By using a standard for accepting cites that exceeds that typically used on this board, you reveal your own biases.
But anyway, here is the source. I expect you will continue to look for reasons to discount this evidence too, but I’m actually posting this for the truly curious.
You expressed doubt that he knew about the wiretapping, you expressed ignorance that JEH and LBJ were chums, and you’ve suggested that the POTUS couldn’t do anything about Hoover because “he knew too much”. In other words, you’ve defended Johnson’s guilelessness using a combination of myth, speculation, and uninformed opinion.
You can keep saying that, but it doesn’t make it true. Your contributions to this thread though do support the author’s conclusion that critics see LBJ through a distorted lens.
But that isn’t what the author says, is it? For a conclusion so obvious, you’d think it would actually say this. It appears this is you making an inference–an inference that allows you to reduce the article to an argument about mere accuracy as opposed to something more substantive than that.
You can’t call the author wrong by putting words in his/her mouth. That’s not how its done in Rational Land.
[del]It sounds really weird and wrong. LBJ was pretty much the midwife of a post-racist USA. Why slander him in this way, other than simple racialism and ignorance?[/del]
And again I need to read the thread. I’ve been on Tumblr, I know there are hacks who lie about media in order to bait us.
No, now you have proved your point. This is a good source.
However, as pointed out above, this point is irrelevant to the actual argument.
Heh, none of what I’ve actually said matches your straw-manning "I “flat out denied” this. Yet you just can’t admit you were making shit up about what I said.
Once again, I care nothing for LBJ. I have no emotional attachment to his legacy whatsoever.
The article makes several arguments. One is about the accuracy of the movie. This argument is wrong (or at least, not actually supported by the evidence the article itself provides).
Why is this so difficult for you? You don’t actually contend that the article is correct on this point. Your argument (as far as I can understand it) appears to be (correct me if I am wrong) that the inaccuracy is minor and blown out of proportion.
This, I would say, is a matter of opinion - on which reasonable people could disagree. Whether the article is incorrect and the movie in fact contains a significant inaccuracy is a matter of fact.
I have said exactly nothing about your opinions, but I am contesting only the facts.
If you are arguing that the author of the article isn’t claiming the movie is accurate on this point, I’m afraid we have to part ways. That position is not credible, as anyone can read from the article itself.
That is what pissed you off? Well, now that you have, in fact, provided a good source, you can have an unqualified ‘that was gross and appalling’. Happy?
This is the thesis of the article is in bold below:
The article is NOT about whether Selma is 100% accurate. It admits upfront that, like most movies based on historical events, it uses artistic license. What its actually arguing is that those who have lambasted the movie for “beyond-the-pale” misrepresentation–with some even going so far to say it doesn’t deserves awards–are in fact more guilty of distorting LBJ’s relationship with MLK than the movie is. The historical evidence it cites is attempting to show why defending LBJ’s image is wrong.
Your attempt to frame the article as being more pedantic than that means you either don’t get the article’s message, or it means you’re intentionally twisting it so you can dismiss it. Kind of like the way you dismissed the Atlantic article I cited.
Okay, I will concede you didn’t flat out denied it". Perhaps what I’m really reacting to is your dogged agnosticism towards anything that supports LBJ being less than nobel person, particularly towards MLK.
This is what it comes do to. Fixating on whether RFK put the knife in MLK’s back or LBJ looks rather pedantic when there’s plenty of evidence that LBJ was okay with that knife being there and maybe even gave it a few twists for good measure. I haven’t seen you or anyone in this thread who has cried foul about Selma (sight unseen, I might add) acknowledge this basic thing. We’re still stuck on “RFK did it, not LBJ!”. As I said earlier when thanking Equipoise for linking to the article, this reveals how superficial critics of the movie are. Unless you can show why this inaccuracy is unfair to LBJ in an ethical sense, it makes the outrage about it look like a bunch of ignorant hot air.
Can you address this? Or would you rather perseverate on the RFK thing?
I’ve posted the thesis of the article for you, okay? What is telling is that the word “accuracy” is not used once in the entire piece. Neither is “truth”.
You’re 100% right. I don’t think the author is claiming that LBJ tried to blackmail MLK using a wireless tap. The conclusion shows up nowhere in the piece; you inferred this from your idea that the author was making an argument about factual accuracy when he was really describing the complicated and sometimes contentious relationship between LBJ and MLK.
