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In 1968, former Alabama Governor George Wallace ran for the presidency under the banner of the American Independent Party. Looking over the Party's 1968 platform one can see many similarities to today's conservatives and teabaggers, but there are just as many positions that would make Wallace look like a complete left wing socialist by today's standard.
It is the obligation of a responsible government to help people who are unable to help themselves. There should be adequate medical assistance available to the aged and those unable to afford treatment. This can best be achieved through a partnership between federal and state governments and private enterprise. Medicare should be improved. It should be strengthened in conjunction with medical care provided at state and local governmental levels and by private insurance. Through sound fiscal management we set as a goal the following improvements in Medicare:
LABOR
America achieved its greatness through the combined energy and efforts of the working men and women of this country. Retention of its greatness rests in their hands.
Through the means of their great trade organizations, these men and women have exerted tremendous influence on the economic and social life of the nation and have attained a standard of living known to no other nation. In the meantime, American labor has become a bulwark against the intrusion of foreign ideology into our free society. America must be eternally grateful to its working men and women.
The concern of this Party is that the gains which labor struggled so long to obtain not be lost to them either through inaction or subservience to illogical domestic policies of our other national parties.
We propose and pledge:
To guarantee and protect labor in its right of collective bargaining;
TRANSPORTATION
2. Development of high-speed passenger trains between urban areas;
NATURAL RESOURCES AND CONSERVATION
The preservation of our natural resources and the quality of our natural environment has greatly been ignored during the past decade. We are vitally concerned about the future well-being of our citizens and fully realize that positive action programs must be undertaken, in a cooperative effort between the federal government and the states, to assure adequate outdoor recreational facilities and to assure necessary health safeguards for generations to come. To these ends we make the following pledge to the American people:
JOB OPPORTUNITY AND THE POOR
We would propose that the federal government aid and assist in a well-designed program of job training or retraining for those in need thereof. This will be at the vocational school and lower level, depending on the needs of the trainees. We will encourage and assist the states in programs of job training or retraining through realistic productive efforts in this respect, including assistance to the establishment and maintenance of vocational trade schools and other like institutions designed to provide skilled and semiskilled personnel for industrial employment, as well as means whereby 'in-training" programs can be carried out by private industry in cooperation with government.
In the event a public works program becomes necessary to provide employment for all employable Americans, we will provide such a program assuring, however, that these programs be needful and productive and that the participants engage in labor beneficial to the nation and its economy rather than becoming wards of the government and the recipients of gratuitous handouts.
I was watching the documentary Road to Memphis on PBS's website when I started to think about the similarities between those who backed Wallace in 1968 and the tea party movement, so I went looking for something to hang my hat on when I came across the American Independent Party platform. At least, Wallace never abandoned working class populism even if it was tainted by the worst sort of racism.
I was watching the documentary Road to Memphis on PBS's website when I started to think about the similarities between those who backed Wallace in 1968 and the tea party movement, so I went looking for something to hang my hat on when I came across the American Independent Party platform. At least, Wallace never abandoned working class populism even if it was tainted by the worst sort of racism.
Strom Thurmond was a vicious bigot of the worst type, but his economic program when he ran as the State's Rights Party candidate in 1948 was identical to Truman's.
In 1968, former Alabama Governor George Wallace ran for the presidency under the banner of the American Independent Party. Looking over the Party's 1968 platform one can see many similarities to today's conservatives and teabaggers, but there are just as many positions that would make Wallace look like a complete left wing socialist by today's standard.
It is the obligation of a responsible government to help people who are unable to help themselves. There should be adequate medical assistance available to the aged and those unable to afford treatment. This can best be achieved through a partnership between federal and state governments and private enterprise. Medicare should be improved. It should be strengthened in conjunction with medical care provided at state and local governmental levels and by private insurance. Through sound fiscal management we set as a goal the following improvements in Medicare:
LABOR
America achieved its greatness through the combined energy and efforts of the working men and women of this country. Retention of its greatness rests in their hands.
Through the means of their great trade organizations, these men and women have exerted tremendous influence on the economic and social life of the nation and have attained a standard of living known to no other nation. In the meantime, American labor has become a bulwark against the intrusion of foreign ideology into our free society. America must be eternally grateful to its working men and women.
The concern of this Party is that the gains which labor struggled so long to obtain not be lost to them either through inaction or subservience to illogical domestic policies of our other national parties.
