You might be a ratfucker if you attack party brothers/sisters on the eve of an election
Nevermind that the folks who use this term take liberties with the historical meaning that would make the Tea Party blush -- I'm speaking your language so you can understand.
It really doesn't get any more clear. We're on the eve of an election. Primaries have been over for quite some time. If you're here…inciting internecine grievances on the eve of an election…by definition YOU'RE NOT HELPING. You might even be ratfucking yourself.
Here's a few things that can help:
-- Go make some phone calls for your county executive board.
-- Call your relatives and see if they've voted.
-- Catch up on emailing friends and remind them to vote.
You don't have to go knock every door in your neighborhood -- just…try to not break any more shit for the next 24 hours. Okay?
#GOTMFV
(updated for clarity)
(edit to add…b/c some aren't getting it: i'm THE OPPOSITE OF applauding this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025750820 <-- you get no moral high ground if you hippie punched in this thread. period. go make some phone calls.)
= new reply since forum marked as read
... what they think it means.
Liberals are not the existential threat to the Democratic Party. Nor are liberals a Nixonian plot to disrupt the perfect harmony of our rightful rulers, the conservative Democrats.
Nobody thinks that.
It's so predictable and so lame at this point I'm surprised they keep trying to float this hippie punching-wrapped-in-concern-trolling conceit at all.
I guess they think it's some kind of bulletproof rhetoric, like that killer ponies 'n rainbows schtick?
The final laughable straw has got to be today's OP trying to add "watching for Republican election fraud" to the "ratfucking" trope.
Because being suspicious of Republicans is traitorous to Dems ... somehow?
Hilarious. But also kind of sad.
provided the criticism is one right-leaning Dems disagree with.
Before an election. After an election. Between elections. They really should give us the window in which they deem it acceptable to disagree with them.
It's such an eerie parallel of the way RW Republicans do business, isn't it? It's just acolytes and blasphemers to them.
Buuuurrrn the liberal witches!
not the solution. Think you misread the OP.
OP. Saying he "might be ratfucking too" The only thing FSogal has pointed out is simple truth.
Unwritten message: no point in voting.
2. Two weeks before the election: Accuse every mainstream Democratic politician of being 3-way, corporate, conserva-dems, DINOs who doesn't care about the voters.
Unwritten message: no point in voting
3. One week before the election: Impossible to win, look at all these right wings polls and pundits! They all agree we can't win.
Unwritten message: no point in voting
4. Day before the election: The machines might be rigged! Oh noes! They won't let us win.
Unwritten message: no point in voting.
And, this..
"To each and everyone of one these, I say screw that. Show up and vote. Bring your family, bring your friends, and bring your co-workers. Shame them into voting. Get them to the polls. We are doing better than the media reports and can take big wins if we show up. Don't sit this one out. Don't let anyone tell you it is a lost cause. GOTV."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5750820
[font color=blue][font size=lg]GOTV2014![/font][/font]
That thread was the same old BS from a well know pot stirrer. Funny how they just can't stop doing what they do so well, even on the eve of an election. 
Last edited Tue Nov 4, 2014, 11:26 AM - Edit history (1)
Criticism of conservative Dems does not equate to killing enthusiasm for the party in general. That is a made up thing.
Liberals who don't care for third-way politics not only vote and GOTV, but are typically the backbone of every single grassroots effort that helps Democrats.
Dems do not lose elections because liberal Dems are too critical of conservative Dems. The only way that would be true would be if conservative Dems were right about everything, but that is ...
SOMEWHAT UNLIKELY.
And that last bit -- that watching out for Republican fraud is also just a depressing vote killer? That's a genuine bit of ratfucking right there.
You could not invent something more likely for an actual Republican operative to say on a Democratic website than to suggest suspecting Republicans of election fraud is traitorous to Democrats.
There may or may not be election fraud, but the result of watching Republicans in case they attempt election fraud, which a real thing they have actually attempted from time to time, is not "an unwritten message not to vote."
and vote the least. That is why it is important not to take anything they say seriously, they seem to have a hard enough time getting off the couch and into a voting booth.
It just seems natural they would pick up and love a term coined by Republicans.
Last edited Mon Nov 3, 2014, 11:17 PM - Edit history (2)
Still Bitter After All these Years.. Tavis Smiley.. "ratfucking"..
