Keith Olbermann suspended over political donations

Ragusa · Nov 23, 2010

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Oh, I gather that the counter culture of the Vietnam era and the seventies have been divisive. Cheney is said to have never recovered from his Nixon era trauma, and probably he didn't get over Iran-Contra either. But then, Cheney is an old man now, with old grudges. It is worth keeping in mind that to most Americans younger than, say, 35, that aforementioned divisiveness is something they never experienced personally. It is lore.

There has been a point long passed after which that reaction has ceased to be proportional. This is excessive, and the only reason I can see why Republicans merrily continue this is that they have lost their sense of proportion and have gotten used to it. To what they do now the questions of what the radicals of the 1970s said and did 40 years ago is of mere historical interest. It is 2010 now and soon it will be 2011. If I see a mid-thirty Republican candidate say the stupid and irresponsible things that mid thirty Republican candidates at times tend to say (and do) I find supposed pre-natal and ancestral traumas to be a frankly unconvincing justification. They have a free will after all.

If the Republican backlash, and it is just that, is akin to an immune reaction, what we see now is lupus.

PS: Yay! My 9,000th post!

Chandos the Red · Nov 23, 2010

Oh, I gather that the counter culture of the Vietnam era and the seventies have been divisive.
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The counter culture was like 40-50 years ago, and ended even before Nixon did. If the counter culture of the 60s was brought into this, it has nothing to do with the modern media. I mean, we can go back to the Civil War and talk REAL disivise politics if we want an historical perspective.

The counter culture movement grew out of the Civil Rights movement and split the Democratic Party. Most of the Southern politicians were old-school Democrats and guys like Lyndon Johnson, from Texas, who is more associated with the Vietnam War than any other politician, could not even run for another term as prez because the Dems were so divided on the issues of Civil Rights and the Vietnam War. Johnson himself was very much in favor of Civil Rights but very pro Vietnam war, as anyone who has studied the period understands. There was a governor a guy named Geroge Wallace, who was a Democrat, and perhaps more conservative than any of these Repbulicans around today - from what I have read of the guy, he makes Sarah Palin look like a Vermont liberal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace

This is the South in the 60s, during the mytholoy of the counter culture:

When Maddox sought the Democratic Party nomination for Governor of Georgia in 1966, his principal opponent for the nomination was former governor Ellis Arnall. That election was still in the era of Democratic Party dominance in Georgia, when winning the Democratic primary was tantamount to election. Since there was no Republican primary at the time, and there were a great many voters who identified with the Republicans, the Republicans voted in the Democratic primary and chose the candidate who they thought would lose against their candidate, Howard Callaway. In the primary election, Arnall won a plurality of the popular vote, but was denied the required majority. Lester Maddox, the candidate in second place, then ran in a run-off against Ellis Arnall. State Senator Jimmy Carter came in third. Again, the Republicans voted in the Democratic primary runoff. Arnall barely campaigned in the run-off election, and the result was a victory for Maddox.

Stunned, Arnall announced a write-in candidacy for the general election, insisting that Georgians must have the option of a moderate Democrat besides party-nominee Maddox and the Republican candidate. In that contest, Republican nominee Howard "Bo" Callaway, the first Republican member of the United States House of Representatives elected from Georgia since the close of Reconstruction, won a plurality, and Maddox finished second. (Some people unhappy with both major nominees took the "Go Bo" of Callaway's campaign and expanded it to "Go Bo, and take Lester with you".) Under the election rules then in effect, the state legislature was required to select a governor from the two candidates with the highest number of votes. With the legislature overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats, all of whom had been required to sign a Democratic loyalty oath which required them to support Democrats only, Maddox became Governor, serving from 1967 to 1971
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More on this guy:

Maddox made the Pickrick a family affair with his wife and children working side-by-side with him. The restaurant became known for its simple, inexpensive food, including its specialty, skillet-fried chicken. It soon became a thriving business. The restaurant also provided Maddox with his first political forum: the restaurant became well known in Atlanta for large newspaper advertisements that featured cartoon chickens. Following the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954, these restaurant ads began more and more to feature the cartoon chickens commenting on the political questions of the day. However, Maddox's refusal to adjust to changes following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 manifested itself when he filed a lawsuit to continue his segregationist policies. Maddox said that he would close his restaurant rather than serve black people. An initial group of black demonstrators came to the restaurant but did not enter when Maddox informed them that he had a large number of black employees. In April 1964, more African-Americans attempted to enter the restaurant. Maddox confronted the group, brandishing a handgun.[1] Maddox provides the following account of the events:

Mostly customers, with only a few employees, voluntarily removed the twelve Pickrick Drumsticks (pick handles) from the nail kegs on each side of the large dining room fireplace. They had been forewarned by the arrival of Atlanta's news media of an impending attempted invasion of our restaurant by the racial demonstrators and once the demonstrators and agitators arrived, the customers and employees pulled the drumsticks from the kegs and went outside to defend against the threatened invasion.[4]

Unable to win his case, he became a martyr to segregationist advocates by selling the restaurant to employees rather than agreeing to serve black customers.

The building was purchased by Georgia Tech in 1965 and was used for many years as the placement center. It is currently known as the Ajax building.[5][6] It was demolished on May 14 and 15, 2009.
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Maddox, a former Governor of Georgia and Staunch Segregationist, first gained notoriety by refusing to integrate his Atlanta restaurant. In the 1960's he gave ax handles to patrons for the purpose of clubbing any Black Americans that tried to enter his Pickwick restaurant.
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This is the same party of George McGovern, the only mojor political figure I can imagine is even mildly associated with the counter culture movement, besides RFK, whose life and political career was cut far too short. I heard George McGovern recently doing an interview on CSPAN where he commented that he and Bob Dole were able to work together on policy and how much they liked and respected each other. He was speaking specifically of the School Lunch/nutition Program and how they worked together to help get lunches for poor kids in public schools. What chance would that program have a getting passed today? None. I can hear Rush now, speaking into his gold microphone: "Poor kids can's eat at school? I guess it sucks to be them."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Select_Committee_on_Nutrition_and_Human_Needs

The committee had won annual extensions each year, despite some institutional opposition, especially from southern Democrats.[6] During 1977, however, there was a large-scale effort to reform the Senate's overall committee system, which was seen as unwieldy, especially in having some 34 special, select, or joint committees.[6] Intense politicking took place as to which select or special committees would survive, and McGovern and Dole fought hard to preserve the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs.[6]

They were unsuccessful, and at the close of 1977 the committee was subsumed as the Subcommittee on Nutrition within the newly retitled United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.[2][6] In reaction, Percy said "I do not know of another committee which ... had to lay bare its whole soul and have an accountability to the whole Senate, as we have had year after year after year.[6] Senator Edward Brooke said that the select committee had simply lacked external clout because its constituency was poor and not organized, and called its ending "a sad commentary upon the Senate".[6]
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What downright shame.

NOG (No Other Gods) · Nov 25, 2010

Ragusa, I'm not saying that it always was neutral. Honestly, I have no idea how it became genuinely neutral to begin with. Maybe some young journalists-to-be saw the blatant partisanship of the media they were living with, got sick of it, and decided to fix it from the inside. Maybe we'll see something like that ourselves soon. Maybe not. I'm just saying the country's politics are healthier when unbiassed and unafraid news informs the people. Mind you, you have to have both of those. Biassed and unafraid is a nightmare, while unbiassed but afraid is a tool of whoever is in power.

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Keith Olbermann suspended over political donations

Ragusa Eternal Halfling Paladin Veteran

Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

NOG (No Other Gods) Going to church doesn't make you a Christian