Human & Civil Rights Quotes

Porush was one of the Haradi--ultra-orthodox Jews. In the land of the Jewish people, he argued against religious freedom for Jews unless they were Orthodox Jews, while ironically, the majority of Jews in the world and even in Israel followed the Conservative or Reform branches of Judaism or were secular. At the time the Orthodox Jewish movement was the only one that was recognized officially by the government. Porush and some of the more fanatical Haradi were determined to keep the Conservative and Reform Jewish branches unrecognized and unsupported by the government. (Israel does not have separation of church and state and economically supports the Orthodox Jewish establishment but not the other majority branches of Judaism.) The "Women of the Wall" is one of the major groups in Israel advocating equal government treatment for all citizens o0f Israel. Orthodox Judaism, like many other orthodox religions are very sexist and women were actually banned from praying at the holiest of Jewish places, the Western or Wailing Wall. Women of the Wall had won a major decision of the Israeli Supreme court that women could not be denied the right to pray at the Wall. The orthodox rabbis who the government allowed to control access to the Wall, set aside a small area for women at the "Dung Gate" where the garbage was carried out. Women of the Wall were back in court and this prompted Porush's outburst. He was cebsured by the Ethics Committee of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament).

Nixon, in his second attempt to win the Presidency was told by a small group of Southern Republican politicians that his support was wavering in the South. They had already left the Democratic Party in reaction to the Passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They were concerned because in order to try and capture some of the more liberal anti-war Democrats, Nixon had been making speeches advocating the vigerous enforcement of of civil rights and improving the lot of the Negro. But Nixon could not afford to lose his political base inb the south. Hence the promise which did not keep very long after he was elected President. Nixon was not a strong civil rights President, but he was totally without principles and had no political idiology he would sacrifice any of his political capital for. So once he was elected, he didn't want to offend the centerists whose support he needed for his legislatrive program so he did pay lip service to the prinicples of equality when he himself was anti-Black, andti-Semitic and prejudiced in many areas including against intelelctuals.

He was the son of LeRoy Percy a Governor of Mississippi, who was running for that post against James Kimble Vardaman, an unabashed Racist, populist, and hate-monger. (See the related quotes for examples.) He appealed to the worst of the Mississippi. This was his famous description of the crowd that turned out for a Vardaman rally in 1903,

He was proud to be one of them. He had been an activist in CORE.

She was referring to a letter which she had sent to her husband, John Adams.

Mitchell in addition to being a History Professor, was active in politics and even ran for Maryland Governor as the Socialist Party candidate.

This was his reaction when he was criticized for encouraging over 1000 extrajudicial murders of accused drug addicts and drug dealers with no trial at all and no due process.

This dramatic quotation essentially argued that human sperm and egg cells were the property of and must be under the control of the society and not the individual. Although this fascist notion never had a majority in America, there were a substantial number of Americans who agreed with this position. This quote is also an excellent example of an ideological organizations adopting the names and rubric of science and trying to sell junk science to the nation,

He was one of a Eugenics movement advocates who advocated forced sterilization of mentally retarded and other people, something that a century later was anathema to most Americans.

This was his signal for a reversal of policy from the 4 previous American Presidents of vigorously exporting Democracy and repect for Human Rights for women as well as men. Trump restricted his foreign policy to teh immeidate economic and security interests of the United States. This reversal, was opposed by many including most Republican politicans and activists for whom the spread of true democracy and human rights had been a cornerstone of their foreign policy for years. However, it was very popular amongst American isolationists, and other Republicans and Democrats as well who did not want to focus American lives or treasure on foreign nations whose cultures and history were anti-democratic and had little respect for women or human rights.

There was a substantial movement to prevent mentally defective and people of low intelligence from being able to reproduce. Over 20 states, with the approval of the then Supreme Court performed forced state sterilizations. Of course the then definition of “degenerates” changed from state to state. A century later, American values changed so much that there is no state that would even consider involuntary sterilization and if they did, the Courts would hold it un-Constitutional.

Unchaiuned at Last was founded in 2011 as a non-profit organization devoted to curtailing arranged and forced marriages of girls and young women in America. This is their Motto. See the Related Quotes for more insight into the American Child Marriage Problem.

After the Civil War and Reconstruction, the American nation was still bitterly divided intelelctually, socially, emotionally and poliotically. In an effort to bring more unity to America, most of the power stucture and the influentials of the nation began to avoid those issues that would divide North and South and try and promote a narrative that both sides might be able to live with. And this is what Zeitz describes in this quotation. America went through a period of Revisionist History that even in the 21st century was held by many people. It wasn't until the middle of the 20th century that the real history and narrative of the Civil War and Reconstrution emerged from the few academics who had all along criticized the fabricated narritive that did unify the country at the cost of historical accuracy and truth. Many scholars point out that the price that America paid for this unity was the Jim Crow era and a century of legalized racism. Much of the nation was built on the labor of Negro slaves and the victims of the slavery era, also bore the brunt of American unity and reconcilliation.