Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktThis was the beginning of my lifelong politicization, along with the MLK and JFK assassinations and, shortly after, the VN war. I was 11 years old when this march occurred, living in a totally segregated world. I will never forget how this event frightened my parents. That was quite puzzling to me at the time.
Oddly, as I later learned, I was raised by parents who were actually quite racist. But it was a religious and overt decision by them to raise their children in a nonracist home environment. They did that successfully, but I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been to accomplish. When I later became actively involved in the civil rights movement, I am certain my mother had moments of regret.
How many here are old enough to actually remember any of this and why we celebrate MLK day?
Filed under: Uncategorized |
All Things in Moderation 
That speech was before I was born and when I was in school, I don’t remember learning much about the civil rights movement. Maybe it has something to do with growing up in the North vs. the South but I really did not learn much about MLK in school. When I was in elementary and High School I don’t think there was a Black History month (I could be wrong) so I wonder if my experience would be different were I to be in school today.
Living near Detroit, there is certainly plenty of racism to be found. The race riots tore the area apart and the scars are still evident both on the landscape and in the opinions of those who lived through those times. Anyway, thanks for the post.
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ashot, apparently my grandson got a heavy dose of MLK last week, in kindergarten no less. He managed to call me somehow from his Dad’s iphone with a million questions. Apparently his folks told him I was so old I was alive when he was killed. What followed was a very interesting discussion with a five year old. He kept asking though over and over, “But why did they shoot him”?
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So the answer to my question “I wonder if my experience would be different were I to be in school today” would be “remarkably different.”
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lms, I cannot get my brain around attempting to explain this to a 5 y/o. Had a similar experience at a family activity last Thanksgiving pertaining to answering a 4 y/o’s questions about a graphic depiction of the crucifixion. It was most uncomfortable.
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When my oldest grandson was in kindergarten, he came home from school and told his mother it was going to be Martin Luther King day and did she know who he was? She answered that she did and asked if he did. He said yes, he did know, that he was the man who invented color TV.
It took a while to sort this out, but we concluded it had something to do with people of color and the events of the civil rights movement being broadcast on TV. My daughter did suggest to the teacher that she might want to rework that lesson plan.
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Hi ABC, glad you made it. That is hysterical. I could tell my grandson had a few blank spots in his understanding of the events surrounding MLK. At that age it’s difficult to know how much they really grasp of the complexities. But you have to start somewhere. Right now I’m playing scrabble with him on facebook via his mother’s phone. I’m trying to decide if I should be gentle or teach him a lesson. 🙂
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Okie
Interesting how so many of our beliefs and political persuasions were formed by this era. I had a similar upbringing as far as my parents and racial relations. They tried very hard at times to put their prejudices aside and let my sister and I develop our own values and opinions, not always successful, but they tried.
In some ways this era of change is tangential to the discussion on a previous thread regarding government vs. private enterprise. We saw first hand the changes needed and enacted by pressuring the government to intervene. There’s a balance in there between individual rights and community needs….not sure where it is but neither works well when it becomes too top heavy. Finding that balance is the art of politics.
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ashot, interesting comparison of our brought-upsy times. I’m sure north/south has some bearing on differences but do not believe it accounts for all. School desegregation did not occur in my world until my senior year of high school. It happened voluntarily and quite successfully in my city; 100 miles away in OKC it had to be mandated by federal court and was under court supervision for many years after. It did not go so smoothly. Desegregation was the focus then; culture-specific activities or curriculum were not even a pipe dream.
lms, I too see how so many of my opinions on current topics are shaped by the era in which I came of age. IMHO, all these years and we still have not found that balance. I am tired of the extremes on both sides and think neither extreme works as a practical matter.
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As a college student [1960-64] I was sympathetic to and somewhat active in the movement. I participated in one sit – in, wherein white college students joined black students to integrate the Foley’s lunch counter in Houston. It was peaceful and some old white ladies left in a huff.
Soon after, my wing of Weiss College [at Rice], which housed all the [previously] non-Texans, was treated to a burning cross. I did not feel threatened, just pissed.
