There is a controversy in the New York fire department where FDNY candidate Wendy Tapia will be allowed to graduate despite failed the physical test to become a firefighter six times. Adding to the controversy, Lt. Elizabeth Osgood, who objected to Tapia’s special treatment, was allegedly barred from promotion for months. Tania’s treatment has raised objections that the FDNY is trying to avoid a gender discrimination lawsuit after it was sued successfully for $98 million for racial discrimination.
Tapia was conditionally graduated on May 17, 2013 and was allowed five more chances to run the required 1.5 miles in 12 minutes or less.
United Women Firefighters, a group of active and retired FDNY women, campaigned to get Tapia extra times to pass the exam. They have insisted that she was overtrained and that her criticism amounts to “hazing.” Tapia, 34, was assigned to Engine No. 316 in East Elmhurst, Queens, but never worked a shift. She blamed the first failure on a foot injury but then failed the test five more times.
I expect many will now argue that the FDNY cannot now refuse to conditionally graduate men and refuse the times six Mulligans on testing criteria without being guilty of gender discrimination against males.
Over the years, various written exams and degree requirements have been dropped for police and firefighters as discriminatory. However, physical tests have been treated as objective and essential not just for public safety but the safety of officers and firefighters (and their comrades) in dangerous circumstances. The question is whether litigation pressures are placing units at risk in relaxing physical strength requirements. The same controversy has been raging in the military this year.
What do you think about allowing candidates more chances and conditional graduation to increase the numbers of women firefighters?
Some women are strong enough to pass the physical test. God bless them if they want to be fire women, because they passed on the merits and deserve the opportunity. God help them (and us) if they are accepted because of their sex.
And BTW, being accepted “because of” your sex, is the very definition of discrimination (although such leniency seemingly ‘helps’ the applicant – in this case not, because she is more likely to be injured if accepted despite her physical condition).
I would say that Hitler and other participants were in fact “Nazi sympathisers. It if you parse words like you do, give yourself an ” out” on your .mistake
Nick “The liberals of the past have become the fascists of today….” True that. Shall we call them neo-fascist-progressives? My mother is s great example. I can give her so many examples, statistics, proof of the dangers of vaccinations and need for medical informed consent as is our right and all she can say is to relate how grievously SHE suffered with whooping cough. This is how she justifies removing everyone’s right to informed consent. Forcing anything on people is a form of violence (and yes there are exceptions but this isn’t one of them).
Socialist Scandinavian countries that Bernie Progressives love to point to as supreme examples of the best of Socialism do NOT force vaccinations but educate instead and have a high rate of compliance. This isn’t good enough for the Neo-Fascist. We must force for ‘one’s own good and the good of society’; Heil Hitler!
Orwell fought in the POUM which was a former section of the Trotskyist current. They then did not consider themselves Trotskyist, though they had many similar positions in common and most people outside the movement and the Stalinists called them that. I never said he was a member of any Trotskyist group, but his outlook was quite similar, even though both would deny the connection. He had sympathy for them which is why he named the great enemy of Big Brother Goldstein. I did not get Orwell’s bio from wiki either. I read a full bio of him many years ago. Try reading some and you might learn something.
Randyjet………since you repeatedly claim to be so much better informed than others, you are no doubt already aware of what Orwell wrote: “The fact that Trotskyists are everywhere a persecuted minority creates an impression that Trotskyism is morally superior to Communism,but it is doubtful that they are much different”.
Randyjet…..since you brought up Trotsky as well, you might want to read on a bit further in your Wikipedia sources. Orwell despised Troskeyites as well.
For folks new here, many discussions w/ the flyboy often end up w/ his love of Communism. He steered a thread about firefighters to Commies. The man lives in the past.
Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. never lived up to the “true ideals” of communism.
Castro promised free elections in 1959, and he is a little late in delivering on that pledge.