"Not all African Americans leaders are encouraging black voter turnout, however, even in the shadow of Ferguson. Journalist and pundit are more about election year politics than a genuine desire to change policies.Tavis Smiley said in a recent interview with ABC News that "if you're black or brown, other than helping to save the Democrats' hide," there are no good reasons to turn out to vote this November. Smiley claimed that Democratic appeals to black voters"
"Anatomy of a Rat Fuck".. http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5752946
Edit "You might even be ratfucking yourself."
The OP is calling out the stupidity of CALLING liberal Dems "ratfuckers."
YOU are attacking Dems on election eve. These Dems, here on DU.
Jesus.
Either abysmal reading comprehension, or Pavlovian responses to the word itself, or computerized responses based on keywords.
Hard to tell, sometimes....
Liberal thinking is betrayal to these guys. Calling Dems you disagree with Nixonian traitors is cool, though.
Because, you know, liberals can't win elections. They just "depress turnout."
Through the looking glass here.
Did the OP writer write something besides the OP, or otherwise confide in you something that would give you that impression? 
you think the politically disengaged are NOT paying attention to a partisan message board. And you don't feel the need to censor your opinions, even if they were.
So why ask?
Just as I thought.
NewsBusters! 
I only skimmed the thread, but here are a couple of sane replies:
20. I conduct my business and leave like a civilized human being.
Codeine (13,952 posts)
36. This.
Why some people always have to make an issue out of nothing is a real mystery to me. The world is full of shit (pop music, reality television, advertising) that I'm not interested in or just don't care about and I can ignore all of those things, so adding Fux News to the list of things I tune out is a fairly minor effort.
I notice that the *offending* thread has zero recs, so DU as a whole considered it bullshit. It wasn't even worth reccing for trainwreck value!
And if someone is idiotic enough to let THAT affect their vote, maybe they shouldn't be voting.
Because I read to mean what was written. 
Do you equate failure to agree with third-way Dems with undermining election efforts? Do you think it's super clever to call people traitors for daring to disagree with you?
Do you think party "unity" is carried out by insinuating anyone whose views don't match your own is a traitor, spy, or goon?
That's the losing conceit the OP is getting at. The people obsessed with hosing down the site with their "liberal critics are ratfucking" meme are causing the very problem they imagine they are addressing.
That is the "critics are ratfuckers" thesis. And no, it is not part of the ToS.
There is a not a mandate from the site's developers that liberals shut up during certain periods.
That's funny though -- I'm sure the Loyalty Uber Alles faction would enjoy that interpretation.
The "
not so) unwritten message" is "Democrats are flawed/Democrats are no different from republicans/etc. While no one has written "Don't vote", what has been written is/would not, in the least, be to ENCOURAGE someone to vote.
There is a not a mandate from the site's developers that liberals shut up during certain periods.
You, and others insist that to be the case; but, how do you read this:
Winning elections is important — therefore, advocating in favor of Republican nominees or in favor of third-party spoiler candidates that could split the vote and throw an election to our conservative opponents is never permitted on Democratic Underground. But that does not mean that DU members are required to always be completely supportive of Democrats. During the ups-and-downs of politics and policy-making, it is perfectly normal to have mixed feelings about the Democratic officials we worked hard to help elect. When we are not in the heat of election season, members are permitted to post strong criticism or disappointment with our Democratic elected officials, or to express ambivalence about voting for them. In Democratic primaries, members may support whomever they choose. But when general election season begins, DU members must support Democratic nominees (EXCEPT in rare cases where were a non-Democrat is most likely to defeat the conservative alternative, or where there is no possibility of splitting the liberal vote and inadvertently throwing the election to the conservative alternative). For presidential contests, election season begins when both major-party nominees become clear. For non-presidential contests, election season begins on Labor Day. Everyone here on DU needs to work together to elect more Democrats and fewer Republicans to all levels of American government. If you are bashing, trashing, undermining, or depressing turnout for our candidates during election season, we'll assume you are rooting for the other side.
Any other way?
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THEY are calling for party unity. By calling DUers they disagree with "ratfuckers."
I don't normally do this, but
This is the level of thinking.
authoritarian follower personality type as described by Bob Altemeyer in The Authoritarians.
If someone says a thing they agree with, authoritarian followers tend to assume they're sincere. They have a blind spot for satire and are incredibly vulnerable to charlatans and con-men.
