Alito dismayed by campus protestors in 60's? Another "hippie basher"?

[Armstead]

During his opening remarks, Alito made a very telling statement. He talked about how his family and friends represented true American values when he was growing up. But then...

----------------------

"Both college and law school opened up new worlds of ideas. But this was back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was a time of turmoil at colleges and universities. And I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly. And I couldn't help making a contrast between some of the worst of what I saw on the campus and the good sense and the decency of the people back in my own community."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010901185.html


----------------

In other words, he's one of those right-wingers who took the path of conservatism in reaction against the librals, hippies, leftist radicals, intellectuals and the other movements for social change and protest against the Vietnam War in the 60's and early 70's. It's the same mentality that has hardened into the "culture wars" of today, and the idea that if you don't fit a certain right wing mold today, you are "irresponsible" and not one of the "decent" people. It is the view that you are an outsider if you deviate at all from the "silent majority."

Personally, I'd rather not have a Supreme Court justice whose philosophy is driven by resentment and opposition to an entire ideological spectrum of society. That does not seem to be the embodiment of fairness and objectivity required in such an important position.

[ComerPerro]

1. There were many privileged people who behaved irresponsibly back then

George W Bush comes to mind...

[proud2BlibKansan]

58. Cheney and his FIVE deferments comes to mind as well.

[malaise]

2. Heard that on Air America a while ago

very, very interesting. Big mistake Sammy boy!

[blindpig]

3. No doubt a major underlying motivation for the RW.

"They hate us for our freedom." Oh, the irony.

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Has a christian

it is my moral duty to oppose illegal wars.

It is the Pauline Christians who are indecent.

[mopaul]

5. the age of aquarius backlash, it's real

william bennet, that bastion of virtue and smugness once dated janis joplin, she must've tore him a new one cause he went totally conservative after that.

this is the crushing of the age of aquarius, and the end of hippie president's like bill clinton, the warpig jocks are in power now, fuck the long hair peace freaks

[malaise]

10. The Dems should emphasize the

right to protest then and now.

[madokie]

13. I'll make a prediction that it'll be us old 'hippie types' that

will be instrumental in righting this ship. We still have most of all of us but now we have 3 more generations to help. We stood up once and we're standing up again and being respected for it. Glory days are soon to be. Too many lives lost for this cabal to last much longer, abramoff=repukes implode.

[misanthrope]

20. LOL!...

...Bill Clinton, a hippie?! LOL!!

[underpants]

21. One of the main underlying themes of the campaign in '04

You didn't hear it much in the MSM but they heard it from each other. Trust me this was a HUGE point to them-DON'T LET THE COMMIE PINKOS TAKE OVER

[Rose Siding]

6. He really is a freeper

:grr:

[bunkerbuster1]

27. Very much so.

A card-carryin' Fascist Society freepig.

[Cocoa]

7. another Bush basher

this is how he repays Bush for nominating him?

And I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly.

[jimshoes]

8. There were two kinds of people

back in the 60's and 70's. Those that liked the good music and those that liked the lame music. Alito liked the lame music.

[misanthrope]

24. Good music?...

...You mean like Miles Davis? Or Jackie McLean? Or Eric Dolphy? Or John Coltrane? Or Art Blakey? You know, the stuff operating ouside the mainstream that challenged people to think in new ways.

Or do you mean that mass-produced, mass-consumed corporate product -- like Crosby, Stills & Nash, or Strawberry Alarm Clock, or The Mamas and The Papas, or The Rolling Stones, or The Cowsills, and so on -- that was successfully marketed to millions of kids "being different" exactly like all of their other peers and following the trends of the day?

[maxsolomon]

49. don't put the Stones in with the Mamas & Papas

Jazz isn't the alpha & omega of integrity. Jazz snobbery is tedious. The Soft Machine weren't Jazz. The Velvet Underground weren't Jazz. Pink Floyd wasn't Jazz.

but i get your point.

[misanthrope]

56. And that's why...

...I didn't list those bands in there. Though Warhol's pretentiousness could be rather, um, "tedious" at times, they were the mold for art bands of the last quarter century. Of course, the Velvet Underground didn't gain any huge following like the Dead, or even really become widely known until they were pretty much done for.

And the Stones, well the most visible ones anyway, never really hid the fact that they were in it for the money. Granted, Charlie Watts used it as vehicle to pursue his love of jazz (how "tedious"), but a great deal of their integrity ended up face down in a swimming pool. Don't ever forget what Jagger studied in college.

