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October 24, 2003
For the Benefit of Mister Terkel
Evil Genius Chronicles mentioned a Studs Terkel interview at The Onion A.V. Club:
O: Of all the interviews you've done over the years, which ones stand out most for you?ST: You know, that's a hard one, because they all... The Klansman and the black woman is certainly a key one, about the transformation of people. [Terkel's book Race included interviews with former Ku Klux Klan Exalted Cyclops C.P. Ellis and black activist Ann Atwater, who formed an unlikely friendship. —ed.] I told you about that John Birch guy. But the Klansman is the best story of a transformation. Here's a guy who cheered when Martin Luther King was killed, and in the end, he organizes a union consisting only of black custodians. The change in him is one of the most dramatic. So there is no one, but that one's certainly in my mind.
And there's a piece by Studs over at In These Times:
One of the things that keeps people from doing what they know they should do for their own good is the national Alzheimer’s disease. There is no memory of the past. There is no yesterday. There was no Depression. There was no New Deal. There is no memory that when the free market, which is our religion, fell on its fanny, the free marketeers—I call them free buccaneers—pleaded with the government, “Please help us out. Please save us.” And of course the New Deal and regulation did. Now the sons and grandsons and daughters and granddaughters of those whose asses were saved by the New Deal, by big government, are the ones who most condemn big government today.
I have no illusions I'll get to be his age, but on the off chance that I do, he's a damned good role model to have.
Posted by Aaron at October 24, 2003 03:22 PM
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