Strom Thurmond Dead

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They say these things come in threes. Please, God, put Maggie and Ronnie on the block next.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:16 (twenty-two years ago)

yay!!

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:23 (twenty-two years ago)

i say dick cheney needs to be next.

― That Girl (thatgirl), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:31 (twenty-two years ago)

wow that must be why everythings gotten so much better, i noticed kids from low income families suddenly all had healthy free lunch and college scholarships today!! gee golly maybe if reagans next there will be free healthcare, lets celebrate the positive social change that occurs when senile insignificant ex-politicians die

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:35 (twenty-two years ago)

He died for reals? What happened? Someone destroyed the painting (of Dorian Gray)?

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:35 (twenty-two years ago)

lets celebrate the positive social change that occurs when senile insignificant ex-politicians die

Isn't outliving them enough?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:36 (twenty-two years ago)

That's right, trife. And all races can join hands as one now. *Whew!*

― jewelly (jewelly), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Trife is unable to see the symbolism for the trees.

― Chris P (Chris P), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:39 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah that def that has to be it because i know ile wouldnt be so monstrous and petty to take great joy in the deaths of people they disagree with, and not to mention the fact that the deaths of these people mentioned have a glorifying effect on the far right!! hey theres a bunch of rich suit-wearing corporate assholes working in the world trade towers, maybe if we blew them up and killed them all, poor people would be better off!!

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Trife turns into Momus shocker!

― hstencil, Friday, 27 June 2003 02:41 (twenty-two years ago)

ethan, your grasp of politics is about as sharp as your grasp of most things since you've sunk into kitsch

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Jesus Trife, get a fuckin' sense of humor.

asshole.

― That Girl (thatgirl), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:41 (twenty-two years ago)

omg like i noe rite ima write fo whoevah sez so shit i dont want no pigeons etc

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not looking forward to sitting through his lionization. which begins tomorrow.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Trife cried when Stalin died. (Also when Mr. Belvedere died, but that was for different reasons.)

― Chris P (Chris P), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:44 (twenty-two years ago)

when an old man i know dies i am saddened

when an old man i have no connection to dies i am indifferent

when an evil old man dies i am gladdened

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:44 (twenty-two years ago)

what 'symbolism' are you promoting that would surround the death of reagan? do you think the american people will be all 'oh thank christ hes gone now we can all stop pretending hes a conservative saint and admit he was just an asshole, i was always uber liberal but i was scared the still-living reagan kicking my ass if i admitted it!!'

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not looking forward to sitting through his lionization. which begins tomorrow.

They're feeding his body to a lion? Dude, I'm so there!

― jewelly (jewelly), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:47 (twenty-two years ago)

the love and respect for reagan is one of those things that makes me think I live in some kind of shadow demi-dimension, half into some other bizarre reality where people, you know, love and respect reagan.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:49 (twenty-two years ago)

'when an old man i have no connection to dies i am indifferent' reagan felt the same way jess, look at how he treated the elderly!! also good to know you get to decide whos 'evil' enough to die, etc etc fuck you all

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Die, trife.

― jewelly (jewelly), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:52 (twenty-two years ago)

and dont even fucking call me on ignorance you carpetbagger fuckers i lived in south carolina under this asshole for seven years, i know all his shit and im not giggling over his heart failure or enjoying watching the neo-cons canonize him

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:53 (twenty-two years ago)

no, you're just yelling through a web site.

― hstencil, Friday, 27 June 2003 02:55 (twenty-two years ago)

yes good point 'h' any internet argument is automatically won when some dude says 'hey, youre on a website'

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 02:59 (twenty-two years ago)

that wasn't my point. My point was more that it seems kinda odd for you to complain that "also good to know you get to decide whos 'evil' enough to die," while you're the one telling everyone else how they should think. Is it a bit silly, not to mention quixotic, to get mad at other people for reacting to something in a different way than yourself? I mean, argue with 'em, fine, but to just be insulting because people have different opinions than you is just as fascistic as wishing some lame old politician would die.

Oh wait a second, this is trife I'm posting this to. Why bother?

― hstencil, Friday, 27 June 2003 03:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Refusing to name evil when you see it: C/D?

― Chris P (Chris P), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:07 (twenty-two years ago)

what about the evil in a bunch of superficial wannabe activists crying out for the death of a now-harmless old man with alzheimers, a man whos death will result in the furthering of ultra-conservative american culture

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:12 (twenty-two years ago)

in what way do you figure his death will further anything at all, trife? (that's a real question, btw)

― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:14 (twenty-two years ago)

He's not going to die a martyr's death! Sheesh.

