KLRU
Standiford Offers One Truly Inane Comparison and References One More, but at Least He Gets to Call a Lot of People Names
RECEIVED Tue., Jan. 27, 2004
Editor,
It's a given that denial is an agenda-seeking staple of modern-day liberalism, but only an imbecile could dispute the fact that history does repeat itself. "Page Two" by Louis Black is usually just a Prozac moment in print, with the rare flash of insight much like a blind pig finding the occasional acorn. But to insist that history does not repeat itself is indicative of arrested development at best ["Page Two," Jan. 2].
Even a liberal who is so far left (as to risk falling off the western edge of a flat Earth) should note the profound similarities between black slaves who were sold into slavery by their own people (and sold into bondage to do the dirty work that was beneath their owners) and the relatively recent influx of illegal workers in the U.S. They come not in iron chains but in the chains of economic realities. Outcasts of Third World incompetence, greed, and exploitation, the modern-day slave risks life, limb, jail, deportation, and economical exploitation in the name of hunger and survival. They are not going to go back where they came from anymore than self-serving, self-righteous, race-beating liberal blacks will move to that wonderful black-run country where there is no civil war, famine, or AIDS pandemic. Refresh my memory please, what is the name of that country?
Then there is the Middle East. A good Christian and a biblical scholiast like Black must have noticed the historical animosities and repetitious generational warring of the sons of Ishmael vs. the sons of Isaac.
No, there must be some insidious deceitful agenda to be met to insist history does not repeat itself, but for the life of me I can't put a finger on it. Maybe Black is just an insufferable Cubs fan ...
p.s. And FYI: You can spare me your race-bating bigotry, I voted for Alan Keyes in 2000.
It's a given that denial is an agenda-seeking staple of modern-day liberalism, but only an imbecile could dispute the fact that history does repeat itself. "Page Two" by Louis Black is usually just a Prozac moment in print, with the rare flash of insight much like a blind pig finding the occasional acorn. But to insist that history does not repeat itself is indicative of arrested development at best ["Page Two," Jan. 2].
Even a liberal who is so far left (as to risk falling off the western edge of a flat Earth) should note the profound similarities between black slaves who were sold into slavery by their own people (and sold into bondage to do the dirty work that was beneath their owners) and the relatively recent influx of illegal workers in the U.S. They come not in iron chains but in the chains of economic realities. Outcasts of Third World incompetence, greed, and exploitation, the modern-day slave risks life, limb, jail, deportation, and economical exploitation in the name of hunger and survival. They are not going to go back where they came from anymore than self-serving, self-righteous, race-beating liberal blacks will move to that wonderful black-run country where there is no civil war, famine, or AIDS pandemic. Refresh my memory please, what is the name of that country?
Then there is the Middle East. A good Christian and a biblical scholiast like Black must have noticed the historical animosities and repetitious generational warring of the sons of Ishmael vs. the sons of Isaac.
No, there must be some insidious deceitful agenda to be met to insist history does not repeat itself, but for the life of me I can't put a finger on it. Maybe Black is just an insufferable Cubs fan ...
p.s. And FYI: You can spare me your race-bating bigotry, I voted for Alan Keyes in 2000.
Kurt Standiford
[Louis Black Replies: Not that Standiford has any interest in accuracy, but what I wrote was, "Even history, though a guide, is not a concrete draft. Over the years, we've received inane letters that begin with Plutarch's observation that 'history repeats itself' and proceed to take as law that the past offers a concrete guide to unfolding events. Even accepting that assumption, let's remember that the past, now behind us, appears clearly organized – history being a discipline for ordering and coding it. Current events (not yet organized by 'history') are a chaotic, sprawling mess, with little discernable shape. In this context, better to meditate on George Santayana's observation that 'those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it' than look for any specific predictive." The point being that history is relevant but not an absolutly rigid guide to current and future events.]
