Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Atlanta Burns Whew! Geoffrey Norman really doesn't like Atlanta at all, does he? ("The Hustle and Hypocrisy of Andrew Young's Atlanta," TAS, June 1988.) Maybe we should have thought...
...Fred is too young to remember, but that is precisely what the practical people said to us when we formed the conservative movement atthe end of the Eisenhower Administration...
...Compare Newt Gingrich with Wyche Fowler...
...When he proposes a universal tax credit for day care rather than a U.S...
...William T Brockman Atlanta, Georgia As a subscriber to and admirer of The American Spectator, I was disappointed in the editors for the tone and disappointed in Geoffrey Norman for the (tone and) substance of "The Hustle and Hypocrisy of Andrew Young's Atlanta...
...Norman support democracy and a two-party (or more) system, despite his differences with the policies of one of the parties...
...Sorry, Fred, you cannot have it both ways...
...Twenty years from now, let Fred Barnes write another column to say again, "I'd love to see Devine succeed, but he hasn't a prayer," to the next visionary and tell us again that nothing much more can be done until the next century...
...Atlantans don't deny the profundity of these problems, and Atlantans try to treat those problems...
...Certainly there has been some corruption ferreted out among elected officials of the metropolitan area's various governments...
...Incidentally, the metropolitan Atlanta area, which Mr...
...Vision makes change possible...
...Additionally, Mr...
...It bans the sale of liquor in establishments which feature nude dancing...
...Like most Atlantans, I'm not crazy about the fringe groups which will accompany the Democratic convention...
...They are approved because the previously used target practice ammo had a tendency to go right through people without stopping them...
...So, the facts as presented are dead wrong...
...The nude dancing issue that he kept returning to, for example, involves a law passed by the Georgia state legislature over the objections of city officials...
...Norman, do the editors, fault Atlanta for wanting to host the convention or other major gatherings...
...That is the point...
...Yes, practical men of affairs (and, apparently, practical journalists) always think visions are "nuts...
...Let the pragmatists promote the practical...
...by Fred Barnes, TAS, May 1988...
...If we had listened to the neoconservatives then (who at that time were called moderates), there never would have been the conservative journals in the fifties, the youth movement in the sixties, conservative control of the Republican party in 1964, the conservative think tanks and organizations in the 1960s and 1970s, the Reagan movement in 1976, and the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984...
...And Atlanta (like every other major American city except New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles and perhaps one or two others) is a one-newspaper town...
...Doesn't Mr...
...Fine...
...A vision is, by necessity, visionary: meaning it is not immediately practical...
...Maybe we should have thought a lot longer about this convention business if this is a sample of what's in store...
...That said, Mr...
...That is what makes it visionary...
...But does Mr...
...Norman chose to make issues of some really silly things, and didn't even get his facts right...
...Certainly the poor are still with us...
...Barnes's "rule of thumb is that any conservative goal that was not achieved by Reagan is not achievable, at least not in this century...
...As an aside, there would not have been a place for a young man named Bob Tyrrell, who was part of that movement...
...The clubs are still open because the effective date of the bill is July 1, and the city stands to lose considerable tax revenue...
...Yet, there is probably a good chance that a President Dukakis could adopt many of Barnes's proposals...
...I won't go on, and I certainly won't be counted among Andrew Young's admirers, but Atlanta really deservesa more accurate and objective portrayal...
...A bit...
...Norman's crude caricature...
...The "dumdum" bullets he refers to as "violating the Geneva Convention" are standard police hollow-point ammunition, used throughout the nation, frequently in weapons far more powerful than the APB's .38s...
...Norman ridicules Atlanta for the apparent hypocrisy of banning nude dancing while promoting itself as a sophisticated metropolitan area...
...If there is a critical story worthy of The American Spectator in there somewhere, I'm sorry but I missed it...
...They are...
...I have lived in Atlanta (city limits) for eighteen years and have worked for ten years as an Atlanta firefighter...
...Norman apparently did not remain in Atlanta long enough to learn that the limitations on nude dancing were legislated by the General Assembly of the state of Georgia during the 1988 session or to learn that the hostility between the mostly rural leaders of the state legislature and the white and black urban leaders of Atlanta is among Atlanta's longest-running and most compelling stories...
...I guess I love to curse the Young administration as much as anybody, and Lord knows I am sick to death of the racial politics which pervade city government...
...That is, all of the things that Fred Barnes now takes for granted as the accepted status quo would not have happened if the unrealistic agenda of the 1950s' conservative movement had not been created after the Eisenhower Administration had done all that the pragmatists said was realistic to reform the New Deal...
...Yeah, we have a lot of real problems...
...To attack a normal, hopeful American city for wanting to look good goes beyond cynical and nihilistic all the way to silly...
...Since the convention is coming to Atlanta, the Chamber of Commerce would not be a chamber of commerce if it didn't try to put Atlanta's best foot forward...
...Hey, (continued on page 48) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1988 7...
...Norman takes at face value any negative statement made by some of Atlanta's critics...
...The fact that Barnes believes conservatives will follow the vision because it is impractical is precisely the point: conservatives are the change agents, wanting to move society away from the stifling status quo of the centralized welfare state...
...Atlanta, Georgia Barnes Bash So the guy who criticized my more prominent former client for not having a vision now calls my visionary agenda for American conservatives "a lost cause" ("Why Can't Conservatives Govern...
...Weyman T Johnson, Jr...
...Yet, it is their very impracticality which moves other men and women of vision to reach beyond the status quo...
...To be deadly serious, a working fire just does not care what color you are or if you were hired or promoted via "affirmative action...
...We visionaries want to make more substantial changes because more is needed, even if it takes time...
...A delegation of the city council even attempted to persuade the governor not to sign the bill...
...Norman attacks as monolithically racist and corrupt, regularly elects an array of congressmen who belie Mr...
...I praise Heaven there are Fred Barneses, because we need imaginative incremental change...
...Department of Day Care, or more spending on the interstate road system, airports, space program, and a universal guarantee of jobs at slightly below the minimum wage rather than UDAG, SBA, Amtrak, and guaranteed make-work jobs, I will agree his alternatives are better...
...They are so practical, even liberal Democrats might accept them...
...That is why it is so difficult to create an appealing one...
Vol. 21 • August 1988 • No. 8