IIRC, the study he cited involved college students reciting opinion-driven essays on topics they were assigned. The people listening to these speakers were informed that the speaker had to argue this position as part of their assignment, and just about everyone understood that. But authoritarian followers almost always said the speaker was sincere and believed the position they were arguing-- so long as the authoritarian themselves also held that position. If they did not, they did not think the speaker was sincere. 
Look at the responses. No recognition that calling liberals "ratfuckers" on election eve IS the ratfucking.
off the table.
logic makes no sense at this point, your on the event horizon of a grey matter sucking black hole.
Funny to watch though.
"Oh no, we're calling for *unity* here. By um, despising any Democrat who disagrees with us and calling them traitors. We're just concerned all this liberal thinking will ruin the election. Because liberals always lose. Just as God intended."
"Also, if you worry Republicans might cheat at elections, you are likewise a traitorous 'ratfucker.'"
The logic inversion at play is breathtaking. Not to mention the obsession with Nixonian tactics, and possibly, rat fucking.
that some how when your critical of the 3rd way or neo liberals your "dividing the party".
Because the 3rd way and neo-liberals aren't doing that.
The stupid hurts.
I get out the vote, and I don't ratfuck.
It seems the OP thinks that they're mutually exclusive. Uh, no, really, they are one in the same.
The OP is addressing that sad contingent that believes there is some parallel between liberal Dems on DU and Nixon's goon squad. They have constructed a weird kind of nonfunctioning fallacy where somehow it's liberal thought and criticism that endanger the Democratic Party, and that they must shut up around elections or something.
Mostly they're just third-way conservatives who want to blame liberals for when elections go wrong. They're not very good at constructing arguments or persuading people, but believe they have a workable rhetorical cudgel with the "ratfucking" thing. Plus, I think they just like the idea of calling people ugly names, like rightwingers do. It's low-grade hippie punching from the remedial class.
Glad you agree.
That is the hilarious fallacy here:
Step 1: Conservative, third-way Dems are right about everything.
Step 2: Therefore, critique from the left, by definition harms the party.
Step 3: Thus, when elections go badly, it is due to criticism of the right, by the left.
Step 4: Therefore, liberals are like Nixonian goons, killing the pragmatic, workable premise that the Democratic Party is center-right.
Except Nixonian goons are by definition conservative, but we're ignoring that like every other bit of logic or reason, in order to create the Liberals are Ratfuckers Thesis.
Jesus.
Of course, only works if you make the gigantic and rather unlikely assumption that liberal critique can only hurt the party and that any such talk therefore ... what was it again? Creates an "unwritten messsage not to vote?"
Nobody thinks that.
glad i wasn't drinking pepsi 
Sorry, folks!
I'm trying to think of the best description for the phenomena on display here - maybe "hoist on their own petard"?
(the hippies punch back... 
Hell. Yes.
And not a moment too soon.
- The wet noodles should do the trick.....
K&R
I get it, actually. The confusion. Everyone thinks everyone else's opinion is what's ruining the Party. This particular OP is calling out the "loyalty first" faction for the whole "ratfucking" conceit. "Why are you attacking Dems on the eve of election?"
Apparently the question is which Dems we are talking about. Liberal Dems on DU who want better policies and more consistency, or Democratic politicians?
The guys who think criticizing Democratic politicians is appalling have taken to calling those they disagree with traitors and "ratfuckers," on the the supposed theory that not liking everything every Democrat does will somehow dampen voting or something. Doesn't seem super likely, but that's what they're going with.
The OP, in contrast, seems to be saying that equating DUers whose opinions you dislike with Nixon's goon squad, and reveling in the ugliness of the word "ratfucker" is perhaps a bit more anti-Dem than taking issue with Obama's drone policy or whatever.
I agree with the OP.
I think you do, too?
G'night.
Now, how many advocates of the "ratfucker" theme will think they are "repairing the hull" by telling liberals to shut up?
They also cheered a post suggesting Harry Belafonte has some sort of brain-rotting venereal disease, all because he dared criticize Obama. Oh, and gays have "plenty of rights." Truly, a nasty bunch.
Well! This ratfucker just voted. Long two-page ballot, oh the hardship! Can't wait for the results, of course, and the BOE data on just who voted, and who sat out.
If you know Uncle Bob is a racist azz teabagger, it would be counter productive to get him to vote. Maybe get him a 6 pack and tell him the election was yesterday and the Rethugs lost 
Last edited Tue Nov 4, 2014, 11:59 AM - Edit history (1)
Live and loin.