There’s more going on with the history of communism than the the bogus claim that the “real communism” was highjacked by the 30 years of Stalin,etc.
It takes an imaginative and committed apologist for communism to continue making these claims, when communist regimes have generally been brutally repressive.
This wasn’t “a hijacking”….this was a systemic problem within the communist system itself.
I guess that there is a major problem with Christianity since it has murdered more people than the so called communist regimes. Of course, it was done over a longer period of time, mainly because of the limited technologies, not because of a lack of intent. I am also struck by the irony of taking Stalin and his minions at their word, that they were in the Leninist tradition, yet not believing anything else they say. That is not a means of finding the truth. One has to do research and read the facts and listen to various points of view.
I can cite so many points of radical departure from Lenin’s party norms that there is no serious question that Stalin pulled off the successful counter revolution and soaked it in blood as do all such counter revolutions. The other criminals were simply following Stalin’s example, not Lenin’s.
randyjet……since you keep changing the subject, tell us how many “Christianity has murdered” v. Communist regimes in the last century. I understand your objections to Kerensky’s brief interim government, since he advocated true political freedom for the Russians.
Counter to tactics and objectives of your true communist heros.
You forget that Kerensky declared himself DICTATOR after he was losing support in the Duma. That provisional government which was the elected Duma of 1913 had no legitimacy since it was voted in with extreme restrictions on who could vote. It was pared down so that the conservatives held the majority. The Bolsheviks had been demanding a new Constituent Assembly, and the government refused to hold such elections since they knew the Bolsheviks were making great gains in local elections. Kerensky then declared the Bolsheviks illegal, put the leaders in prison, banned their paper and pamphlets and all their speakers. He missed Lenin, but he had no problem putting Trotsky in prison, even though he was not a member of the Bolsheviks. THAT is the kind of political freedom YOU advocate along with Kerensky. THEN with the Bolsheviks banned they had “free” elections to the Assembly. So give me a break about you and your democratic pretense. You are in favor of free political expression as long as your ideas win.
Anyone interested in Kerensky’s true story can read “A Doomed Democracy” in The Stanford.
Tom, Thank you for that article it was entertaining and self contradictory. It leaves out many points that disprove much of what you said and praises Kerensky for being able to SHOOT DOWN the Soviets. The article also stated that Kerensky had an actual electoral mandate since he was elected by the Soviets which were the ONLY elected bodies in Russia at the time. it also leaves out his last gasp effort to remain in power by outlawing the Bolsheviks and putting them in prison, along with ANY who had political agreement with them! That is NOT democracy in action is it? The article also lies about the so called July days in which the masses in the Soviet staged an armed demonstration which Kerensky used as an excuse to get rid of the growing electoral success of the Bolsheviks. The so called coup did not fire a shot, nor take over any building or ministry, so it is a rather unique “coup” in that regards.I recall seeing the Tea Party types having an armed demonstration outside Obama venues. Think that they are trying to stage a coup? Plus the Bolshevik leadership did not call for the demonstration, but the rank and file pressed the leaders to go along with it. The Kornilov march on Petrograd was also stopped without a shot being fired since the workers went out and informed the troops what Kornilov was doing. They turned on Kornilov at that point.
As for Kerensky, he later praised Stalin for restoring the Russian Empire. Lenin on the other hand hated the Russian Empire and called it a prison house of nations. So if you are against the Baltics and other nations of the old USSR being free, then you will have to admire Kerensky and Stalin. Lenin insisted that the USSR Constitution have the provision in it allowing for SECESSION for all nations in it. BIG DIFFERENCE there. Gorbachov found that to be an impediment while trying to hold the USSR together since even the Stalin constitution still had that provision in it. Then we have Kerensky declaring himself dictator, while Lenin never had that title nor acted in such a manner. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, he lost many votes in the government on major items. One hell of a dictator to have votes, and even to LOSE them. Stalin never had that happen. I love articles like this since they are sophisticated propaganda which are easily disproved if one knows the whole story. You might try reading the other side for a change. I would suggest Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution which had the same problem Kerensky had in that he had no access to his archives too.
randyjet…….I would like you to provide a source for your statement that Kerensky..” later praised Stalin for restoring the Russian Empire”. Also, I would like to see a source for your earlier statement that Orwell was “a Marxist revolutionary Communist”.