We propose and pledge:
To guarantee and protect labor in its right of collective bargaining;
TRANSPORTATION
2. Development of high-speed passenger trains between urban areas;
NATURAL RESOURCES AND CONSERVATION
The preservation of our natural resources and the quality of our natural environment has greatly been ignored during the past decade. We are vitally concerned about the future well-being of our citizens and fully realize that positive action programs must be undertaken, in a cooperative effort between the federal government and the states, to assure adequate outdoor recreational facilities and to assure necessary health safeguards for generations to come. To these ends we make the following pledge to the American people:
JOB OPPORTUNITY AND THE POOR
We would propose that the federal government aid and assist in a well-designed program of job training or retraining for those in need thereof. This will be at the vocational school and lower level, depending on the needs of the trainees. We will encourage and assist the states in programs of job training or retraining through realistic productive efforts in this respect, including assistance to the establishment and maintenance of vocational trade schools and other like institutions designed to provide skilled and semiskilled personnel for industrial employment, as well as means whereby 'in-training" programs can be carried out by private industry in cooperation with government.
In the event a public works program becomes necessary to provide employment for all employable Americans, we will provide such a program assuring, however, that these programs be needful and productive and that the participants engage in labor beneficial to the nation and its economy rather than becoming wards of the government and the recipients of gratuitous handouts.
JFK would be considered an ultra right winger by the left today. The nation has drifted to the left over the last 50 years such that moderates from the 1960s would be radical right wingers of today.
Give us another JFK. That would be great. The left would hate him.
I was watching the documentary Road to Memphis on PBS's website when I started to think about the similarities between those who backed Wallace in 1968 and the tea party movement, so I went looking for something to hang my hat on when I came across the American Independent Party platform. At least, Wallace never abandoned working class populism even if it was tainted by the worst sort of racism.
I read the platform and did not get the same take,I think the platform was well written where Wallace was attempting to peal voters away from the major parties equally.There is some common ground for both the right and left in the platform,there was a lot more to Wallace then segregation.And he did muster up 10 million votes.
JFK would be considered an ultra right winger by the left today.
The problem with your argument is that you folks consistently confuse the Democratic Party with the left end of the political spectrum, because nothing could be further from the truth. In his time the "Left" considered Kennedy both John and Robert to be the ultra right.
I read the platform and did not get the same take,
Which take would that be?
Quote:
I think the platform was well written where Wallace was attempting to peal voters away from the major parties equally.There is some common ground for both the right and left in the platform,there was a lot more to Wallace then segregation.And he did muster up 10 million votes.
Well of course Wallace was more than just segregation, in fact I would argue that Wallace segregationist philosophy was purely for public and thus political consumption. Wallace was first and foremost a Southern Democratic populist, i.e. pro labor, pro small farmer, and that is where the divergence between the current crop of so-called conservatives and teabaggers someone as iconically conservative as George Wallace.
George was racist. Trying to compare that to the tea party is BS.
June 11, 2003
Forty years ago today, Alabama Gov. George Wallace stood at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in a symbolic attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling at the school. The drama of the nation's division over desegregation came sharply into focus that June day. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.
It was the same year that civil rights marchers had been turned back with police dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham, Ala. The year began with Wallace vowing "segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever" in his inaugural speech.
During his campaign, Wallace talked of physically putting himself between the schoolhouse door and any attempt to integrate Alabama's all-white public schools.
On June 11, with temperatures soaring, a large contingent of national media looked on as Wallace took his position in front of Foster Auditorium. State troopers surrounded the building. Then, flanked by federal marshals, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach told Wallace he simply wanted him to abide by the federal court order.
Wallace refused, citing the constitutional right of states to operate public schools, colleges and universities. Katzenbach called President Kennedy, who federalized the Alabama National Guard to help with the crisis. Ultimately, Wallace stepped aside and the two students were allowed to register for classes.
But the incident catapulted the governor into the national spotlight and he went on to make four runs at the presidency. It was also a watershed event for President Kennedy, who in staring down the South's most defiant segregationist aligned himself solidly with the civil rights movement.
George Wallace was one of America's most outspoken supporters of racial segregation in the 1960s. As governor of Alabama he fought integration, once even standing symbolically in the doorway of the University of Alabama to block two black students from enrolling there. (Many considered Wallace the leader of the opposition to Martin Luther King, Jr.) Wallace served four terms as governor of Alabama: 1963-67, 1971-79 (two terms), and 1983-87. He served the later terms in a wheelchair after being paralyzed below the waist in a 1972 assassination attempt by gunman Arthur Bremer. Wallace ran for president of the United States four times, in 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976. In the 1980s he recanted his earlier racial views and sought reconciliation with black leaders.
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