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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
March 19, 2013
A reader of Towle Road remarked on the absence of progressive religious voices in the mini-series:
A quick recap on those religious “experts”: ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/panel_of_anti_gay_religious_leaders_advised_on_the_bible/
Panel of anti-gay religious leaders advised on “The Bible”
Panel of anti-gay religious leaders advised on “The Bible”
A team of anti-gay evangelicals advised on a mini-series meant to "set the record straight" on the good book
By Katie Mcdonough
While the Obama-as-Satan story grabbed headlines on Monday, another aspect of the History Channel’s “The Bible” mini-series flew under the radar: The panel of anti-gay evangelicals who advised on the project:
Burnett and Downey approached History and struck a deal, which included a sizable CGI budget to bring state-of-the-art realism to the Great Flood, the parting of the Red Sea, God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and other Bible stories. The duo then formed an advisory board with some of America’s top spiritual leaders.
“We weren’t qualified to teach the Bible, but we knew plenty of people who were,” says Burnett, whose interfaith panel included pastors Joel Osteen, Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes, Bishop Michael Sheridan, Focus on the Family president Jim Daly and Rev. Samuel Rodriguez.
These advisers were also supposed to appear on screen, since the original plan was to make The Bible a docudrama — reenactments peppered with lots of talking heads. But things went so well during the nearly six-month shoot in Morocco that the miniseries took a different course.
A reader of Towle Road remarked on the absence of progressive religious voices in the mini-series:
Mark Burnett has made quite a bit of cash on the backs of gay contestants on his various shows, so I’m curious why any progressive or GLBT voices are suddenly lacking when he’s looking for perspective this time around? It’s 2013, and I thought the media was improving at least a little bit in thinking that the only religion that exists anywhere is right-wing religion, but apparently not in this case.
A quick recap on those religious “experts”: ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/19/panel_of_anti_gay_religious_leaders_advised_on_the_bible/
March 19, 2013
Salon.com / By Jonathan Zimmerman
What’s Not Being Taught About The Iraq War
As America’s war in Iraq passes from “current events” into history, we must ask what are our children being taught in schools about the conflict?
March 19, 2013 |
Upon the 10th anniversary of America’s war in Iraq, a critical question with serious ramifications has been little explored: What are our children being taught in schools about the conflict, as it passes from “current events” into history?
To answer this question, one obvious place to start is school textbooks. I looked at several of them, and was happily surprised. The books present a fairly complex and balanced view of the war in Iraq, avoiding the falsehoods and sugarcoating that has so often marred American history instruction. But textbooks only tell part of the story.
Just as important is what is actually emphasized in the classrooms, and the ability of teachers to engage in real inquiry. Unfortunately, a combination of school policies and judicial decisions have made it so that many kids learn little or nothing about what we have done in Iraq, or why we have done it.
I’m a professor of education and history, and wrote a book examining conflicts over history in American public schools. But for me, this probe is more than theoretical: My daughter is an 11th grader in a suburban public high school, where she takes Advanced Placement U.S. History. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/education/whats-not-being-taught-about-iraq-war
What’s Not Being Taught About The Iraq War
Salon.com / By Jonathan Zimmerman
What’s Not Being Taught About The Iraq War
As America’s war in Iraq passes from “current events” into history, we must ask what are our children being taught in schools about the conflict?
March 19, 2013 |
Upon the 10th anniversary of America’s war in Iraq, a critical question with serious ramifications has been little explored: What are our children being taught in schools about the conflict, as it passes from “current events” into history?
To answer this question, one obvious place to start is school textbooks. I looked at several of them, and was happily surprised. The books present a fairly complex and balanced view of the war in Iraq, avoiding the falsehoods and sugarcoating that has so often marred American history instruction. But textbooks only tell part of the story.
Just as important is what is actually emphasized in the classrooms, and the ability of teachers to engage in real inquiry. Unfortunately, a combination of school policies and judicial decisions have made it so that many kids learn little or nothing about what we have done in Iraq, or why we have done it.