I attended a synagogue service where MLK was the guest sermon presenter. Fabulous rolling, resonant, voice and well constructed sermon, but too long. Jews don’t do long sermons as a rule.:-)
While I was in law school [64-67], I worked as a legislative clerk to 6 Houston area freshman state legislators, one of whom was black. We went on a fact finding trip to east Texas about some damned thing and the black state rep in the group could not eat in the east TX restaurants, in 1966, long after Austin had integrated [essentially beginning with the integration of the Law School after Sweatt v. Painter in 1950]. Felt pretty unreal, and a bit scary.
My 6 freshman from Houston worshipped Charlie Wilson and Barbara Jordan, two bigger than life state senators. I would mosey over to the Senate side to watch Barbara Jordan – even more than MLK, and more like the actor, James Earl Jones – she was impossible to not listen to.
Jordan, had her health not been seriously compromised, forcing her to retire from the HoR to teach at UT, would have surely been elected to the US Senate.
***********
Okie, I suspect Norman, OK, integrated faster than deep east Oklahoma!
Happy MLK Day.
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Mark, what marvelous, irreplaceable experiences!
FYI — as late as the 80’s, deep southeastern Oklahoma (think “Deliverance” country) was integrated only in a legal sense but not in a practical sense. Not sure it’s any different today.
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I’m dubious about deep east TX in the same way. Legally desegregated, but it would be not any more than that if it were not for HS football being religion in TX. Ya gotta cheer for your team on Friday night, after all, and the fastest guys on the team…, well, what ya gonna do?
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“My 6 freshman from Houston worshipped Charlie Wilson and Barbara Jordan, two bigger than life state senators. ”
Is this the same famous Charlie Wilson that became a U.S. Representative?
Also, great story.
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Yep. Same guy.
And thanks!
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I was born in 1970, so missed all of the above. My earliest political memories would be Ford v Carter; the Iranian revolution & Reagan v Carter. In 1980 I was attending a christian gradeschool on the campus of Wheaton College, where they’d just built a new Billy Graham Center. We were let out of class to watch the Reagan motorcade arrive for a campaign event there.
From my perspective, Vietnam, JFK, MLK and the race riots were all in the past; as much so as WWII.
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Brian, that is so hard for me to imagine – what my world view would have been – if it had been shaped post Watergate. Still, human experiences are shaped by the same human gifts, graces, and frailties in every generation, or else we would not know upon first adult reading how really great was Mark Twain. We could not stand in the Lincoln Memorial and read the second inaugural address and be moved.
But different perspectives are worthwhile when sorting out history past, no doubt. Examples: I thought Marxian economics was utter BS from the moment I was first introduced to it. “Guns, Germs, and Steel” makes more sense as an attempt at a comprehensive understanding of human history than any pop writing that went before, imo.
I have appreciated your approach to political discussions for more than four years now. I think part of that is because you are not looking through the same prism that I am burdened with. I think all our prisms are burdens to us.
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“Brian, that is so hard for me to imagine – what my world view would have been – if it had been shaped post Watergate.”
I think a big difference between those of us who came of age in the 1960’s versus the 1970’s is whether you view government as part of the solution or part of the problem.
This article from Time Magazine has always served to remind me of a mindset towards government that once existed, but I’ve never seen in my lifetime:
“The Economy: We Are All Keynesians Now
Friday, Dec. 31, 1965”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,842353,00.html
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Mark:
I think all our prisms are burdens to us.
I don’t view them that way at all. Collectively, they make an incredible kaleidoscope through which we have millions of possibilities.
Granted, some of those possibilities may not work out so well, but I don’t feel we should therefore consider our prisms a burden.
Case in point: The way the switch from blogger to wordpress is being handled. Hands-on participation by people of varying backgrounds, constantly looking for feedback from others to make it better.
And why? So we can disagree with each other!
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Hmmm…so much to comment on…where to begin?
My earliest political memories would be Ford v Carter; the Iranian revolution & Reagan v Carter.
My first political memory is of Pat Robertson running for the Presidential nomination, yet here I stand, a liberal. Or maybe that makes perfect sense. I grew up in a very conservative, evangelical home and went to the church’s school through the 6th grade. My father was the children’s pastor at our church and our life largely revolved around that.
I’m sure north/south has some bearing on differences but do not believe it accounts for all.
I agree. It’s obviously impossible to know, but the Detroit area is incredibly segregated and outside a good friend in high school, I have had very few relationships with african-americans throughout my life. So I wonder how my experience differs from my peers in the South. NoVa is a year older than me, not sure where he grew up, but I’d be curious to hear what his experience was.
