A neo-Confederate moment in 2001

I came across this letter I wrote as a letter-to-the-editor in 2001, almost exactly 17 years ago, 04/24/2001. It was just after a now largely forgotten political moment in Mississippi, a special election whose only topic was whether Mississippi should keep its current state flag that features the Confederate battle flag, a symbol of treason and opposition to basic rights for African-Americans, in favor of a proposed alternative design that was, admittedly, bland and forgettable. The Confederate battle flag design won by a strong majority. The vote was heavily polarized along racial lines, as is often the case in Mississippi. The neo-Confederate Sons of Confederate Veterans group was the most visible proponent of keeping the Confederate version of the flag. As I allude in the letter to a slogan that the SCV used in the election that counts as a "thoughts and prayers" approach to white racism. Which at that time rightwing groups felt it necessary to pretend they did not condone.

Mississippi still has the same official flag today:

And there has recently been some active discussion in the state legislature about changing it.

This was the letter I did in 2001

The Mississippi flag vote was a week ago today. With today's news cycles, that's enotgh to qualify it as part of the state's "heritage" now. Though I'm not quite sure it qualfies for the "judgment of history" just yet. Actually, I'm trying to forget about it.

But walking to my office this morning, I saw Mississippi staring at me again right on the front page of the "Los Angeles Times." The headline announced that the state would be pumping $500 million into predominantly black colleges. Three weeks ago, most people would have probably thought, "Oh, things are really different now in Mississippi than they used to be."

Then you read the secondary headline and see that it was in response to a court decision in a lawsuit. Now that Mississippi has branded itself (in the ranching as well as the marketing sense) with the Confederate flag, most people probably think, "Of course. Mississippi would never do something like that without being forced to." Unfair? Prejudiced? Maybe. But Mississippi's self-marketing pretty much insures responses like that.

This whole thing reminds me of one of Karl Marx's sayings that's still considered respectable, "History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

The "first time" in this case would have been the segregation days, where Mississippians took resistance to the Constitution and the democratic standards of the country to an extreme in some ways beyond what even other Deep South states were willing to embrace.

Last week's flag vote was the farce. Mississippi succeeded in recreating the thrill of showing that it won't kowtow to the standards of the country, even to those of other Southern states. Someone remind me, just what is the thrill of that?

But 2001 just ain't 1961. The Confederate state flag's defenders pointed to the big Nissan factory being built there as evidence that things were fine. Mississippi still has the biggest number of African-American elected officials of any state - numerically, not just in proportion to the population. Japanese investors and black Mississippi elected officials were just not factors 40 years ago.

The NAACP will probably feel obliged to go through the motions of a boycott, because of their public stance in the South Carolina controversy. Ironically, the attitude of Mississippi's black elected officials will inevitably be a big consideration for them in making that decision.

But since the Sons of Confederate Veterans led the charge for the Confederate state flag saying that "racial reconciliation requires changing hearts, not the flag," I think it would be quite effective if the folks from the SCV were to meet with NAACP officials. They could explain to them all the good things they plan to do to improve race relations in the state, and see if they can avoid a boycott.

If they don't try something like that, people might suspect the Sons of Confederate Veterans of being just a bunch of gasbags.

Mississippi: It's mah heritage!

Mississippi's Republican Gov. Phil Bryant said today he don't see no reason why Mis'sippi should have to obey any of them thar fedrul laws tryin' to take away folkes' guns: Emily Lane and Jimmie Gates, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant wants to block Obama's federal gun actions Jackson Clarion-Ledger 01/16/2013; Evan McMorris-Santoro, Mississippi Wants To Secede From Obama's Gun Plans TPM 01/162013.

Mississippi's experience with trying to nullify federal laws and such really hasn't worked out too well for it in the past. I'm just sayin'.

You would think it wouldn't be such good politics for the Governor to make such a big, public point about how so much of his state lacks adequate police services. But the crowd of very serious looking white guys with little white stickers or something on their left lapels behind him at his announcedment seemed to think it was all good stuff.

What's with those little round white buttons anyway? I thought mandatory dress code for Republican white guys included an American flag on the left lapel. Maybe they figured the patriotic touch wouldn't be quite appropriate for a nullification press conference where the Gov. was doing his John C. Calhoun act.

Tags: mississippi politics

The revolving door, Mississippi version

Good ole Haley Barbour has finished up his second and final term as Governor of Mississippi. He gained some national attention with his defenses of the Confederate flag and the White Citizens Council. Now, the present-day Cincinnatus is going back to his plow. In ole Haley's case, his farm is the field of influence-peddling politely know as lobbying. Kate Ackley reports for Roll Call, Haley Barbour’s Back at His Old Firm 01/10/2012:

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), who left office today, wasted no time in lining up his next career move. As expected, the former uber-lobbyist and founder of BGR Group will return to his old firm, the lobby shop announced today.

In a short statement, the firm said it "is pleased to announce Governor Haley Barbour will return to the firm as Founding Partner." Haley did a stint prior to his governorship as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Barbour, a longtime Washington insider known for his Mississippi drawl, remained a presence inside the Beltway even while serving as governor. In 2009, he was elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association, a position that regularly brought him to D.C. And when he considered a presidential run, he had a long list of former colleagues and clients who were ready to line up in support. [my emphasis]

But Ole Haley left something for his former Mississippi constituents to remember him by. He pardoned four murders on his way out the door of the Governor's office, two of them who had murdered their wives. (Ronni Mott, Barbour to DV Victims: ‘You Can’t Trust Us’ Jackson Free Press 01/10/2012)

Jessica Bateman reports in Karen Irby, 207 others granted reprieves by Haley Barbour Jackson Clarion-Ledger 01/10/2012:

In total, Barbour has granted clemency to 41 offenders in prison for killing and many others who committed violent or sex-related crimes.