I’m a professor of education and history, and wrote a book examining conflicts over history in American public schools. But for me, this probe is more than theoretical: My daughter is an 11th grader in a suburban public high school, where she takes Advanced Placement U.S. History. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/education/whats-not-being-taught-about-iraq-war
March 19, 2013
AlterNet / By Michael Ratner
No Forgiveness for Bush’s 'Useful Idiots,' the Liberal Hawks Who Led Us into War
The liberal establishment willfully payed along with the preposterous claims that led to the Iraq War.
March 19, 2013 |
Ten years ago, between January and April 2003, it is estimated that an unprecedented 36 million people around the world took to the streets in protest against the Iraq War. They believed the war unjust, the evidence of a threat flimsy, and the costs, in terms of lives and otherwise, potentially astronomical. Worldwide protests, from Rome to Manhattan, brought together hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions to collectively voice opposition.
In any just government, these astounding numbers would give pause to the war-wagers in power. In a truly democratic America, these sentiments should have been represented in Washington. And surely this moment should have been the cue for our “liberal media” to echo the cautionary cries of our protesters to deafening levels. Instead, our reliably bellicose Republican congressmen were joined in support by an overwhelming majority of our so-called liberal representatives, and war went ahead as planned.
Even more alarmingly, in the months preceding the start of the war, the pages of the New York Times would greet us with more banging of the drums: a demand by Thomas Friedman that France be kicked out of the Security Council for its refusal to join up, or a startling piece of war propaganda by then soon-to-be executive editor Bill Keller, fantasizing about the impact of a one-kiloton nuke detonated in Manhattan – 20,000 incinerated, many more dying a “gruesome death from radiation sickness.” But make no mistake: although the New York Times has a shameless history of supporting war after war, other prominent mainstream journalists and intellectuals were eager to ride the bandwagon. These names include George Packer of the New Yorker, Newsday’s Jeffery Goldberg, the Atlantic’s Peter Beinart, Fareed Zakaria, Andrew Sullivan, Christopher Hitchens, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Paul Berman to name a few.
The late Tony Judt sized up this whole lot most aptly with the label “Bush’s Useful Idiots.” The “useful idiots,” he said, were those from within the liberal establishment who, either through a misguided attempt to project strength, willfully played along with preposterous WMD claims, or simply allowed themselves to get carried away with the imperialistic fervor surrounding a new call to war, abdicating the responsibilities upon which liberal ideology is based. Instead, they aligned their positions with the neo-conservative architects of the Iraq War. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/no-forgiveness-bushs-useful-idiots-liberal-hawks-who-led-us-war
Michael Ratner: No Forgiveness for Bush’s 'Useful Idiots,' the Liberal Hawks Who Led Us into War
AlterNet / By Michael Ratner
No Forgiveness for Bush’s 'Useful Idiots,' the Liberal Hawks Who Led Us into War
The liberal establishment willfully payed along with the preposterous claims that led to the Iraq War.
March 19, 2013 |
Ten years ago, between January and April 2003, it is estimated that an unprecedented 36 million people around the world took to the streets in protest against the Iraq War. They believed the war unjust, the evidence of a threat flimsy, and the costs, in terms of lives and otherwise, potentially astronomical. Worldwide protests, from Rome to Manhattan, brought together hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions to collectively voice opposition.
In any just government, these astounding numbers would give pause to the war-wagers in power. In a truly democratic America, these sentiments should have been represented in Washington. And surely this moment should have been the cue for our “liberal media” to echo the cautionary cries of our protesters to deafening levels. Instead, our reliably bellicose Republican congressmen were joined in support by an overwhelming majority of our so-called liberal representatives, and war went ahead as planned.
Even more alarmingly, in the months preceding the start of the war, the pages of the New York Times would greet us with more banging of the drums: a demand by Thomas Friedman that France be kicked out of the Security Council for its refusal to join up, or a startling piece of war propaganda by then soon-to-be executive editor Bill Keller, fantasizing about the impact of a one-kiloton nuke detonated in Manhattan – 20,000 incinerated, many more dying a “gruesome death from radiation sickness.” But make no mistake: although the New York Times has a shameless history of supporting war after war, other prominent mainstream journalists and intellectuals were eager to ride the bandwagon. These names include George Packer of the New Yorker, Newsday’s Jeffery Goldberg, the Atlantic’s Peter Beinart, Fareed Zakaria, Andrew Sullivan, Christopher Hitchens, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Paul Berman to name a few.