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ashot, how interesting. Despite age and geographical differences, we appear to have remarkably similar childhood environments and (from what I have been able to discern) have arrived at remarkably similar political viewpoints as adults. I find it odd though that living in what I consider to be a southern state, both through work and social environments I have had many close relationships (both positive and negative) with blacks and you apparently have not. Hmmm. Backlash?
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I spent the first twelve years of my life in Ann Arbor and had a couple of close friends who were black most of that time (although I, also, was raised by very racist parents and I didn’t know that until I was an adult), but when we moved to the small town where my parents still live there weren’t any people of any color in town. . . so I never had any other black friends until I went to college, and then in the Army. I don’t remember Ann Arbor as being very segregated, but I know that other cities in MI (Saginaw being a good example) are–many of them have very sharp dividing lines about who lives/shops/goes to church where.
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I find it odd though that living in what I consider to be a southern state, both through work and social environments I have had many close relationships (both positive and negative) with blacks and you apparently have not
If you look at this , Michigan and Oklahoma are pretty similar with respect to their population of blacks. So it is all the more surprising that our experience is so different with respect to having relationships with blacks. It is somewhat arbitrary because if I had grown up in any number of nearby communities I would have had many more black classmates in high school while I probably would have had even fewer if I had lived in yet other nearby communities. Detroit is just so segregated. I am continually surprised with the lack of racial diversity in the legal field here in Michigan. In fact I don’t know that I have ever worked on a case with or against a black lawyer. Based on that census link, Michigan is 15-20% black and I am certain the legal field is nowhere near that.
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Hey, michi. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying such relationships were presented to me at an early age. I had zero relationships of any kind with blacks until I went to college. But just in the course of living my life, I have had many (some through choice and some not). I find it odd that the same would not happen north.
Thanks for acquitting us well in the Sunday political post. You represented my views quite well. I’m sorry I missed it.
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Thanks for acquitting us well in the Sunday political post. You represented my views quite well.
You’re welcome–although I’m not sure that I always explained myself very clearly. I just don’t agree that private enterprise does good works, except as a fortuitous by-product sometimes.
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Mich/Okie:
I just don’t agree that private enterprise does good works, except as a fortuitous by-product sometimes.
This organization is a private enterprise organization. Are they doing “good works”? If so, is it simply a fortuitous “by-product”? If so, of what, exactly, is it a by-product?
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Mark:
I’m dubious about deep east TX in the same way.
One word. Vidor. A friend of mine from Beaumont (black guy) won’t go near Vidor when he goes home to visit his family, even in daylight.
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jnc
I think a big difference between those of us who came of age in the 1960′s versus the 1970′s is whether you view government as part of the solution or part of the problem.
It wasn’t old timers who put Obama into office…………didn’t he win the youth vote?
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jnc, your Time article link is behind a paywall. Seems like I’ve read it in past, but no particulars come to mind. I’m interested in the worldview distinction you would draw between those who came of age in the 60’s vs. the 70’s. On a personal level, I don’t draw any big distinctions between late 60’s and early 70’s, but likely your point is broader.
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My kids were all born between ’71 and ’81, including my niece and nephew, not a single conservative or libertarian. Of course they were all raised by me and in………………California.
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LOL. And the “raised by me” part would have no bearing, I’m sure.
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Of course not…… 😉
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The article goes into how the technical expertise of economists coupled with government know-how has allowed them to fine tune the economy to not just counter act large events like the Great Depression which Keynes was addressing but to also manage the business cycle in such a way as to prevent recessions. The new target for unemployment was to be less than 3%.
All in all, an abject lesson on hubris on the eve of the Vietnam War escalation and the stagflation of the 1970’s, easily on par with anything from the recently released Federal Reserve meeting minutes with all the praise for Alan Greenspan prior to the housing bubble collapsing.
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jnc, thanks. But you see that resulting in currently different worldviews between certain demographics? I’m confused or missing the point. Certain historical demographics have more faith in government to be able to solve anything or to be the appropriate mechanism to solution?
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If you came of age in the early 1960’s, your experience with government as discussed often in the media was as the “best and the brightest” managing things like the economy and the space program successfully.
In the 1970’s, it was Watergate, stagflation, and lines for gas stations.
