistance in getting to Washington for the inaugural ceremony. Curtis sent their letter to the commissioner of Indian affairs, who added it to the already bulging file of similar solicitations from Comanches, Otos, Blackfeet, Sioux, Crows, Pawnees, Cheyennes and Kaws.
The wishes of the Indian community were finally acknowledged on January 11, 1929, when the Hoover-Curtis Inaugural Committee asked the bureau to arrange for a delegation of Indians to march in the parade. The committee wanted one hundred Indians, but no more than eight could come from each tribe. All participants were to be “in native costume.” Although this requirement flouted more than one hundred years of bureau policy, the commissioner immediately issued a circular urging the various tribes to accept the invitation. His only admonition regarded travel money; Indians who accepted the invitation would have to pay their own expenses.
Neither the commissioner nor the inaugural committee could have expected the response of the Indian community – outrage. William Whipple and Charles Frazier, once so anxious to attend, rejected the invitation in blistering language. “Most of our tribe have discarded the War Bonnet and feathers and breech clout for the clothes of the white man,” they replied, “We will try and do what the commissioner wants us to do but we will not parade for anybody dressed in native costume.” The rejection of the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma was less caustic but conveyed the intended message. The tribes could not take advantage of the invitation because they had long ceased wearing native clothing. They promised, instead, to send a dozen or so representatives to watch the parade.
The Hoover-Curtis Inaugural Committee got more than enough marchers, but they were by no means representative of the Indian community. Except for a few Sioux in native dress, the marchers were “show” Indians – an all Indian band with one hundred members under the direction of Chief White Buffalo (Bright Roddy), a prominent Oklahoma Republican, and a troupe of twenty-five Indians under Major Gordon W. Lillie, the popular “Pawnee Bill.” Unfortunately, most Washingtonians never knew there had been an Indian boycott….
The indignation of the Indian community at the idea of "playing Indian" should not have surprised the commissioner of Indian Affairs. After generations of indoctrination, many Indians by the 20s had finally come to accept white values as their own. In their efforts to emulate life in mainstream America, Indians were cutting their hair, giving up the blanket, and wearing store bought clothes. Ironically, at the very time Indians were trying to make this painful transition, white Americans were discovering the romantic West. Now they wanted to see Indians in traditional dress, which they no longer considered a symbol of intransigence. If anything, just the opposite was true...."
SO....
WHEN DID REPUBLICANS BECOME DEMOCRATS
AND
DEMOCRATS BECOME REPUBLICANS
AND
DEMOCRATS BECOME REPUBLICANS
America has always been a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde nation. The struggle between our two 'selves' once became outright war when, a mere 87 years after the founding of this democracy, "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal", became "engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure".
On the one hand-- by day if you like-- we were a brilliant, experimental scientist. As Lincoln observed, our founders had "brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty." For the first time in history the foundations were laid for the development of modern liberal democracy. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are the finest examples of political theory ever composed. Contained therein are the premises that all men are equal under the law, and that under this law they are endowed with such inalienable rights as life (and the right to the means of self-defense), liberty (freedom of speech and conscience, due process before juries of our peers, freedom from un-warranted search and seizure, habeas corpus), and the pursuit of happiness (as well as the privacy to pursue it).
By night, on the other hand-- we became the hideously transformed Mr. Hyde--utilizing, for centuries, other humans as property and draft animals based solely on the color of their skin, while using Industrial Age weaponry to wage genocide against the native Stone Age hunter/gatherers of this continent who were armed with wood and flint for the purpose of stealing their land. From time to time have waged war against other nations, for the purpose of controlling their national resources for our own use and profit.
Our crimes cannot be denied, nor excused. The fact that some of the men who wrote our founding documents also owned slaves and killed natives for their land will always be a black spot on those documents, but remember- the US was born out of European Feudalism, not set on Earth by some Federation of Intergalactic Peace Lovers from the planet Utopia. It was never intended to be anything less than colonial rape of a new world, inhabited by Hunter/Gatherers, armed with sticks and rocks, for the benefits of Kings and Bishops in England, Spain, the Netherlands, France, and Portugal.
History is a real function of human life, action, and experience. You cannot change the past, nor force the future to come any faster than it will. This nation was born a child of it's times, which were bloody, and wracked by absolutism, worldwide feudalism, and ideological dictatorships of every kind- and all of these things were present here from the beginning. We engaged in a struggle here from the outset, between those who had a vision of a future without Kings and Bishops under a government of, by, and for the people, and those who desired to maintain the status quo of Lords and Serfs/Slaves for the purpose of economic exploitation. America is now, and always has been, a split-personality nation. There can be no doubt about this. Our crimes cannot be denied, nor excused-- but neither can our contributions for the good. These contradictions were not solved by our 'Revolution'. They came closer to being decided in our 'Civil War'. Yet we fell short there as well, because of the treachery of Southerners whom we were too willing to forgive, and now we must decide the issue once and for all, or the bad old days will return for good, and we shall once again have Kings and Bishops, or Sultans and Caliphs.
