18. June 2004 • dilleym
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From University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole:
“He said that he had heard that some asserted there was hunger in America. He said it sarcastically. He said, “Sure there is; they’re dieting!” or words to that effect. This handsome Hollywood millionnaire making fun of people so poor they sometimes went to bed hungry seemed to me monstrous. I remember his wealthy audience of suburbanites going wild with laughter and applause.”
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Remind me never to take a Juan Cole class; if I want to hear people bitch about inequality I can just read the Daily, no need to waste and money hearing from someone who likely does not see it as his job to present history from all sides.
I’m very disappointed, and more non-plussed than angry.
—James Dickson Jun. 18 '04 - 02:53PM #
You DO attend the University of Michigan, do you not?
I am not the least bit surprised that such ignorant comments would come from the mouth of an LSA prof at UM.
—T.J. Jun. 18 '04 - 03:52PM #
-ari p.
—Ari P. Jun. 18 '04 - 04:03PM #
—Sara Jun. 18 '04 - 04:19PM #
Reagan was a great man and a great president, and it drives you lefties nuts that he played for the other team and everyone loved him. You just can’t take it, so you slam him when he dies.
Where was all the Reagan bashing a month ago? It’s one thing to bash the man, it’s another to attack someone when they die and try to justify it as if you have been doing it all along.
—T.J. Jun. 18 '04 - 04:56PM #
t.j., either make a case for reagan based on facts other than “he was really great” or stop making unfounded assumptions…
i don’t know dr. cole’s background, but it is disingenouis of you to assume ANYONE’S economic status…
true, i have been guilty of the same thing sometimes, but i’m trying to get better…
-ari p.
—Ari P. Jun. 18 '04 - 05:02PM #
js
—js Jun. 18 '04 - 05:18PM #
Are you sure?
http://www.fair.org/extra/8903/reagan-popularity.html
—Elliott Mallen Jun. 18 '04 - 05:18PM #
The difference is, some of us are poor and believe in upward mobility and merit. Others believe that if someone is poor, you give them a sandwich as opposed to an opportunity to earn their own money so they can buy their own sandwich.
—T.J. Jun. 18 '04 - 05:55PM #
i, for example, believe in things like job training programs and improved education…which catagory would i be in…
teach a man how to fish…mmmm, fish,
ari p.
—Ari P. Jun. 18 '04 - 06:35PM #
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040105&s=krugman
the business week article he references can probably be found on lexis-nexus…
rawk,
ari p.
—Ari P. Jun. 18 '04 - 06:38PM #
——————————-
Besides not eating for days until payday TJ also walked ten miles up hill, both ways, in five feet of snow to get to school, where he was unmericifully beaten for being the only conservative child enrolled. Despite all of these things TJ is still upwardly mobile.
——————————-
For the most part Ari is not an armchair socialist. His out of state tuition is paid for through minority grants. He really did grow up a poor colored child in the deep south and has really lived a life of abject poverty and strife. Because of these conditions he can safely attest that upward mobility does not in fact exist.
———————————
Wouldn’t be great if the left and right could just get along and leave out the hyperbole? Maybe we could actually get something done.
—Kat Jun. 18 '04 - 07:13PM #
—David Boyle Jun. 18 '04 - 09:09PM #
Was he flawed? Certainly. Is there hunger in America? Sure. But compare to elsewhere – where life-and-death serious starvation occurs. And those who are hungry in America can find programs and charities, not to mention individuals, everywhere – that will prevent starvation. Reagan was right in this sense – it isn’t all bad in America.
—Chetly Zarko Jun. 19 '04 - 01:20AM #
I enjoy listening to the conservatives on these blogs when they make intelligent and intellectual arguments, but all this whining and fantasies of reverse victimization is really unbecoming.
For the record Reagan made this comment in the 1960s while mocking the calls for a war on poverty and government statistics about hunger in Appalachia—that would be poor whites, by the way.
—Matt Jun. 19 '04 - 01:56PM #
If Clinton died and we saw a lot of conservatives deriding him the way I’ve seen liberals criticize Reagan, I’d have a big problem with that as well.
Like I said, if I want catalogues of “oppression” and complaints about inequality in the world, I could read the Daily, I don’t need a professor for that.
—James Dickson Jun. 19 '04 - 06:03PM #
js
—js Jun. 19 '04 - 10:14PM #
At least for a couple weeks.
—David Boyle Jun. 19 '04 - 11:39PM #
now as for prof. cole, he is widely known as potraying biased views and anti-semitic and anti-israel propoganda in his classroom and lectures. He is the among a few professors at UofM documented as being repeatedly anti-israel in his writings and lectures, and honestly, nothing he says should be taken into account at all.
—Alana Jun. 21 '04 - 12:17AM #
js
—js Jun. 21 '04 - 02:15PM #
Alana’s conclusion, that “nothing he says should be taken into account” certainly is a fallacy. but it is true that Cole is anti-Israel – I don’t know about anti-semitic – and I wouldn’t say “anti-Israel” is necessarily a bad thing (if it is balanced against other considerations).
—Chetly Zarko Jun. 22 '04 - 10:44PM #