And I don't find discriminating palates "tedious," but faux revolution surely is.

[WinkyDink]

61. Wasn't so easy to sing along with Miles. Hee.

I'll take "Ohio" or "Sympathy for the Devil", thanks.

[Armstead]

62. It's not as much to play air trumpet either

[corporatemedia]

9. Of course, our government was acting so responsibly by ....

conducting a war (based on a lie) that resulted in the loss of almost 60,000 American and 3 million VietNamese lives!

The "responsible" people were the protesters.

The "irresponsbilbe" people were those responsible for the war and their supporters (such as Alito) who had their heads up their asses!

[Hardrada]

68. Hear! Hear!!

[NNN0LHI]

11. He was for the Vietnam war but didn't want to go himself. Typical Repug nt

[Armstead]

12. I guess he had "other priorities"

[Bridget Burke]

18. He had a low draft number & joined the Army Reserves....

But he WAS on Active Duty from September through December 1975--in Georgia.

While a sophomore at Princeton, Alito received the (low) lottery number of 32, in a Selective Service drawing on December 1, 1969. In 1970, he became a member of the school's Army ROTC program, attending a six-week basic summer camp that year at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in lieu of having been in ROTC during his first two years in college. Graduating in 1972, Alito left his lofty aspirations in his yearbook, hoping he said to "eventually warm a seat on the Supreme Court."<4>

He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Signal Corps after his graduation and assigned to the Army Reserve, one of nine in his class to receive a commission in the Army Reserve. Following his graduation from Yale Law School in 1975, he served on active duty from September to December, 1975, while attending the Officer Basic Course for Signal Corps officers at Fort Gordon, Georgia. The remainder of his time in the Army was served in the inactive Reserves. He had the rank of Captain when he received an Honorable Discharge in 1980.<5><6>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_A._Alito,_Jr.

This long article points out that he DID support the war in Vietnam:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/07/AR2006010701268.html?sub=new

[Armstead]

25. Those low numbers really goosed the desire to serve...

If he was in favor of the war, why didn't he enlist, insted of taking the college student's way out? I wonder if he would even have joined the Reserves if he had a lottry number in the 200 or 300's.

I had a high number and so it was safe to take my chances while I was 1-A. But I probably would have joined ROTC or the Reserves if I'd been born on a different day.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

28. I had a scary lottery number . . .

. . . but the war ended when I was 16.

My ornery, peacenik mother, rest her soul, was ready to pack me off to Canada. We didn't have any money, but she was telling me how I should live in a YMCA and work as a busboy, rather than go kill people and get my legs blown off. I miss her.

;)

[Bridget Burke]

39. Yes, the whole point is that he was in favor of the war.

And then avoided going.

I fully understand why some men of my generation tried to avoid going to Southease Asia. Generally, they thought the war sucked--& let people know it.

[annabanana]

29. the reserves during 'nam...

was where EVERYONE wanted to be... This was how you stayed OUT of harm's way. The phrase "active duty" meant something quite different in the reserves than it did in the regular Army. Don't let anyone through that phrase around as if it meant something it didn't..

[proud2BlibKansan]

60. It also took connections to get into the reserves back then

They didn't let just any Tom, Dick or Harry join the reserves. The guys I knew in the reserves either had wealthy and prominent families who got them in or they got a recommendation from a congressman or a senator, just like you still need for admission to a military academy like West Point.

[bunkerbuster1]

14. Is ANYONE going to ask him WTF he meant by

"people behaving irresponsibly?"

BTW, if you want another Exhibit A example of a man who just loathed his 60s campus days and uses every opportunity to whine about how hippies destroyed America:

http://www.rosemond.com/

[Armstead]

17. Listen to "Oakie from Muskogie"

I suspect he ws probably among those who thought that song was right on at the time.

Some of the behavior probably was irresponsible. But as was said to justify certain preidential candidtes, when they were young and irresponsible, they were young and irresponsible. And no more irresponsivle than those who who blotted themselves silly on beer at frat parties.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. What's So Hard To Understand, For Him?

He was "dismayed"? Because people were fighting for justice? Because people didn't want to go fight in a war they didn't believe in?