Today, the Southern-dominated, Christian fundamentalist driven GOP represents a rogue coalition of fiends and cutthroats, like the Southern, pro-slavery politicians that controlled Washington and the U.S. pretty much from the time of the American Revolution until Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860. They represent the same forces now which the Confederacy represented then, and have the same political, economic, and social goals in mind. Much has been made in the last three elections about the divide between Blue and Red states here in the US. But Blue and Red should really be Blue and Grey, the colors of the respective uniforms in the Civil War. Just look at a Civil War map and then the map of the 2004 election results by state. You will see, that east of the Mississippi, this is the case. The heart of the old rebel fortress has once again taken over the nation, and with their racist, imperialist, and totalitarian policies, are driving us to the brink of annihilation.
If America is going to avoid total collapse, both politically and economically, and without violent revolution or invasion, it will be necessary for the political opposition here to separate the Midwest Red states from the southern Red states ideologically in order to create a Blue state majority, from which progressives and anti-imperialists can have a chance of prevailing. There is a profound historical, cultural, and philosophical boundary between the two 'Red' regions. I'm proud to be from the formerly Union-Blue 'Free State' of Kansas, where the first blows were struck against the Southern slavers in the 1850s. But I also live close to the rebel Red/Gray Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, and I can tell you that the Mason-Dixon line and all its evils is still as real out here today as it ever was back east in the bad old days. To hell with the damned Johnny Reb's once and for all. It's time for round two, Billy Yank. The truth must keep marching on.
Thomas Frank did a pretty good job in his book 'What's the matter with Kansas?' at showing how illogical it is for Kansans (and the rest of working class, Red-state America) to be Red stater's considering how progressive we Kansans in particular used to be-from leading the nation in the fight against slavery in the 1850s to the various agrarian-populist movements which thrived here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mid-westerners do not share the hate and racism of the South. In fact the only reason Kansas and the Great Plains/Mountain West farm-ranch states remain Red today is because of the legacy of Abe Lincoln and what I call the 'Great American Political Flip-Flop-How Republicans became Democrats, and Democrats became Republicans'. This is how it happened:
The Catholic church and the feudal Lords had an iron lock on a gravy train in Europe for 1000 years before the Protestant Reformation brought the entire process to a crisis. The Inquisition, Crusades, and bloody holy war had cost hundreds of thousands of lives across Europe. The radical Protestants rejected Kings and Bishops, and when the Kings and Bishops figured out they couldn't burn them all at the stake and couldn't torture them all into submission they launched a program to send them to the recently discovered 'New World' to burn off all that energy in cutting down forests and fighting Indians- leaving the Lords of church and state in control of Europe, where they would remain until two world wars brought about by that very system crushed the entire continent and much of the world under the weight of its own contradictions.
In North America, two paths were hewd from the land. In the North, where the rocky ground and temperate climate were not conducive to large plantations or slavery, large numbers of family farms began to spread through the wilderness. These Puritan and Presbyterian Yankees believed that every man was equal before God (except of course, for the Indians). If Man didn't need a middle-man priest/Pope to make faith work, he sure didn't need a King to make politics work. The New Englander's created independent, non-centralized churches, where preachers were elected by the congregations, and where every believer had just as much say as any other, with the Bible as final arbiter of truth. In the South, the Anglican church (the state religion of England) had great power, and most southern colonies had 'state' churches as well, which had to be conformed to-- and nearly all Red-state-pimping fundamentalist televangelist heretics have southern accents today to this day. The Southern Baptists only recently, after the Civil Rights movement, began to allow blacks to join.
Though the radical Protestantism in the North gave birth to constant upheaval and splits among churches, with new doctrines and denominations appearing and disappearing through the years, nevertheless, these religious ideas soon translated into political practices. Officials, Magistrates and militia leaders were elected in the North as opposed to always inheriting power from the patriarch, as occurred universally in the South, and schools and infrastructures were built and maintained with fair and equitable taxes-including on the rich-putting into practice the concept of the Commonwealth (common wealth for the common good- health, education, political power for the common man who makes wealth with his hands, not just for the aristocrats who own it in their banks).
In the South, the pattern of Old World feudalism took root instead. A small minority of hereditary, landed Lords owned most of the land, just like in Europe. They used the un-free to clear and work the land, just like in Europe. They built huge castle-like mansions to live in, just like in Europe. They ruled the land like a House of Lords. They wanted to live like the Dukes, Barons, and Kings back in jolly old England, but instead of serfs to create their wealth, they used slaves. They refused taxes as an article of faith (though Christ taught his disciples to pay all taxes willingly), laughed at those who advocated schools for the poor, or even roads, railroads, canals and hospitals. If they could get their commodities to the river, they could make obscene amounts of money selling them in Europe. That is all that mattered. (Forget common-wealth-- it's all mine). So the South lagged behind the North in every way--infrastructure, technology, education, freedom. This would cost the short-sighted rebels dearly in the coming Civil War.
