Thursday, June 25, 2015

Memo to the race obsessed Democrats: Are you ready to cancel President Wilson’s party membership?

(My new Babalu post)

Over the last few days, we’ve heard some rather silly things.    For example, someone called for the elimination of the movie “Gone with the wind” and another for taking down the Jefferson Monument.
I’m not sure how you eliminate or delete a movie.   Are they going to make it illegal to own a copy or read the book?
How are you going to take down the Jefferson monument?  replace it with what?
Some have called for changing the names of schools, parks or streets.   They want every “racist” deleted for once and for all.
As you can see, the “race obsessed” left is really playing with fire in the aftermath of the flag in South Carolina controversy.
My advice to Democrats is to stop it.   As they say, be careful what you wish for because you may get it!
Let’s take the case of Woodrow Wilson, one of the most popular and often quoted presidents on the Democrat side of the aisle.
There are lots of schools, colleges and a few streets named after President Woodrow Wilson.   In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few Navy Ships floating around named after him.
Wilson was the 28th president of the US and the first Democrat from the South since the Civil War.   He took the country into World War I and suffered from very bad health at the end of his second term.
Wilson was also a rather well known racist, as Professor William Keylor wrote a bit back:
“Wilson is widely and correctly remembered — and represented in our history books — as a progressive Democrat who introduced many liberal reforms at home and fought for the extension of democratic liberties and human rights abroad.  But on the issue of race his legacy was, in fact, regressive and has been largely forgotten.
Born in Virginia and raised in Georgia and South Carolina, Wilson was a loyal son of the old South who regretted the outcome of the Civil War.  He used his high office to reverse some of its consequences.  When he entered the White House a hundred years ago today, Washington was a rigidly segregated town — except for federal government agencies.  They had been integrated during the post-war Reconstruction period, enabling African-Americans to obtain federal jobs and work side by side with whites in government agencies.  Wilson promptly authorized members of his cabinet to reverse this long-standing policy of racial integration in the federal civil service.
Cabinet heads — such as his son-in-law, Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo of Tennessee – re-segregated facilities such as restrooms and cafeterias in their buildings.  In some federal offices, screens were set up to separate white and black workers.  African-Americans found it difficult to secure high-level civil service positions, which some had held under previous Republican administrations.
A delegation of black professionals led by Monroe Trotter, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard and Boston newspaper editor, appeared at the White House to protest the new policies.  But Wilson treated them rudely and declared that “segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.””
Like the late Senator Byrd of West Virginia, who died in 2009, President Wilson was a Democrat from another time.    They were born and raised in the segregated South.   Frankly, it was tough to survive politically in the pre-1960 South without subscribing to those attitudes.
My preference is to move on and stop living in the past.    We have some serious problems, internally and externally.
Let’s remind the Democrats again:  Be careful what you  wish for because you may get it.   You may have to cut ties with a lot of your party’s heroes who waved the Confederate Flag!
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

Tags: Woodrow Wilson and Democrats  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!

OK the flag is down...can we talk middle class problems?

(My new American Thinker post)

Don't get me wrong.  I understand the sensitivities of this flag issue.  

At the same time, shouldn't we get over it and deal with the real problems impacting the middle class, black, white, brown and whatever other color there is?

According to CNN Money, many Americans are in trouble:
Making the rent is a common struggle for the poor. But it's becoming increasingly difficult among the middle class.One in five renter households making $45,000-$75,000 a year are considered "cost-burdened," meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent, according to Harvard's State of the Nation's Housing 2015 report.
In the country's most expensive cities -- like San Francisco, New York and Boston -- almost half of renters making $45,000-$75,000 annually faced "disproportionately" high payments.  Rent prices have been rising faster than paychecks -- especially among the middle class.
"Income growth for those folks has been especially weak," said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com.

To be fair, we can't blame all of this on President Obama.   At the same time, we are in year 7 of his presidency and he owns some of the problem.  Let's just say that Democrats would be blaming it on a GOP president if it were the other way around.


Rent rising faster than paychecks!   And income growth is weak!   This is like 1 + 1 equals 1.5 rather than 2!


And there is more bad news, especially for lower income families:
While the overall U.S. housing market has seen a rebound, home prices in many working-class communities are still behind the curve, leaving many owners stuck with properties worth less than their mortgage balances.    
So let's lower the flag, and the volume, and look at the middle class in the US. It is not pretty out there for millions of Americans trying to realize the American Dream. 

P. S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.


Tags: US middle class and economics  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!

The flag controversy plus US-Latin America stories of the week




Tags: South Carolina and the flag, Venezuela, Leopoldo Lopez, Colombia and Venezuela, US-Cuba talks, Mexico and Donald Trump To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the My View by Silvio Canto, Jr. Thanks!

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