Methinks Sammy isn't as bright as they say he is. If something this simple confused him, that's not exactly a clear example of deep intellect.
The Professor

[Binka]

23. Sam Is A SHAM. A Mediocre Flim Flam Man.

He is a malignant narcissistic bastard who has been loathed by his peers all his life. He has serious rage issues as well. Sounds like Bush huh? And yes I have a license to make that diagnosis!

[CrazyOrangeCat]

26. you tell it, sister! n/t

[ProfessorGAC]

33. OK By Me!

But, his own words lead me to the conclusion that he's not that bright. Yet, he is referred to as a "brilliant jurist" and has been complimented on the clarity of his thinking. Well, if he is this easily confused, how clear can his thinking be? It seems he's dumber than dirt.
The Professor

[Binka]

36. Bush ONLY Picks Folks Dumber Than Him!

Sammy is a mental defect! He's a CONservative. It is a requirement! Pundits always call someone brilliant if they agree with them. Bunch of fucking pod shysters!

Here is Sammy Shammy and other "brilliant jurist."

[ProfessorGAC]

38. Dumber Than Him? Is That Even Possible?

My dog is smarter than Silverspoon.
The Professor

[Binka]

40. My Red Loafers Are Smarter Than Smirk

Listening to Sammy I'd have to say he is DUMB as Smirk. He is also a pathological liar. Comes with the narcissism.

[Surya Gayatri]

59. Typical Neo-con disconnect

from any genuine human emotion--lack of empathy with their fellows. SG

[Cocoa]

16. this is a deliberate strategy

framing the confirmation battle as a culture war.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

19. At least we hippies had a little fun . . .

. . . in between the protests. Sometimes I wonder if these repukes have had a belly laugh in the last forty years or so. Other than the ones they get over killing people with brown skin.

:puke:

[librechik]

22. so was I--then I got the facts

and changed into a hippie!

Alito rejects the facts in favor of "loyalty"

Reminds me of Satanism.

[EST]

30. I graduated high school in 1966, growing up poor,

in a hard working family, surrounded by people whose high point each month was the arrival of their "check" and "'moddities." When their money came from the government, they could be found walking over the mountain to go to the "show." (the movies)
In many cases the money that they received went to booze and the foodstuffs and clothing they were given were traded for liquor. Since we were non-drinkers in a hard drinking area of W. Va., we looked down on and criticized them. The betrayal of America by Lyndon Johnson, who, like GWB, lied us into a needless war, set my own innocent direction away from dems and, with Nixon's own lies that he would end the war in V.N. quickly, toward the "conservative" side. I continued to support Nixon, believing the garbage and railing against the news anchors who would come on TV after every Nixon speech and re-hash what he'd said, adding their own spin.

It took years, growing my own social views beyond my own selfish outlook, learning that politicians and lawyers will lie at the drop of the proverbial hat, to become totally dis enamored of government and religions.
The growing distrust and, in some cases, outright hatred of political hacks of all stripes became a dismissal of government types as hopeless power mongers, led to an avoidance of politics in general and a long term attitude of ignoring the issues which had no immediate effect on my struggle to make a living and stay out of trouble.

A gradual re-awakening of civic-mindedness and the observed movement of truth seekers and values people to the dem side of the register made it clear to me which direction I wanted to be identified with. I voted for Reagan because I felt that Carter was too quasi-religious and he injected his, to me, fake religious concerns into government. Too late, I realized what crooks and out-and-out charlatans that bunch was and I welcomed the Clinton revolution.

The current crop of crooks and liars in DC is merely running on the false impressions that guided my own growth. The convenient memories of all the R/W appointees and elected folks is so completely disgusting that, were the US not in such horrible trouble and I capable of starting over, I would probably try to run away from the responsibility again.

I truly wish the "christian" hell were real, but, unfortunately, if we don't bring these bastards to account while they live, they will forever escape responsibility for what they've done to our country, my fellow travelers and me.

I stand for truth, justice and integrity. That's why I am a Democrat.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

31. Just another chickenhawk. eom

[Doctor_J]

32. Armchair warrior

"tsk,tsk, tsk - look at those hippies bashing my hero Milhaus"

Coward and hypocrite - just like Smirk

[spanone]

34. Alito.,..the Trojan Horse. Say anything to get the job and then....

then you start the dirty work.

[LeftHander]

35. My jaw dropped on that statement....

It says more about his attitude than any thing he may say.

Irresponsible to dissent in a time that saw 68,000 U.S. service personell perish hundreds of thousands wounded, and millions of civilians killed in a action for Militarty Industrial COmplex profit.

