Quick Hits: 11-25-09
by Bill Dusty
FREEDOM OF SPEECH – SORT OF
Recently we had a blowout over at that citadel of leftwing looneydom, UMass, regarding the desire of a few professors and students there who wanted their hero, convicted terrorist Ray Luc Levasseur, to explain to them why it was necessary to blow up a few buildings and rob some banks. These days it seems oddly in fashion for terrorists to want to lecture their targets on why they must attack them. And of course this explanation usually entails some heinous wrong-doing by the victims, such as trading with countries the terrorists are attempting to overthrow. No remorse necessary, you know. They (and we) had it coming. More disturbingly, our more liberal countrymen have always seemed all too eager to support America’s enemies in their quest to belittle their own homeland and weaken our place in world affairs.
So goes our politics here in the Happy Valley as we deal with an academic establishment hell-bent on glorifying the “accomplishments” of their assorted radical Marxist heroes and their violent pasts. But as renowned local blogger Tommy Devine writes in his Cosmos Report, not all progressives are pleased with UMass’s history of one-sidedness:
“Nationally respected free speech advocate Harvey Silvergate weighed in on the recent free speech controversy at UMass over the cancelled invitation of a leftist terrorist,” writes Devine. “Not surprisingly, Silvergate supports the free speech advocates, but also scolds campus liberals for their failure to defend free speech for non-leftists on those occasions in the past when they were shouted off the stage.”
Devine then quotes Silvergate’s criticisms of UMass:
For freedom of speech to function, its supporters must be willing to apply it equally, especially to speech with which they disagree. [...]
There is a certain irony, then, in seeing a faction of the UMass faculty appear to come to the rescue of free speech and academic freedom, knowing that the same faculty cannot be counted on when political speakers whose views they disapprove of are threatened.
REGULATING A NATION TO DEATH
Since the Civil War, the United States has been piling on laws and regulations, both state and federal, all in the name of expanding our liberty. Some have been quite handy (such as freeing the slaves and granting women the right to vote – although some may challenge the wisdom of the latter), while others have been put upon our daily lives with no apparent benefit to society other than to better regulate our daily lives. It seems most people can barely walk out their front doors these days without being affected by these regulatory “arrangements.”
Meanwhile, the federal government has managed to mismanage practically every program they have ever given themselves the power to oversee. Thank God the U.S. military is an autonomous unit – but even then, politicians still manage to meddle in military affairs, oftentimes with disastrous results (see Bush, followed by Obama). Now the feds want to (mis)manage our health care. That’s just wonderful! If you’re feeling pretty good about that, you’re probably just turning a blind eye to Congress’s past catastrophes and hoping for the best.
THE WAY WE WERE
Sometimes I get comments left on posts that I wrote some time ago – stories that have long ago left my radar. A few of these, too, are so in-depth and so well thought out that I can’t help, now, but share them with folks who might otherwise not notice them.
Below is a comment posted by Edward Shear, who writes about his memories of the South End.
Edward Shear says:
November 18, 2009 at 8:28 pm
I’d like to add my comments to some of the previous ones that were discussing I-91 being built through the South End. In the mid-late 1950’s it was going to be built on the opposite side of the river, running through West Side. The city politicians at the time were indeed instrumental in switching these plans to put 91 on the city side and from 1961 to 1962 all the home owners in the then Italian area of Columbus Ave and it’s side streets had to leave after recieving payments for their homes. My grandparent’s house was one of them.
I was 10 years old at the time and living in the South End. I saw this neighborhood become a ghost town, houses emptied out on side streets that no longer exist and the Walker St Playground and ball field turned to weeds. Small family owned merchants that made up the heart of the neighborhood were shuttered. This occurred only on the West Columbus side. The east side remained untouched, but by the late ’60’s became isolated as the massive hills of dirt and construction became a “Berlin Wall” to the entire Italian community.
Accusations from the entire community were ones of bias against the Italians and that putting 91 through Springfield was “an answer” to get rid of their ethnic neighborhood. Of course, none of this could be proved. Mayors Brunton and Ryan (in his 1st term) allowed this to happen. During Ryan’s administration in the 1960’s, urban renewal completed razed both sides of Main St in the North End from the Arch to the Greek Church, saw many downtown blocks torn down to create more parking lots and sadly did nothing to save the wonderful downtown movie theaters after their owners closed them. Ryan’s than Freedman’s administrations allowed the majestic Loew’s Poli Theater on Worthington St to be razed in 1967 for a stupid garage; the Capitol, Bijou and Arcade soon followed. During Brunton’s administration,in the ’50’s, city politicians stood by as the historic Court Square Theater and Broadway were razed for again…more parking lots. The Art Theater, close to the Paramount went down because a bank wanted to build on it’s site.
The mindset of today, thank God, is not demolish our history, architecture and cultural heritage, but to preserve them and find new uses for them like Northampton has been doing for decades. Yes, it’s hard to say what all these places and the South End would look like today if I-91 never came through the city and the downtown not torn down. In my opinion, it would be a hell of a lot better than crossing the Memorial Bridge and looking at two upscale hotels, bank buildings and garages! I’m 57 years old and haven’t lived in Springfield since 1979. I was a South End kid and damn proud of it!
I enjoyed, as everyone else, the many, diversified stores, restaurants and movie theaters that made up a bustling, vibrant downtown. So, that’s why I’m sharing this with all of you. Springfield once had something good, but the political morons back then (hey Ryan…I sure hope you read this!) couldn’t grasp an old bit of wisdom: If it’s working…don’t fix it. They didn’t fix it back then, they destroyed it.
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