― Chris P (Chris P), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:15 (twenty-two years ago)

At least he lived long enough to be the downfall of Trent Lott. He did some good there in his final days.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:15 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah that's pretty fucking evil, since everybody here is running for president on a segregationist ticket!

trife for one thing you're not even old enough to remember 'ketchup is a vegetable' - you claiming South Carolina is a complete joke and thoroughly pointless since other people on this board come from places like Kentucky, Alabama and Texas - I'm not going to come out and say that it's necessarily wise to celebrate the death of someone else on a permanent website, but fuck off moralizing, okay?

Jesus I'm fucking tired

― Millar (Millar), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Politics aside, one of my psychology profs had us read the open letter Reagan wrote, or had someone write, when he found out he had Alzheimer's. I thought it was incredibly moving and incredibly brave. But when he dies and people make inevitable jokes, I won't get on the internet and rail against 'em.

(Let's all pretend I didn't copy and paste that from the Ass thread.)

― jewelly (jewelly), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:21 (twenty-two years ago)

it's true that his death may be seen as a point for rallying by the neo-cons. Anybody who doubts should remember how Nixon was basically canonized when he died? I don't disagree with trife's point (his only one, btw), just the way he made it. It's like getting to read the written equivalent of a chainsaw every fucking time he posts.

― hstencil, Friday, 27 June 2003 03:23 (twenty-two years ago)

jewelly, I'm convinced that Reagan's been dead for years and they're just keeping his body alive in a cryogenic chamber or something.

― hstencil, Friday, 27 June 2003 03:24 (twenty-two years ago)

matos like hstencil said its just fodder for more fox news media whitewash of a saintly dead conservatives, plus it takes him from the realm of human fallibility--dead strom cant accidentally expose his hatred, he cant say racist shit, dead strom cant fuck anything up hes just there as a namedrop, this really old republican who lived a life of political service, its a lot more cultural weight than hes carried for decades now

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:27 (twenty-two years ago)

jewelly, I'm convinced that Reagan's been dead for years and they're just keeping his body alive in a cryogenic chamber or something.

hstencil -- Goddamn you how dare you say that what are you some kind of simpering liberal, etc., ha-ha, *thunk* (head hitting the keyboard) *zzzzzzzzzz ...*

― jewelly (jewelly), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:30 (twenty-two years ago)

really im chill now so IM SORRY i called all yall out so bitterly but jeez it fucks with me when people pretend this kind of childish asshole pointing and laughing is revolutionary politics!! and on a personal level, doing bad shit in your life doesnt mean me or your grieving fam should have to put up with the self-defeating left wing crowds that always celebrate this shit, chill on the revenge fantasties, go volunteer and VOTE yall!!!!

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:33 (twenty-two years ago)

http://imusic.artistdirect.com/showcase/rock/photos/jackyl.gif

― Josh (Josh), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:34 (twenty-two years ago)

"Don't ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate them. We must use the weapon of love. We must have the compassion and understanding for those who hate us. We must realize so many people are taught to hate us that they are not totally responsible for their hate. But we stand in life at midnight; we are always on the threshold of a new dawn."

--Martin Luther King, Jr., "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence" in Strength to Love (1958)

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another."

-- Sen. Robert Kennedy, Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

― Phil (phil), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:48 (twenty-two years ago)

"I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love."

----Martin Luther King, Jr., 1957

― Phil (phil), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I was much more of a booster for Thurmond's death when he was still half-lucidly clinging to a senate seat: in those not-so-distant days the "just die already" line actually was about a direct and tangible effect, and about the satisfaction of seeing that he couldn't cling to his reprehensible use of his post forever. In other words, the same satisfaction I would get from actually prying Charlton Heston's guns from his cold, dead hands.

I suppose I am uncynical enough to look forward to a day when enough time has passed that there are no longer any on-record segregationists in the senate; I don't delude myself that their passing will change anything in the present day, or that those who replace them will be massively more acceptable to me, but I don't see anything so strange about appreciating their passing. In any case, I looked forward to Thurmond's death until not-so-many months ago, so to pull punches now would be exactly the kind of posthumous lionization Trife's talking about: goodbye, Strom Thurmond, and you will be anything but missed by me. God keep me from ever stumbling across your final resting place with a full bladder.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Who was pretending it's "revolutionary politics"? You brought that to the table.

