Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Lee Atwater's Southern Strategy: NEW AUDIO

From the man who brought you Mitt Romney's "47%" comments, James Carter IV, comes the actual audio track of Lee Atwater's famous Southern Strategy interview.
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”
It's chilling to hear Atwater describe the transformation and obfuscation of the use of racism to ensure electoral victory for the Republican party.  Win at any cost.

The full 42 minute interview is available from The Nation.

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