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jnc, thanks. Makes sense. I think my confusion came from coming of age in the late 60’s, so a foot in both worlds so to speak.
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Some of you might be interested in the book “The Warmth of Other Suns”. It follows three families as they migrated away from the “Jim Crow” era in the south. True reflections from family members as they settled in CA, IL, MI and NY. I thought it was very interesting and enlightening. My best friend was part of that migration in the late fifties and I’ve had many discussions with her father about what it was like here in the Los Angeles area when they arrived, as well as what they fled. As many have expressed, passing anit-discrimination and integration laws don’t solve all the problems, as we’ve clearly seen.
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Thanks for the book reference, lms. You have recommended it before and I was intrigued. I at least have it on my list now.
O/T, I visited PL today. Wow, just wow.
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Oh jeeze, now I have to go over there and check it out.
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More of the same afaic. I find it to be a toxic environment. The last two times I carried on conversations over there I was told that I had changed into the blog “church lady” and by another commenter that I was a big phony. And that was from liberals…….lol
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Can you guess who posted this comment in a thread about the GOP nominating process? I soooooooo don’t miss this kind of thing!
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I did see Banned there. Has he checked in yet?
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Ethan
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I don’t think so, jnc, unless he’s e-mailed lms or someone off-line.
I also see that you’re a fascist America-hater over on the PL. . . 😉
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Correct, lms!!
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“I also see that you’re a fascist America-hater over on the PL. . .”
Someone has to. Usually this translates into quoting Matt Taibbi pieces from Rolling Stone and other inconvenient statistics.
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jnc
I haven’t seen john here yet. I don’t have his email and theoretically he would be directed over here from the old link but would have to set up a wordpress account in order to comment. No offense to john, but he’s not the most tech savvy guy out there so he may have trouble with that. I was hoping one of you guys, you or brent would give him a nudge over at the plumline. I’d do it but then I’d be treated to all sorts of garbage from liam and cao which I’m not in the mood for.
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scott:
This organization is a private enterprise organization. Are they doing “good works”? If so, is it simply a fortuitous “by-product”? If so, of what, exactly, is it a by-product?
I would not make an argument that there are zero private enterprise “for-good” organizations. But I think we are better served to stay at a broader level for this discussion, and to me that includes the premise that the primary purpose of corporations is to earn profit . . . period. So your “by-product” questions seem like a rabbit tunnel to me. What am I missing?
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okie:
to me that includes the premise that the primary purpose of corporations is to earn profit . . . period.
No, not period. Earning a profit does occur in a vacuum. One must have a method by which it is done. And the primary way to accomplish that goal is to provide things for others that they want and need. That is to say….to do good things.
As I said yesterday, to you and Mich “good works” seems strictly a function of motive, not effect. If the government helps a thousand poor people by giving them money to buy food, that is a “good work”. But if a corporation produces the very food that not only these 1,000 people, but 100,000 others actually eat, not to mention providing jobs to 20,000 other people which enables them to buy their own food, to you guys this is not a “good work” for the simple reason that it is doing so to earn a profit. That strikes me as a very warped, and certainly wrong, view of what is and is not “good works”.
So your “by-product” questions seem like a rabbit tunnel to me.
Mich introduced the notion of a “by-product”, not me. i am merely trying to understand how it applies to actual, real life examples like the one I provided.
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jnc
I feel as though you’re conflating the natural ebb and flow of political affiliation with a generational component that may not quite exist. It seems to me that most people are either am or fm, as NoVA once said, and while they swing a little back and forth depending on the economic and social environment, it has less to do with decade of birth than natural instincts.
Right now confidence in government is at an all time low according to the polls but I doubt the banks or big oil companies are faring any better. People are unhappy period. I’m sure looking back, based upon an individual’s political/philosophical persuasion, some will say thank God the government intervened in the economy and others will say thank God we held the government in check.
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scott, why do I think we are playing a semantics game here? I know you relish this (and you do shine at it!). How about if we substitute “charitable works” for “good works”? The “good”-to-society-argument can take us all over narnia and back in definition.