No one else.

But it's a nice strawman to run with, so long as no one calls you on it.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Why did Thurmond keep getting elected?

― bnw (bnw), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:55 (twenty-two years ago)

thurmond was always a lazy politician, an opportunist. he achieved as much for segregation as he did for most other things: very little. it's unclear what, if anything, he actually believed in.

note that it's commonly assumed that he'd apologized for his segregationist past, he'd actually never done any such thing.

good riddance.

it would have been better if he had died ca. 1947, but unlike the incomparably vile jesse helms there probably would have been someone equally opportunistic to take his place.

x-post w/nabisco.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 27 June 2003 03:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Ronald Reagan was directly involved in the deaths of more than half a million people in the 1980s.

If hating a man culpable for what amounts to genocide is wrong, I won't want to be right.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Why did Thurmond keep getting elected?
For the same reason David Duke nearly got elected governor of Louisiana barely a decade ago.

I hesitate to make sweeping generalizations about the South (being that I'm a native), but...

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:01 (twenty-two years ago)

That's a question I wish I could answer, BNW, but I'd note that it's not entirely ideological: South Carolina had the same two senators -- one Democrat, one Republican -- from 1966 through last year. My guess: they kept forgetting to print new ballots.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:02 (twenty-two years ago)

after a certain point i think people felt it was only polite to continue reelecting him.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Everyone will be forgotten one day. And that's all I have to say about that.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 27 June 2003 04:03 (twenty-two years ago)

By the way, the Thurmond obits I've read since opening this thread all do a fine job of drawing charming-old-lech lines around the fact that Thurmond groped or ogled 75% of the women he encountered. Tip for Clinton: try being ancient and/or dead.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:05 (twenty-two years ago)

And seriously, on the re-election tip: probably someone from the area should comment on this, but it always looked to me like the state had just ossified into a Huey-style system of pork and patronage. This is part of what Amateurist is referring to above, I think: that Thurmond in particular treated his senate post as having less to do with national politics and more to do with funneling money to his states and keeping his constituency -- including a black constituency -- flush with jobs and works projects and on-the-ground perks.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh good god, state, in the posthumous whitewash I have accidentally granted him extra senate seats!!!

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:12 (twenty-two years ago)

about goddamn time he died.

― faggotry (faggotry), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Will the posthumous ass-kissing be as pitiful as when Nixon died.

I'd have worshipped Clinton forever if he had the balls to call Nixon an evil fucker and refused to show up at the funeral.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:16 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm with Trife more than anyone so far, but I think you're missing something E, which is that not everyone already has a gelled political stance. There's a lot of solid libs. and solid cons., but there's also a hell of a lot of wishy-washy motherfuckers of the kind that might actually be swayed by post-mortem conservative lionizing. Those people need to hear things like on this thead "ha ha, I'm glad he's dead because he was such an evil old shit, and here's why I say that."

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:19 (twenty-two years ago)

...so that they can avoid voting someone like him in again, I meant to add, of course.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:19 (twenty-two years ago)

And yeah, on ILX saying stuff like that is pretty much preaching to the choir, but in a lot of other contexts it's not.

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:21 (twenty-two years ago)

For the same reason David Duke nearly got elected governor of Louisiana barely a decade ago. - (haha - echoing nabisco's point) ie. the reason Robert Byrd keeps getting elected. oh, but he's a Democrat! and spoke out against the war! yay!

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:21 (twenty-two years ago)

that said, wishing for someone's death is ugly business. He was out of office, he could do no more harm. It is heartening in a 'marking that an era has passed, thank god' (in Georgia we've had a double shot with two opposite sides of a coin passing this week - Lester Maddox and Maynard Jackson), but there's no reason to rejoice - nothing has been won that wasn't won already.

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess it was the sodomy.

― Layna Andersen (Layna Andersen), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:33 (twenty-two years ago)

one more for the road

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Layna Andersen wins

― M Matos (M Matos), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:36 (twenty-two years ago)

hey blount help me out my friends stick up for byrd and i dont have enough against him to argue, ive read all about his old racist bullshit (in the source news column!! and that ego trip book ha ha look at my themed news sources (no pun intended)) but whats he done lately besides 'white nigger' which is reprehensible but basically just nu ilm stuff

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not saying a damn thing. I just wanted to let you guys now that.