I understand your objections to the Stanford magazine article on Kerensky. It accurately reviews a critical period of lost opportunity for Russia to escape the subsequent 70 years under (mostly) brutally repressive communist regimes, and does not give the full credit (you feel) your communist dictator heroes deserve.
As I stated in a previous exchange months ago, diehard apologists for communism are now fairly rare, compared to the heyday of communism generations ago. Your ” Golden Era”, I suppose.
The Bolshevik Revolution of Oct. 1917 occurred months after the abdication of Tsar Nicholas in early 1917. As a senior member of both the Duma and the Petrograd Soviet, Kerensky was chosen to lead an interim government. There was no “seamless, straight line” transition from the Tsar’s abdication to the Bolshevic takeover.
Kerensky lost support primarily because of his continued support of the allies in the costly war with Germany. He also faced coup attempts and a disturbing Bolshevic power grab during his brief stint as provisional Prime Minister.
Kerensky did propose an election for early 1918, but was forced to flee during the Bolshevic takeover.
Had he taken a page from later Bolshevic practices, like slaughtering his political opponents (as the Bolshevics slaughtered the Tsar and his entire family), maybe he would have stayed in power.
Tom I found a reference to his views in a letter to the NYtimes of jan 13,1945 about remarks he gave to the foreign policy association. In this letter he states that there is no legal basis for supporting a change in the status of the Baltics and that they should and will remain part of the Soviet Union. I had read another statement many years ago in which he supported the territorial gains of the USSR which i am having a hard time finding. He did in fact support Stalin against the Nazis, not too surprising since we all did that. As for Orwell being an orthodox Marxist that is not a fact, but he supported the revolutionary aims of the left and urged the people who had been armed during the war to NOT give back their weapons to the government. Nor was he an orthodox Trotskyist either and was a follower and fighter in the POUM which broke with Trotsky over his idea to disband the POUM militia and join either the anarchists or other militias to propagate their ideas in them. I think Trotsky was proved correct in his assessment that being in the POUM isolated the revolutionists from a wider audience. I seriously doubt Orwell studied Marx in an organized way. In terms of political program, he would have been more inclined to the program of the SWP had he been in the US. I doubt he would have been a member.
I also have yet to see any fact that the July days was a Bolshevik coup attempt. The FACT that Kerensky imprisoned ALL of those who disagreed with him banning the Bolshevik party shows his true colors. Trotsky was not a member of the party at that time, yet he was imprisoned for speaking out against it. So much for free speech and democracy on Kerensky’s part. He later decided to become dictator, so I find it ludicrous that he is hailed as a democrat. It sort of smacks of the Army colonel who gave a talk in Hartford when I had just returned from Turkey and Greece in support of the military coup in Greece and which I had an up close and personal view. He stated that the dictatorship had to suspend democracy in order to preserve it! We all know how long that suspension lasted and no freedom whatsoever. The real objection is to socialism rather than any belief in democracy.As Trotsky pointed out there was little or no bloodshed in the assumption of power by the ONLY democratic body in Russia at the time, the Soviets, and as your boy from Stanford admitted was a legitimate political mandate when applied to Kerensky. The bloodshed came as a result of the invasion of Russia by 14 different nations and the Civil War. This is what necessitated the bloodshed and strict limitations as ANY government institutes in wartime. Had there been no civil war or foreign invasion, the Soviet Union would have been a FAR different regime. As their banning the death penalty showed after peace had been established. In fact, the Bolsheviks were hoping to put the Czar on trial after the war, but they were in danger of being rescued by the Whites, and so they were killed. It is too bad, but that is the reality of war and revolution. The Whites were far more bloody and engaged in mass murder for the simple reason they had to exterminate their class enemies which were more numerous than they.
