James Garner: An Appreciation Of A Liberal
Garner once said, “I’m a ‘bleeding-heart liberal,’ one of those card-carrying Democrats that Rush Limbaugh thinks is a communist. And I’m proud of it.”
James Bumgarner was born in Norman, Oklahoma, one-quarter Cherokee, descended on both sides from the original “Boomers” and “Sooners.” During the Great Depression, James’ father ran a country store in Denver, Oklahoma, with five residents: James and his family.
The family was poor. His mother died while James was 4, and his father and step-mother were abusive. His father beat James and his brothers, and whenever James misbehaved his step-mother, “Red,” made him wear a dress and answer to the name, “Louise.” The abuse came to a head at age 14 when finally he refused to put up with Red’s abuse and nearly killed her. Domestic violence marked him for life; as he wrote in his memoir, The Garner Files, having “been on the wrong end of violence” convinced him to:
…refuse to glorify violence in my movie and television roles. The characters I’ve played, especially Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford, almost never use a gun, and they always try to use their wits instead of their fists.
In 1945, at the age of 16, Garner lied about his age and enlisted in the Merchant Marine. After training in Florida, he served aboard a seagoing tugboat operating out of New Orleans. He quit after two months, a victim of chronic seasickness. For the next few years, he bummed around Los Angeles, living with his Aunt Grace, a “domineering soul” who “decided I should be an actor.” An indifferent student at Hollywood High, the 6′ 3″ Garner earned more money than his teachers by modeling for the Jantzen swimsuit company. Kicked out of school for truancy, he went back to Norman and played football at Norman High. While there, he became the first man from Oklahoma drafted for the Korean War.
James Garner in Korea (front row, left)
After Basic Training at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, in the suburbs north of Chicago, Garner was assigned to the 5th Regimental Combat Team of the 24th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. As he wrote, the 5th RCT was considered “a ‘colored’ regiment, because it had a large percentage of Hawaiians and Asian Americans.”
Garner saw hard combat in Korea in 1951, during the first Chinese offensive in the war. His unit was among the first to engage the Chinese Communist Forces (CCF), falling back against heavy odds near Kumhwa, in what came to be known as the Iron Triangle. Garner recalled, “the Red Chinese shot us to pieces” in a battle the Army’s own account described as “the most bitter close-combat struggle Americans have participated in since the Civil War.” Garner was wounded twice, the second time from friendly fire. He and a South Korean soldier found themselves cut off behind enemy lines, eluding both Chinese and North Korean forces. Like the abuse of his childhood, the violence of war left a deep scar and influenced Garner’s later performances. Later in life, Garner would work to ensure Korean War veterans received the recognition they’d earned.
After his Army discharge, Garner returned to L.A. where he ran into a friend from Oklahoma, Paul Gregory, who had become an agent and producer. Gregory cast Garner in a non-speaking role in the Broadway production of “The Caine Mutiny Court Martial,” directed by Dick Powell and starring Henry Fonda in the role of naval lawyer Barney Greenwald. The play ran for a year at the Plymouth Theater on West 45th Street. It was Garner’s acting school, with Fonda as headmaster.
James Garner in his first role (1954)
From that modest start, Garner quickly moved on to commercials, contract television work, and films. Replacing Charlton Heston as the title character in Darby’s Rangers (1958), he had his first starring role. His television series, Maverick, was a hit. He was living the Hollywood dream, with a fat bank account and a new Corvette. But Garner held true to his liberal values. His character, Bret Maverick, treated Native Americans with respect and rejected violence. Though often described as an anti-hero, Garner played Maverick as “a reluctant hero, [someone] who’ll come to your aid if there’s injustice” — rather like Garner himself. He was one of the first performers to take on the studio system and its abusive labor practices, suing Warner Bros. over the terms of his contract.
In 1962, while filming The Great Escape in Germany, Garner witnessed a student protest get put down by the police in an early example of what would be called a “police riot” at the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention. Mounted German police “waded in…swinging their nightsticks…beating and arresting defenseless kids.” Garner himself was assaulted by a police officer and, to his later regret, told a nearby reporter, “What I’ve witnessed here reminds me what it must have been like under the Nazis.” Threatened with deportation and fearful of hurting the film production, Garner “issued an apology — but I didn’t mean it.” Garner had no use for those who used their power to abuse others.
On the set, Garner got along well with nearly all of his co-stars, including Steve McQueen — though there was one point of contention between the two: “Steve was a Republican.” Garner forgave McQueen his partisan ways, however, because McQueen “somehow made Nixon’s enemies list, an honor I would have given anything to have achieved.” On the other hand, Garner despised Charles Bronson. Bronson, born Charles Buchinsky, had been wounded as a B-29 tail-gunner during World War II. Bronson, Garner wrote, “used and abused people, and I didn’t like it.”