― Innocent Dreamer (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:39 (twenty-two years ago)

he's an ex-Klansman! what more do you need?

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:41 (twenty-two years ago)

leopard, change stripes, etc

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Ok, so I will say one thing:

he's an ex-Klansman! what more do you need?

But so is Robert Byrd! Where's the bloodthirsty clamoring for his death here?

― Innocent Dreamer (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Dee, honey (Ned growls! haha!), I'm talking about Robert Byrd.

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:44 (twenty-two years ago)

also, considering the Ku Klux Klan were a terrorist organization, that makes him an ex-terrorist also!

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:45 (twenty-two years ago)

What?

*scrolls upward*

Oh man. I feel something slimy falling from my forehead.

*wipes up egg yolk and runny egg white*

*wishes there was a "delete post" option*

― Innocent Dreamer (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:46 (twenty-two years ago)

p.s.: Quite a bit puzzled over the parenthetical statement. Then again, that seems to be par for the course for me tonight. Heh.

*feels quite idiotic*

― Innocent Dreamer (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:47 (twenty-two years ago)

dee for what its worth id really like to hear your opinon on thurmonds death (and this thread!!!)

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:49 (twenty-two years ago)

and the 'leopard, change spots' thing is such bullshit becuz it's the same line David Duke peddled. Of course, after he lost he reverted right to form. Now he makes money as a 'correspondent' for Saudi media, 'exposing' how the Jews control our media, govt., etc. and how 9/11 was a Bush-Sharon plot (maybe The Nation'll publish his book).

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:50 (twenty-two years ago)

james i know all this but what has byrd actually DONE!!

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 04:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I will only elaborate on what I feel about Strom Thurmond's death:

I do not rejoice in it, nor will I go on and on about how sad I am that he died. He was 100 years old; I feel it was his time to die. I think that in a few respects he was an honorable man, but by and large he was really holding his constituents back by abiding by the same political viewpoints he held since the 1940s.

I feel a small obligation to take part in the memorialization of Thurmond's death, being that I do belong to the same party he was a member of, but I really don't feel it. I kinda feel that he was an embarrassment to the Republican party, because he was so old school with everything, but I'm not going to go out and say, "whoo hoo, he's dead!" I would never do that to someone, not even someone on death row (and I'm pro-death penalty). What I do with someone whom I detest who's passed away is hope they sincerely had forgiveness in their hearts for all the bad they did when they were alive and that they were haunted by their actions in the end, and then just let go. I'll let God take care of the whole "heaven or hell" question at that moment.

Oh yeah, and David Duke can just, as our supremely lovely That Girl would say, "eat my fuc".

― Innocent Dreamer (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Can I just say that Nixon wasn't nearly as bad as folks make him out to be?

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Dee, you're gonna get jumped all over for certain word choices and sentiments in that, but big ditto in that there's something to be said with treating people with civility, regardless of whether they do so or deserve it.

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Yance - Nixon was nearly as bad as people make him out to be (most of the positives you can name come as a result of having a heavily Democratic congress, grass roots movements finally bearing some legislative fruit, and - most importantly - Nixon not really having any domestic ideology beyond 'whatever'll get me in').

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Dee, you're gonna get jumped all over for certain word choices and sentiments in that

Don't I know that....

*flashes back to horrible accusations of being called a bigot*

but big ditto in that there's something to be said with treating people with civility, regardless of whether they do so or deserve it.

Thank you. I've learned this lesson the hard way. If you're sanctimonious during the time of someone's passing or when someone is going through rough times, I feel that sanctimony ends up finding you during the time of YOUR passing or when YOU go through rough times.

― Innocent Dreamer (Dee the Lurker), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:16 (twenty-two years ago)

rejoycing in someone's death? meh. but nasty uncivil words -- fuckyeah.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:37 (twenty-two years ago)

i.e. i'm not cheering over thurmond's death but his rotting racist corpse can go eat a bag of dicks, just like his his live racist body coulda done last week.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Sterling Hannity

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:42 (twenty-two years ago)

and, before someone calls me on my bullshit, I'll say that cynicism, nastiness, debate as shouting, and outrage du jourism work to serve right wing ends no matter who's doing the sneering. I'm all for uncivility elsewhere, but with politics I could do without.

