I grew up in an era of church bombings, political intimidation, and murder.

[mmonk]

I prefer not to go through something similar again. Stand up and condemn those responsible and their cause now or put up with more of it and get run over with its injustices.

eom

[jeepnstein]

1. Amen!

My dad almost didn't make it out of the Blue Ridge Mountains one time because he had the nerve to travel with a black man and stop to eat lunch. His response did not endear him to the locals until they figured out he was every bit as much a hillbilly as them. Those were dark days.

The good news is most of the hard right wingers I know are as mortified as I am about the shootings in Arizona.

[Ikonoklast]

3. I used to road race motorcycles, many a moon ago.

There were a few of us from Ohio that kinda stuck together when we would meet up at the different tracks; one of the guys that we raced with was a black guy...with a white wife.

Guy was an engineer for one of the Big Three, very smart guy, fast on a bike.

Anyway, when we checked into the local motel after the first day of practice, and it came to my friend checking in, he was told that he wasn't allowed in with a white woman. He didn't care if they were married, he wasn't going to let him check in.

I was astounded, I had never run into outright racism like that in my life.

We all told that shitstain motel owner to cancel our rooms, we were all leaving, must have been twenty of us that had reservations. Some of us were checking in with women that we weren't married to, they were just our girlfriends, motel owner didn't care about that.

We told him we were going back to the track and tell everyone there what happened.

Bike racers kinda stick together...big time.


Motel owner changed his tune.

He got real humble, real quick.


This was in Virginia, in 1973.

[jeepnstein]

4. Virginia, cira 1968....

My Dad was in a convoy with an Ohio National Guard unit on their way to some training mission or another. One of his fellow NCO's was a black guy who had done his year in Viet Nam and was a bit stressed over the whole thing. Nice guy, kept my dad from going to helicopter school. They stop at this roadside diner for lunch and get a very unfriendly response. Dad's reaction was to order everyone to head back to the vehicles and drive on. The owner of the diner was not very happy. Everyone knew why he was ordering them to move out and they complied quite willingly. About ten miles down the road one of their trucks break down and they were forced to stop for the night on the side of the road, with the black NCO that caused the stir. Pretty soon the local started coming around and making their threats.

So good old dad has one of the guys set up an M2 in the back of one of the trucks and the next time somebody stopped by he pointed to it and said "come and get him if you can." They spent the rest of the night in peace and quiet.

[H2O Man]

2. Recommended.

I think that you speak for most of the "senior" DUers from the democratic left. What happened this weekend reminds us of what we struggled to stop back when we were young. Seeing the country heading down a similar path is disturbing.

I spent a good bit of time this weekend, talking to my children about the era you speak of. And how it can distract people, and push them off of the path that leads to higher ground.

[mmonk]

5. When I posted yesterday about life experiences and the ability

to see what is happening, this is what I was speaking of. The arguments about the federal government telling people what to do that the tea partiers use mirrors the arguments of that time. The only major differences I see is that we were leaving their vision of America for a better one and this time, we have been leaving a better vision to return to theirs. That and the color of the flags they wave. I was planning for the OP to be my last post of the day. Thanks for understanding and your response.