Intelligence Squared Debates: 'The Two-Party System is Making America Ungovernable'

Source:Intelligence Squared Debate moderator John Donvan.

"The Republican and Democratic parties are entrenched in calcified partisanship, where politics is played as a zero-sum game. The rise of the Tea Party, liberal backlash, and the exodus of moderate voices from Congress all point toward the public's growing discontent. Has our two-party system failed us? Is this a call to change our two-party system of governance?" 

From Intelligence Squared Debates

ABC News: Special Report- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination- April 4th, 1968

Source:ABC News Special Report on the assassination of Dr. Martin L. King.

Source:The Daily Journal

"Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., mortal shooting of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the most prominent leader of the American civil rights movement, on April 4, 1968, as he stood on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had come to lead a march by striking sanitation workers. In response to King’s death, more than 100 American inner cities exploded in rioting, looting, and violence. James Earl Ray, a career small-time criminal who became the object of a more than two-month manhunt before he was captured in England, pled guilty to the shooting and received a 99-year prison sentence. He quickly recanted his plea and spent the rest of his life claiming that he had been framed by a conspiracy that was really responsible for King’s assassination."  

From Britannica 

"April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated" 

From ABC News

The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King the leader of the American civil rights movement, was tragic for so many reasons. But the biggest reason why it was so tragic because of the time he died and what left he had to contribute not just to the African-American community, but the American community in general. Because at 39 and with everything he had to accomplish he still had a lot more to accomplish. Which would've started with the upcoming poor peoples march and the poor people's movement.

The Poor People's Campaign, had an opportunity to be a real campaign against poverty that would seek to actually end poverty. And not just create new programs to help people live in poverty, but actually empower people to get themselves out of poverty. Through things like education and job training and really going past the New Deal and Great Society. Not saying that this movement would've developed like this had Dr. King survived. But had he and Senator Robert F. Kennedy survived, this movement would've had an opportunity to develop.

Unfortunately as it turned out, Dr. King, didn't die from some illness he had picked up. Or from some crazy person out their mind who probably should've been in a mental hospital. But he was killed by an escaped convict, a lost soul who had absolutely nothing going right in his life. Who was a career criminal and a loner who was simply looking to be noticed. 

To paraphrase Dan Rather from CBS News: "Dr. King, wasn't even murdered by a professional assassin, or a mobster hit man. James Earl Ray, was at best professional thief. Who wasn't even very good at that and had been in and out of prison most of his life." 

A&E Biography: The Rat Pack (1999)

Source:Emmalee Morisette- from A&E's Rat Pack documentary.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Part 2 here: * Unmonetised Fair Use upload, no copyright infringement intended. All ads & revenues attached to.”

From Emmalee Morisette

A group of some of the best and funniest entertainers of all-time. And in Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, you’re talking about two of the top singers and certainly comedic actors ever, guys who were also great at dramatic comedy as well. Men who were also two of the top vocalists of all-time. And when you add their off the cuff humor and dramatic ability, to go with the singing and you’re about guys who were born to entertain and act. Guys who combined many different role and styles of entertainment, in their entertainment routine of singing, acting and comedy. That is how you get the title of Chairman of The Board, as Frank Sinatra more than earned because he was the top man in Hollywood and the entertainment business.

Add Peter Lawford, who was a tall muscular 6’2, I would add better looking Frank Sinatra, who was perhaps the best all around actor in this group that also had Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis in it and you’re not just talking about good friends and partners, you’re talking about Hollywood’s real-life version of the firm, or an exclusive private club which they were. Where it doesn’t take being at the top of your game to get in, but the top of the Hollywood game. To not be in your prime, but to be the best of the best in Hollywood.

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, are probably the two most famous and successful members of this club. But this was a club, a great club, where every member more than deserved to be part of.

And of course Sammy Davis a great and talented musical comedian, who was great at both, who was only a little man in physical stature, who accomplished so much in a fairly short life, despite being a horrible victim of racial and ethnic discrimination, because he was both African and Jewish. Who lost business and work opportunities, simply because he married and Nordic-Swedish woman, May Britt.