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:46 (twenty-two years ago)

blount yr. occasional bouts of "sensitivity" are inevitibly a cover for yr. unwillingness to argue yr. centrist politix straight. instead you (of all people!) advise others to tone it down etc. as though it were friendly words from a co-thinker and not someone trying to blunt other's (deliberate often) sharp spikey edges to secure the biggest safest dullest middleground. its the rhetoric of exclusion and normativity and i find it deadening.

(xpost, but what the fuck)

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:49 (twenty-two years ago)

He lived for 100 years and was in a postion of power for like 70 or so? There doesn't seem too much to celebrate in his FINALLY DYING.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:55 (twenty-two years ago)

haha, sterling called me on it anyway!

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:56 (twenty-two years ago)

gimme dull, safe, unscary government anyday (in 2004 hopefully)

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 05:58 (twenty-two years ago)

tad agrees with trife here SHOCKA!

and no, i couldn't stand strom thurmond while he was alive.

― Tad (llamasfur), Friday, 27 June 2003 06:06 (twenty-two years ago)

ps: i rather like fritz hollings. here's to hoping he sticks around as long as strom did.

― Tad (llamasfur), Friday, 27 June 2003 06:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Can't you be glad he's dead AND worry about his 'lionization'?

― oops (Oops), Friday, 27 June 2003 06:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I think the 'lionization' threat is a bit overstated - Trent Lott's too fresh on the brain

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 06:17 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm not happy about thurmond's lionization, let that much be known. i was more than happy when he left the Senate for good, and that Lott's dumb-ass comments made people realize what a bigoted creep Thurmond was in his heyday.

i just find that applauding the man's death to be ghoulish, is all.

― Tad (llamasfur), Friday, 27 June 2003 06:17 (twenty-two years ago)

trife in ridiculous strawman arguments to grind axe/continue love-hate based fascination/fear of/with ilx shocker

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 27 June 2003 06:52 (twenty-two years ago)

i.e. my initial "yay" was sarcastic, but why the fuck should i be tiptoeing thru the tulips on an internet message board where the vast majorty (like you 99.99999999999%) of posters have no interest in "lionizing" any conservative politician, let alone a lying racist hateful scumbag like strom thurmond, nor did i ever claim a gut reaction of dirty glee over the passing of a terrible man was any sort of statement - a pretty hilarious condemnation coming from ilx's king of the empty oneliner

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 27 June 2003 06:57 (twenty-two years ago)

jess in impotently angry about getting called out on kneejerk dead prez idiocy shocker

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:00 (twenty-two years ago)

wait that must be the 'kitsch' talking again, you know severity in music arguments does not have political consequences but i guess if you only know about the former...

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:01 (twenty-two years ago)

um, sorry to interupt you guys – but not being an american i don't know alot about this guy.

so he was a senator? who was oppsoed to equal rights? and how long was he in a position of power for? and why was he allowed to stick around (in politics) for so long?

― dyson (dyson), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:03 (twenty-two years ago)

well clearly he was in politics for so long because he hadnt gloriously DIED yet, you see when racist politicians die, the racists who elected them instantly disappear from the planet (and their sons and daughters etc etc etc its just like instant gratification time travel)

― trife (simon_tr), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:06 (twenty-two years ago)

damn jess, you got called out!

― oops (Oops), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:06 (twenty-two years ago)

trife in absuing ilx in order to relieve the real life burdens he's been carrying around for the last two years shocker

really, e, let go. ilx has nothing to offer you anymore. bridges are burnt.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:06 (twenty-two years ago)

right trife, cuz that's obviously what everyone here think happens. moron.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:08 (twenty-two years ago)

camping out at yr first anti-war vigil and thinking yr howard zinn: c or d?

― jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:13 (twenty-two years ago)

he was a senator for some forty-odd years, staunch segregationist, ran for president against Harry Truman (this should give you some idea just how long this fucker was around), was governor of south carolina for awhile before that, democrat for a little over half his political career, switched to republican circa Nixon's southern strategy. like most other segregationists, not much of an ideologue past segregationism. unlike some former segregationists (wallace most obv.) never actually renounced his past. for at least the last fifteen years of his career most notable for being old. at the beginning got elected cuz he was a segregationist but also cuz he was a democrat (post-reconstruction - nixon, republican's can't win jack in the south). towards the end mainly cuz south carolinians are absurdly/amusingly tradition freaks and contrary, and becuz ain't no force in politics stronger than inertia (win your first reelection and you're set for life).

