Monday, December 12, 2011

ROMNEY USING KKK SLOGAN?

Steve Benen flags this from Mitt Romney's stump speech (emphasis added):

"There are people in this room who are informed and who care about this election, who recognize that this is a defining time for America," he said. "We have on one side a president who wants to transform America into a European-style nation, and you have on other hand someone like myself that wants to turn around America and keep America American with the principals that made us the greatest nation on Earth. And I will do that with your help."

"Keep America American"? Really?

Here's the title of a pamphlet published in 1920 by the United Klans of America, as found in the catalog of Yale's Beinecke Library (again, emphasis added):




Here's a report of a pamphlet with this title being sold in Dallas in 1950 as part of a major Klan recruiting effort -- just before a series of bombings of black-owned homes.

And on the eve of World War II, a group called the American Coalition, using the slogan "Keep America American," pressured the U.S. government not to admit Jewish refugees.

Really, Mitt? You really want to use this phrase?

(X-posted at Booman Tribune.)

10 comments:

c u n d gulag said...

Mitt should have taken a page from St. Ronnie of "The Reagan DEvolution" and made this speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi to launch his campaign.

Now, it probably too late - it's just another dog-whistle in the dark vacuum that is becoming his campaign.

: smintheus :: said...

In May I was joking around on FB that I was focus testing possible campaign slogans for a leading presidential candidate, adding that we need one that’ll distract voters from the candidate's flagrant weaknesses. Said we'd come up with: “Choose America, America…OK?!!”

The GOP field has all but surpassed satire.

John said...

As a registered Democrat, I offer a slogan for "my" party: "Give us 90% majorities in both house, then we'll only have to fight with Obama."

Anonymous said...

See the Klan's original 1920s newsletter, America for Americans, here:

http://originalknightsofamerica.webs.com/newsletter.htm

: smintheus :: said...

But this post really stirred up a hornets' nest. NBC has stooped to apologizing to Romney for pointing out that his appeal to nativism is couched in the language of the KKK.

Plane Ideas said...

Super post!!! WOW America for Americans!..Have we returned to that America

P.N. "Pat" Elrod said...

Well, Mitthead *does* want to drag us back to the 1950s. Maybe even the 1850s.

about me said...

I call absolute BULLSHIT.

You need to brush on your history and the Democratic Party’s role in the KKK. "The first Klan was founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, by six veterans of the Confederate Army.[15] The name is probably from the Greek word kuklos (κύκλος) which means circle, suggesting a circle or band of brothers.[16]
Although there was no organizational structure above the local level, similar groups arose across the South adopted the same name and methods.[17] Klan groups spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement during the Reconstruction era in the United States. As a secret vigilante group, the Klan targeted freedmen and their allies; it sought to restore white supremacy by threats and violence, including murder, against black and white Republicans. In 1870 and 1871, the federal government passed the Force Acts, which were used to prosecute Klan crimes.[18] Prosecution of Klan crimes and enforcement of the Force Acts suppressed Klan activity. In 1874 and later, however, newly organized and openly active paramilitary organizations, such as the White League and the Red Shirts, started a fresh round of violence aimed at suppressing blacks' voting and running Republicans out of office. These contributed to segregationist white Democrats regaining political power in all the Southern states by 1877.


AND

http://www.blackisonline.com/2012/07/the-civil-rights-legacy-of-george-romney/

AND

http://usvoternews.com/2012/04/09/political-action-committees-martin-luther-king-jr-and-the-romneys/


FACT CHECK THAT asshole.

Here’s just a couple MORE.

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. And he FOUNDED the Republican Party.

AND

From the part that is supposedly racist, I give you THE FIRST BLACK MEMBER OF CONGRESS...A REPUBLICAN:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Revels

AND

From the party that hates supposedly hates people of color, I give you THE FIRST BLACK MEMBER OF THE U.S. House of Representatives, and the second BLACK MEMBER OF CONGRESS...A REPUBLICAN:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Rainey

savoy6 said...

uh yeah.....you should be all about you..like checking your own right wing bullshit....the Republicans were founded as a pro abolitionist party and they became the party of northern business interests during and after the civil war....you know when the democrats..(the major party of the south at the time) were pretty much ostracized from American politics until the mid 1880's.fast forward through several decades to the start of the civil rights movement after ww2 when the many social conservatives,(i.e.Dixiecrats) went over to the repubs because the dems under kennedy and johnson were pushing civil rights...that started as early as the Dixiecrat walkout during the 1948 DNC because of Truman's proposed early civil rights legislation....after this time period most of the social conservatives coalesced under the repug banner of pro bius,law and order,"keeping america american" sort of thing....maybe if you actually read something besides neocon ,revisionist bullshit you might make sense ....also try and make an argument using less the the more than 5 logical fallacies you used in you post shit-for-brains...

Anonymous said...

As it turns out, Romney's slogan was "Keep America America" which is not the same thing as the KKK's slogan. Let's not condemn a man of a being a racist on faulty knowledge. Let's not be party puppets, people.