The fact that a guy like Sammy Davis is part of The Rat Pack, is two credits to The Rat Pack, but also Sammy. Sammy being good enough to be part of this group, but that The Rat Pack, was a business and the only color that good business’s are interested in is the color green. And I’m not talking about the Irish, but the color of money. Race, ethnicity and color, were not of interest to The Rat Pack.

Actor/comedian Joey Bishop, who I’m not as familiar with and that’s probably my fault, was also a great member of this group. If you watch The Rat Pack movie Ocean’s Eleven, not a great movie, but a very good movie and certainly better than all the Ocean’s that came after it, Joey Bishop was very good in that. Playing the right-hand man of the guy who puts their casino operations together.

This group also had honorable members to it people who weren’t official members, but did a lot of work with them and close friends of them. Actress Angie Dickinson, one of the top Hollywood Goddess’s of all-time both physically, but a hell of an actress (and Police Woman as well) was one of the non-official members of this group.

Of course Ava Gardner, was also part of this group as an honorable member and add Lana Turner to this list, Janet Leigh at least to some extent. The Rat Pack truly was a whose who of Hollywood people who were very talented and very successful, but also all came with a lot of baggage. Where it almost looked like they lived the lives of people they played in films, or others played in films. They literally lived made for Hollywood lives, perhaps especially Frank, Ava, and Lana.

The Rat Pack was their own talent agency. If you’re just friends and associates of this group, you knew you made it because only people who’ve already made it, or in Sammy Davis’s case had a great talent that simply was overlooked (for whatever reasons) by Hollywood, were going to be part of this group.

To paraphrase in what the narrator said early in this video: The Rat Pack defined cool in Hollywood. They were what cool was in a time where that word generally wasn’t used in pop culture terms that it is today. And generally just used to describe ones laid back personality. They defined what cool was, because they set the trends and were the only people that they knew how to be which was themselves. They did what they wanted to do when they wanted to do it and how they wanted to do it.

The Rat Pack were classic individuals in a very collectivist trendy industry where performers were supposed to all be a certain way and always act that way, or risk losing work. But no one owned The Rat Pack, except themselves. And they were very successful at being themselves and always doing what they wanted to do when they wanted to do it. And they could get away with that, because of how good and popular they were.

NBC News: Meet The Press- Dr. Martin Luther King in (1965)

Source:NBC News interviewing Dr. Reverend Martin L. King, on NBC News Meet The Press, in 1965.

Source:The Daily Journal

“On March 28, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press to discuss his historic five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama…

One week after leading, King said that the demonstration was necessary not just to help push the Voting Rights Bill through, but to draw attention to the humiliating conditions in Alabama such as police brutality and racially-motivated murder.” 

From NBC News 

Dr. Martin Luther King and his movement, wasn’t marching for the exercise, or the fresh air of it. But they were marching for freedom and to have the same constitutional rights and freedom as Americans who were born in America, as any other American that they already had under the U.S. Constitution. But weren’t getting their constitutional rights enforced equally under law as European-Americans and that is what they were marching for for equal rights and equal treatment under law and were very successful with their movement.

African-Americans, in the 1960s, were marching for their freedom that every other American had under the U.S. Constitution, but under law as well. That government discriminating against people based on race like forcing people to go to poor schools and sit in the back of the bus and not be able to eat at certain restaurants, being denied the right to vote and so-forth, was simply unconstitutional. And that they were mad as hell (to paraphrase a certain great actor and movie) and weren’t going to take it anymore and were going to fight back in a non-violent manner.

1964-65 was the Martin L. King’s wing of the civil rights movement’s peak, when they were at the top of their game (so to speak) and were pushing the ball and on the offensive with the anti-equal rights supporters on the defensive at every point in the courts, in the media, and even in Congress.

With the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act after those two laws were passed, the MLK movement sort of went off in different directions and talking about the Vietnam War and other issues. Instead of putting the full focus on equal rights and fighting poverty. 

Union Solidarity: Dr. Martin L. King: 'On Labor, Wealth & Inequality'

Source:Union Solidarity with Dr. Martin L. King's last ever speech.