... 39 prisoners who were granted clemency committed a slew of other violent crimes, including rape, aggravated assault, assault to a law enforcement officer and armed robbery. Thirty-two of those people received full, complete and unconditional pardons from the governor.

At least seven of the convicts who were pardoned committed sex-related crimes, including rape, forcible sexual battery, gratification of lust and attempted enticement of a child for sexual purposes or prostitution. After receiving pardons, they are no longer required to register as sex offenders.

Bateman provides a comparison with the three previous Governors' pardons:

Compared to past Mississippi governors, former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove granted an unconditional pardon to only one person. He granted 25 suspended sentences or restorations of civil rights, which reinstates the right to vote to felony offenders.

Former Gov. Kirk Fordice pardoned 13, and granted suspended sentences or restorations of civil rights to 26 more. Former Gov. Ray Mabus pardoned five, and granted 68 suspended sentences or restorations of civil rights, although he later revoked those rights from 11.

And former Gov. Bill Allain granted no pardons at all, but granted restorations of civil rights to 28.

Ackley' report quotes Sandy Middleton, executive director of the Center for Violence Prevention, on the message Barbour's pardons of the wife-murderers sends:

"The criminal-justice system works here," Middleton said. "Law enforcement did their jobs."

But Barbour's pardons "flies in the face" of the people who work hard to get these offenders away from their victims, she added, in addition to the victims themselves.

"It just puts us back to square one," when it comes to the people at the receiving end of the violence, Middleton said. The message Barbour sends to them is that "You can't trust us, because we're really not going to protect you."

But Republicans are the Family Values party, remember that.

Tags: haley barbour, mississippi, mississippi politics

Two Mississippi disasters: the BP oil geyser and Haley Barbour

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a hack pretending to be a hick

Melissa Block interviewed Mississippi's Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, potential Republican Presidential canidate in 2012, on the BP disaster. Mississippi Governor 'Shocked' By Coast Guard's Gulf Spill Coordination NPR 06/29/2010.

Ole Haley appearing on FOX News Sunday on 06/10/2010 riduled the notion that Mississippi had any worries from the BP's oil geyser. The link is to the video of the interview. The transcript is here and Sam Stein reported on it in Haley Barbour: Oil? What Oil? Press Should Stop Scaring Tourists Huffington Post 06/10/2010. But to get the full effect you need to hear him saying it in his heavy accent. Barbour is a Washington power lawyer. But as a Mississippi politician, he affects a major cornpone accent and attitude, including often pronouncing the name of his state as "Missippi".

Here's what ole Haley was saying from the transcript, except that I've corrected the spelling and added emphasis marks to partially reflect his actual pronunciation:

Well, the truth is, Chris, we have had virtually no oil. If you were on the Missippi gulf coast any time in the last 48 days you didn't see any oil at all. We've had a few tar balls, but we've had - we have tar balls every year as a natural product of the Gulf of Mexico. Two hundred and fifty thousand to 750,000 barrels of oil seep into the Gulf of Mexico through the floor ev'ry year, so tar balls are no big deal.

In fact, I read that Pensacola or the Florida beaches, when they had tar balls yesterday, they didn't even close. They just sent people out to pick them up and throw them in the bag.

The biggest — the biggest negative impact for us has been the news coverage. There has been no distinction between Grand Isle and Venice and the places in Louisiana that we feel so terrible for that have had oil washing up on them. But the average viewer to this show thinks that the whole coast from Florida to Texas is ankle-deep in oil.

And of course, it's very, very bad for our tourist season. That's the real economic damage. Our first closure of fisheries in Mississippi waters came just earlier this week after about 45 days.

So it may be hard for the viewer to understand, but the worst thing for us has been how our tourist season has been hurt by the mis-perception of what's going on down here. The Missippi gulf coast is beautiful. As I tell people, the coast is clear, come on down.

Even last Friday, as large amounts of oil were just offshore and moving quickly toward the Mississippi Gulf Coast, ole Haley was sayin', "This shouldn't be a cause for alarm." (Karen Nelson, CLOSING IN: Oil now 3 miles from barrier islands Biloxi Sun-Herald 06/25/2010).

Three weeks after that ludicrous appearance on FOX News, ole Haley was sounding a bit different (Anita Lee and Margaret Baker, Mississippi officials slam Coast Guard as BP oil hits shores McClatchey Newspapers 06/27/2010):

Mississippi had largely escaped the onslaught of the Deepwater Horizon oil slick, even as shoreline in Louisiana, Alabama and Florida was washed by both thick gooey crude or thousands of tar balls.

But on Sunday, that respite ended.

"The amount of oil moving into Mississippi waters has greatly increased in the last several days, and the prevailing winds that cause the oil and its residue to move in our direction are predicted to continue, at least until the middle of the week,” Gov. Haley Barbour said in a statement. “We continue to press the federal Unified Command and BP to increase the amount of resources available to attack the oil beginning as far south as possible, through the passes, into the sound, and in the mouths of the bays"

Barbour, who once confidently predicted that the oil would skirt Mississippi, rushed back to the state on Friday from a fundraising tour he was making on behalf of Republican candidates. Sunday said the state was prepared to move alone if the federal government couldn't provide more resources.