Garner’s favorite role of his career was Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison, an admiral’s “dog robber” (or scrounger) in London during World War II in The Americanization of Emily (1964). Madison is content to serve well behind the lines, not because he’s actually cowardly but because he’s already lost a brother at Anzio and has a younger brother full of the mythology of war who is aching to join up — experiences that have caused him to rethink what war really is.
The Americanization of Emily (1964)
The film was written by Paddy Chayefsky, who was wounded by a land mine in 1945 while on patrol near Aachen, Germany, directed by Arthur Hiller, who’d served as a bomber navigator with the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII, and also starred Melvyn Douglas, who served in both World War I and II. It reflected Garner’s own distaste for the glorification of violence. As Garner later wrote, “we’d all witnessed the kind of insanity portrayed in the film that cost people their lives.” In one memorable scene, Charlie Madison denounces the easy militarism of a society that redefines sacrifice as valor:
I don’t trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham. It’s always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. It’s always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parades. … We shall never end wars, Mrs. Barham, by blaming it on ministers and generals or warmongering imperialists or all the other banal bogeys. It’s the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers. The rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widow’s weeds like nuns, Mrs. Barham, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices … Maybe ministers and generals who blunder us into wars, Mrs. Barham, but the least the rest of us can do is to resist honoring the institution.
Yet even that didn’t sit comfortably with Garner’s values. He recognized that simply by making films about war, “I contributed to the problem by buying into the whole glorification of war thing.” Though The Americanization of Emily was his favorite film, he recognized that “unfortunately, it hasn’t put war out of style.”
Garner took his convictions seriously and put his mouth where his money could have been: he was part of the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the rally where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. To Garner, it was a no-brainer: “I didn’t think it was right that a hundred years after…the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans still didn’t have basic rights of citizenship.”
James Garner, Marlon Brando, and James Baldwin at the March on Washington
Garner marched with others from the entertainment industry, including Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Ossie Davis, Sammy Davis, Jr., Blake Edwards, Lena Horne, Paul Newman, Sam Peckinpah, Sidney Poitier, and Joanne Woodward. The Hollywood group was led (ironically, in retrospect) by Charlton Heston, who was then President of the Screen Actor’s Guild. Garner was dismissive of Heston, who seemed uncommitted to the cause. Heston had “threatened to bail out of the march if we did any ‘militant’ stuff.” A year later, Heston was working for Barry Goldwater.
For Garner, the civil rights movement was just one part of a life-long fight. He said, “civil rights is a matter of conscience.” And he had no use for those who criticize celebrities for speaking out. He believed it was not only his right to speak, but his responsibility, because “if my celebrity draws extra attention to the cause, all the better.”
Though Garner cast his first vote for president for Eisenhower in 1952, thinking “we needed a strong military man in there,” he quickly recognized the error of his ways: “Never voted Republican again. I don’t understand the conservative way of thinking.” He was asked by both the Republican and Democratic parties to run for office; in 1990, the Democrats asked him to run for Governor of California. When asked about his position on abortion, he replied, “I don’t have an opinion, because that’s up to the woman. It has nothing to do with me.” Told he couldn’t say something like that in a campaign, he replied, “It’s how I feel, and I’m not going to say anything else.” That was the end of his would-be political career. He couldn’t compromise his values.
It was just as well. Garner had little use for actors-turned-politician:
Too many actors have run for office. There’s one difference between me and them: I know I’m not qualified. Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn’t qualified to be governor of California. Ronald Reagan wasn’t qualified to be governor, let alone President. I was a vice president of the Screen Actors Guild when he was its president… Ronnie never had an original thought. We had to tell him what to say. That’s no way to run a union, let alone a country.
James Garner was passionate about the political. Whether it was opposing militarism, marching for civil rights, or, later in his life, fighting to “prevent oil drilling along the Southern California coast and to stop logging in Northern California forests,” Garner did more than just talk. Though it would have been easy — perhaps even understandable — for him to simply write checks and say the necessary things on television, throughout his life Garner took action in the name of his values. His conscience — and his values — could accept nothing less.
R.I.P. James Garner: Liberal, and proud of it.
Click here for reuse options!Copyright 2014 Liberaland
By: Russ Burgos
Interested in foreign affairs, global conflict, and political narratives and discourses
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Hank Kelly July 21st, 2014 at 09:31
When I was a kid in the late 50’s – early 60’s, I wouldn’t miss my hero, Brett Maverick, on Sunday night black and white tv. Over 50 years later, James Garner is still a hero to me. Too bad he couldn’t have been President instead of Reagan.