Harry S Truman, a former member of the White Citizens' Council from Missouri, is now considered a liberal hippie. What was once simply a mainstream Democrat is now either a hippie or a liberal or a wild-eyed radical.
The Koch brothers wet dream come true.
Address Given by President Truman at the National Convention Banquet of the Americans for Democratic Action
May 17, 1952
General Biddle and distinguished guests:
Your President has put me in a very embarrassing position. You know, it has been remarked before historically "O that mine enemy would write a book." Sometimes it's bad for your friends to write books.
It is a real pleasure to speak before the national convention of the ADA--Americans for Democratic Action.
The ADA was set up in January 1947. Those were dark days for the liberal forces in America. But you people had the courage to take up the fight and go forward. You dedicated yourselves to fight for progress and against reaction--against reaction of the right and against reaction of the left.
You helped to hang the record of the 80th Congress around the neck of the Republican Party--and I finished the job. You held firm against the fanatical and misguided attacks of the Wallace movement. And since 1948, you have been going down the line for policies and programs in the interest of the people and in fulfillment of the highest values we cherish in this Republic. I congratulate you on all the effective work you have done for the cause of liberal government.
Now then I am going to say something to you that I think maybe will please you a little bit.
Of course, there was a time when it might not have been so pleasant for me to meet with the ADA. I understand that 4 years ago-along about this time--some of the leaders of ADA were engaged in rather wild fancies about the Presidential nomination.
I am told there was a little poem that gained some currency in ADA circles in those days, and it went like this:
"Between the Taft and the Dewey,
When defeat is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the ADA's occupation,
That is known as the Eisenhower."
Y
ou know, the peculiar part about it was that you were a young political organization and you had not studied the history of conventions. A President of the United States, when he desires and when he wants to be nominated, there isn't anybody in the world can keep him from being nominated. The same thing is true when he doesn't want to be nominated.
I doubt if you will be having any pauses for that particular purpose this year.
In spite of the various notions about the nomination in 1948, the outcome of the election that year pleased all of us here--particularly me, and it astonished a great many people. It simply astonished a great many people. Mark Twain said, in an inscription I have always had on my desk, "Always do right. It will please some people, and astonish the rest." Well, that's what we did in 1948. We astonished the pollsters and the sabotage press, and the opposition candidates--Republican, crackpot, and Dixiecrat. The results were good for the country, even though they set back the science of political forecasting for a full generation. I hope it set them back forever.
You remember way back--you are too young for that--you know what happened to the Literary Digest in a certain poll. I like to remember Elmo Roper in his September spasm in which he said no more polls were necessary, Dewey would be the next President, there really wasn't any use to hold an election in November. He has been apologizing about that ever since, and trying to get his poll back.
Now the time has rolled around again when you folks have the problem of trying to pick and choose a candidate to support. You are not the only ones who have that problem, and I assure you I am fully aware that it can be a very perplexing problem indeed.
But we are lucky in having a number of good presidential candidates in the field, and some of them are here tonight. I am sure that the ADA will find a candidate who expresses in his philosophy and in his record the things that this organization stands for. Obviously, such a man would have to be a Democrat.
Because this is an election year, I would like to talk to you a little bit about politics. I know you are a nonpartisan or bipartisan organization. I heard it carefully analyzed here just a minute ago--at least, I have heard that you have some Republicans among your membership, and I am sure that at one time it was true. I don't know whether it is now or not.
I want to ask these Republicans who are in the ADA not to include themselves in any remarks I am about to make about the Republican Party. When I talk about the Republican Party here tonight, I mean the dinosaur wing of the Republican Party-which unfortunately seems to be in control of that party. They are living in 1896 and 1920. They are made up of the Republicans of 1896 and 1920, under William McKinley and Warren G. Harding.
The first thing I will say about the Republican Party, believe it or not, is an expression of gratitude. I want to thank them for the way they help the Democrats win elections. Under the liberal policies of the Democratic administration, our country has grown strong and prosperous. And this has been true for such a long time now that people tend to forget what things were like under the Republicans. They criticize the mistakes the Democrats make, but they take for granted all the benefits we have brought them. Every 4 years it begins to look as if the people had forgotten what a Republican administration would mean to the country. And the Republicans go around convincing themselves that they cannot possibly lose the presidential election. I have heard it happen 4 times.