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“jnc
I feel as though you’re conflating the natural ebb and flow of political affiliation with a generational component that may not quite exist. It seems to me that most people are either am or fm, as NoVA once said, and while they swing a little back and forth depending on the economic and social environment, it has less to do with decade of birth than natural instincts. ”
I’ll login to the Time article and excerpt some relevant pieces. As an example of the pre-Vietnam zeitgeist, it really is quite remarkable. The point I’m making is that there’s a reason Reagan was elected President in 1980 and not in 1968 or 1972, and also I think that Mark is correct that he would have turned out differently had he come of age post Watergate.
Also, worth a read today.
“January 15, 2012, 9:00 pm
What the Right Gets Right
By THOMAS B. EDSALL
With the competitors for the Republican presidential nomination engaged in an intriguing and unexpected debate over the dangers of capitalism’s “creative destruction,” this is the appropriate moment to explore the question: What does the right get right?
What insights, principles, and analyses does this movement have to offer that liberals and Democrats might want to take into account?”
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/what-the-right-gets-right/?ref=opinion
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Thanks jnc, I’ll check that out. Sometimes I just think the ebb and flow of politics is a natural reaction to over reach and so people swing a little with that. I’ll try to read both of them, at least what you give us from the Times piece anyway, to see if I can get a better grasp of what exactly you’re trying to point out.
I think scott may be correct about threaded comments. I have more trouble following the conversations this way, especially when I’m working at the same time…..yikes.
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I saw that and it identified my EZ choices for the strengths of American conservative thought, too.
Being someone who would rather go small than big and local rather than national on so many issues, it is also what I consider conservative about myself. That and the fact I have always been for a healthy and strong, if more cost effective, military.
Thus my admiration for John McCain.
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okie:
scott, why do I think we are playing a semantics game here?
I don’t know. I don’t think it is a semantic game at all. We very clearly view the activity of private enterprise in a very different light. I think engaging in private enterprise is a very moral pursuit which can and does result in great good. You and Mich seem to view it as, at best, an amoral activity.
How about if we substitute “charitable works” for “good works”?
Sure, we can do that. But it won’t make Mich’s claim anymore correct. Private enterprises engage in charitable work all the time.
And government’s never do, primarily because charity requires one to donate one’s own time or possessions, and governments do not have anything of its own to give. It can and does give away only that which it has forcibly taken from someone else.
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The thing about the Edsall article that kinda gets me from the get-go is the idea that there is only one ‘left’ and only one ‘right.’
Only in the final paragraph does he obliquely touch on this by saying, “…neither Romney nor Obama fits comfortably into the role of doctrinaire standard bearer…” I think that would be hard to find in any pol. We’re all probably a bit (or a lot) off the ‘doctrine standard’ of the groups we align ourselves with.
I get ideology, but by focusing on that, Edsall misses the vast center, or near center, that so many in our country allegedly occupy.
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lms:
I think scott may be correct about threaded comments.
More than once in the last couple days I have seen a comment in the dashboard comments section (which is, mercifully, in time stamp order) that I wanted to respond to, but could not find or had difficulty finding it in the actual thread because it was buried beneath a comment made hours before the actual comment I wanted to see.
Threaded comments are a true pain in the ass, and the more comments there are in a thread, the more of a pain in the ass they are.
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okie, this is all your fault! I ended up wading through the entire day’s threads–all comments, all posts–on the PL. It was kind of like how you have to stop and look at a traffic accident. . . even though you know you shouldn’t. . . but you. Just. Have. To.
However, this is how the HHR ends (currently):
Some things just never, ever change. . .
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May I suggest just linking to appropriate PL commentary rather than cutting and pasting the entire thread? My preference would be to keep the PL drama segregated from ATiM.
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I promise I won’t do it again, jnc–it was just too much of a train wreck to ignore. You’re a better man than I for trying to engage in meaningful dialogue over there!
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michi, I was just reading that myself. Jeebus. I tried to warn everyone that beach was a nutcase. The very first time I put my email on the Plumline to see if there was any interest in another blog, other than Scott, he was the first one to email me and he’d only just shown up. He didn’t stop contacting me for days even though I completely ignored him just based upon his first bizarre email. Funny, it was the functionality of the site that chased me away originally, but watching beach poison the well with a little help from several others, kept me from going back. The place is a toxic stew now I’m sorry to say. I doubt he’ll leave though as there will always be someone who wanders in that he thinks he can impress. Greg might want to ban him but we’ve seen how well that works out over there.
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I’m just old enough to remember him.
God blessed Dr. King.
I know He still does.