Hank Kelly July 21st, 2014 at 09:31
When I was a kid in the late 50’s – early 60’s, I wouldn’t miss my hero, Brett Maverick, on Sunday night black and white tv. Over 50 years later, James Garner is still a hero to me. Too bad he couldn’t have been President instead of Reagan.
Pilotshark July 21st, 2014 at 09:42
RIP
you will be missed, but will always live on!
one of the last good guys!
Pilotshark July 21st, 2014 at 09:42
RIP
you will be missed, but will always live on!
one of the last good guys!
R.J. Carter July 21st, 2014 at 10:01
“Hail to the chief, he’s the chief so he needs hailing.”
— “My Fellow Americans”
R.J. Carter July 21st, 2014 at 10:01
“Hail to the chief, he’s the chief so he needs hailing.”
— “My Fellow Americans”
stepjohn1 July 21st, 2014 at 10:13
Mr. Crawford makes an excellent point about staunch conservative Charlton Heston being at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement’s March on Washington. Conservatives desire all the positive things espoused by liberals, but through means that are Constitutional and sustainable. Genuine Conservatives abhor the vote-buying machinery that government spending has become. I admired and respected James Garner but he held the simplistic belief that being “liberal” made you morally superior since you were more advanced and your policies were based on kindness. I saw no depth in this article. Sadly, the very intelligent Mr. Garner sounds woefully simplistic as presented by this writer. The superior position of liberals is only legitimized if you ignore the damage done to society by misguided liberal entitlement polices, damage done to the economy and the dangerously naïve foreign policies that are the handmaiden of liberal thinking. Pick up a newspaper today and see the fruits of the latter. Liberal policies have only been successful at one thing: Making liberals feel good about the policies they support — a delusion enabled by ignoring all the empirical data about their shortcomings. This is why liberals live in a perpetual state of anger and confusion about why they have never been given absolute power in America. Oppose liberal concepts and you are dumb, mean, cheap, evil and not on the high moral pedestal of liberals. Of course, if you’re a conservative instead of a liberal, you’re not in a constant state of warfare with reality, solid and sustainable policy choices, simple arithmetic, human nature and the majority of the American people and history.
Prof B in LA July 21st, 2014 at 14:06
You’re right — when you’re a conservative you’re not in a constant state of warfare with reality. You just avoid reality. Ask Caribou Spice: she’s been in outer space her entire life.
stepjohn1 July 21st, 2014 at 14:28
I would hope that someday a liberal will respond to a detailed and intelligent posting with historical data, reasoned thought and adequate intellect to actually support his position — whatever that is besides trying to put someone down in a childish way. Snarky, junior high school behavior simply makes my case about liberal childishness more eloquently than I ever could.
Tammy Minton Haley July 21st, 2014 at 14:41
nobody CARES about your too-long, idiot posts…
stepjohn1 July 22nd, 2014 at 00:12
Tammy, you’ve hurt my feelings. I’m better now. Have you read any presidential histories lately? Have you read any economics lately? Are you familiar with the performance of the economy under presidential administrations in the postwar period? Try reading up on the “Chicago School” of economics and pay very close attention to the present world situation. Learn all you can and then send me a reasoned note if you want to convince me you’re a serious person and not another unhinged liberal. I think the word you were looking for is “idiotic” posts. I’m glad to be of help.
Cherylln July 22nd, 2014 at 11:14
Stepjohn1 aka GLenn Beck go read a book and pet your cat. We don’t want you here.
ShelleysLeg July 21st, 2014 at 15:05
WHY? It won’t do a thing to convince you, any more than your spouting off nonsense convinces any of us.
Boring, prosaic and predictable clap trap!
Prof B in LA July 21st, 2014 at 17:09
stepjohn1, conservatives don’t work with historical data. They twist historical events to suit their own twisted beliefs — like the make-believe conservative story of the make-believe founding of America as a make-believe Christian nation. Want evidence of that? At no point in your ridiculous, shopworn screed is there an actual claim, let alone data or facts. It’s nothing but AM radio assertions, mindlessly regurgitated in that special, short-bus way that conservatives have. Why don’t you go open your collection of Sarah Palin photographs and fap the rest of the day away? No one’s interested in what you have to say, trite, vague, meaningless as it is.
stepjohn1 July 22nd, 2014 at 00:09
You did it again. It’s another mindless, factless, hate-filled silly post. What’s Sarah Palin go to do with anything? Am I being given a pointless mind-tour of who Prof B in La hates? I’ll bet that’s a crowded gallery. Haven’t you read any history? Don’t you have any basis for what you think? The recent and very good “Eisenhower in War and Peace” is a good place to start for someone who knows nothing about conservatism and Republicans. I’m sorry, it’s not online. You will have to buy it.