The late Tony Judt sized up this whole lot most aptly with the label “Bush’s Useful Idiots.” The “useful idiots,” he said, were those from within the liberal establishment who, either through a misguided attempt to project strength, willfully played along with preposterous WMD claims, or simply allowed themselves to get carried away with the imperialistic fervor surrounding a new call to war, abdicating the responsibilities upon which liberal ideology is based. Instead, they aligned their positions with the neo-conservative architects of the Iraq War. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/no-forgiveness-bushs-useful-idiots-liberal-hawks-who-led-us-war
March 19, 2013
Watered-down gun legislation in the works, Senator Reid?
WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) grew defensive Tuesday when pressed on his efforts to craft a gun control package, having decided this week not to include a ban on assault weapons in the legislation.
A ban on nearly 160 specific types of semiautomatic weapons and rifles was one of the four major parts of President Barack Obama's plan to curtail gun violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shooting. But the fact that it won't be included in the baseline bill is hardly unexpected. The ban's chief sponsor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), could only guarantee roughly 40 votes for the measure, Reid said. So while it will still get consideration as an amendment to the broader gun legislation, unless an additional 20 votes materialize it won't become law.
Left unsaid on Tuesday was that another major element of the president's gun policy proposal could be joining the assault weapons ban in the scrap heap.
Legislation to limit the size of ammunition feeders was part of Feinstein's bill as well. And as of now, lawmakers are expected to separate that measure from the assault weapons ban so that it can be considered individually. ..........(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/19/obama-gun-reform_n_2909590.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
March 19, 2013
from Consortium News:
What Happened to the US Press Corps?
March 18, 2013
Exclusive: As the U.S. observes the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, a key question remains: Why was there almost no accountability for journalists and pundits who went along with George W. Bush’s deceptions. The answer can be found in the cover-ups of the Reagan-Bush-41 era, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
In the early 1980s, when it became clear to me that the Reagan administration was determined to lie incessantly about its foreign policy initiatives – that it saw propagandizing the American people as a key part of its success – I pondered this question: What is the proper role of a U.S. journalist when the government lies not just once in a while but nearly all the time?
Should you put yourself into a permanently adversarial posture of intense skepticism, as you might in dealing with a disreputable source who had lost your confidence? That is, assume what you’re hearing is unreliable unless it can be proven otherwise.
To many readers, the answer may seem obvious: of course, you should! Indeed, it might seem wise to many of you that I should have assumed that Ronald Reagan and his Cold War hard-liners were always lying and work back from there to the rare occasions when they weren’t.
But it wasn’t that easy. At the time, I was working as an investigative reporter for The Associated Press in Washington and many of my senior news executives were deeply sympathetic to Reagan’s muscular foreign policy after the perceived humiliations of the lost Vietnam War and the long Iranian hostage crisis. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/03/18/what-happened-to-the-us-press-corps/
Robert Parry: What Happened to the US Press Corps?
from Consortium News:
What Happened to the US Press Corps?
March 18, 2013
Exclusive: As the U.S. observes the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, a key question remains: Why was there almost no accountability for journalists and pundits who went along with George W. Bush’s deceptions. The answer can be found in the cover-ups of the Reagan-Bush-41 era, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
In the early 1980s, when it became clear to me that the Reagan administration was determined to lie incessantly about its foreign policy initiatives – that it saw propagandizing the American people as a key part of its success – I pondered this question: What is the proper role of a U.S. journalist when the government lies not just once in a while but nearly all the time?
Should you put yourself into a permanently adversarial posture of intense skepticism, as you might in dealing with a disreputable source who had lost your confidence? That is, assume what you’re hearing is unreliable unless it can be proven otherwise.
