Current Wisdom

...The whole idea of killing people is so offensive to me, it's so alien to everything I've been brought up with...

...I find his low key approach reassuring...

...Sooner or later we will have to devise a system of politics that addresses our needs and promises to cope with the realities...

...I'm just a human being like everybody else...

...The day the news broke about Andy Young's resignation, my boyfriend called me up and asked, "I hope you're not mad at me about this Young thing...

...September^, 1979] Jet The sound of a moron's parrot, Andy Young, during an enlightening interview with a journalist from the celebrated/*?/ magazine: Sitting in the guest room of his Waldorf suite, the ambassador opened a bottle of champagne and said, "You may as well join me in drinking this because you're a taxpayer and this is the last one before we have to move out of here...

...It's about time someone discussed this subject with honesty, not rhetoric (Black or Jewish...

...It's hard for me to recognize it as an event-actually pulling out a gun and aiming it at another human being and pumping away...

...After the first shot, I was not in control of that gun ..., I offered the American people my life in the gas chamber....I never bargained with them to waste it and rot away in these prison dungeons, and do nothing but sit and collect resentment, which is what I've been doing these last few years...

...To be, friendly and helpful, yes, but domineering, no...

...Notice how he inspired Sadat and Begin, and how he won over Lopez Portillo after a bad beginning...

...He is the essential gradualist, a man who wants to preserve civilized values while removing the injustices that threaten the system...

...We need one who can gain good will and dispel the image of the overbearing and hateful American...

...The rights of minorities, the rights of everyone to be part of the great American scene...

...Anthony Lewis has made prodigious headway in vanquishing every vestigial squawk of conscience, and in destroying large areas of his brain: The notion that Andrew Young is a radical, as many white South Africans and some Americans seem to believe, is ludicrous...

...Is our past record in dealing with other nations all that good...

...The problems intensify and the realities grow more grim...

...It is good to see a magazine deal with a nonglamorous, embarrassing issue...

...September 1979] The Washington Post During a historic interview with the Washington Post, Mr...

...The organization to issue the stamps and check against claims would not be slight...

...I'm not worrying about being a "doormat...

...Who are those who are uneasy about his performance...

...What about the rights of the disabled...

...On the problem of his foreign policy role: "I'm not convinced that this society is willing to let a Black man run the foreign policy ntfw...

...April 7, 1979...

...August 19-20, 1979] Mother Jones In reviewing Mr...

...He makes me feel safe...

...September 20, 1979] The Progressive More solemn and forbidding vapor-ings from the illustrious Progressive, a freedom-oriented publication long associated with the corpse of the Hon...

...So why should I have so much respect that I don't question their judgment...

...Nothing, alas, can be done without people...

...CURRENT WISDOM The Village Voice An affecting discourse from one of Andy's more sophisticated supporters, sweating it out day after day in this unworthy republic: Dear Editor: Would you please thank Mr...

...One question, though: why is the word black written in initial lower case and the word jew is written in upper case...

...If you have a draft in today's world-ERA and all-that means women as well as men...

...Not blaming you alone...

...July /August 1979} The New Republic A patriot speaks out for the Plains, Georgia, Wonderboy: To the editors: I am disturbed-not about the events abroad so much as about the media's attitude toward them and about their disposition to run President J Carter down...

...They send us...

...Then each family should be given stamps, similar to food stamps, allowing a basic purchase for household and pleasure driving at present prices or, for the government wishes to be nice in a perfectly reasonable way, at a level somewhat below...

...On those who make U.S...

...Dreyfuss for writing that beautiful article...

...The truth hurts, don't it...

...And thank you for publishing it ["Such Good Friends," Voice, August 27...

...I thought they were too smart and that they understood U.S^ politics and knew if they ever raised a fuss about me that they would have hell on their hands----People can't let their emotions interfere with their self-interests {September 15, 1979] Self Another reminder that American journalism never flinches from the truly tough questions: I am sure that there are many women who, when summer approaches, are sure that they are the only ones struggling to shave their inner thighs...

...In the present troubled situation I like the way the president hasn't gone off half-cocked...

...Rita D.Jacobs New York New York {September 1979] The Cornell Daily Sun A worthy campus newspaper reports on la vie intellectuelle as it is wallowed in at Ithaca College: "The white racist system" and the "superelites" that run it are involved in a conspiracy to manipulate and control the American people, Dick Gregory said last night...

...The 20th Century has been a century of violence and bloodshed...

