what I want, you've got

 

Riverside Drive paintings

Today's Hall & Oates song is

"You Make My Dreams"

play and enjoy from You Tube

(first anchor yourself firmly with strong cord, so that you don't float up into space on the crazy energy of this song - a Safety Measure)

        The punchy opening riff on keyboards is iconic...

♫♫♪

______________________________

[excerpt / Moynihan letters]

Moynihan charged that many critics of the Moynihan Report, including Kenneth G. Neigh of the United Presbyterian Church, had never read it.

OCTOBER 3, 1967

MR. KENNETH G. NEIGH

BOARD OF NATIONAL MISSIONS OF THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

475 RIVERSIDE DRIVE

NEW YORK, NEW YORK  10027

Dear Ken,

        I suppose I was a bit harsh in Washington last August, but I was going through a moment of rather intense annoyance with the world, which you somewhat triggered.  The point being that you said you were thinking to write me a letter about my work in Rochester.  

The point is that I would never have been involved in Rochester at all if someone at the National Council of Churches had not gleefully reported to Saul Alinsky that Kodak had now gone and hired that racist bastard Moynihan as the latest of their atrocities.

        The point is a very simple one, Ken.  There are certain public controversies in which reputations are attacked, during which it becomes extremely important for the civilized community to maintain a solid front in the face of character assassinations.  All liberals found it easy enough to see this point when Senator McCarthy was abroad.  

Very few until very recently have recognized that the Paytons are cut of the same cloth and do the same damage.  You say had you read my report and Payton's beforehand you might have averted the controversy.  

My question is why were you silent afterwards?  The only man in your group who resisted the latter day McCarthyism is Reinhold Neibuhr, a fact not surprising to you or me.  It is just not enough to feel good; the question is what you do.

        An exactly similar case is taking place now with Professor James Coleman, whose report on the "Equality of Educational Opportunity" is being labeled as racism by civil servants in Washington, while the pious stand by clucking and saying nothing.  

        If he were labeled a communist, they would come screaming to the fore.  I would urge anyone concerned with the moral niceties of the subject to read Stephen Spender's essay in R.H.S. Crossman's study, The God That Failed.

___________________________

{Daniel Patrick Moynihan:  A Portrait In Letters Of An American Visionary.  Edited by Steven R. Weisman.  PUBLIC AFFAIRS.  New York.  2010.}

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Army-McCarthy Hearings, 1950s

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