"Never give up. Never, never, never give up."
Posted on 01/06/2015 9:41:34 AM PST by Brad from Tennessee
Before I came to dislike the movie “Selma,” I was deeply moved by it. Twice it brought me to tears. A crane shot of Martin Luther King Jr. leading thousands of demonstrators over the Edmund Pettus Bridge was one such moment, and so was the vicious attack on John Lewis — bravely, steadfastly walking into the beating he knew was coming. Today, Lewis is a member of Congress. Forever, he’ll be an American hero.
Too bad, though, that the movie had to go Hollywood on Lyndon Baines Johnson, who, as if from the grave, has bellowed his protest. In its need for some dramatic tension, “Selma” asserts that King had to persuade and pressure a recalcitrant Johnson to introduce the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The movie also depicts Johnson authorizing FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to smear King and — as King himself suspected — try to drive him to suicide. It is a profoundly ugly moment.
But a bevy of historians say it never happened. It was Robert F. Kennedy, the former attorney general, who authorized the FBI’s bugging of King’s hotel rooms. Yet, for understandable reasons, Kennedy appears nowhere in the film. By 1965, he was no longer the AG and, anyway, he remains a liberal icon. But LBJ — Southern, obscene and, especially when compared to the lithe Kennedy, gross of speech and physique — was made the heavy. He should get a posthumous SAG card. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
How do you know? Evidence please.
I agree.
Neither do I. He was also a plagiarist and a woman abuser-he abused the white prostitutes he frequented.
"Never give up. Never, never, never give up."
My father knew one of the Alabama state troopers who was bird-dogging the ‘marchers’ and had told my father. Sorry, but that is the only ‘evidence’ that I have.
However, I have considered objectively. Who do I want to believe? The race hustlers or an Alabama state trooper and my father? Who do you tend to believe?
You are arguing for what, unfortunately, is the status quo of Hollywood historical fiction. But just because something exists is no recommendation. Grania is arguing for what should be. I agree with Grania.
“Hey, I didn’t realize that slavery wasn’t all that bad. And that you evidently kinda sorta know what it was like. Thanks for the history lesson!””
Apparently, slaves were only being abused when they were being beaten occasionally.
Are you serious? Do you know what the Alabama State Patrol was doing 50 years ago? And you believe anything they have to say?
Look at the videos of what went on in Alabama in the mid 60’s. Which side do you think was in the right?
No, "we" cannot agree that unwilling servitude in the spare-but-humane conditions offered to many because they were economically valuable is identical to the physical abuse amounting to torture that these sensationalist anti-American films project onto all whites of the era. "We" simply cannot agree to that.
Yes, and they probably deserved it too.
Don't sell this guy short...
Yep, he wanted Vietnam to be expanded and JFK was against it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he even had something to do with King’s assassination.
[Well it was Republicans pushing that until Johnson saw they were going to lose a voting block, then the Democrats got on board somewhat and still a higher percentage of Republicans voted for civil rights than did Democrats.]
Correct. As senate majority leader, LBJ killed a voting rights bill pushed by the Eisenhower Administration because he said it would violently split the Democratic Party between the Dixiecrats and urban liberals.
I look at the recent Exodus and Noah's Ark movies as failed opportunities. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent, in an effort that would've been more exciting and probably more successful if the movie makers had stayed within known historical context.
What I always found amazing is those romantic novels with a historical context. The readers of those novels (supposedly the lower end of the spectrum) are said to be relentless in their demand for historical accuracy.
At the time I did not like the discord in society. The riots, some people ignoring the then current laws, etc. And, just so that you know, included in the “some people ignoring the then current laws” are those law enforcement and government officials as well as the rioters and troublemakers.
History has guided me toward the conclusion that the Alabama state trooper is more believable now than then.
Watch the news and read the news. Who gets more freebies? Who goes to jail in disproportionate percentages of population? Who are the people whom are still crying over so-called ‘injustices’? Who are still having children out of wedlock so that they can get even more freebies?
Oh, I think the democrat party offering all kinds of subsidies and free goodies as well as a way to blame all of their ills on someone else has something to do with how blacks, among others, vote today.
Sure, the movie lies, but it helps the narrative. LBJ would be the first to understand.
“Are you serious? Do you know what the Alabama State Patrol was doing 50 years ago? And you believe anything they have to say?”
And, by those questions then I have to assume that you believe the race hustlers.
I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about 50 years ago. Clearly the black community has not taken advantage of the additional freedoms given to them in the mid 60’s.
I’ll ask the question again. Lets say you were a black man in 1965 in Selma. And you were not allowed to vote, or even register to vote. Would you just shrug your shoulders and go home? Or would protesting that condition make you a “troublemaker”?
“The issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution.”
—David Horowitz, quoting unnamed SDS leader.
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