The July4, 1917 Bolshevik coup ( more commonly known as the putsch) against Kerensky’s provisional government failed. At that point, Kerensky did arrest Trostsky and other Bosheviks.
There was a subsequent coup attempt by Gen. Kornilov in August; at that point, I think Kerensky released most or all of the Bolshevics in return for their support against Kornilov.
That coup attempt also failed, but Kerensky, provisional Prime Minister for only several months, never had a firm grip on controlling the chaotic environment that existed in 1917. And his commitment to keep Russia in WWI added to his downfall.
Just several weeks into Kerensky’s “rule” as provisional PM, the Petrograd Soviet instructed Russians to obey it, not the provisional government.
Lenin’s dictatorial methods after the Bolsheviks took over in OCt. 1917 were more effective against “enemies of the state”. His secret police…..the Cheka, I think….served their master well.
Sorry Tom, but just saying it was a coup or a putsch does not make it so. Just who was killed, what posts and ministries were taken, etc..? All that happened was an armed demonstration and the Bolsheviks made damn sure nothing of the kind happened. Trotsky was not even a member of the Bolshevik party so even if you wish to keep on lying about a so called coup, there is no rational legal reason to arrest him. Other than the fact Trotsky punctured the propaganda of Kerensky. That is how Kerensky dealt with his opponents, put them in jail and if it hadn’t been for Kornilov, he probably would have been put to death by Kerensky at a future date.
It didn’t do much good to “officially” abolish the death penalty, then engage in mass executions of political enemies in the Red Terror.
The so called Red terror was being done along with the white terror which I must say was a whole lot bloodier. That ended with the end of the Civil War by the way. Try getting your dates properly arranged. While I am not a big fan of Churchill who was a violent enemy of the Bolsheviks, even he realized that Stalin was far different than Lenin. He is quoted as saying, The Russians second worst misfortune was Lenin’s birth. Their worst misfortune was his death. The Bolsheviks were very open about what they were doing.
The Soviet Union became more open about past atrocities under Krushchev, then later under Yeltsin and his successors.
It’s debatable how open Lenin and his henchmen were in the activities of their Secret Police/ goon squad, summary executions, etc.
The White Terror and the Red Terror each probably claimed 100s of thousands of victims……those “causualty ” number estimates vary widely.
You asked about the causualties in the July 4th, 1917 Bolshevic Putsch. I checked, and the estimates were about 400 killed or wounded.
That number was far greater that the failed 1923 “Beer Hall Putsch” , lead by Hitler.
I checked as well, but you forget to mention that almost ALL the casualties were on the demonstrators side. It is not exactly FAIR or logical to combine the two lists since it indicates who was the aggressor in the armed confrontation. The demonstrators were the victims. A coup would have resulted in greater casualties on the government side as well.
There were also more casualties inflicted on Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch participants, than incurred by the police and government forces. They crushed that 1923 coup attempt.
The government being attacked is not obligated to take more casualties than the insurgents. By your standards, that early attempt by Hitler was not really a coupe or a putsch. They were just victims_ since they were unsuccessful, and had greater casualties.
I’m not an apologist for either Hitler, Lenin, the Bolsheviks, etc. You, on the other hand, would have made a good columnist for The Daily Worker.
A successful coupe would have resulted in more government casualties, taking over bulidings, etc.
An unseccessful coup has different results. That’s why I mentioned the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, which by your “stantards ” was not a coupe attempt at all.
The 600 or so involved in the 1923 putsch failed. There were 80,000 soldiers, striking factory workets, who narched on the provisional gvt. at St.Petersburg.
Many if them were armed. Given the objectives of the largely Bolshevik mob, it’s not too surprising that they were repelled.