To many readers, the answer may seem obvious: of course, you should! Indeed, it might seem wise to many of you that I should have assumed that Ronald Reagan and his Cold War hard-liners were always lying and work back from there to the rare occasions when they weren’t.
But it wasn’t that easy. At the time, I was working as an investigative reporter for The Associated Press in Washington and many of my senior news executives were deeply sympathetic to Reagan’s muscular foreign policy after the perceived humiliations of the lost Vietnam War and the long Iranian hostage crisis. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/03/18/what-happened-to-the-us-press-corps/
March 19, 2013
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from next week’s Sony Open in Miami, the tournament confirmed. It’s a particularly tough hit to the men’s tournament, given Roger Federer’s earlier decision to skip the Masters 1000 tournament as well. Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray will be the top two seeds.
“I’m very sorry for the organization of the tournament and I’m very sorry for the fans, but we never thought we’d be able to play all matches possible since I came back,” Nadal told reporters after winning the BNP Paribas Open final on Sunday. “The doctors recommend me to be back home for a few weeks and rest a little bit and keep practicing the right way. I need more power on the left leg quadriceps, so I need to keep working hard. The competition is hard for the body, so after four fantastic weeks I can’t go to Miami. I need to prepare and rest for the next one.” ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://tennis.si.com/2013/03/17/nadal-stosur-out-of-miami-sony-open/
No Federer, Nadal or Stosur at the Sony Open in Miami
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from next week’s Sony Open in Miami, the tournament confirmed. It’s a particularly tough hit to the men’s tournament, given Roger Federer’s earlier decision to skip the Masters 1000 tournament as well. Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray will be the top two seeds.
“I’m very sorry for the organization of the tournament and I’m very sorry for the fans, but we never thought we’d be able to play all matches possible since I came back,” Nadal told reporters after winning the BNP Paribas Open final on Sunday. “The doctors recommend me to be back home for a few weeks and rest a little bit and keep practicing the right way. I need more power on the left leg quadriceps, so I need to keep working hard. The competition is hard for the body, so after four fantastic weeks I can’t go to Miami. I need to prepare and rest for the next one.” ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://tennis.si.com/2013/03/17/nadal-stosur-out-of-miami-sony-open/
March 19, 2013
from Consortium News:
A Warfare State of Mind
March 18, 2013
Many Americans forget how intimidating it was a decade ago for any U.S. citizen to speak out against President George W. Bush’s rush to war with Iraq. For example, the Dixie Chicks got death threats and actor Sean Penn was denounced as “a stooge of Saddam,” as Norman Solomon recalls.
By Norman Solomon
On a plane circling Baghdad in gray dawn light, a little Iraqi girl quietly sang to herself in the next row. “When I start to wonder why I’m making this trip,” Sean Penn murmured to me, “I see that child and I remember what it’s about.”
After the plane landed at Saddam International Airport, we waited in a small entry room until an Iraqi official showed up and ushered us through customs. Soon we checked into the Al-Rashid Hotel. Back in Washington the sponsor of our trip, the Institute for Public Accuracy, put out a news release announcing the three-day visit and quoting Sean: “As a father, an actor, a filmmaker and a patriot, my visit to Iraq is for me a natural extension of my obligation (at least attempt) to find my own voice on matters of conscience.”
With U.S. war drums at feverish pitch, Sean Penn’s sudden appearance in Baghdad set off a firestorm of vilification in American media. Headlines called him “Baghdad Sean”; pundits on cable news channels called him a stooge for Saddam.
But as the U.S. media attacks got underway, our focus was Baghdad. At the Al-Mansour Children’s Hospital, youngsters lay on threadbare mattresses with haunting dark eyes, mournful mothers sometimes seated next to their tiny beds. As we left, Sean said to me: “You don’t even want someone to slam a door too loud around these children, let alone imagine a bomb exploding in the neighborhood.” .......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/03/18/a-warfare-state-of-mind/
A Warfare State of Mind
from Consortium News:
A Warfare State of Mind
March 18, 2013
Many Americans forget how intimidating it was a decade ago for any U.S. citizen to speak out against President George W. Bush’s rush to war with Iraq. For example, the Dixie Chicks got death threats and actor Sean Penn was denounced as “a stooge of Saddam,” as Norman Solomon recalls.