...There will be one "crisis of confidence" after another for Americans and their elected Presidents as long as we cling to the notion that a band-aid here, a little patchwork there, will get us past the enormous difficulties we face...

...The "white racist mentality" forgives the white and rich what it does not forgive poor and black people, Gregory said...

...He called on Americans "to wake up and^ turn this whole thing around...

...As far as murders go-I know how heinous and callous it might sound on my part to speak of it like that-as far as murders go, Robert Kennedy's death was not, ma'am, first degree murder...

...What right have we to dominate other nations...

...Of course not, babe," I answered...

...Francis Coppola's new film, Apocalypse Now, an enlightened Mother Jones gogue discovers the kind of appalling artistic lapse that could only emerge in Amerika: In making American soldiers the sympathetic characters, Coppola creates a problem that couldn't be more obvious: he makes the Vietnamese the enemy...

...But they were minor mistakes in a world of official blunders, just as his fib about the circumstances of his meeting with a P.L.O...

...How do you feel about this...

...People would be required to man extra windows at the post offices and the regional offices of D.O.E...

...Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon-all are branded with Vietnam...

...The conversation that followed was not provoked by the champagne but by a new freedom which, he said, allowed him to talk about things he couldn't talk about before now...

...The whole thing is contrary to the theory of rehabilitation...

...Robert M. La Follette, Sr.: There are other policy levers which could be pulled to control inflation and unemployment...

...practically all publications (let's say I haven't seen any otherwise, but will assume they exist) use lower case for black and upper case for jew...

...I think his commitment to human rights, with President Carter's, had an influence in the Third World, encouraging the stirrings of democracy in such a place as Nigeria...

...Cars certi-fiably in use for car pools and business purposes would be given a larger allocation of stamps...

...But I'm going to run it from the streets just like we ran domestic policies in the streets in the '60s and '70s government is not about personalities, it is about dividing up the money " On Israel's criticism of his PLO talk: "I really gave the Israelis too much credit...

...foreign policy: "We have had a policy elite making foreign policy decisions and when they make mistakes, they don't go to war and die for their mistakes...

...to work to change the systematic conditions that reduce people to crime...

...We expect poor people to have better behavior patterns than whites," he said...

...Did the manuscript come to you that way, or was that the doing of the typesetter...

...But implementation of these policies would require the Administration to place a higher priority on social needs...

...I mean the record isn't that good and it doesn't take much arrogance or intelligence to think that you can do better than (Henry) Kissinger...

...These would involve such alternatives as increased funding of public housing (which would case interest rates), mass transit, and community-controlled health care...

...They have to be treated the same...

...We don't need a hard or hard-boiled president...

...Sirhan B. Sir-han (Prisoner B21014, State Correctional Training Facility, Soledad, California) reveals himself to be the possessor of an ear well-tuned to the modern-day liberal bromide: I don't think of myself as a killer...

...Such a program would create more jobs and mitigate the structural causes of inflation...

...Gasoline prices at the pump should be raised by taxes to a penalty level...

...Your running a photograph of this being done [July] validates a very real experience for women...

...1 can't be held totally responsible for the act of firing bullets from that gun...

...Why emulate the gunboat diplomacy of the past...

...Galbraith cheerfully divulges his recommendation for institutionalizing the energy crisis: The required procedure is not all that difficult...

...Reporters and commentators, I suspect, who seem to enjoy keeping things stirred up...

...There is one threshold problem with the draft...

...August 20, 1979] The New York Review of Books Dr...

...If welfare mothers were to react to late welfare checks with the same violence as Americans showed in reaction to the recent gas crisis, the military would be brought out," Gregory said...

...September 27, 1979] Politics Today More poesy from the cerebral mills of the California Mullah: PT: There is a move now to bring back the draft...

...representative was an almost naive essay in diplomatic lying compared to the murderous concealment and misrepresentation that went on in the American Government not so long ago...

...September/October 1979] The New York Times Historic proof that Mr...

...Television and drugs," Gregory told a standing room only crowd in Ford Hall at Ithaca College, "are part of a conspiracy to pacify American youth...

...And President Carter is good at that...

...To be fair, it means everyone, and that could cost over $100 billion a year...

...One thinks of five dollars or more a gallon, although even this is not astonishing by , European standards...

...Obviously, I am a Black woman and my boyfriend is a White Jew...

...He talked too freely for a diplomat, and he said some silly things...

...BROWN: That's another one I'will have to give more thought to...

...Sooner would be better than later...

...By the way, this incident is bringing us closer together...