But stick with your communist love affair if you like, but sell it somewhere else, comrade.
Randyjet …….you need to research the Jul 4, 1917 Bolshevik putsch instead of rewriting history. A coup attempt need not succeed for it to be called a coup attempt.
I quite agree that a coup attempt is still one even if unsuccessful. Unfortunately, you don’t cite any actions that constitute such an attempt. The anarchists started the movement for the demonstration which was initially OPPOSED by the Bolsheviks. They then decided to join it to keep it peaceful and not attempt a coup. The All Russian Congress of Soviets also came out against the demonstration and banned it from happening since the SR and Mensheviks still had control of it. I have to ask how many government troops were killed during those days? How many government offices and ministers were attacked? By the way, having an armed demonstration has been going on with the Tea Party here I might add. Are they guilty of attempting a coup as well? How many of them are in prison now, even doing it around Pres. Obama’s visits. The Bolsheviks kept the demonstration from developing into a coup for the practical reason that the rest of Russia was not at the same level as Petrograd. and they knew they did not have enough political support. Then you have the problem of Trotsky who was NOT a Bolshevik at that time. He taunted Kerensky by pointing out that though he did not have direct responsibility for the demonstration, and was not a member of the Bolsheviks, he fully supported the slogans and demonstration and as a result he was arrested for political reasons alone. How do you get around THAT FACT?
Hiw many were killed in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch? How many government offices were seized?
Since it failed, and the answers are “few” and “none”, then prove that it was a real coupe attempt
Must not have been, by your “reasoning”.
Hitler made no bones about his intent in that one. The Bolsheviks indeed were doing the opposite. So how many Nazi sympathizers were put in prison after that one? NONE! Yet Trotsky was thrown in prison for his politics alone by Kerensky, so it is disingenuous to claim some kind of tolerance of opposition for Kerensky.
Hitler wrote Mein Kampf when he was imprisoned……I don’t know what sentences his co-onspirators got. It is factually incorrect to state that nobody was imprisoned after the Beer Hall Putsch.
I thought you could READ, but now I have doubts. I did NOT say nobody got arrested after Hitler’s beer hall putsch.I DID say no SYMPATHIZERS who were not part of it went to prison as Kerensky did to Trotsky.
Nice weaselwords.
Hitler and nine co-conspirators were prosecuted. I haven’t found the number of convictions and sentences for the others. Change the NONE to nine, and you’re more likely to be accurate on your “facts”, randyjet.
I see that you cannot understand the difference between sympathizers and actual Nazi party MEMBERS who were active in the putsch.It is absurd to claim Hitler was a sympathizer of the Nazis. Can any rational person accept such nonsense? You should have been a writer for the Daily Worker.
Once again you miss the mark since you wish to ignore FACTS. In fact, Trotsky was NOT a party member at that time, yet Kerensky imprisoned him for HIS THOUGHTS and political views. It is also ironic that the anarchists who initiated the demonstration were spared any punishment since they were too small to be a threat to Kerensky. They only went after the Bolsheviks because they were gaining political ground and the attack on them temporarily set them back. Of course there was NO trial and they were simply throw in prison. How is that for so called legal folks? I guess that since they were Bolsheviks they deserve that and to hell with a business of a trial. Even under the Czar Trotsky got a trial as President of the Petersburg Soviet before he was sent into exile. Kerensky would not dare to put him on trial since he politically won the last trial under the Czar and it would end badly for Kerensky if he tried the same thing.
It is extremely uncommon to find Nazi apologists in America. Communist apologists are not as common as they once were, but they are obviously still some diehards out there, overlooking or downplaying massive atrocticies, worshipping communist mass murderers, defending a system which on every respect is the antithesis to democracy.
Those apologists were more numerous on the U.S. a generation or two ago……it may tie in, in some respects, with the “radical chic” syndrome described by Tom Wolfe. I don’t intend to spend the rest of the night countering extreme left wing distortions by a huge fan of communism.