Cherylln July 21st, 2014 at 14:14
blah blah blah blah de blah Liberal isn’t morally superior. Liberal is just regular every day moral. Conservative is morally repugnant.
stepjohn1 July 21st, 2014 at 14:27
Do you have any actual understanding of policy and what Conservatives have actually done in regard to human services? Of course you don’t. Look at your silly, vacuous response to answer that, which seems to be the bleating of a zombie liberal who’s been manipulated by the American left. Can I have an example of how your grammatically incorrect statement “Conservative is morally repugnant.” is true? If massive liberal programs such as the War On Poverty and The Great Society resulted in horrific damage to poor American families over the decades, how can you dare point a finger at Conservatives. Are you even aware of any of this? Of course not. You follow and you neither read nor lead. Read up on statements by liberal Democratic Senator and former UN ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan to understand where liberals have been repugnant as Conservatives attempted to find another path.
Cherylln July 21st, 2014 at 14:56
I made a typo, get over it.
Conservatives have no credibility with me. Conservatives say horrible things about legitimate rape, if a woman can have an abortion then men should be permitted to rape them, that the best abortion is a gun shot in the uterus. Conservatives continually attack Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. Conservatives keep increasing the age of retirement like women and men in their fifties and sixties are not undesired untouchables in the work place. I have been hearing and not wanting to hear the fucking crap that comes out of their mouths that is so abusive and vile I cannot stand to hear anymore. You convinced me of NOTHING. GO beat up a small cat, you will undoubtedly feel better expressing your true feelings.
Conservatives only hurt people.
stepjohn1 July 22nd, 2014 at 00:21
For every nut in the Republican Party, I can find you TEN in the Democratic Party. Didn’t Nancy Pelosi say she wanted to take all the illegal alien children home to her San Francisco mansion the other day? Didn’t Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid commit slander two years ago when he falsely accused Mitt Romney of criminal avoidance of IRS tax law as a crude political tool to manipulate the gullible like yourself? I believe Democrat President Bill Clinton has actually been accused of rape by a former Arkansas nursing home official. I could go on and on, but you’re in the hate business and the ignoramus business and are looking for a reason to fulminate. The repulsive stuff coming out of your mouth is vulgar and disgusting, but you probably don’t hear yourself in your fomenting. Can you try and refrain from using the F word? It doesn’t make you sound like a serious thinker. As someone who has rescued 10 cats in the past 14 years, I find your last statement most revealing about your paucity of intellectual strength and your own pathetic state of mind. If you can’t compete intellectually with me, it’s because the bar is set so low on liberal blog sites and like most liberals you simply have a stroke when someone disagrees with you. Go and read the Daily Kos so you can be reassured that every false thing you believe is ” true.”
Cherylln July 22nd, 2014 at 11:11
Mr. Conservative… I laugh because you make all sorts of really really stupid assumptions about me because I am liberal and because my disgust with the conservatives has become so deep my emotions cannot be controlled. Actually I see no reason to control them around you. But on all statements about me you have been 100% projecting. You saved ten cats? OK, that’s nice but where do you stand on children, because children are the lynchpins for the future.. Raise more children as conservatives and the world is doomed. They need nurturing and education and loving guidance not cats. If you raise a child with a good education, they may find solutions to the fracking, coal ash, big oil destruction of our water and air and soil poisoning. Raise a cat and well you have an animal that eats, sleeps and scratches the furniture. And if the children educated with teachers leading the way the cat has a chance at life. Because water will be potable. Soil will be free of glycophosate. Water will be free of the coal ash and radiation poured into it by conservatives.
Your insults of me have no veracity but it is a certainty that you will continue to believe them because it makes you feel superior to me and absolves you of taking responsibility for trying to save the world before its end is inevitable.
If you love your cat, I would think you would want it to live without tumors and cancer.
jbdean July 22nd, 2014 at 11:19
Stick to what ea has done POLITICALLY. That is where the huge difference lies, as well as the proof of which party cares more for the people than the corporations. I was Republican since I first voted in the late 1970s until Bush’s second term. Then, after the failed WofMD was uncovered, I had my eyes opened and voted for President Obama both terms. I will NEVER go back to a party that doesn’t allow freedom for EVERY HUMAN. Who only wants THEIR rights to be given, despite how many other American’s rights are trampled on. When you have Freedom of Choice, YOU can choose to not have an abortion and that gives you the right to have the Choice to be Pro Life. When you take that right away, you deny others of THEIR freedom of choice. But Republicans don’t care. They want the country all their way and to hell with anyone who thinks differently. Democrats want EVERYONE to have the right to CHOOSE for THEMSELVES. Until Republicans do that, I am Democrat ’till the day I die!