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Can I just say that Nixon wasn't nearly as bad as folks make him out to be?

you're right, he was MUCH MUCH worse than most people thought he was.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 27 June 2003 07:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Wait...why isn't using the word "normative" in a perjorative manner *itself* not normative?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 27 June 2003 11:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Would the liberal agenda be more successful if it tried to have better manners?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 27 June 2003 13:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Have you *seen* Michael Lerner eat something? Dude never closes his mouth when he chews!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 27 June 2003 14:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Trife, I don't entirely disagree with you here -- I mean, obviously it's unsightly to get all Coulterish about the guy's death, especially after he'd already retired to his private life -- but you're just plain ignoring the truth when you joke about "the racists who elected him" disappearing. Plenty of Thurmond's supporters were black! The point was that there was a Thurmond machine that coasted along on pork and jobs and the flat-out traditionalism of sending "Good Old Strom" back to Washington -- and at the head of that machine sat a reprehensible person who used that post to basically fuck with the nation's politics. He wasn't entirely elected by ideologues who'd gladly vote for a mini-Strom, and the obvious hope with his retirement was that even though his successor would keep the same legislative agenda, the person at the head of it would be a conservative of a much less troubled mold than Thurmond. (Which is exactly the case: Lindsey Graham strikes me as a run-of-mill junior conservative, and with the 60s lock off of South Carolina's representation, who knows what changes could come over the next elections.)

I also agree with Dan's point: if you bend over backwards to be civil about the death of someone you abhor, you're only acting as an assistant to that posthumous lionization you're complaining about. I don't exactly need to cheer anyone's death; any tweaks of humor I see in Thurmond's have more to do with the years upon years that liberals spent watching him age, in office, and eventually figuring the only way he'd give up that seat was when the good lord took him out of it. But if anyone I talk to during the next few days asks me what I think of Thurmond's death, I'll tell the truth: I have always disliked him; I found his politics and his use of his seat disagreeable and often despicable; I think he did his best to make this nation worse, for everyone; I was overjoyed to finally see him leave the senate. My condolences.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 June 2003 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I am imagining evil blue lightning flying out of Strom's body...

― Dale the Merciless (cprek), Friday, 27 June 2003 15:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Note also, Trife, that Thurmond's giving up the seat meant giving up all of the senate seniority (and less-administrative forms of influence) that came along with it.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 27 June 2003 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

What's the poop on Byrd, anyway? I couldn't find all that much online, except his voting record and his ratings by conservative and liberal groups. I also found this:

"Well, it's easy to state what has been my biggest mistake. The greatest mistake I ever made was joining the Ku Klux Klan. And I've said that many times. But one cannot erase what he has done. He can only change his ways and his thoughts. That was an albatross around my neck that I will always wear. You will read it in my obituary that I was a member of the Ku Klux Klan."

― Kerry (dymaxia), Friday, 27 June 2003 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

RE: Byrd. I find Byrd to be a useless old man, but to even attempt to argue that joining the Klan when you're a teenager in the Old South is in any way akin to being an unrepentant racist and segregationist until you die at the century mark is ridiculous.

The Byrd argument gets lamer every time I hear it - and note that it only comes up as the retort to legitimate concerns about the GOP being in bed with racists. "Well, Democrats have a former Klan member, too!"

Too bad I'm not a Democrat, or it might actually... nah, even then I'd just laugh at the argument.

Would the liberal agenda be more successful if it tried to have better manners?

Quite the opposite. The "liberal agenda" has been stymied since they started being polite and stopped actually doing anything.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 27 June 2003 17:28 (twenty-two years ago)

um, sorry to interupt you guys – but not being an american i don't know alot about this guy.
so he was a senator? who was oppsoed to equal rights? and how long was he in a position of power for? and why was he allowed to stick around (in politics) for so long?

Dyson, try to imagine someone like Jacques Parazeau in federal politics for 50 years instead of provincial politics for 30.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 27 June 2003 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but did Thurmond ever lose the election because of the "ethnic vote"?

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Friday, 27 June 2003 18:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Not that I know of, but I'm sure he would have blamed them too if he lost.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 27 June 2003 19:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm pretty sure Strom would have chosen "darkies" over "ethnic."