Tom Nash – add to that the number of martyrs who were killed by the police
Tom I have researched this subject FAR better than you and most of what you say is simply untrue or doing what ALL the parties did though the Bolsheviks did it far less than their opponents. I see you forget Kerensky when he declared himself dictator when he was losing support in the old Duma. I can cite numerous cases where Lenin wanted one thing and was outvoted by the rest of the government. In fact, when he published his April Thesis, they were turned down, and he offered to resign his position on the Central Committee so he could campaign for his views among the rank and file. That was refused, but they allowed him to campaign for his views. He later won over the majority to his side.
For a real accurate view of the Russian revolution,I recommend Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution. As Trotsky was proud of saying the critics could not find factual fault with it. Herman Wouk gave it a back handed compliment by calling it the most evil book ever written. I can understand his reaction since it blows holes in stuff like you put forward.
Randyjet…..Lenin himself consolidated power by mass arrests and executions of “enemies of the state”;i.e., those he perceived as challenging his authority or policies.
Even discounting the atriocities of the ” Red Terror” and the “White Terror” during the Russian Civil War, Lenin’s suppression of the press, of any perceived opposition within the party, and his iron fisted control of labor, the peasantry, etc. earned him his reputation as a tyrant.
Stalin was “Lenin on steroids” in his 30 year murderous regime, and made Lenin “look moderate” by comparison.
But I’m not aware of any support on Orwell’s part for the “Lenin version” of communism. It seems less clear about his views on Trotsky; Trotsky’s exile and assassination deprived him of the opportunities to commit atrocities on the scale of Stalin, or even Lenin.
Orwell MIGHT have believed at some point that Trotsky could “save communism”, but even that point is debatable.
By the way, the Bolsheviks outlawed the death penalty after the Civil War and invasions had ended. The US still has not done so. i think we should compare the two on this point as well as the fact that women, blacks and minorities were not allowed to vote in our “democratic” elections.
“THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”
– Kudos to Vonnegut, as prescient as Orwell, in this excerpt from “Harrison Bergeron”
The same controversy has been raging in the military this year.
And this shows exactly what is going to happen to the military over the next three decades or so. When you have institutional power pushing unopposed for an outcome it will achieve it eventually no matter how many retail objections there are.
I suggest that those who like and try and use Orwell in their arguments need to read Homage to Catalonia to get an idea of Orwell’s politics. It is an excellent book which is one of his best and you get a real life view of the Spanish Civil War and its politics. It is a real education,but there are too many here who lack the courage to read it. Just as I found that some who I have regards for have no interest in finding out an opposite point of view to challenge their beliefs.
At the time that Orwell wrote and published Homage to Catalonia….c.1937-1938…..he was a Marxist, but opposed to Stalin and totalitarianism.
I’m not aware of any extended interviews Orwell gave, where he might have discussed his evolving political views.
I think he died about 1948….at that point, he was still a socialist, but probably not a Marxist.
His views and positions from 1937-1938 were not “cast in stone”, and need to be viewed in the context of later works.
Tom I would suggest you read a bio of Orwell and you will find he was a radical socialist in English politics to the end of his life. As a result of his experiences in Spain, he became very anti-Stalinist and wrote Animal Farm and 1984 as protest against Stalinism. In fact, 1984 has as its hunted pariah, Goldstein, who it is impossible not to view as Trotsky. He certainly shared many of the political views of Trotsky and had he lived in the US would most likely have voted for the Socialist Workers Party since that was closest to his views. I find it funny that anti-communists agree with Stalin that he was the real savior and leader of communism. I and Orwell most certainly disagree with that assessment, and viewed the Soviet Union and Stalin as the counter revolution of the Bolshevik revolution. Stalin had to kill off the whole original leadership of the Bolshevik Party to take absolute power. That indicates a counter revolution to most folks.