Heeelp! July 22nd, 2014 at 11:25
Saying that the “Conservatives” are morally superior to the “Liberals” is an oxymoron, and vice versa. When in the last hundred years of American history have we had an overabundance of obligately moral members in our political offices? Neither side has more than a child’s tiny handful of genuinely moral and fair people who consider the majority of the country in their policy making over the one-percenters that line their pockets. Do not have illusions folks, our government is woefully corrupt, and our populace is so kowtowed by their tricks that we will be lucky if we survive as a nation unless drastic measures are taken in the next few years. We need to clean house on the corruption, and allow those who actually care about our country’s future to be put in leadership — not just fancy speaking puppets for the corporations, and the rest of the one-percent. Take off your blinders and actually look at the people you are defending.
Prof B in LA July 21st, 2014 at 17:15
Conservative policy: Arm Saddam (Reagan). Support death squads in El Salvador (Reagan). Bolster dictators in Argentina (Nixon, Ford, Reagan). Arm the Ayatollah (Reagan). Fund terrorists in Nicaragua (Reagan). Run away from terrorists in Lebanon (Reagan). Invade countries on make-believe pretexts (Bush). Bankrupt the country with massive expansions of federal spending in the midst of a war coupled with massive tax cuts for the wealthiest, least patriotic 1% (Reagan, Bush). Expand Big Government (Reagan). Impose huge tariffs on imports (Hoover, Reagan, Bush). Fail to stop economic collapse (Hoover, Bush). Kowtow to Likud (Bush). Squander trillions on a make-believe missile defense system (Reagan, Bush). Whine about “liberty” while sticking your nose into the womb of every woman in America (entire Republican Party).
Liberal policy: Win World War II. Feed and rebuild Europe. The 40-hour work week. Women’s rights. Rights for racial minorities. Social justice. End pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thanks for the reminder, Chuckles.
Cliff Herring July 21st, 2014 at 21:14
I beg to differ! Liberal olicy as implemented by FDR got us OUT of the Depression BEFORE Pearl Harbor! Liberal policy as implemented By Bill Clinton got us out of the recession from St. Ronnie and left us with a balanced budget and a $200 Billion surplus that Dubya gave away!!! Show me WHERE,in the last 50 yrs.,where ANY Repugnican’t have ever drafted or passed a bill that actually HELPS ANY Minorities,let ALONE middle classers! YouCAN’T..because it doesn’t EXIST!
Jack Manchego July 22nd, 2014 at 10:56
Cherylln’s statement is not grammatically incorrect. She is simply defining what the adjective ‘conservative’ means. Using an adjective as a noun (in this case, the subject) is not incorrect. In fact, this type of ‘functional shift’ is commonly used in English and is part of what makes English a wonderful and dynamic language. In poetry, this literary device is called ‘anthimeria’. We can safely assume that Cherylln’s post was not intended as poetry; so, rather than call it ‘anthimeria’, let’s just simply say that she is using a ‘substantive adjective’. This is quite common and most of us will recognize its use in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the meek,” in which the adjectives ‘blessed’ and ‘meek’ are both used substantively.
In the context of the entire post (minus the ‘blah blah blah blah de blah’ part), we can take Cherllyn’s statement to be part of a larger construction, which is an example of isocolon parallelism (assuming the first two sentences were meant to be treated as an apposition and, indeed, were in direct opposition).
I do not know the author of this statement. I do not know if her intent was poetic, prosaic, ironic or otherwise. But, I do know grammar. If Cheryll’s intent was to amuse, as evinced by her flippant introduction, then perhaps she purposefully misused the grammar to provocative effect. This device, known as ‘enallage’, is also quite common and used by Shakespeare himself: “Is there not wars? Is there not employment?” (2nd Henry IV, I, ii).
Finally, Cherylln may simply have been efficient in her post and felt that a modicum of ‘eclipsis’ was warranted. Certainly, when I respond to wing-nut trolls, I generally write with economy, so as to not waste my time schooling conservatives on grammar. Thanks very much indeed.
Oh, as to the answer to your question, we have only to peruse history to find that true, human progress has been made possible when morally repugnant, conservative policies are replaced with enlightened, liberal policies (e.g., slavery with freedom).
tr60 July 22nd, 2014 at 18:21
Whoa, I tip my hat to the superior intellect!