But it is just at this point, when things look darkest for the Democrats, that you can count on the Republicans to do something that will save the day--that is, it will save the day for us. You can always count on the Republicans, in an election year, to remind the people of what the Republican Party really stands for. You can always count on them to make it perfectly clear before the campaign is over that the Republican Party is the party of big business, and that they would like to turn the country back to the big corporations and the big bankers in New York to run it as they see fit. They are just not going to do it.
Just leave them alone, and the Republicans will manage to scare the daylights out of the farmer and the wage earner and the average American citizen. They always do that.
I had the best time I ever had in my life going up and down this country, telling the people the truth, and when they found out what the truth was, you know what they did. And I am here to say to you that when a man in politics, if he is a leader. has the right ideas, the people are willing to listen to what he has to say. It is a matter of salesmanship.
And that's the reason the pollsters are wrong, whenever you have a candidate who will go out and say what is good for the people--they will believe him; but they go down the street and meet the first three or four people, and ask them who you are for and why you are for him. "Oh," they say, "I'm for this fellow. Of course some article in the paper said this or that about him." And they don't know anything about them, really. That is really what makes leadership in politics. You have got to go out and sell yourself, and what you stand for. And we are going to get a candidate like that, and he is going to win.
Now, the Republicans in 1948, in that 80th Congress of theirs, they went after organized labor with their Taft-Hartley law. They went after all wage earners by their attacks on the social security program. They went after the farmer by tampering with price supports and by failing to provide grain storage.
This year they are at it again. The Republicans think they have been so successful with their campaign of smears and character assassination that they have the Democrats on the run. And they just can't restrain themselves enough to hide their true colors until after the election. They are too impatient. First one way and then another they are giving themselves away. Take this steel dispute.
I am not going to talk about constitutional issues here tonight; they are before the Supreme Court. I just want to bring out a few facts about the economics of this dispute in the steel industry.
The steelworkers came in before a Government agency and proved that they were entitled to some wage increases. It was all perfectly fair, clear, and aboveboard. You can look at the figures and you can look at the record and see for yourself.
And then it was the turn of the steel companies. They were asked to agree to fair and reasonable wage increases and to come in and submit their case for price increases, if they needed any. But would they do that? Not at all.
Their profits, whatever yardstick you want to use, have been running close to record levels. I think that is the reason why they don't want to submit their case for consideration on its merits. They refuse to abide by the rules of our stabilization program. They just come out flatly and say that the Government has to give them a big price increase, or else. And I think they want a strike.
Now the Republican leadership didn't have to get mixed up in that fracas at all. The Republican leaders could have taken a calm, judicious attitude and weighed both sides and decided where the merits lie. But that is not the way the Republican leaders act; it never is--thank goodness.
They rushed into the fray at once. They took it up in Congress, and they made speeches up and down the Nation. They demanded four or five new investigations. They threatened to wreck price control, and they're doing their best to do it. And what is the purpose of all this? The purpose is to preserve high profits for the steel companies and prevent wage increases for the steelworkers.
That shows exactly where the Old Guard stands. It shows that their hearts lie with the corporations and not with the working people. It proves that the old Republican leopard hasn't changed a single spot. It ought to serve as a big, glaring danger sign to the voters of this country of what to expect if they turn the administration of the country over to the Republicans who are now in control of that party.
I am glad to say that there were a few Republicans in Congress who did not join in the hue and cry against the steelworkers. Some of them looked at the facts and drew very different conclusions. And one of them did a fine, courageous job of presenting the facts on the Senate floor. That was Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon.
The main body of the Republican leaders are doing just what they do every election year. They are making it good and plain to the American people that so far as domestic policies are concerned, the Republican Party is the party of reaction and the party of special privilege--just as I proved in 1948, and the people believed me; and they will yet.
And they are keeping pace in the field of foreign policy, too. Day after day, they are making it plain that the Republican Party is dominated by isolationists--the ones described by General Biddle--who don't really believe in international cooperation at all.
Today, most of the American people know that the survival of our country depends on our foreign policy. They know that a firm, consistent foreign policy can arise only from a nonpartisan foundation. They know that the leaders of both parties should work together in foreign policy for the good of the country, and that partisan politics should stop at the waters' edge.
The wiser heads of the Republican Party understand these things, too. Some of them have worked for a common agreement between Democrats and Republicans on foreign policy, for the good of the country. But just as these wiser heads appear to have succeeded in getting the Republican Party to stand for the good of the country in foreign affairs, a revolt breaks out; and the old, unreconstructed, isolationist wing of the Republican Party sets out in full cry again-and scares the people half to death.