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Friday, 27 June 2003 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

He lost his chance at making his own nation to "money and the ethnic vote."
It never really sank in at the time how close we were to loosing our nation.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 27 June 2003 19:34 (twenty-two years ago)

milo strom would likely never have uttered the word "darkies" in public--he was more of a genteel racist. the fact that he abandoned his segregationist positions but never formally renounced them testifies not as much to his recalcitrance as to his opportunism--he could function as a changed man (get the votes of blacks and moderate whites) and still not offend the more reondite among his former constinuency.

the guy's record was pathetic enough as it is, i think we should be careful about embellishing it with more damning color (no pun intended) than it already has.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 27 June 2003 22:09 (twenty-two years ago)

reondite = recondite.

― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 27 June 2003 22:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I think there's something further on that point: it's really risky to pretend that people can only be racist in one way, and that anyone who supported segregation must have some open loathing of blacks. This isn't the case and wasn't even the case during slavery, when white Southerners were probably more able to have decent personal relationships with blacks than their northern counterparts. Which is why segregationists and those that came after them are always so quick to talk about how they love black people, get along just fine with black people, etc.: they honestly do, so long as really odious notions of each person's proper place are still standing.

― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 28 June 2003 01:20 (twenty-two years ago)

To put it another way, you might love and cherish your dog and think it's immensely clever and capable, but you don't extend to it the same respect that you'd extend to a fellow human being (which, in this ill-phrased analogy, it turns out to actually be). The "colored fountain" is the doggie dish; the firehose is the newspaper that gets rolled up when the dog steals some of the owner's dinner. Dilute this a bit and I think you have a much closer characterization of post-segregation rationale: "Black people are great and fine (in their own little way that they should stick to)."

I'd say this rationale is actually more awful and dehumanizing than just hating black people outright.

― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 28 June 2003 01:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Nabisco is extremely correct.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Saturday, 28 June 2003 02:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Comparing Jacques Parizeau to a prominent segregationist = ignorant and fucked-up.

― Patrick, Tuesday, 1 July 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Thurmond dies: a lot of whitewashing becuse he basically a polite gentleman, not as much as there would have been a year ago (James Blount OTM)

Reagan dies: Big ole State Funeral, man of the eighties, won the Cold War, terrifying mental illness always good, and probably a lot of "of course, hostages blah blah contras blah blah, but that's the eighties for you".

Am I right in thinking, though, that Thatcher dies => actual street parties?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Re. Thatcher: quite possibly, yes.

― RickyT (RickyT), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Also a question posed by DV a few weeks ago: When Eighties Irish overlord Charles Haughey dies, what with numerous tribunals having proved him to be the most corrupt man ever, and avoiding jailtime because "he's not in the best of mental health", will he even get a state funeral?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 16:14 (twenty-two years ago)

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

If there are street parties when Thatcher dies, I'm emigrating. I don't care if your weather sucks and my Texas accent (what little I have) will keep me from rising through the levels of your classist and blah blah blah society - I'm there.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 22:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Blessings for the dark overlords that took Thurmond's spririt away. Now, if they could just off Prince Phillip...

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 22:17 (twenty-two years ago)

tarnation!

― James Blount (James Blount), Wednesday, 2 July 2003 05:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Comparing Jacques Parizeau to a prominent segregationist = ignorant and fucked-up.

How so? Am I giving jacques too much credit?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 2 July 2003 12:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Mr. Noodles...Where are you from?

― cybele (cybele), Wednesday, 2 July 2003 14:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Upper Canada at the moment.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 2 July 2003 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Now there's loaded anachronistic nomenclature if I've ever heard it...

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 2 July 2003 15:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Thought it appropriate at the moment.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 2 July 2003 15:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Uppity Canada?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 2 July 2003 15:12 (twenty-two years ago)

whoah.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 17:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I first saw that on a private mailing list a few days ago, but I didn't want to post it until I saw it confirmed.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 3 July 2003 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

zoiks?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 3 July 2003 17:41 (twenty-two years ago)

squish!

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)

uh-uh!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 3 July 2003 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/bo/2003/bo030707.gif

― Ed (dali), Monday, 7 July 2003 08:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Comparing Jacques Parizeau to a prominent segregationist = ignorant and fucked-up.

How so? Am I giving jacques too much credit?

One stupid, offensive, divisive comment != a lifetime of commitment to racial segregation.

― Patrick, Monday, 7 July 2003 15:27 (twenty-two years ago)

it wasn't a lifetime committment. if it was he would have been voted out of office in the eisenhower era.

― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 7 July 2003 15:32 (twenty-two years ago)

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