Pehr Smith July 21st, 2014 at 18:30
It’s about James Garner, Sir. RIP.
You are a bore, See you in the funny papers.
BG July 31st, 2014 at 15:31
“you’re not in a constant state of warfare with reality, solid and sustainable policy choices, simple arithmetic, human nature and the majority of the American people and history.” ‘Majority of the American people’…unless you disagree with them , then it’s time to break out the voter fraud. I’m not a fan of the GOP either, but the smarminess in your post is nauseating.
stepjohn1 July 21st, 2014 at 10:13
Mr. Crawford makes an excellent point about staunch conservative Charlton Heston being at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement’s March on Washington. Conservatives desire all the positive things espoused by liberals, but through means that are Constitutional and sustainable. Genuine Conservatives abhor the vote-buying machinery that government spending has become. I admired and respected James Garner but he held the simplistic belief that being “liberal” made you morally superior since you were more advanced and your policies were based on kindness. I saw no depth in this article. Sadly, the very intelligent Mr. Garner sounds woefully simplistic as presented by this writer. The superior position of liberals is only legitimized if you ignore the damage done to society by misguided liberal entitlement polices, damage done to the economy and the dangerously naïve foreign policies that are the handmaiden of liberal thinking. Pick up a newspaper today and see the fruits of the latter. Liberal policies have only been successful at one thing: Making liberals feel good about the policies they support — a delusion enabled by ignoring all the empirical data about their shortcomings. This is why liberals live in a perpetual state of anger and confusion about why they have never been given absolute power in America. Oppose liberal concepts and you are dumb, mean, cheap, evil and not on the high moral pedestal of liberals. Of course, if you’re a conservative instead of a liberal, you’re not in a constant state of warfare with reality, solid and sustainable policy choices, simple arithmetic, human nature and the majority of the American people and history.
awileycoyote July 21st, 2014 at 12:10
Mr. Garner made his mark upon American society, and it will last a very long time.
You, Sir, remain a Troll and a Dick.
Cherylln July 22nd, 2014 at 11:15
Good one I actually chuckled. And the smile on my face remains. Thanks.
Prof B in LA July 21st, 2014 at 14:06
You’re right — when you’re a conservative you’re not in a constant state of warfare with reality. You just avoid reality. Ask Caribou Spice: she’s been in outer space her entire life.
stepjohn1 July 21st, 2014 at 14:28
I would hope that someday a liberal will respond to a detailed and intelligent posting with historical data, reasoned thought and adequate intellect to actually support his position — whatever that is besides trying to put someone down in a childish way. Snarky, junior high school behavior simply makes my case about liberal childishness more eloquently than I ever could.
Tammy Minton Haley July 21st, 2014 at 14:41
nobody CARES about your too-long, idiot posts…
stepjohn1 July 22nd, 2014 at 00:12
Tammy, you’ve hurt my feelings. I’m better now. Have you read any presidential histories lately? Have you read any economics lately? Are you familiar with the performance of the economy under presidential administrations in the postwar period? Try reading up on the “Chicago School” of economics and pay very close attention to the present world situation. Learn all you can and then send me a reasoned note if you want to convince me you’re a serious person and not another unhinged liberal. I think the word you were looking for is “idiotic” posts. I’m glad to be of help.
Cherylln July 22nd, 2014 at 11:14
Stepjohn1 aka GLenn Beck go read a book and pet your cat. We don’t want you here.
ShelleysLeg July 21st, 2014 at 15:05
WHY? It won’t do a thing to convince you, any more than your spouting off nonsense convinces any of us.
Boring, prosaic and predictable clap trap!
Prof B in LA July 21st, 2014 at 17:09
stepjohn1, conservatives don’t work with historical data. They twist historical events to suit their own twisted beliefs — like the make-believe conservative story of the make-believe founding of America as a make-believe Christian nation. Want evidence of that? At no point in your ridiculous, shopworn screed is there an actual claim, let alone data or facts. It’s nothing but AM radio assertions, mindlessly regurgitated in that special, short-bus way that conservatives have. Why don’t you go open your collection of Sarah Palin photographs and fap the rest of the day away? No one’s interested in what you have to say, trite, vague, meaningless as it is.
stepjohn1 July 22nd, 2014 at 00:09
You did it again. It’s another mindless, factless, hate-filled silly post. What’s Sarah Palin go to do with anything? Am I being given a pointless mind-tour of who Prof B in La hates? I’ll bet that’s a crowded gallery. Haven’t you read any history? Don’t you have any basis for what you think? The recent and very good “Eisenhower in War and Peace” is a good place to start for someone who knows nothing about conservatism and Republicans. I’m sorry, it’s not online. You will have to buy it.