The Biloxi Sun-Herald, which endorsed ole for election and re-election as Governor, raked him over the coals for his strange behavior in face of the oil disaster in this editorial last Saturday: A Crude Awakening: It’s time to stop daydreaming and face up to this nightmare 06/26/2010. They even addressed the distraction aspect of the pious gesture of official prayer days over the oil catastrophe:

We would give anything if a prayer or an advertisement could make this all go away.

But neither media bashing nor media buys will stop the oil or preserve our way of life.

That requires the unrelenting attention of everyone connected to mitigating this catastrophe, including all the governors of the Gulf region.

They were very explicit in condemning ole Haley's callous, irresponsible attitude toward the disaster:

What happened offshore at the 30-mile and 10-mile lines of defense? What happened to the assurances that oil would be spotted and stopped long before it threatened either the Sound or the sand? [See the FOX News interview linked above for a version of Haley's hot air over this.]

And why, with more than two months to gear-up for this possibility, were officials still scrambling for gear at the last minute?

Why did it take such a crude awakening to shatter the daydreams of Gov. Haley Barbour and others entrusted with the safety of South Mississippi?

Perhaps if he had gone to that “photo-op” with the president and other Gulf governors in Louisiana weeks ago Barbour would have developed a greater sense of the peril and addressed it with more urgency and vigor.

With the smallest coastline on the Gulf, Mississippi’s ecology should have been the most defensible.

Yet an underestimation of the potential threat, particularly by Barbour, has left us more vulnerable.

Given the volume of oil, even the most aggressive preparations and advocacy by Barbour and other state officials likely couldn't have prevented devastating consequences. But aggressive preparations and advocacy were not what ole Haley and his state administration provided during the first two months of the BP oil geyser:

Barbour’s focus has been more limited: he has spent much of his time being an advocate for the state’s tourism industry — and for the oil industry which threatens it. And, of course, he has been playing a very active role in Republican politics.

This is not to begrudge the governor his standing in the GOP. His political connections and how they might help Mississippi was one of the factors in his favor that twice won him this newspaper’s endorsement. However, his travels to distant places and engagement in political fundraising during these days of crisis on the Coast are questionable, even troubling. Barbour’s priority ought to be with his constituents in Mississippi.

No small part of Barbour’s responsibility is securing and sharing accurate and trustworthy information about all aspects of the oil spill and its threat to Mississippi. From BP’s inexcusable inaccuracy about the size of the spill to the hidden-from-view cleanup efforts for the last two weeks on Petit Bois Island, facts have been too hard to come by.

For those who have paid attention to Mississippi’s official response to the oil spill, it is clear that the governor set the tone that has permeated every pronouncement by those in authority, particularly Dr. Bill Walker, director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. Both Barbour and Walker have taken the media to task for doing its job, probably not the most effective use of their time and talents.

The frantic scramble for resources to defend the Coast this weekend is evidence of the too-little-too-late approach to this crisis.

Which brings me to his interview with Melissa Block on NPR. Ole Haley is now blaming the fedrul gubment (of course!), "Unified Command, BP, whomever," for not anticipating the magnitude of the problem. But ole Haley is still sticking to his talking points from the FOX News interview!

BLOCK: Governor Barbour, I'd like to talk to you a bit about your own response to the oil spill because you have been criticized for seeming to minimize how bad the problem is. You've accused the media of exaggerating how much oil is on the beaches and you've been urging tourists to come down. You said the coast is clear. The coast is no longer clear, I guess.

Gov. BARBOUR: Well, the people on the beach today in Mississippi and almost all the tourist areas, there hadn't been one drop of oil. We've had a small amount of oil. What we've tried to do is tell the public the truth. And the truth is that the national news media, particularly television, has given people the impression that the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast was ankle deep in oil.

The news media coverage did not differentiate from what was happening in Louisiana and what was not happening in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida. Even the president of the United States came down here and said exactly what I said. You know, the coast is beautiful, the beaches are pristine, the water is clear as a bell. And people shouldn't be canceling their vacations.

Yet because of the news coverage, millions, billions, perhaps, of dollars were lost by people in the tourism industry in my state, Alabama and Florida. That's not to minimize the size of this catastrophe, but it is to simply tell the truth.

BLOCK: Governor Barbour, I wonder if that's a fine line to walk. On the one hand you're worried about not having enough skimmers. You're worried about what might hit the beaches. At the same time, you're saying, come on down, the water's fine.

Gov. BARBOUR: Well, ma'am, it's not a fine line to walk. All you got to do is tell the truth. Just lay the facts out for people and people can make their own decision.

The facts on the day ole Haley was doing that interview were reported by Donna Melton of the Biloxi Sun-Herald in Oil hitting beaches by the ton 06/29/2010:

Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Team workers scoured the beaches in Harrison County [Mississippi], scooping more than a ton of contaminated sand mixed with tar patties, mats and balls into clear-plastic garbage bags.

Tar balls are weathered oil; patties are just like balls, but newer and with a more liquid consistency. Tar mats can be a combination of the two mixed with debris such as sediment or plant matter.

