Letters to the Editor
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@ Uncle Fester
I took it that when Hillary said that Dr. King's "dream began to be realized" ... etc., that she was referring specifically to the passage of a Civil Rights Act, which Kind had been working for many years behind the scenes to achieve. No she was not referring to the civil rights movement in general but to specific legislation, to wit, action rather than the dream itself. Only a president could have achieved that at that particular time.
People simple do not seem to realize the tremendous resistance to the Civil Rights Act, which enshined in law the changes that the civil rights movement had put into motion long before the sixties.
Moreover, people's tendency to dismiss Johnson because of the Vietnam War, overlooks the many good things that he achieved that were extremely progressive at that time, including his promotion of many social welfare programs. It was Johnson that started a War on Poverty.
Giving Johnson his due need not take away in any measure from King's achievements. These men worked together to change the world as we knew it then. Both deserve our respect for that.
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*can't pass up a fallacy*
Beey -
I am not Joan (for the record - someone once asked).
But "liberal" means "free" - "libre."
Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
Joan is objective and adult enough to see two sides to a story.
And she has every right and freedom, as a free liberal, to write about all of it.
Prejudice is negative and anti-liberal - you discriminate against someone's right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.
Bias - is not negative or "anti-liberal." In fact, "Liberals" have a liberal bias.
Liberals are biased towards being liberal. You can be biased towards something in a positive or negative way.
It's fair to come and state your opinion, but to try and tell Joan that she can't write about what she wants - and to try and say she's not being liberal - is ridiculous and inaccurate.
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NYShooter Always careful what I wish for
I never say Beetlejuice three times. Your article was interesting, and I have no reason to doubt it's veracity. It would be more relevant though, if it compared the younger crowd to the older crowd (of which I happen to be member). For example, How many 'old ones' can find Saudi Arabia on a map of the middle east?
Without the comparision, it's more like the ones that used to say 'Don't trust anyone over 30' now say 'Don't trust anybody under 60'.
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@Deeper I happen to like LBJ
I've read a few biographies on LBJ and understand the difficulties of getting civil rights legislation through the US senate in the fifties. It took the death of the Dixecrats to pull it off. LBJ was a complex and interesting dude. Hillary hasn't achieved at his level yet.
It's not spin, but observable fact to notice that people are non-rational and protective of their heroes. You've done the same yourself regarding Hillary and Bosnia:
She wasn't lying. She just was on a long, hard, tiring campaign trail, recalling her memories, but not stating them in as much accurate detail.
http://letters.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/04/14/obama_supporters/permalink/fc1a114a6e156ed40960e648b8b96b38.html
Obama has done the inverse of the same thing by giving credit to an enemy (Reagan). That was truthful history class speech, but bad political speech.
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They had great heroes like MLK. LBJ ran the ball into the end zone, no doubt, to use a football analogy. But it took somebody like MLK to make it first and goal. That's doing, not just dreaming.
No. Not everything happened in the 60s. Work for civil rights no more has a beginning and an end than work for women's rights does. Adali Stevenson and Lyndon Johnson tried to move civil rights legislation forward in the 50's without success. Interest in civil rights on the part of white liberal politicians after WWII was intense. It is part of a social movement that began in the 30s that the McCarthy Era was a backlash to. That is why Hoover began to investigate civil rights groups, Jewish rights groups, and the "communists." There were two opposing movements. People forget that in the 40s and 50s not just black people had trouble getting housing in certain areas but so did Jews.
There is no beginning and no end. There should never be an end until justice is achieved. It is not just about color but about evil. Discrimination is evil.
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i'll happily answer you NYShooter
i'm undoubtedly older than you are (i'm 62), but i have young adult children (23,22,21) so i understand them a bit. first they are NOT stupider than we, just different. ENGLISH, while not the most spoken is the largest SECOND language - it is the INTERNATIONAL language - even pilots are required to speak it. to be cultured you MUST know it. knowing mandarin is not even a distant second. MAPS, young people DON'T USE MAPS, they GOOGLE. they find their way EVEN BETTER than we, but differently. BOOKS, modern people learn less from books and more from other media. that is true. but they are just as logical and analytic - but maybe not in writing, maybe more graphic and conversational. it is i think a lack - but it is only a lack in AVERAGES - Obama is as smart as any from other generations. my daugher beat me in SAT's and i did very well (me 1483, she 1540). MAKING CHANGE - people rely on the cash register and calculator. this doesn't mean they are crippled intellectually.
NOW, for some ways where they are BETTER than we. they are not so nutty about race and sex and orientation. it will become a non-issue. FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE! we have a black and a woman the leading candidates? could that have happened without the present day generation? NEVER! I have great faith in them. -
@ NYShooter & Uncle Fester
-- NYShooter
As a part time college instructor I have seen first hand some of the statistics you cite. Truly frightening. Want to have a real firestorm? Try starting a conversation on a liberal site about such things as social promotion, grade inflation, and teachers unions !
-- Uncle Fester
One last word (from me anyway) about the MLK thing (giving that dead horse one more smack). You say she should have left MLK out of it, but she was responding to Obama's comparing his use of words to MLK's so it wouldn't have made sense. What I think she was actually saying is what I think was and continues to be the central distinction between the two candidates. She knows Washington, government, and politics. For Obama & his supporters this translates into "old politics = evil". For Clinton & her supporters it translates into "knowing how to get things done".
also
like the ones that used to say 'Don't trust anyone over 30' now say 'Don't trust anybody under 60'.
and we were right both times !