By Norman Solomon
On a plane circling Baghdad in gray dawn light, a little Iraqi girl quietly sang to herself in the next row. “When I start to wonder why I’m making this trip,” Sean Penn murmured to me, “I see that child and I remember what it’s about.”
After the plane landed at Saddam International Airport, we waited in a small entry room until an Iraqi official showed up and ushered us through customs. Soon we checked into the Al-Rashid Hotel. Back in Washington the sponsor of our trip, the Institute for Public Accuracy, put out a news release announcing the three-day visit and quoting Sean: “As a father, an actor, a filmmaker and a patriot, my visit to Iraq is for me a natural extension of my obligation (at least attempt) to find my own voice on matters of conscience.”
With U.S. war drums at feverish pitch, Sean Penn’s sudden appearance in Baghdad set off a firestorm of vilification in American media. Headlines called him “Baghdad Sean”; pundits on cable news channels called him a stooge for Saddam.
But as the U.S. media attacks got underway, our focus was Baghdad. At the Al-Mansour Children’s Hospital, youngsters lay on threadbare mattresses with haunting dark eyes, mournful mothers sometimes seated next to their tiny beds. As we left, Sean said to me: “You don’t even want someone to slam a door too loud around these children, let alone imagine a bomb exploding in the neighborhood.” .......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/03/18/a-warfare-state-of-mind/
March 19, 2013
from Der Spiegel:
Anger in Cyprus: 'They Can't Just Penalize Us Because of the Banks!'
By Nicolai Kwasniewski in Nicosia
Changes are coming to the bailout package for Cyprus, but people in the country are furious nonetheless. A forced levy on savings accounts in the country has enraged depositors and brought protesters onto the streets. Germany is the focus of their anger.
Cypriots are furious. For the first time in the euro crisis, common depositors are being asked to contribute to a bank bailout package. And they are unwilling to give in without a fight. The mood in the capital city of Nicosia is dominated by anger and disbelief -- and Monday's announcement that changes to the original aid package will be forthcoming have done little to minimize the wrath. Indeed, on Tuesday morning, there were growing indications that the Cypriot parliament would refuse to rubber stamp the bailout plan.
In Café d'Avila, several young Cypriots were gathered on Monday evening drinking beer, smoking water pipes and talking about the forced levy on savings accounts held with Cypriot banks. Not surprisingly, everyone is opposed. The one-time tax, complains Alecos, a 28-year-old teacher, is "undemocratic." He himself doesn't have much in his bank account, but it is the principle he finds disturbing. "Ordinary people have to pay, but they have nothing to do with the bank insolvencies."
Marina, who works in advertising, agrees, noting that it doesn't matter how large the levy ends up being. "The troika can't simply decide to take something away from citizens," she says, referring to the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. She says that seizing money from simple savers cannot be the first step, whether they have €10,000 in their accounts or €100,000. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/anger-in-cyprus-over-euro-crisis-bank-levy-plan-a-889724.html
Banksters Piss off the World, Episode VII: Raging Cypriots
from Der Spiegel:
Anger in Cyprus: 'They Can't Just Penalize Us Because of the Banks!'
By Nicolai Kwasniewski in Nicosia
Changes are coming to the bailout package for Cyprus, but people in the country are furious nonetheless. A forced levy on savings accounts in the country has enraged depositors and brought protesters onto the streets. Germany is the focus of their anger.
Cypriots are furious. For the first time in the euro crisis, common depositors are being asked to contribute to a bank bailout package. And they are unwilling to give in without a fight. The mood in the capital city of Nicosia is dominated by anger and disbelief -- and Monday's announcement that changes to the original aid package will be forthcoming have done little to minimize the wrath. Indeed, on Tuesday morning, there were growing indications that the Cypriot parliament would refuse to rubber stamp the bailout plan.