Wrong choice, by the wrong people at the wrong time.

BUsh and neocons have no credibility when it comes to legal matters.

[Armstead]

41. I wish it was focused on more

My own reaction was a droppd jaw, but I have heard no comments about it in the media or from politicians.....Or maybe I just missed it.

But that is a central point in a lot of this. This notion that there are "good decent Americans" and there are bad "irresponsible" Americans is not how a frickin Supreme Court Justice should look at the world.

[LeftHander]

44. This comment will come out in MSM...

It has to.

Every single particle of his testimony will be scrutinized.

Given how we KNOW conservatives lead by deception we all have to look at every aspect of Alito's personality.

[long_green]

37. I think it's a veiled attack on Bush-bashers

nm

[bpilgrim]

42. NPR described that era as the start of the 'culture wars'

weTHEpeople -vs- the crooked and entrenched establishment is more like it and they have been turning back our gains ever since.
guess they wanna loose another one :evilgrin:

peace

[Tsiyu]

43. Kick

:kick:

[liveoaktx]

45. Joke Video I made about that

Bush and Alito

[Warren DeMontague]

46. So he liked the Carpenters and Pat Boone as opposed to, say, the Dead.

All the more reason to keep him off the Court.

[Oilwellian]

47. Digby addresses this issue....

I also posted this in a similar MoPaul thread:

By contrast, I just had a chance to see Alito's opening statement and I have to say that I think he came off as an asshole:


And after I graduated from high school, I went a full 12 miles down the road, but really to a different world when I entered Princeton University. A generation earlier, I think that somebody from my background probably would not have felt fully comfortable at a college like Princeton. But, by the time I graduated from high school, things had changed.

And this was a time of great intellectual excitement for me. Both college and law school opened up new worlds of ideas. But this was back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It was a time of turmoil at colleges and universities. And I saw some very smart people and very privileged people behaving irresponsibly. And I couldn't help making a contrast between some of the worst of what I saw on the campus and the good sense and the decency of the people back in my own community.


This is the same guy who wanted to keep women out of Princeton. Presumably, they wouldn't have "felt comfortable" there. But that's not what made that statement so revealing. It's this notion of smart and privileged people "behaving irresponsibly."

I think it's fairly certain that he's not talking about branding frat boys' asses or getting drunk and stealing Christmas Trees. He's talking about anti-war protestors, feminists etc. And like so many campus conservatives of that era, he sounds like he's still carrying around a boatload of resentment toward them.

Roberts apparently came out of all that unscathed. Confident in his own abilities and social prowess, he didn't appear to have this puny, pinched view of liberalism as a threat to decency and morality. (He may have it, but it didn't show --- or he was smart enough to hide it in his hearings.) Alito is one of those other guys. You know the ones:


The only political aspirants among those three groups who failed to meet the test of their generation were the chickenhawks. And our problem today is that they are the ones in charge of the government as we face a national security threat. These unfulfilled men still have something to prove.

And, I suspect because their leadership of the "conservative" movement has infected the new generation, we are seeing much of the same pathology among younger warhawks as well. This is why we hear the shrill war cries of inchoate bloodlust from these quarters every time the terrorists strike. It's a primal scream of inner confusion and self-loathing. These are people whose highest aspirations and deepest longings are wrapped up in their masculinity, and yet they are flaccid failures. They are in a state of arrested development, never having faced their fears, never becoming men, remaining boys standing in the corner of the darkened hallway watching Bill Clinton emerge from a co-ed's dorm room to lead a rousing all night strategy session --- and sitting in the bus station on the way home for Christmas vacation as Chuck Hagel and John Kerry in uniform, looking stalwart and strong, clap each other on the back in brotherly solidarity and prepare to see what they are really made of. They have never been part of anything but an effete political movement in which the stakes go no higher than repeal of the death tax.

In other words, he's a freeper. I say filibuster the creep.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_01_08_digbysblog_archive.html#113686627487472753

[WI_DEM]

48. So Alito is saying that protesting the war and fighting for civil rights

which many on campus did in the 60's and 70's was "behaving irresponsibly." Good Gawd, watch this guy--I assume he would also vote to strike down Brown and bring back Plessy.

[Armstead]

54. Yes that Martin Luther King guy was so irresponsible

[maxsolomon]

50. those 'irresponsible' people were fucking pissed

there was an immoral war killing thousands of draftees.

maybe that didn't bother Scalito much.