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tao, you made it, I’m so glad. And ABC showed up earlier also. It’s been an interesting move but I think the curtains look pretty good.
I’ve always felt somewhat melancholy when I reflect on MLK, such a sacrifice.
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Been too bizzy to close the WordPress loop but will hopefully get at it some time this week.
The site looks terrific. Thanks to you all.
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tao, if you got in to comment, the loop is already closed isn’t it. Is there some other web address you can put in the bottom of the comment box besides wordpress.com or gravatar?
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Howdy, tao! Good to see you here!
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Back @ ya, goose!
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Glenn Greenwald’s piece on MLK and war is a good read:
“Monday, Jan 16, 2012 7:29 AM Eastern Standard Time
Who are the victims of civil liberties assaults and Endless War?
By Glenn Greenwald”
…
“The fundamental interconnectedness between war and civil liberties abuses on the one hand, and the targeting of minorities as part of those policies on the other, is, of course, nothing new. It was most eloquently emphasized in the largely forgotten, deliberately whitewashed 1967 speech about the Vietnam War by Martin Luther King, Jr. (who himself was targeted for years with abusive domestic surveillance by the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover). Dr. King devoted that extraordinary speech generally to the way in which the war in Vietnam was savaging not only the people of that country but also America’s national character. He specifically sought to answer his critics who were objecting that his increasingly strident opposition to the Vietnam War was a distraction from his civil rights work; instead, he insisted, his war opposition and advocacy of civil rights are, in fact, causes that are inextricably linked”
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/16/who_are_the_victims_of_civil_liberties_assaults_and_endless_war/singleton/
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I think Greenwald is an important voice. I tried to bring something up at the Plumline regarding the importance of some of the issues Ron Paul was highlighting and was immediately shut down. People on the left won’t listen because it’s a democrat doing these things and I think they’re wrong and narrow minded and maybe a little afraid. I really liked this quote from that piece jnc.
This is the primary point made so brilliantly by Falguni Sheth.
Here’s my other question: Why does this have to turn into a “guilt by association” debate? Why can’t we discuss the questions that are
being raised as serious and important questions, rather than referendums on voters’ or pundits’ moral character? I don’t have to like Ron Paul (and why do we need to LIKE our politicians?). I don’t have to have dinner with him. He doesn’t need to be a friend. He is raising the questions that every other liberal and progressive and feminist (yes, including you, Katha) should be raising and forcing the Democrats to address. As Greenwald has pointed out, these issues only become outrage-worthy when the Republicans are spearheading human rights violations, because it gives the libs and progs a lever by which to claim political superiority. The silence on the Democrats’ record of human rights violations is deafening. And they’re more than cherries on a blighted tree. They’re dead bodies on the blighted conscience of Americans.
What I don’t know is where to go from here? Both parties have taken 9/11 and the war on terror as an invitation to abandon both the rule of law and civil liberties.
I’ve read MLK’s Vietnam speech before and found it both moving and timeless.
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I’ve been reading quotes this evening and this one seems somewhat timely considering both this discussion and what’s been going on at the Plumline for months, and I don’t mean Beach, he’s just an annoying clown, I mean others there who will not tolerate the odd man out who mostly agrees with them but raises a doubt or a question. How very authoritarian of them.
“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
Albert Einstein
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“Quote of the Day” nomination!
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Second!
Scott! Oh, Scooootttttt!!!! 🙂
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“, and I don’t mean Beach, he’s just an annoying clown”
Beach’s presence on PL may make me rethink my aethisim, in that as much as he torments Cao, Liam and RnR leads me to believe that there may indeed be a God and a just God at that.
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Thanks for the link, jnc. Enjoyed the Greenwald piece. The steady erosion of our basic civil liberties, and the general seeming indifference to it, is THE reason I do not believe I can bring myself to vote for Obama in 2012. I typically try to refrain from watershed issue voting, but on this it is very hard for me not to do it. (OTOH, in OK who would ever guess a vote against Obama was a protest vote on this issue? Does that render my vote even more meaningless?)
lms, I’m absolutely with you on this and you put it well, “where to go from here”?
And hey, tao! Long time.
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Both parties have taken 9/11 and the war on terror as an invitation to abandon both the rule of law and civil liberties.