Source:The Daily Journal

. “Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Labor, Wealth and Justice”  

From Union Solidarity 

Economic policy, is the part of Dr. Martin L. King’s message that I disagree with. And where he was lacking, because he sort of took this social democratic view that came out of the New Deal, or Great Society that judged what we were doing to help the middle class and low-income people based on how much we spent on them. The theory being: “That if we spend a lot of money to reduce poverty, that poverty will go away, because we’ll have all of these government programs to take care of people.”

I mean, if you listen to this video, you’ll see clip from one of his speeches where he says: “We now have the resources that we need to wipeout poverty”. You could spend a trillion dollars a year in America, or anywhere else to reduce poverty and right now the United States is not that far from that and you’ll still have poverty in this country, if that money is not being spent to empower people to get themselves out of poverty. Because government no mater what it spends, or any private organization for that matter, can’t get people out of poverty by themselves. The people in poverty have to do that for themselves. What government and the private sector can do is empower people to get themselves out of poverty.

I love both men (you know, platonically) but where I give Malcolm X an advantage over Dr. King is when it came to economics. Minister X’s message was about education and self-reliance when it came to economic policy. Economically, Minister X was closer to Barry Goldwater than Lyndon Johnson, or Franklin Roosevelt. He wanted to empower the African-American community to get themselves the tools that they needed to be economically independent, self-reliant in life, making it on their own.

I give Reverend King the edge when it came to the civil rights movement. Because without the message of non-violence, the civil rights movement would’ve never have gotten as far as it did, not even come close. Because this movement would’ve been seen as a bunch of thugs, criminals, terrorists by the so-called mainstream media. But taking it a next step forward post-civil rights laws of the 1960s, I give the edge to Malcolm X as far as what African-Americans should now do with the freedom they finally have under law. 

NFL Films: NFL 1960- San Francisco 49ers @ Baltimore Colts: Intro

Source:Pigskin Academy with the San Francisco 49ers vs the Colts, from 1960.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Rare original TV Broadcast footage from the 1st Quarter of the 1960 Baltimore Colts vs. the San Francisco 49ers. This was the season that Niners Coach Red Hickey introduced the Shotgun Formation which was later popularized by the Dallas Cowboys and is now used by virtually every team in Pro Football.”

From Pigskin Academy

Interesting matchup between a good veteran San Francisco 49er team who were pretty solid in the 1950s and had the wildcard been around back then, probably would’ve made the playoffs several times, against the two-time defending NFL Champion Colts who were going for a three-peat. 

The San Francisco 49ers of this era were good and again would’ve been a consistent playoff team back then if their were wildcards, instead of just the conference champions making to postseason and then playing the NFL Championship against each other. But the 49ers weren’t a championship team. Good on offense, but perhaps not great and didn’t have a great defense either. 

The Colts were going for their 3rd-straight NFL Championship in 1960. So this was a matchup between a good football team in the 49ers, against a proven NFL champion in the Colts.

NFL Films: The Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Highlights

Source:NFL Films- Kansas City Chiefs WR Otis Taylor catching a 42 yard TD pass from QB Len Dawson.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Yesterday Kansas City beat Green Bay, ending the Packer’s 19-game winning streak. This video shows another notable Packers vs. Chiefs game along with the Chiefs other Super Bowl appearance.”

From Gwllyamz

This is going to sound simplistic, but it is so true and important that I have to say it anyway: The difference between the 1966 Kansas City Chiefs and the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs, is that the 69 Chiefs won the Super Bowl.

And why do I say that? Because the 69 Chiefs knew what it was like to lose a Super Bowl on national TV and most of the players on the 66 team were also on the 69 team.

The 69 Chiefs knew that just getting to the Super Bowl was not enough. Or just getting to the Super Bowl and playing a good first half was not enough. That if you didn’t actually win the game, you failed and didn’t accomplish your ultimate goal which was to win the Super Bowl.

There is no second place in the Super Bowl. You either win it or you lose it and that was one of the motivators that served the 69 Chiefs very well in Super Bowl 4.