Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/02/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Excuse me, Marc, but go read your history. Civil Rights Act after Civil Rights Act died in Congress at the hands of Southern Democrats - with the support of Conservative Republicans - for generations prior to the mid-60s. What changed things was the birth of the modern Civil Rights Movement with the Birmingham Bus Boycott of 1958, and the various marches, sit-ins and Freedom Rides - to say nothing of the murders of Schwerner Chaney and Goodman in the summer of '63 - to the March on Washington in August of 1963. But even with all of that, it's unlikely the log jam would have broken with the Kennedy assasination that November, and Lyndon Johnson -a former member of the Senate's Southern Caucus and protégé of Sen. Richard Russell - throwing the full weight of the Presidency behind the effort. And BTW, I have never read any of Zinn's incredibly biased U.S. History texts - and was horrified that his text was what my youngest had as a high school "text" - but I am old enough to have read, heard and watched news coverage in a discerning way from the late 50's on, and to have read many non-Zinn's histories of the Civil Rights movement, and of national politics. - -----Original Message----- From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Marc James Small Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2003 8:53 PM To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: Re: [Leica] Covering Anti-War protest in Philly At 04:47 PM 2/15/03 -0600, Matthew Powell wrote: >Not quite. Civil rights, women's rights, women's suffrage, the labor >movement - each of these succeeded by working outside of the government, >and quite often in direct opposition to the government. They forced the >state to change, it didn't change itself. > >The truth is that there has never been a real progressive movement (in >the US) that was successful by solely or even mostly working within the >system. This is bunk. Each of these issues became politically sensitive before any sort of mass public protests were conducted, and each of them would have been handled by Congress as they were had a single march never occurred. Yes, protests do obtain newspaper coverage but, in the end, what accomplishes change is change within the system, not outside of it. (Protesters didn't get the civil rights bills of the middle 1960's passed: a coalition of liberal Democrats and mainstream Republicans did that.) I realize Zimm disagrees with this take, but the record is pretty clear. Marc msmall@infi.net FAX: +276/343-7315 Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir! - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html