[grasswire]

51. dissent = irresponsible

That was the message I heard in his remarks. Ve must be good little citizens and not make any waves, comrade. Be a "decent" person.

It was bone-chilling to hear him say that.

[deminks]

52. i disagree, Sam. I lived in the same time,

maybe a hair younger than you. I saw a group of very smart people and very priviledged people behaving like they were afraid of their own shadows. They ran from anything that looked like an experiment in life. They cowered from freedom. They were ashamed of being in touch with their feelings. They found more comfort in hate than in love. They could not invest in their fellow man. Our minds were open, theirs were closed shut. Our eyes were open, they were blind. And when they lost, they plotted their revenge over the last 40 years. They don't have a lot now to show for it, do they? Maybe they have a lot of money, maybe they have traveled, maybe they have been kings in their own minds. But what do they really have? We loved, we lived, and we know more about the physical and spiritual world than they will ever be able. I know you, Sam. You are not able to know yourself.

[glitch]

64. Well said. They've never gotten over the 60s-70s. How pathetic

is that. This is exactly why they need so much money. They keep hoping somehow the money and the power will make up for their sad lack of love.

It won't, but they will never stop seeking it.

[Tsiyu]

53. Kick n/t

[Hubert Flottz]

55. In other words he's another chicken shit Repig draft dodger!

Aren't they ALL?

[Hardrada]

69. How many of those vile insects ARE there in and about

this filthy misadministration?

[Surya Gayatri]

57. Yes, you wonder whether

even as a young man he ever openly deviated from any received ideas--or whether he always gave the answer that was expected, going along to get along, seeking to advance his own interest by sucking up to the powers-that-be. Not to be trusted. SG

[bud E. holly]

63. Alito, Bush, Scotty.......message for the day: Irresponsible

Iraq War Critics = 60's Hippies.
Get that word association out there.

[slipslidingaway]

65. Kick and thanks. n/t

[Kurovski]

66. " 'Hippies' are a scourge." That's basically all the right-wing's got,

and all they've had for almost 40 years.

They are such insufferable bores.

[Hardrada]

70. The cute SMART girls then were hooking up with the rads

on campus and the Alitoi of that time weren't getting any. There was a wonderful poster of "Women say Yes to Men who say NO (to the Draft)." The chickenhawks never got over their hatred of that sentiment.

[elsiesummers]

67. His "Concerned Alumni of Princeton" membership really bugs me...

I don't buy that he doesn't know anything about the group yet he put it on a 1985 resume.

I think there should be some research on this - that he remembers nothing about this group strikes me as bogus.

And I don't buy the commentators (or Orrin Hatch) trying to suggest that Alito certainly doesn't believe that minorities and women shouldn't have limited access to Princeton. My ass.

I think you are right about his anti-liberal comment (It's also basically a pro-war comment) and that it is a real slap at liberals. But worse yet, it is indicative of a mindset.

On his membership on the pro-prejudice committee, if a member of the Klu Klux Klan got up there and said "I don't know why that was on my resume, I don't remember joining, and I wasn't aware of their mission statement," well I wouldn't believe them either, and this is basically what Alito said.

I want to know who solicited his membership in this group, who helped him prepare his '85 resume, whether he made any donations to the group, did his name appear on any publications or even letters of the group, did he have to be sponsored to become a member, why did he join, and if his memory is that bad, is he fit to be a judge? Seriously, I can remember things from 1985 and I believe I was drunk a good part of that year, why can't he?

This is the big nut in this hearing, IMO, along with his opinion that a woman should have to notify her spouse if she has an abortion (and why didn't he suggest that she should have to notify anyone else who might possible have sperm involved, and what if the spouse doesn't have sperm involved, you know?)

Frankly, I don't think the Vanguard thing amounts to much, I really don't see it - and I think his answer - that mutual funds are not considered a high conflict investment - makes sense and is legitimate.

Also, honestly, I didn't think, after the Roberts hearing, that Roberts said anything that indicated he was a bad human being. I may not be of the same ilk as he and certainly would have preferred a more moderate candidate, but he seemed like a decent, if narrow, human being.

This Alito has a real hebegebees, creepy-crawly, sort of thing going on.
I wonder if he'd wipe off the doorknob before touching it if Clarence Thomas used it last, seriously.