And with this impasse, I’m 100% fine with parting ways. It’s one thing to argue at length about history, but ain’t nobody got time to debate reading comprehension too.
I wonder if any of the people hatin’ on this movie have checked it out yet.
I thought the film was quite excellent. It showed Johnson as a politician. Not “evil” (evil people don’t cuss out virulent racists), but not sanctified either. All the complaints about his portrayal have been completely overwrought.
They never said his last name, but I’m assuming the hot head who spared with John Lewis was supposed to be James Farmer. Now, I thought he was painted very unfavorably, and to a lesser extent so was Hosea. (Though Hosea WAS quite a character.) Based on how James was portrayed in this film, you would have never guessed he was also the pudgy fellow portrayed in “The Great Debaters”. I thought the movie would have been a tad better if they hadn’t played up this tension. (Not that there wasn’t tension. But I don’t think John was as “okey-doke” with the MLK program as the movie made it out be).
The casting was so fantastic that I could identify MLK’s crew before they were introduced ('cuz I love me some “Eyes on the Prize”).
I saw the movie today, and was surprised to find that Johnson was portrayed much less negatively than the controversy had led me to expect. He’s depicted as being in favor of civil rights, but explicitly says to King that he’s a politician, not an activist, and can’t focus on just one cause when he has so many other things he has to deal with too.
From early in the movie it is shown that the FBI is keeping close tabs on King and his associates. We see a meeting between Hoover and Johnson where Hoover is obviously eager to disgrace King publicly, and says that if Johnson doesn’t like that idea (and he doesn’t) then the FBI could also make trouble between King and his wife. Johnson says basically that regardless of whatever dirt the FBI has on King, he’d rather have someone like King who believes in non-violence as a leader of this movement. However, after King later refuses to make a political compromise with Johnson, we see Johnson say “Get me Hoover.” Coretta Scott King soon receives an tape about King’s infidelities.
So while it’s very strongly implied by the movie that Johnson told Hoover to send this tape, it is presented as having been Hoover’s idea to begin with. It was not my impression from the movie that Johnson was responsible for ordering the FBI to begin surveillance of King. He’s obviously aware that they are doing so and certainly doesn’t tell Hoover to stop, but it’s not clear that he knows that the FBI is tapping King’s phone.
I did also notice that the end of the movie had a lengthy disclaimer explaining that while it is based on real events it is not a documentary, and that some of the actions of historic figures depicted in the movie are fictionalized.
Eeeesh… I just saw the movie, and while I enjoyed it, LBJ really was portrayed as a villain. I was prepared to see just a nuanced view of LBJ, prioritizing other political issues, but being firmly on the side of civil rights. But no… LBJ was portrayed as trying to get MLK “in line” and sicking the FBI on him when he wasn’t. They almost made it seem that J. Edger Hoover was giving his marching orders by LBJ. And at times it seemed like LBJ was patronizing to MLK. I saw the movie in a theater that was vastly African-American and they were definitely reacting like LBJ was the villain (laughing when he stood up to George Wallace, basically saying “yeah, now you get it”).
My girlfriend, who went in not knowing much about the controversy, or the extent of LBJ’s role in everything, saw him as the villain who came to his senses.
It sounds like a terrible disservice to a man who sacrificed so much politically (both for himself and for his party) to advance the cause of civil rights.
This doesn’t sound far off the interpretations I’ve heard from people who were around then and following the principals. The last sentence is assuredly accurate.
To be clear, I mean that I have heard people who were in the movement say that the real Johnson seemed that way to them, then, as well. I have not yet seen the film, so I can’t speak to the depiction.
I’m curious why you’re choosing to take ISiddiqui’s take on it, but not anyone’s.
If LBJ had been gung-ho for the Voting Right’s Act, there wouldn’t have been a need to stage any protests. MLK wouldn’t have needed to meet with LBJ. The FBI wouldn’t have stalked MLK.
I have always felt like LBJ was one of the best US presidents we’ve ever had. The movie hasn’t changed this opinion one bit.
Go see the movie before you decide it’s a disservice.
Well, now that you have, in fact, provided a good source, you can have an unqualified ‘that was gross and appalling’. Happy?