In Café d'Avila, several young Cypriots were gathered on Monday evening drinking beer, smoking water pipes and talking about the forced levy on savings accounts held with Cypriot banks. Not surprisingly, everyone is opposed. The one-time tax, complains Alecos, a 28-year-old teacher, is "undemocratic." He himself doesn't have much in his bank account, but it is the principle he finds disturbing. "Ordinary people have to pay, but they have nothing to do with the bank insolvencies."
Marina, who works in advertising, agrees, noting that it doesn't matter how large the levy ends up being. "The troika can't simply decide to take something away from citizens," she says, referring to the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. She says that seizing money from simple savers cannot be the first step, whether they have €10,000 in their accounts or €100,000. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/anger-in-cyprus-over-euro-crisis-bank-levy-plan-a-889724.html
March 19, 2013
Robert Scheer: Dumb Wars, Now and Forever
from truthdig:
Dumb Wars, Now and Forever
Posted on Mar 19, 2013
By Robert Scheer
It is a staple of our widely trumpeted Judeo-Christian heritage that the acknowledgment of sin is a prelude to redemption. So how is it that there is no palpable sense of soul searching associated with the 10th anniversary of a war based on officially concocted lies and a policy of torture? It is because the presumption of a unique American claim to an original and enduring innocence perseveres, no matter the death and destruction.
Indeed, some of our most celebrated publicists defined moral deceit as virtue in justifying the Iraq War. “As far as I am concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote in April 2003, when U.N. inspectors had clearly established that the proclaimed basis for invading Iraq was a lie. “Mr. Bush doesn’t owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons (even if it turns out that the White House hyped this issue).”
The big lie, that bane of human existence when embraced by obvious dictators elsewhere, is perceived as merely hyping when employed by an American president. Lyndon Johnson hyped the nonexistent second Gulf of Tonkin attack on American ships to justify the U.S. war in Vietnam, and George W. Bush hyped the fraudulent WMD issue when his fabrication of a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attack was proven factually absurd.
Even though Iraq never threatened the security of life in the United States, the Bush administration launched a genocidal civil war replete with a systemic policy of torture directed by U.S. officials at the highest level. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/dumb_wars_now_and_forever_20130319/
March 19, 2013
Two members of the White Student Union at Towson University in Maryland aren't backing down after advocating for racial segregation and defending slavery at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.
K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans was giving a presentation at CPAC about how Republicans could reach out more effectively to minorities. Scott Terry, a member of the White Student Union, began challenging Smith about the inclusion of blacks in the GOP's tent, in an exchange captured by the liberal blog ThinkProgress that quickly spread around the Internet.
As seen in the video, Smith responds by citing a letter Frederick Douglass wrote in which he forgave his former owner. Terry interrupted and said, "For giving him shelter and food?" Several people in the audience gasp, though ThinkProgress notes there are also cheers. Terry muttered, "Why can't we just have segregation?" after the exchange, ThinkProgress reported.
When Smith mentioned Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Atlantic Wire reports, White Student Union "founder and commander" Matthew Heimbach interrupted that King was a "Marxist," and consequently not welcome. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/white-student-union-cpac_n_2897609.html
'White Student Union' Members Defend CPAC Segregation Comments
Two members of the White Student Union at Towson University in Maryland aren't backing down after advocating for racial segregation and defending slavery at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.
K. Carl Smith of Frederick Douglass Republicans was giving a presentation at CPAC about how Republicans could reach out more effectively to minorities. Scott Terry, a member of the White Student Union, began challenging Smith about the inclusion of blacks in the GOP's tent, in an exchange captured by the liberal blog ThinkProgress that quickly spread around the Internet.
As seen in the video, Smith responds by citing a letter Frederick Douglass wrote in which he forgave his former owner. Terry interrupted and said, "For giving him shelter and food?" Several people in the audience gasp, though ThinkProgress notes there are also cheers. Terry muttered, "Why can't we just have segregation?" after the exchange, ThinkProgress reported.
When Smith mentioned Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Atlantic Wire reports, White Student Union "founder and commander" Matthew Heimbach interrupted that King was a "Marxist," and consequently not welcome. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/white-student-union-cpac_n_2897609.html
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