Yes! And I’ve been roundly criticized–and worse–by people from both ends of the political spectrum for saying that same thing. If anything, from my point of view, it’s worse that the Obama administration is carrying on these same policies. It’s just like the non-existent WMDs in Iraq–you can’t convince me that he got some super-secret, special briefing once he took office that changed his mind. . . I think he’s afraid that if another terrorist attack occurs he’s going to be blamed, rightly or wrongly. And that would look bad for his legacy.
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Obama is certainly not the man we voted for on any of these issues. It’s tough, but you really can’t run from the truth. I’m a progressive not a liar or a pretender. I don’t, or perhaps I should say we don’t, have a candidate in the race this time.
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Andrew Sullivan has a very good piece where he explains why Obama’s long ball strategy frustrates his more progressive supporters.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/15/andrew-sullivan-how-obama-s-long-game-will-outsmart-his-critics.html
Obama does a lot of behind the scenes groundwork before rolling things out. One example is that he made sure the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal came up through the brass rather than being top-down from him.
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Yello
In many ways I agree that he’s done a good job, DADT is a prime example. I suppose it depends what issues we value more than others. But I can’t quite trust him on other issues and I truly don’t know if I can make myself vote for him or not. I completely understand why others will but that’s not the way I roll. My biggest criticism of other liberals/progressives is not that they support Obama, or even attempt to convince others of why it’s important to vote for him, it’s that dissent from that prevailing “wisdom” is shut down. I find that dangerous and I’m just stubborn enough to use that as a reason not to vote the party line.
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Nite all……maybe I’ll figure it out by tomorrow….lol
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G’night, lms. Please advise when you have the answer. 🙂
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My mother was born and raised in rural New England. When she married my dad in 1962 they moved to Alabama for his fighter training and she got a job at an elementary school. One day in the recess yard she was thirsty and noticed a long line for one water fountain but none for the other. She walked over and drank from it to the shock of everyone there. The principal came up behind her and took a drink as well and then pointed out the ‘Colored’ sign over it.
It’s not that long ago. I once had to research the architectural drawings for Johns Hopkins Hospital and every floor had a set of white restrooms and a set of colored restrooms. There was a lot of infrastructure involved in the system of segregation and it wasn’t all that long ago.
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LMS, I know that you said [in reply to me] that you could not vote for a Libertarian. Assume, for the sake of argument, that the only party on the ballot dedicated to repealing the intolerable excess of a law permitting the singling out of American citizens for detention or assassination without due process will be the Libertarian Party.
Would that change your mind? You and I live in states where we can always vote our conscience in a POTUS election. Our votes have been meaningless, win or lose, for a very long time.
Some other party might make this an issue, of course. And the Libertarians might not. Just go with my assumption for this hypothetical, please. I am trying to determine if your antipathy to the Libertarian Party is as deep as mine to any socialist party would be. I could not vote for a socialist party even if it were the only one vowing support for basic civil liberties because I would not believe it. I would not believe the fringe right wing parties, either.
I would believe the Libertarians.
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Mark, if I’m to be completely honest and forthright I will admit to you and others here that I have voted for Libertarians in the past. I could not do it now however. The discussions I have with scott and NoVA frighten me because the desired goal of unwinding so much that I consider accomplishments politically of the last century appear to be hanging in the balance for the first time in my political memory. I can’t go down that path either. It’s a conundrum.
Like you in Texas, here in CA I have free reign to vote my conscience because my vote for POTUS has been meaningless my entire life, which is another frustrating issue of course. Does anyone here really believe a Libertarian in the White House would be able to unwind or reverse the legal and liberty issues brought to us by the War on Terror? I don’t, and the possibilities of other reversals will keep me from traveling down that path.
What I really wish is that Democrats were braver and more honest because both of these are issues they should care about and when history looks back at some of this stuff we will regret it.
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It is also extremely doubtful that I would ever vote for a socialist. I really don’t like the extremes of either party but the middle is occupied by pretenders, so we moderates are screwed. I’m sure most people don’t really believe I am a moderate but it’s only because I feel threatened that I retreat into a corner to defend myself……….I don’t believe in violence or killing either but I would if my life or a loved ones depended on it.
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LMS, everything you have said here resonates for me. I support the maintenance of public education, public health, social security, and veterans bennies myself. I think universal health care [private, but regulated, and divorced from the employer] is a worthy goal. Scott’s view, as I have understood it, that roads are a public good but that education is not, is a distinction that does not compute for me. We here are all clear, I think, that we draw these lines in different places.