This happened again, just a few weeks ago. Senator Wiley, the ranking Republican Member of the foreign Relations Committee in the Senate, made a speech to the newspaper editors on April 19. I had a press conference for those editors, and had more fun than I have had in a long time. He said there was a great deal in our international relations of which every American could be proud. He said that the Republican Party should not engage in unjustified criticism of our foreign policy, but should play a constructive role. And he asked us all to remember that, and I quote Senator Wiley verbatim, "We are first and last of that breed called Americans."
It was a good speech, and it was an honest one.
Well, what happened? first of all, the Bettie McCormick sabotage press jumped on Senator Wiley. They said he had endangered his country, betrayed the voters of his State, and imperiled his party. Then his Republican colleagues in the Senate went after him. Senator Cain from Washington, Senator Welker and Senator Mundt, and Senator Hickenlooper from Iowa, Senator Schoeppel of Kansas, and Senator Bridges of New Hampshire, and that great one-man grand jury Senator Ferguson of Michigan, all these gentlemen went after Wiley in a pack. They sneered at him, they jeered at him, they distorted his words, they cross-questioned him. They gave him to understand that this was an election year, and that it was the duty of every Republican to attack the foreign policy of his country. They made it clear that first and last, when it came to foreign policy, they were of that breed called Republicans, and Senator Wiley ought to be likewise. In other words, they are Republicans before they are Americans.
And there wasn't a single Republican who got up on his feet and said Senator Wiley was right.
Nobody ought to be in doubt, now. That was the Republican answer to the latest plea, from one of their own members, for a bipartisan foreign policy. That was their answer to a fellow Republican who dared to stand up and say that our country is doing a good thing when it cooperates with other countries, in Europe and in the far East, to hold back aggression.
Isolationism is not dead. Far from it. Even if the Republicans get a presidential candidate with a good record in foreign affairs, he will not be able to drown out the raucous isolationist outcries of the rest of the party. And that prospect is beginning to scare the voters--and it ought to scare them.
Now, we can always rely on the Republicans to help us in an election year, but we can't count on them to do the whole job for us. We have got to go out and do some of it ourselves, if we expect to win.
The first rule in my book is that we have to stick by the liberal principles of the Democratic Party. We are not going to get anywhere by trimming or appeasing. And we don't need to try it.
The record the Democratic Party has made in the last 20 years is the greatest political asset any party ever had in the history of the world. We would be foolish to throw it away. There is nothing our enemies would like better and nothing that would do more to help them win an election.
I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.
But when a Democratic candidate goes out and explains what the New Deal and fair Deal really are--when he stands up like a man and puts the issues before the people--then Democrats can win, even in places where they have never won before. It has been proven time and again.
We are getting a lot of suggestions to the effect that we ought to water down our platform and abandon parts of our program. These, my friends, are Trojan horse suggestions. I have been in politics for over 30 years, and I know what I am talking about, and I believe I know something about the business. One thing I am sure of: never, never throw away a winning program. This is so elementary that I suspect the people handing out this advice are not really well-wishers of the Democratic Party.
More than that, I don't believe they have the best interests of the American people at heart. There is something more important involved in our program than simply the success of a political party.
The rights and the welfare of millions of Americans are involved in the pledges made in the Democratic platform of 1948 and in the program of this administration. And those rights and interests must not be betrayed.
Take the problem of offshore oil, for example. The minerals that lie under the sea off the coasts of this country belong to the Federal Government--that is, to all the people of this country. The ownership has been affirmed and reaffirmed in the Supreme Court of the United States. Those rights may be worth as much as somewhere between $40 billion and $100 billion.
If we back down on our determination to hold these rights for all the people, we will act to rob them of this great national asset. That is just what the oil lobby wants. They want us to turn the vast treasure over to a handful of States, where the powerful private oil interests hope to exploit it to suit themselves.
Talk about corruption. Talk about stealing from the people. That would be robbery in broad daylight--on a colossal scale. It would make Teapot Dome look like small change.
I got a letter from a fellow in Texas today, who is a friend of mine, and he was weeping over what the schoolchildren of Texas were going to lose if Texas didn't get its oil lands 9 miles out from the shore. And I composed a letter to him, and then didn't send it. I said what about the schoolchildren in Missouri and Colorado, and North Dakota and Minnesota, and Tennessee and Kentucky and Illinois, do they have any interest in this at all? Evidently not, it should all go to Texas. Well, it isn't going there, if I can help it.