Our modern Red/Blue states are fossils of this by-gone age. Color the red states east of the Mississippi grey instead, and you have redrawn the battle lines from the Civil War-- Union blue vs. Rebel grey. We are still fighting that war. The South never gave up, even though their sorry aristocratic system had been royally trounced by free farmers from the North. Instead of conceding defeat like men, they started the 'stab in the back' myth, like Hitler did in Germany; but less sophisticated than Adolf and the SA/SS they donned sheets and started the night-riding Ku Klux Klan, terrorizing the population and stealing elections to seize and keep power. Every rebel officer should have been shot and every rebel politician hung for treason in 1865. But we let them live, and in their gratitude they shot Lincoln, imposed American apartheid-- Jim Crow, stole the vote from free blacks, nurtured poverty, and gloried in ignorance and superstition. Like an insidious parasite, they bored into the flesh of our nation and waited. In 1964, they saw their chance and the Dixiecrats flip-flopped into Republicans, enraged by Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act. They have voted Republican ever since, and are the real problem which this country needs to address once and for all.
In the North, which under Lincoln had been solidly Republican, the rise of industry, surging immigration, and technological revolution led to unprecedented wealth and upward mobility. The Republicans soon forgot their roots as the party of the common man, however, as the gold piled high, and traded justice and equality for the Gilded Age and the rule of Robber Barons. Lincoln was a tax and spend 'liberal'. He began the graduated income tax. He created the US Department of Agriculture. He launched the Homestead Act, the Transcontinental Railroad, the Land Grant College program. The Democrats who opposed him but could not defeat him, betrayed the Union, seceded, and eventually assassinated him when they could not defeat him in war. Unable to win either on the battle field or with the ballot box, they instead set about crushing black voting rights by organizing such terrorist organizations as the KKK (founded by Rebel general Nathan B. Forest), and waited for their chance to re-gain national power.
Before the Civil War, nearly every President had been a slave-owner or came from the south. Nearly every Supreme Court Justice, Senate and Congressional leader had come from the south. And after the Grant administration (Republican) gave up on Reconstruction, these boll weevils took over the governments of the southern states again, and waited until Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 to 'flip-flop' and become Republicans.
Meanwhile, the reforms (dreamed up by moon-struck theorists) instituted by Lincoln to level the playing field for the little man (those factory workers, mechanics, and farmers) had paved the way for an economic boom in this country, but which had the un-intended consequence (as far as Lincoln was concerned), of creating the first wave of 'Robber Barons', who then proceeded to take over the Republican Party. At the same time, labor unions in the north, swelled by the huge numbers of ethnic immigrants pouring through Ellis Island from southern and eastern Europe, began to support the Democratic Party. Having lost none of its racist underpinnings, the Democratic Party instead supported the opposition of most organized labor to black membership, turning and keeping blacks into a permanent, un-represented, under-class of cheap labor, really no better than slaves.
After the policies of the Republican elites pushed the country over the brink into economic Depression, FDR was elected. Though he had racist sentiments, his wife was very progressive. His second Vice-President-- Harry Truman-- desegregated the armed forces, and slowly the Democrats began to realize that civil rights were going to have to be enacted in this country if we were not to lose all credibility in the world as a bastion of 'Democracy' in our wars with the Soviet Union.
And so, in 1964, Johnson signed the legislation, the southern Democrats became Republicans, the progressives in the north had already become Democrats during the Depression, and we have the harvest today of all these things. This great national/political party flip-flop is not well understood, but if it were, I think it could be the key to turning our nation around. The blue states used to be Republican, the red states used to be Democrat. Only the names have changed, however, and it was not to protect the innocent. Despite the name changes, the philosophies have stayed the same. Lincoln, the first Republican President, was a tax-and-spend liberal. The Democrats (now Republicans) of the day accused his Republicans (now Democrats) of being the party of "filthy operatives (factory workers), greasy mechanics, tight-fisted farmers, and moon-struck theorists" (McPherson, 'Battle Cry of Freedom'- and notice that coalition still pretty much describes the Democrat party except for the 'tight-fisted farmers'). And they were right. Lincoln taxed everyone and created the USDA. He taxed everyone and launched the Homestead Act . He taxed everyone and launched the Transcontinental Railroad and the Land Grant College system. With this enlightened tax and spend policy ("In a nation's early years, debt is a vital and creative collaborator in economic expansion; in late stages, it becomes what Mr. Hyde was to Dr. Jekyll: an increasingly dominant mood and facial distortion"- Phillips) Lincoln paved the way for the US economy to explode and for the nation to become a superpower, for better or for worse. And he is still hated in the South, now the heartland of the Republicans. How ironic. Were he alive today they would kill him again, no matter what he called his party.
But almost a century-and-a-half later, what Phillips has called an "alliance of oil, fundamentalism and debt" is sucking the country dry, winning every election by 3 points, and they have to be stopped. Unless some way is discovered to exploit the deep cultural and philosophical differences between my neighbors, the descendants of those hard-working Republican homesteaders Lincoln sent out west, and the putrid leftovers of feudalism slithering around the South who fought his vision and when they lost, killed him, it will be Mad Max time for us all. There is no other choice.
"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "
Daniel Parkinson
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