LTE in Boston Globe: Bush-bashers, bring it on

[Ian David]

Bush-bashers, bring it on
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/03/09/bush_bashers_bring_it_on?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Letters+to+the+editor


March 9, 2005

AS A REPUBLICAN who reads the Globe daily, I would like to thank those of you who have written Bush-bashing letters. In fact, I hope they keep it up.
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I thoroughly enjoy the whining and complaining. Insulting letters are fun, also, but I am particularly fond of the holier-than-thou attitude that many readers are able to convey. It occurs to me that it must be terribly frustrating to be so smart yet lose twice to a man who can't pronounce the word ''nuclear."

I can relate. I felt the same way when Jimmy Carter was president.

In any event, keep sending those letters. There's nothing we ''red" folk can say or do that will be more beneficial when the elections roll around in 2008.


Walpole
STEPHEN R. TARBELL



Yeah, Stephen, thanks. We've seen what you "red folks" have done here before, and we've had enough of it.

[Catfight]

1. What is that picture from? That's very disturbing but powerful. Is that

RNC in 2008 except replace the man with some pregnant woman or something.

[Ian David]

4. South Boston Busing Riots 1974

Busing's altered route
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY


<snip>

"The first thing that parents want is quality in all of the schools," says Ted Landsmark, who chairs a city task force on racial diversity for the Boston School Committee. It is expected to decide in September whether to overhaul the city's busing program, which in the 1970s plunged the city into riots. Lands-mark was part of an unforgettable photo from those riots: He is the black man being attacked with an American flag by a white protester.

More:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-05-16-school-integration-usat_x.htm



Young rioter recalls seething in Southie
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

In 1974, white resistance to forced busing in South Boston erupted in riots that rocked the city.


<snip>

MacDonald, now 37, says busing in South Boston placated activists "without bringing about real change."

The all-white schools in South Boston, he says, in many ways were just as bad as the all-black schools in surrounding neighborhoods. "Boston is not the same as Arkansas. It wasn't the same situation - it wasn't black kids getting access to better schools and better neighborhoods."

The left-leaning MacDonald blames liberal politicians who crafted a busing plan that affected only working-class and poor people. While Southie had its share of racists, he says, much of the anger over busing was because affluent whites managed to keep their kids out of the integration plan.

"Other plans (in) other places have worked better than the Boston one," he says. "To this day I think it can be called a failure."

More:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-05-16-busing-riots-usat_x.htm

[hatrack]

5. Anti-busing riot back in 1975(?)

I think that's when it happened.

[BlueManDude]

8. I walk by that very spot almost every day

and I almost always think of this photo.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

6. Oh Man.... that is an unbelievably famous photo

the irony of the use of the flag in a racially motivated act of violence- on the steps of Boston City Hall in the cradle of our nation's independence.... that picture is LOADED!

Photographer Stanley J. Forman won the pulitzer for that and this photo:
Fire escape collapse

http://www.bppa.net/events/dec03/dec03.htm

[Catfight]

7. Well, I feel like today was a good day in that I learned something new,

and a bad day that bush is still in office. Thank you for the lesson, it's an incredibly powerful photo as well as ironic indeed.

[gratuitous]

2. Bush bashing?

Funny, I call it honest reporting. Does the letter writer mean to say that 1,500 troops haven't lost their lives over non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

[ET Awful]

3. Dear Stephen,

It's a sign of your utter lack of intelligence, let alone class, when you imply that Carter won twice :).