The state departments of Marine Resources, Environmental Quality and Health extended the beach advisory in Harrison County from the Gulfport Small Craft Harbor east to Azalea Avenue in Biloxi.

According to a jointly issued news release, the beach in this area had significant amounts of tar mats and tar patties. The heaviest concentrations were between White Avenue in Biloxi and Cowan Road in Gulfport.

Accompanying the article was this photo of the beach at Gulfport, on the day ole Haley was telling NPR, "You know, the coast is beautiful, the beaches are pristine, the water is clear as a bell."

The truth-telling Governor then went on to talk about how the BP oil catastrophe proves ... that the free market works, by Galt:

Well, look, in every part of the government there is a role for good regulation that is properly done. But the idea that more regulation is necessarily better, I think a very suspect idea. In the case of this well, I believe it will be shown that if the regular protocols had been followed, that this well wouldn't have blown out. We'll see what the facts are.

But I am comfortable that's what the facts are going to be. And that if there had been somebody from MMS on the well to make sure they had done it, well, maybe that wouldve made a difference. But I think right now every oil company in the world says, I don't want to pay $100 million a day to cut corners on drilling a well. And that's where I believe the market system works. Nobody's got more to lose in this deal than BP.

Mississippi, still the poorest state in the Union, needs the very best advocacy and representation from its public officials. Haley Barbour certainly hasn't provided it. But Haley's a good ole boy. And he shore has a downhome accent, don't he?

Tags: haley barbour, mississippi, mississippi politics

Obama and Mississippi

The Jackson Clarion-Ledger was a notoriously hardline segregationist newspaper in the 1960s, owned by the Hederman family. Anyone who knows something about the role the Hederman press played in opposing the civil rights movement then shouldn't have any trouble getting their heads around the idea that the mainstream press today could very well be damaging the prospect for a democratic society and a peaceful foreign policy. The Hederman heirs did redeem the family name in recent years: they now publish the New York Review of Books, the archetype of a "liberal intellectual" journal. And the current owners pf tje Clarion-Ledger are a bit different from those days, too. Bob McElvaine explains.

Mississippi's Largest Paper Endorses Obama by Robert S. McElvaine

If Colonel Robert McCormack, the longtime publisher of the arch-Republican Chicago Tribune is spinning in his grave as a result of that paper's endorsement two weeks ago of Democrat Barack Obama, imagine what sort of posthumous somersaults the brothers Thomas and Robert Hederman must be doing after this morning's editorial in the Mississippi paper they controlled for a half century through the middle deacdes of the twentieth century.

No major media organ was more intransigent in its support for segregation and its opposition to the civil rights movement than the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi. Typical of the paper's attitudes on racial questions was its headline after the 1963 March on Washington at which Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech:

WASHINGTON IS CLEAN AGAIN WITH NEGRO TRASH REMOVED

In the days when the Hederman brothers owned the paper, it frequently warned of the dangers of the horror of "miscegenation."

This morning the Clarion-Ledger endorsed a mixed race man who identifies himself (as the Hederman brothers would have identified him) as black for president of the United States!

The times, they have a-changed.

[Historian Robert S. McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts & Letters at Millsaps College and the author of The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941 (Random House). His latest book is Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America (Crown).]

Tags: barack obama, civil rights movement, mississippi politics, racism, robert mcelvaine

That Mississippi win

Bob McElvaine is Paintin' It Blue in Mississippi at his new Huffington Post blog 05/14/08. The topic, of course, is Travis Childers win in the 1st Congressional District special election:

But the Tuesday poll result that provides the clearest (and for Republicans most terrifying) writing on the wall came from here in Mississippi. The victory by Democrat Travis Childers over Republican Greg Davis in a special election for the House seat representing Mississippi's First District is sending shock waves throughout the Grand Old Party. ...

Three of the four Congressmen from Mississippi are now Democrats. What's more, there is a very real chance that, with Obama at the head of the ticket, a huge African-American vote in November will enable Democratic former Governor Ronnie Musgrove to defeat newly appointed Republican Senator Roger Wicker. Furthermore, as I argued nearly two years ago, there is a real possibility that Obama could carry Mississippi. ...

It has rarely been the case that as Mississippi goes, so goes the nation, but when this red state turns blue it's a sure indication that the GOP is the Gone Old Party.

I appreciate Bob's optimism, though an Obama win in Mississippi is hard to imagine. If that happens, the Republican Party might want to think about disbanding altogether. I can easily imagine that Musgrove has a shot at Trent Lott's old Senate seat. Bob's post is also a reminder that the business about "red" and "blue" states can be misleading. Three of Mississippi's four members of Congress are Dems, the Dems have a good shot at one of the Senate seats, and the Republican Senator Thad Cochran is about 150 years old and probably more reactionary than Dick Cheney. Mississippi may become a "purple" state rather than a "red" one.

Clinton in Mississippi

The Mississippi caucuses this coming Tuesday are the current battleground for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Leah Rupp reports in Clinton: 'I'm here for you' Clarion-Ledger Online 03/06/08:

On Thursday evening, Clinton spoke to attendees at the state Jefferson-Jackson-Hamer dinner. That's a good updating of the Democratic Party tradition: Jefferson the anti-slavery slaveowner and democratic leader, Jackson the slaveowner who was an enemy of the secessionists and the chamption of white workers' interests, and Fannie Lou Hamer who was a civil rights leader in the state. Good combination.

Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton told Democratic Party faithful at tonight's Jefferson Jackson Hamer Day dinner that improving health care and pulling American troops out of Iraq remain high on her list of priorities if she's elected.

Clinton has taken some flak for a comment that gave Clinton opponents a chance to say she was dissing Mississppi. Campaigning in Iowa last year, she was heard to say (Oh, That's Change Alright National Journal blog 03/05/08):

I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress. There has got to be something at work here...when you look at the numbers, how can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi? That's not what I see. That's not the quality. That's not the communitarianism. That's not the openness I see in Iowa.

No, Mississippi's probably not that big on "the communitarianism", whatever exactly she meant by that.

As Rupp reports, Obama supporters found it a useful statement to bash:

Obama supporters went on the attack during a news conference Wednesday at his campaign headquarters in downtown Jackson. Former Gov. Ray Mabus and Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree criticized Sen. Clinton's remarks to an Iowa newspaper last fall that noted a lack of women elected to higher office.

While campaigning in Iowa, Sen. Clinton told the Des Moines Register she was surprised Iowa and Mississippi had never elected a woman as governor or as a member of Congress. ...

The comments drew an immediate rebuke from Mississippi Republicans, but some voters said Sen. Clinton was only telling the truth.

Mabus said Mississippi voters should elect more women but added Sen. Clinton was trying to "curry favor with Iowa ... it's also pretty clear she didn't ever expect to have to be in Mississippi."

Sen. Clinton, who opened an office this week at 500 Capitol St. in Jackson, apologized after her comments drew media attention. She called Republican then-Sen. Trent Lott and apologized. His spokesman at the time, Lee Youngblood, said Lott accepted her apology.

I should mention here that my hometown of Shubuta, Mississippi, was the first municipality in the state to elect a female mayor, a wonderful woman named Florence Busby. (I believe it was in 1967.) At 92, she's still a hardcore Democrat. I remember back during the 1996 Presidential election, I said something mildly nice to her about the Republican candidate Bob Dole and she chewed me out, which I surely deserved.

State Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Dowdy, a former Congressman, is mentioned in the article. The last time Trent Lott ran for re-election to the Senate in 2006, Dowdy was quoted in the press as saying that if Lott decided to run for re-election, he would favor the Democrats not even putting up a candidate against him! For the good of the state, of course. This is from the Democratic state party chairman!

They need to get a real "fighting Dem" as the head of their state party. The Dems have a shot at Lott's Senate seat in the special election this year after Lott resigned to become a lobbyist. But if they had mounted a strong campaign against Lott in 2006, they probably would have lost, but they would have better positioned the Democrats in this unexpected opportunity. What a boneheaded notion! Instead, they had a nominal Democratic candidate that I understand was pretty much invisible to most voters.

Tags: florence busby, hillary clinton, mississippi, mississippi politics, wayne dowdy

More on "third parties"

Annie Devine, Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rev. Ed King, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegates at the 1964 Democratic National Convention

Dave raised an interesting question in the discussion on third parties: what if any legitimate role is there for third parties in the American system, short of a political crisis causing a large national split in either the Democratic or Republican Parties?

I'm not sure what the answer is to that question. But it made me think about signficant roles that third parties have played in recent decades.

A party doesn't have to start out as a national organization. Those that do are typically centered around a particular leader, such as Teddy Roosevelt (Bull Moose Party), George Wallace (American Independent) or Ross Perot (Reform). When the leading figure leaves the party or loses interest, those parties normally fade into insignificance rather quickly.

One of the third parties that had significant influence was the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), formed in 1964. This was a vehicle by which state civil rights activists challenged the reactionary white power structure that dominated Mississippi's Democratic Party. They famously challenged the seating of the all-white slate of delegates from the regular state Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic convention.

The initial challenge was unsuccessful. But the origin of what was widely called the "New Left" in the 1960s is conventionally dated from the formation of the MFDP. In Mississippi, the MFDP provided a way for mainstream and liberal activists - you wouldn't believe the range of things that counted as "liberal" in Mississippi in those days! - to organize and run candidates for office. They were particularly successful in electing African-Americans to local offices. In fact, last I heard, Mississippi to this day has numerically and proportionally more black elected officials than any other state. One of many paradoxes you find there.

In 1968 and 1972, the MFDP was seated at the National Democratic Convention as Mississippi's official delegation. Eventually, the state's "Regular" Democratic Party capitulated and merged itself into the MFDP essentially by recognizing that the MFDP was the official state Democratic Party. There was still some theatrical drama in the situation in 1975 when then-(Regular) Democratic Governor Cliff Finch appeared before the state MFDP convention, an unprecedented level of recognition by the Regulars.

The MFDP has long since disappeared as an independent party organization. Because its functional reason for existence was make the state Democratic Party play by the rules of the national party. Once it had achieved that, it had effectively merged with the state Democratic Party.

In a larger sense, the MFDP's creation and continued political battles provided a wider reformist inspiration for liberal and radical activists and dramatized how the national Democratic Party could be a serious impediment to some kinds of reform goals. And the Democratic President make the Vietnam War a huge issue by his foolish escalation of the conflict in 1965, which also eventually pitted many liberal activists against a Democratic President who was as liberal as Franklin Roosevelt on social programs and even more so on civil rights.

