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To: driftless2

There is an element of truth in that.


44 posted on 05/10/2012 7:42:17 AM PDT by Hildy ("When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser." - SocratesHill not text while dri)
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To: Hildy
I used to read a lot of novels in my younger years, and most of them were written by Jewish writers like Bellow, Mailer, Roth, Malamud, Heller, and others. I remember in particular reading Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint" and the resentment Alexander Portnoy had for the rich WASPs and Republicans in general. One revealing passage was one where Portnoy was campaigning door-to-door for Stevenson and he mentions the "narrow, pinched faces" of the people in the Republican houses he knocked on. The book (incidentally, one of the funniest books ever) was littered with snide remarks about white Republicans. He even had sex with the daughter of one rich Republican just to get revenge. Now Roth might be an extreme example, but it shows that feeling was not uncommon among a lot of Jews who lived in those times. Probably, a lot of the feelings were justified given the casual racist and bigoted attitudes of many Americans towards Jews, Blacks, and even non-Protestant whites in those years.

I was raised Catholic, and there was still a lot of resentment of Catholics when Kennedy got elected. A Protestant neighbor asked me one time if my parents had to vote for Kennedy because we were Catholic. I was only ten at the time, and I told her I didn't think so. Attitudes sure have changed (mostly) for the better since then. The people who were accused of being racist and bigoted then (conservatives) are now less bigoted and racist than today's liberals. What a turnaround.

45 posted on 05/10/2012 8:43:21 AM PDT by driftless2
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