Cherylln July 21st, 2014 at 14:14
blah blah blah blah de blah Liberal isn’t morally superior. Liberal is just regular every day moral. Conservative is morally repugnant.
stepjohn1 July 21st, 2014 at 14:27
Do you have any actual understanding of policy and what Conservatives have actually done in regard to human services? Of course you don’t. Look at your silly, vacuous response to answer that, which seems to be the bleating of a zombie liberal who’s been manipulated by the American left. Can I have an example of how your grammatically incorrect statement “Conservative is morally repugnant.” is true? If massive liberal programs such as the War On Poverty and The Great Society resulted in horrific damage to poor American families over the decades, how can you dare point a finger at Conservatives. Are you even aware of any of this? Of course not. You follow and you neither read nor lead. Read up on statements by liberal Democratic Senator and former UN ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan to understand where liberals have been repugnant as Conservatives attempted to find another path.
Cherylln July 21st, 2014 at 14:56
I made a typo, get over it.
Conservatives have no credibility with me. Conservatives say horrible things about legitimate rape, if a woman can have an abortion then men should be permitted to rape them, that the best abortion is a gun shot in the uterus. Conservatives continually attack Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security. Conservatives keep increasing the age of retirement like women and men in their fifties and sixties are not undesired untouchables in the work place. I have been hearing and not wanting to hear the fucking crap that comes out of their mouths that is so abusive and vile I cannot stand to hear anymore. You convinced me of NOTHING. GO beat up a small cat, you will undoubtedly feel better expressing your true feelings.
Conservatives only hurt people.
stepjohn1 July 22nd, 2014 at 00:21
For every nut in the Republican Party, I can find you TEN in the Democratic Party. Didn’t Nancy Pelosi say she wanted to take all the illegal alien children home to her San Francisco mansion the other day? Didn’t Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid commit slander two years ago when he falsely accused Mitt Romney of criminal avoidance of IRS tax law as a crude political tool to manipulate the gullible like yourself? I believe Democrat President Bill Clinton has actually been accused of rape by a former Arkansas nursing home official. I could go on and on, but you’re in the hate business and the ignoramus business and are looking for a reason to fulminate. The repulsive stuff coming out of your mouth is vulgar and disgusting, but you probably don’t hear yourself in your fomenting. Can you try and refrain from using the F word? It doesn’t make you sound like a serious thinker. As someone who has rescued 10 cats in the past 14 years, I find your last statement most revealing about your paucity of intellectual strength and your own pathetic state of mind. If you can’t compete intellectually with me, it’s because the bar is set so low on liberal blog sites and like most liberals you simply have a stroke when someone disagrees with you. Go and read the Daily Kos so you can be reassured that every false thing you believe is ” true.”
Cherylln July 22nd, 2014 at 11:11
Mr. Conservative… I laugh because you make all sorts of really really stupid assumptions about me because I am liberal and because my disgust with the conservatives has become so deep my emotions cannot be controlled. Actually I see no reason to control them around you. But on all statements about me you have been 100% projecting. You saved ten cats? OK, that’s nice but where do you stand on children, because children are the lynchpins for the future.. Raise more children as conservatives and the world is doomed. They need nurturing and education and loving guidance not cats. If you raise a child with a good education, they may find solutions to the fracking, coal ash, big oil destruction of our water and air and soil poisoning. Raise a cat and well you have an animal that eats, sleeps and scratches the furniture. And if the children educated with teachers leading the way the cat has a chance at life. Because water will be potable. Soil will be free of glycophosate. Water will be free of the coal ash and radiation poured into it by conservatives.
Your insults of me have no veracity but it is a certainty that you will continue to believe them because it makes you feel superior to me and absolves you of taking responsibility for trying to save the world before its end is inevitable.
If you love your cat, I would think you would want it to live without tumors and cancer.
jbdean July 22nd, 2014 at 11:19
Stick to what ea has done POLITICALLY. That is where the huge difference lies, as well as the proof of which party cares more for the people than the corporations. I was Republican since I first voted in the late 1970s until Bush’s second term. Then, after the failed WofMD was uncovered, I had my eyes opened and voted for President Obama both terms. I will NEVER go back to a party that doesn’t allow freedom for EVERY HUMAN. Who only wants THEIR rights to be given, despite how many other American’s rights are trampled on. When you have Freedom of Choice, YOU can choose to not have an abortion and that gives you the right to have the Choice to be Pro Life. When you take that right away, you deny others of THEIR freedom of choice. But Republicans don’t care. They want the country all their way and to hell with anyone who thinks differently. Democrats want EVERYONE to have the right to CHOOSE for THEMSELVES. Until Republicans do that, I am Democrat ’till the day I die!