The MFDP grew up in the particular political situation of Mississippi in 1964. It's no exaggeration to say that Mississippi functioned as a police state at that time, certainly in relation to black political activists, would-be black voters and whatever whites from there or elsewhere supported them. Complete with extra-legal goon squads tolerated by and even conspiring with state and local officials. There was even a public agency called the State Sovereignty Commission whose basic function was to dig up dirt to discredit civil rights activists.

The Regular Democratic Party was effectively the one party in a one-party system within the state. There was a nominal Republican Party run by hidebound reactionaries. And a few whites who for one reason or the other didn't support the segregation system and all that came with it would register Republican. But the only elections that really mattered were the Democratic Party primaries. The general elections were essentially a formality that ratified the Democratic Party candidate.

In that system, the MFDP was acting as the only liberal opposition party (the Republicans had become a force in the state by the early 1970s) and became a real competition to the Regular Democratic Party. The MFDP also benefitted from the fact that it was eventually supported by the national Party and therefore were able to gain legitimacy from one of the two major national parties. And it had a concrete goal that was urgent enough to a significant portion of the voters that they looked to the MFDP as a viable and necessary political organization that actually had some possibility to get their candidates elected, at least at the local level. Very much related to the latter, the MFDP's base consisted largely of African-American voters who had been only recently enfranchised by the overcoming of the state's voter-suppression methods and who therefore had not built strong historic ties of loyalty (emotional or patronage-based) to the Regular Democratic Party.

I can think of other examples of third-parties or similar groups that played a significant role in politics over a long period of time. New York state has both Liberal and Conservative Parties alongside the two major parties; my impression is that the Conservatives have been more influential. They generally endorse the candidates of the Democratic and Republican Parties, respectively. But we could say that they helped create a political space for more explicitly ideological themes to be discussed and popularized.

The Libertarian Party has been around for decades now. I know in some conservative districts in California in three-way contests, they've pulled enough Republican votes to make it a competitive race between the two major party candidates. But their influence nationally has come more from the closely-related Cato Institute, which has played a notable role in propagandizing and lobbying for business deregulation.

This generalization doesn't fit neatly with the MFDP. But I would say that third parties can play significant roles as parts of "alternative infrastructures", something the right has been much more successful in building the last 40 years than the left has. But to have more influence than the numerous tiny parties on the left and the right that normally scarcely even make a "blip" On the larger political scene, such groups have to be realistic about which of the two parties actually holding office are more likely to support their positions. And to which public constituencies they want to appeal over time.

Tags: mississippi, mississippi politics, third parties

Confederate flag

The right symbol for today's Republican Party?

Thinking about the white supremacists supporting Brother Huck in the South Carolina primary because he loyally defends their official display of the Confederate battle flag, it occurred to me that the Republicans could easily remove this as an issue. They could just adopt the Confederate battle flag as the official Party symbol! Maybe they could overlay a picture of Abraham Lincoln's face on part of their flag with a "No" symbol over it to emphasize how far they've come from their ancient roots.

Johnny Irion and Sara Lee Guthrie have a song about the South Carolina Confederate state flag, called "Gervais". Gervais Street is in Columbia, South Carolina's state capital. In 2000, the Confederate battle flag (aka, the Beaureguard flag), symbol of slavery and treason, was relocated from from the State Capitol to a Confederate memorial site nearby on the Statehouse grounds. (See Confederate flag's last day over South Carolina Capitol CNN.com 06/30/2000.)

Still flying the flag upon Gervais
Was a battle flag now we can put it away
Still flying the flag upon Gervais
Was a battle flag, was a battle flag, was a battle flag
Was a battle flag, was a battle flag, we can put it away

Back in 2000, Mississippi had a public vote on whether to replace its 1894 state flag, which prominently features the Confederate battle flag design, with one that didn't. The Confederate state flag won. That was the only issue on the ballot for a special election. The Confederate version won with 65% of the vote. The returns clearly indicated that the voted divided heavily on racial lines, with whites voting even more overwhelmingly for it.

That contest provoked quite a bit of discussion at the time. Diane McWhorter, author of Carry Me Home: Birmingham Alabama - The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution about her home time (and Condi Rice's), wrote about Mississippi's vote in, "Flag vote continues the quest for Dixie's soul" USA Today 04/17/2000 (I can't find an online link):

Mississippi white voters — four out of five of whom, according to a recent poll, will support the old flag — insist that they are motivated by the same historical memory that strummed my emotions as a child. But that romance of the loser is itself a delusion. For one thing, it ignores the experience of a sizable minority of the South's population, for whom the war represented, by contrast, a triumph: emancipation. And the fact that the hometown where I sorrowfully deplored the evils of slavery was the world's most segregated city outside Johannesburg, South Africa, suggests that Northern victory as well as Southern defeat was overrated. Indeed, the fight goes on and on.

It is, of course, a more recent war that Dixie's current last stand plainly echoes. The flag affray shares with the civil-rights drama of the 1960s a cast of characters as well as a central racial conflict ("white resistance to letting blacks change anything," as a retired Mississippi newspaper editor frames the current struggle). On one side are the "revolutionaries" — the civil-rights professionals and their increasingly commonplace bedfellow, a business establishment that abandoned its militant segregationist ideology as the farm-and-factory economy shifted to image-sensitive consumer services. The Mississippi Economic Council (the state Chamber of Commerce), buoyed by an unprecedented new contract with Nissan, almost single-handedly bankrolled the campaign for a new flag, featuring a former governor's laments that the hallowed stars and bars has been co-opted by the Klan and other white-supremacist groups.