I can see how the Members of Congress from Texas and California and Louisiana might like to have all the offshore oil for their States. But I certainly can't understand how Members of Congress from the other 45 States can vote to give away the interest the people of their own States have in this tremendous asset. It's just over my head and beyond me how any interior Senator or Congressman could vote to give that asset away. I am still puzzled about it. As far as I am concerned, I intend to stand up and fight to protect the people's interests in this matter.
There's another matter I don't intend to back down on. That is our party's pledge to develop the vast natural power resources of this country for the benefit of all the people, and make sure that the power produced by public funds is transmitted to the consumer without a private rake-off. How could we back down on a pledge like that? When we look around us at the great good that has been done by the TVA and the Grand Coulee and the Southwest Power Administration--when we see what projects like these have done to improve the lives and increase the prosperity of our people-how could we possibly justify weakening our policy? We just can't do it.
I don't care how much money the power lobby puts into this campaign against us. I don't care what lies and smears they put out. There is a principle here which goes to the welfare of the country. And we are going to stick to it. We are going to win on it.
There is another thing we must stand firm on. That is our pledge on the issue of civil rights. No citizen of this great country ought to be discriminated against because of his race, religion, or national origin. That is the essence of the American ideal and the American Constitution. I made that statement verbatim in the speech on March 29th, in which I said I would not run for President, and I hope that speech, and this, will be the fundamental basis of the platform of the Democratic Party in Chicago.
We have made good progress on civil rights since 1948, in the Federal Government, in the Armed forces, and in the States. But we still need the legislation which I recommended to the Congress over 4 years ago. We must go ahead to secure for all our citizens--east, west, north, and south--the right of equal opportunity in our economic and political life, and the right to equal protection under the law. That is real, true, 100 percent Americanism.
This is very important to us abroad as well as at home. The vision of equal rights is the greatest inspiration of human beings throughout the world. There is one member of this ADA who can tell us from her own experience how important it is for the world to know that we share this vision. She has been our spokesman on this subject in the councils of the United Nations and she has done a wonderful job--and that is Mrs. Roosevelt.
Another part of our fight that is extremely important--that is, to protect the civil liberties of Americans. Your national chairman, Francis Biddle, has pointed out the terrible dangers that lie in wait for us if we surrender to the clamor of McCarthyism, and adopt the practice of guilt by accusation. We cannot, we will not, give up nor weaken on this issue either.
I got a great kick the other day out of a headline, or article, on the left-hand side of the paper, in which it said that a committee in the Congress was going to investigate the Justice Department for browbeating witnesses. Now, I am not casting any reflections on any good Senator or Representative, but they had better investigate themselves on that.
These are some of the principles for which the Democratic Party stands, and for which the ADA stands. We stand for better education, better health, greater opportunities for all. We stand for fair play and decency, for freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and the cherished principle that a man is innocent until he is proved guilty.
Taken together, these principles are the articles of the liberal faith. I am sure that the liberal faith is the political faith of the great majority of Americans. It sometimes happens that circumstances of time and place combine to deny its expression. But the faith is there, and the reactionaries can never hope to have any but temporary advantage in this country.
That is why the fair Deal program will not be weakened by compromise. That is why the Democratic Party will nominate a liberal for President.
That is why, this time, as in 1948, the ADA will throw its energies into the campaign battle--and will carry on the good fight against reaction, fear, and selfishness.
And that is why, this time, as in 1948, we'll win.
NOTE: The President spoke at 9:32 p.m. in the presidential Room of the Statler Hotel in Washington. In his opening words he referred to Francis Biddle, former Attorney General of the United States, and national chairman of the Americans for Democratic Action. Later he referred to, among others, Henry A. Wallace, candidate for President in 1948 on the Progressive Party ticket, Robert A. Taft, Senator from Ohio, Thomas E. Dewey, Governor of New York, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, Elmo B. Roper, Jr., Director of International Public Opinion Research, Inc., and Robert R. McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune. The address was broadcast.
For the Presidents news conference with the American Society of Newspaper Editors, see Item 98.
Provided courtesy of The American Presidency Project. John Woolley and Gerhard Peters. University of California, Santa Barbara.
Those old Republicans have just about reached their goals from way back then.
The same site where you can find this:
"more liberal than thou" pissing match.
Useful stuff, really.