But without the BoR we have nothing that will last, nothing that is worthy, as a nation. With the BoR, we are the hope of the world. I cannot get around that. Maybe that is a bit legalistic. I plead guilty if it is.
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lms:
Does anyone here really believe a Libertarian in the White House would be able to unwind or reverse the legal and liberty issues brought to us by the War on Terror? I don’t, and the possibilities of other reversals will keep me from traveling down that path.
I find it remarkable that you think programs that have been around for decades and have come to be expected by huge numbers of Americans are more likely to be reversed than a few highly controversial laws that were enacted within the last ten years.
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Remarkable or not, it’s what I believe.
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Morning report is up! And I will be as well once I find coffee.
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Scott, it is the return to pre 1913 America that Ron Paul envisions, ahead of more respect for the BoR, that frightens LMS, if I read her correctly. You are surely correct factually that it will be difficult to unwind the welfare state, revert to asset based currency, and close the Fed, but that is what Paul has made the focus of libertarianism.
In our conversations here, libertarian leaners like me and jncp will stress these BoR issues, but you and QB will clearly stress an Austrian school of economic libertarianism more often. NoVAH is unique among us, I think, in many ways, btw.
The point being that I understand where LMS could get the notion that libertarians and thus, Libertarians, seek first to roll back the welfare state, and incidentally, to protect the BoR.
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Mark
But without the BoR we have nothing that will last, nothing that is worthy, as a nation. With the BoR, we are the hope of the world.
I think you are probably correct here, but I don’t see a way out in the current environment. Perhaps someone on the horizon will capture my imagination but we’re running out of time for the current election. You are also correct in your assessment of my views regarding the current libertarian candidate Ron Paul (yes I know he’s registered as a Republican) and the way I interpret scott’s views. I also found the discussions of altruism as self-interest revealing. I do not depict SS or Medicare as part of the Welfare State however.
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In the FDR-LBJ version, there is an attempt to emulate the insurance model, so that it is not designed as “general welfare” [the way AFDC was, or medicaid is]. But when we talk about the “Welfare State” I think we include government run insurance schemes, as a general rule, all around the industrialized world. I do not mean it as a pejorative when I use the phrase.
I do not think Paul will have a place on the Libertarian ticket and that Gary Johnson will be that party’s nominee. FWIW, he was a good governor.
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government run insurance schemes
lol mark, that’s not a lot better. I think words matter and when we talk technically some of us, I include myself in this, get lost in the process because we have a more common understanding of the terms we’re using. As someone who works with fixed income seniors (they’re not all elderly btw) I will tell you they will resent both of those depictions.
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My belated 2 cents on MLK. I grew up in Maryland, a stones throw from DC. Born in the mid 60’s, I was too young to remember the DC riots or the assassinations of MLK or RFK. What I do know is my parents are prejudiced in the way that they will judge people based on the content of their character but still did not want me to “bring home a black girl”. That said, I have had a wide variety of friends and more throughout my life of pretty much every race, creed and color. We now live in Northern VA where we as whites are currently minorities (not to African-Americans but to Asians and Hispanics). Surprisingly, the topic of race comes up little and when it does my kids have generally responded in a way that MLK would be proud of. It is not perfect but they have friends much like I do, of all races. For the most part, we all just get along.
I can recall Black History Month and learning about MLK from way back. I don’t think there should be a national holiday in honor of him because I have a thing about national holidays for people. I don’t think there should be a Black History Month either – it’s American history and should be taught as such. I find both of these ideas antiquated but realize that there is probably a large chunk of America that needs it. However, as I raise my kids I frequently find myself quoting I Have a Dream as an example of how to live your life and how to choose your friends. Given the choice between the MLK way and the “By any means necessary” way to try to enact changes, I will vote for (and more importantly respect) the MLK way every time.
So basically, Dave!’s family enjoyed their day off yesterday and celebrated it as we do most holidays – by spending time together being a family. My one son spent time playing with his best friend (from Nicaragua). My other son chatted with our neighbor from Viet Nam, My daughter and I chatted with the hispanic guy who is working on remodeling our kitchen. And none of us thought a darned thing about race.
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Dave!, thanks for your belated entry on this. To me, that’s how it should be.
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