The throwback racist organization leading the charge for the Confederate flag is the Council of Conservative Citizens. Powerful enough that Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., has been reluctant to repudiate his much-criticized ties to it, the CCC is a reincarnation of the White Citizens Councils, which were founded in 1954 as a discreet middle-class alternative to the Klan and dominated Mississippi politics throughout the 1960s.(my emphasis)

In this case, she may be giving too much credit to the White Citizens Council, because the League of the South and the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) were also very active in the pro-Confederate flag campaign. Also, calling the Council "discreet" is a very generous description. They have never made any secret of their racist and white supremacist views.

That business about the "romance of the loser" is also important. Rush Limbaugh's fans may be disproportionately white and male. But they often manage to imagine themselves to be a victimized minority. That doesn't mean others have to be sympathetic to their feeling. It's just a matter of understanding that psychological reference point. In my own experience, white Mississippians are the best in the world at whining about how persecuted they are. Maybe Serbians or Croatians are better at it, I don't know. But it's part of the segregationist mentality to which the Huck and the other Republican Presidential candidates have to appeal because it's now the core of their Party base.

McWhorter also writes:

There's an argument to be made that the South has not really lost the fight. Ever since Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 by the grace of a racially coded "Southern strategy," the Old Confederacy has been the electoral linchpin of the Republicans' domination of national politics. The Solid South that once repudiated the Republican Party of Lincoln has now turned just as monolithically away from the Democratic Party of Kennedy and Johnson, architects of the Second Emancipation. And powerful politicians — Attorney General John Ashcroft as well as [Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent] Lott (mum on the flag flap) - have pandered with impunity to extremist latter-day Southern secessionists. (my emphasis)

Add Brother Huck to the list.

She stated that well. This is the basic political fact about today's national Republican Party. It's most base is composed of conservative Southerners. I've been calling it "neosegregationist" for a while. But I'm starting to think that just plain old "segregationist" is a better name for it. Just look at the characters popping up in the Huck's campaign. Yikes!

McWhorter concluded, just before the Mississippi flag vote:

As a liberal-Democrat female who has lived "up North" for more than half of my life, I still define myself every day as a Southern-American. If Southernness is a condition, transcending reason as well as geography, the voters of Mississippi today have an opportunity to prove that it does not also have to be a sickness.

Oops! The Huck and his gaggle of segregationist fellow-travelers have raised a similar question. Brother Huck's friendly and kinda-goofy Gomer Pyle act shouldn't fool anyone.

Tags: authoritarianism, confederate flag, diane mcwhorter, mississippi politics, neo-confederate, neosegregation, segregation

Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran honors "traditional values" of the worst kind

"I wouldn't join the International Criminal Court. It's a body based in The Hague where unaccountable judges and prosecutors can pull our troops or diplomats up for trial.

"And I wouldn't join it. And I understand that in certain capitals around the world that that wasn't a popular move. But it's the right move not to join a foreign court that could - where our people could be prosecuted." - George W. Bush 09/30/04

Theodore Bilbo: You're a good ole boy, Thad!

Yahoo! News has a feature called "Talk to Power" hosted by Judy Woodruff. The idea is to post questions for the guest and he/she responds on a certain date.

This week the featured guest is Thad Cochran, long-time Republican Senator from Mississippi. He is generally regarded as somehow more civilized that Trent Lott, though it's not a distinction he deserves.

I posted this question for him (a spelling error corrected here), which appears as of this writing as Comment 474:

Senator Cochran, in 2005 you were one of nine Republican Senators to vote against the McCain anti-torture amendments. We know some of the gruesome torture techniques being applied to accused terrorists and "enemy combatants", such as mock exection by partial drowning, torturing children in front of their parents, forcing victims to stand in painful positions for long periods of time while smeared with their own feces, and many other sadistic acts. We know that a number of prisoners have died under torture. Why do you support such vicious actions? Doesn't this make you exactly like the worst of the Southern bigots of the 1950s who supported torture and murder in the context of racial lynchings?

John Dean in his 2006 book Conservatives Without Conscience lists the nine Republicans Senators who opposed the McCain anti-torture amendments and stood out forthrightly to support sadistic torture in the Bush Gulag. Dean wrote that they "deserve special recognition, for they are true authoritarians". The other eight are Wayne Allard (CO), Christopher Bond (MO), Tom Coburn (OK), John Cornyn (TX), James Inhofe (OK), Pat Roberts (KS), Jeff Sessions (AL) and Ted Stevens (AK).

As I've written here before, McCain's anti-torture posturing even on this was transparently phony, since these acts were already illegal and Bush claims the power to ignore any law he chooses based on Cheney's Unilateral Executive theory of Presidential power. After Bush signed the bill with a "signing statement" indicating he would ignore the new law just like the old ones, McCain said he was fine with that.

But that doesn't excuse the nine Republican Senators listed above. It just emphasizes how committed they are to having the US government practice these vicious acts.

"Men without conscience are capable of any cruelty the human mind can imagine." - Dick Cheney 01/26/05

Tags: authoritarianism, mccain, mississippi politics, thad cochran, torture

What is going on here?

