SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Brumar89 who wrote (359765)11/21/2007 2:11:03 PM
From: combjelly  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1577009
 
" Well, I am pleased today to sign the legislation extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965. "

As has been noted, he was faced with having his veto over-ridden. So he bowed to reality and signed it. However, he was very vocally opposed to it until that fact was clear.



To: Brumar89 who wrote (359765)11/21/2007 5:37:30 PM
From: tejek  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1577009
 
There are many who disagree with that assessement:

"Morning in America became nightfall for civil rights. Once in office, Reagan accelerated the systematic erosion of affirmative action. He made William Rehnquist chief justice of the Supreme Court even though Rehnquist opposed integration in the 1960s. He chose an Interior secretary, James Watt, who bragged that he had appointed to an advisory group "a black . . . a woman, two Jews, and a cripple." Reagan wanted to cut the school lunch program, calling ketchup a vegetable, and spun lies about "welfare queens."

Reagan was silent for years on AIDS. He tried to get tax exemptions for racist Bob Jones University. He originally opposed the Martin Luther King holiday before signing it into law. He did veto an extension of the Civil Rights Act in 1988 and defanged the US Civil Rights Commission. He exchanged schools for the prison boom. Reagan's legacy is still alive. The senior President Bush vetoed a major civil rights bill in 1990 and vetoed an increase in the minimum wage. President Clinton slashed welfare. The junior President Bush campaigned at Bob Jones and sided with the white students who wanted to destroy affirmative action at the University of Michigan.

That is not an "All-American" legacy. Reagan projected the sun to mask a scowl. His presidency is indeed extraordinary. It is extraordinary for how easily Americans hail his "optimism." For African-Americans, and all Americans who were targets of his policies, it was open season.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.