Randyjet…….Orwell’s contempt and hatred for Stalin is well-documented. His views did evolve over time, and I think his views on Stalin ultimately were similar to his views on communism.
While a committed socialist, I don’t remember anything in his writings that supported a “kinder and gentler” version of Communism. He was alive during most of Stalin’s 30 year reign, the USSR was THE face of communism, and I’m not aware of Orwell expressing hope that communism would evolve into something “better”.
Tom, Orwell was part of the most left wing socialist movement in Britain and was not happy with the Labor Party’s conservatism. The Trotskyist position on the Soviet Union was that the CPUSSR had to be overthrown and a political revolution effected. I would think that Orwell would have agreed with that position as well. While he was not an outright follower of Trotsky, his politics closely paralleled his. I remember that the complaint of the Stalinists against Trotskyists was that we were in favor of socialism except in the places it existed. Of course, what existed in the Soviet Union was a far cry from what Lenin established and wanted. Stalin had to murder all the remaining old leading Bolsheviks to claim that it was. Lenin was outraged at Stalin’s people who slapped a fellow Bolshevik who disagreed with them, and recommended Stalin’s removal as General Secretary of the party in his so called Will. Just think what his reaction would have been to Stalin’s murders.
randyjet – the Germans thought Lenin was the savior of the Communist Party which is why they shipped him from Switzerland.
After the fall of the czar, thousands of Russian exiles were trying to get back home. Lenin was not the only person on the train since there were hundreds of others along with him. In fact, most of them were opponents of Lenin and while accusing Lenin of being German sponsored, they themselves were the same. Then we have the case of Trotsky who was in New York at the time. The Russian community raised funds to sent him and his family back to Russia. I guess that means Trotsky was sponsored by the USA too. Of course, the Brits had a FAR different view, and stopped his ship in international waters and arrested him and his whole family and put them in a POW camp in Amherst NS. The Provisional government and the Petersburg Soviet found out about this, and demanded the release of the past President of the Soviet. While imprisoned Trotsky used the occasion to speak to the German sailors and tell them why they should not be fighting this war. The German officers complained about this speech making and the disaffection it produced among their sailors. So the British authorities curtailed his ability to speak to them. There is solidarity among the officers of course, even though they are “enemies”.It is unfair to interfere with a perfectly good war by making the people who fight it THINK.
Sounds like Trump fodder.
“He would have been glad to put a bullet in him.” More violent rhetoric, quite fascist.
flyboy lives in the past. The liberals of the past have become the fascists of today. JT has posts regularly that documents that fact. I was a liberal in the 60’s. We believed in free speech. Those liberals, whom I now reject, have turned into fascists today.
On affirmative action…..under LBJ (and later expanded in the Nixon years), affirmative action programs were enacted for federal contractors, civil servants, etc. I’m not aware of actual governmental quota systems, but equally qualified (or better qualified) white contractors or civil servants sometimes felt passed over for contracts, jobs, promotions, etc.
For a time, colleges and universities got on the “quota bandwagon”, and minority students could gain entrance over better qualified white applicants.( I need to review the Bakke? Decision from c. 1980…it was a key ” quota/affirmative action case”, but I need to review the specifics).
LBJ touted affirmative action as a partial remedy for past racial discrimination that was used in parts of the U.S. to exclude blacks from “white” schools, certain jobs, etc. The military seemed to be, overall, a more even playing field from the Truman administration on.
I don’t think most Americans had it in mind tat affirmative action would be a permanent fixture in American society. Fifty years after LBJ proposed and enacted affirmative action, the question in the minds of many Americans is “how long”?
I can’t see affirmative action lifting the vast majority of inner city Blacks living in/near poverty as long as studying and education is viewed as ” too white”. There is a systemic cultural problem in these communities that very high per capita schooling costs have not solved.
After 50 years and questionable results, in addition to issues of fairness, there is growing opposition to affirmative action programs.