Apparently I wasn't the only one who took particular notice of the shooting of the Jackson burglar I mentioned a few days ago. The Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger today has an article making it sound like arming to blow burglars away is becoming the fad of the moment in Jackson: Break-ins prompt some in city to take up arms. (Journalistic hype exists, so take it with a big grain of salt.)

At least this article has a wider range of observations on the advisability of relying on private armaments to protect against burglars:

Jackson State University criminologist Jimmy Bell ... said he considers the two [recent] fatal shootings of burglars isolated incidents of people reacting out of fear.

"I don't think it is going to give burglars a reason to think twice, because burglars aren't organized enough to anticipate which house might have the potential to fight back with the use of firearms," Bell said. "Burglars are going to randomly pick homes they feel are the easiest target to them, which usually is an unoccupied house. Sometimes, they guess wrong."

But it doesn't mention the collateral risks of having loaded weapons available in the house, e.g., kids can get ahold of them. Also, you have to question how prepared for burglary someone is who spouts to a newspaper reporter that he keeps weapons in the house. Guns are a prime target for burglars, because they're easy to fence, they bring a decent price on the black market and the serial numbers can be filed off. Blabbing to the local paper that you keep guns in the house is like taking out an ad to say ROB ME.

The paper has also run an editorial asking why a repeat offender like the burglar killed this week was out of jail, especially since he'd been busted again just last week.

Here's a clue: keeping government budgets cut to the bone means you don't have a lot of money being spent on "frivolous gubment programs" like, say, cops and jails and parole systems. Relying on homeowner vigilantism to combat burglary is not a form of "privatization" that's likely to benefit most Mississippians.
Tags: authoritarianism, mississippi, mississippi politics

Mississippi politics: Haley and the Citizens Council

I see that the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger had picked up on the appearance of gubernatorial condidate Haley Barbour's picture on the Web site of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which as I mentioned a few days ago is the unreconstructed successor group to the White Citizens Council:

Some of Republican gubernatorial candidate Haley Barbour's campaign material features the state flag and its Confederate battle emblem, a symbol many black voters find offensive. [And not just black voters - Bruce]

Barbour wears a lapel pin with the U.S. and state flags and he is in a photograph on the Web site of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a neo-Confederate group accused of racist views. Barbour says he doesn't know anything about the council. The picture was taken at a council-sponsored barbecue in July used to raise money for private academy school buses.

But Barbour says he wants to be the state's most successful Republican vote-getter among African Americans and has held closed-door strategy meetings with minorities. If elected, he says he will create a "colorblind" state government.

Missisissippi voters in a referendum in 2001 - California isn't the only state that causes itself trouble with these things - chose a state flag that prominently features the Confederate battle flag.

It's a bit odd that the article dwells on the state flag, though. Willingly associating himself with the White Citizens Council is something that is of much more interest in terms of his political perspective. Barbour is a former chairman of the national Republican Party. Hanging out with the White Citizens Council isn't exactly what most people think a "compassionate conservatism" would look like. It sounds like old-fashioned mean conservatism is more Barbour's thing.

Tags: authoritarianism, council of conservative citizens, haley barbour, mississippi politics, racism, white citizens council

Mississippi politics: Governor's race

Check out this picture ("Black Hawk Rally Kicks Off Campaign") of Mississippi's Republican gubernatorial candidate Haley Barbour on the Web site of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC). This is the hate group that Trent Lott got in trouble for associating with, along with his praise for 1940s-style segregation. The CCC is better known by the name of its predecessor organization, the White Citizens Council.

Note that it claims to be a picture of Barbour at an event sponsored by the CCC to raise money to support segregated private schools, also known as "seg academies."

I came across this via the Temple of Democracy Weblog, which tracks the "neo-Confederate" movement with which Southern Republicans increasingly find themselves befriending.

Tags: authoritarianism, council of conservative citizens, haley barbour, mississippi politics, racism, white citizens council

Mississippi politics meets war profiteering

Haley Barbour, former head of the Republican National Committe and now Republican candidate for governor of his native Mississippi, is the focus of this post by Josh Marshall. It deals with Barbour's links to a company called New Bridge Strategies, that was set up to consult with businesses interested in doing business in the New Iraq.

Specifically, according to its Web site, "Its activities will seek to expedite the creation of free and fair markets and new economic growth in Iraq, consistent with the policies of the Bush Administration." As Marshall explains, this has all the outward appearances of crony capitalism at its worst.

Our all-volunteer military draws its soldiers disproportionately from the South. Some small towns in Mississippi have had their entire police forces called up into active duty, because many of them were serving in the reserves. Soldiers from Mississippi are being killed in the Iraq War.

And Haley Barbour wants to be Governor of Mississippi to cut the already inadequate public services in the state, while he positions himself to rake in the bucks from war profiteering. If Democratic Governor Ronnie Musgrave doesn't make an issue out of that in his tough race for re-election, you have to wonder how much he really wants to hold on to the governorship.

And while Haley Barbour and his Republican cronies look for ways to siphon profits out of war, Mississippi is taking a huge hit due to the national recession. Mississippi needs jobs and good public services. Haley Barbour and his Enron Republican cronies in Washington will not provide money to even maintain public services in the state, because the core of their domestic program is to provide huge tax cuts for the very wealthiest.

Is this what Barbour and his party expect Mississippians to die for in Iraq?

Tags: haley barbour, iraq war, mississippi politics