Heeelp! July 22nd, 2014 at 11:25
Saying that the “Conservatives” are morally superior to the “Liberals” is an oxymoron, and vice versa. When in the last hundred years of American history have we had an overabundance of obligately moral members in our political offices? Neither side has more than a child’s tiny handful of genuinely moral and fair people who consider the majority of the country in their policy making over the one-percenters that line their pockets. Do not have illusions folks, our government is woefully corrupt, and our populace is so kowtowed by their tricks that we will be lucky if we survive as a nation unless drastic measures are taken in the next few years. We need to clean house on the corruption, and allow those who actually care about our country’s future to be put in leadership — not just fancy speaking puppets for the corporations, and the rest of the one-percent. Take off your blinders and actually look at the people you are defending.
Prof B in LA July 21st, 2014 at 17:15
Conservative policy: Arm Saddam (Reagan). Support death squads in El Salvador (Reagan). Bolster dictators in Argentina (Nixon, Ford, Reagan). Arm the Ayatollah (Reagan). Fund terrorists in Nicaragua (Reagan). Run away from terrorists in Lebanon (Reagan). Invade countries on make-believe pretexts (Bush). Bankrupt the country with massive expansions of federal spending in the midst of a war coupled with massive tax cuts for the wealthiest, least patriotic 1% (Reagan, Bush). Expand Big Government (Reagan). Impose huge tariffs on imports (Hoover, Reagan, Bush). Fail to stop economic collapse (Hoover, Bush). Kowtow to Likud (Bush). Squander trillions on a make-believe missile defense system (Reagan, Bush). Whine about “liberty” while sticking your nose into the womb of every woman in America (entire Republican Party).
Liberal policy: Win World War II. Feed and rebuild Europe. The 40-hour work week. Women’s rights. Rights for racial minorities. Social justice. End pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thanks for the reminder, Chuckles.
Cliff Herring July 21st, 2014 at 21:14
I beg to differ! Liberal olicy as implemented by FDR got us OUT of the Depression BEFORE Pearl Harbor! Liberal policy as implemented By Bill Clinton got us out of the recession from St. Ronnie and left us with a balanced budget and a $200 Billion surplus that Dubya gave away!!! Show me WHERE,in the last 50 yrs.,where ANY Repugnican’t have ever drafted or passed a bill that actually HELPS ANY Minorities,let ALONE middle classers! YouCAN’T..because it doesn’t EXIST!
Jack Manchego July 22nd, 2014 at 10:56
Cherylln’s statement is not grammatically incorrect. She is simply defining what the adjective ‘conservative’ means. Using an adjective as a noun (in this case, the subject) is not incorrect. In fact, this type of ‘functional shift’ is commonly used in English and is part of what makes English a wonderful and dynamic language. In poetry, this literary device is called ‘anthimeria’. We can safely assume that Cherylln’s post was not intended as poetry; so, rather than call it ‘anthimeria’, let’s just simply say that she is using a ‘substantive adjective’. This is quite common and most of us will recognize its use in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the meek,” in which the adjectives ‘blessed’ and ‘meek’ are both used substantively.
In the context of the entire post (minus the ‘blah blah blah blah de blah’ part), we can take Cherllyn’s statement to be part of a larger construction, which is an example of ‘isocolon parallelism’ (assuming the first two sentences were meant to be treated as an apposition and, indeed, were in direct opposition).
I do not know the author of this statement. I do not know if her intent was poetic, prosaic, ironic or otherwise. But, I do know grammar. If Cheryll’s intent was to amuse, as evinced by her flippant introduction, then perhaps she purposefully misused the grammar to provocative effect. This device, known as ‘enallage’, is also quite common and used by Shakespeare himself: “Is there not wars? Is there not employment?” (2nd Henry IV, I, ii).
Finally, Cherylln may simply have been efficient in her post and felt that a modicum of ‘eclipsis’ was warranted. Certainly, when I respond to wing-nut trolls, I generally write with economy, so as not to waste my time schooling conservatives on grammar. Thanks very much indeed.
Oh, as to the answer to your question, we have only to peruse history to find that true, human progress has been made possible when morally repugnant, conservative policies are replaced with enlightened, liberal policies (e.g., slavery with freedom).
tr60 July 22nd, 2014 at 18:21
Whoa, I tip my hat to the superior intellect!
Pehr Smith July 21st, 2014 at 18:30
It’s about James Garner, Sir. RIP.
You are a bore, See you in the funny papers.
BG July 31st, 2014 at 15:31
“you’re not in a constant state of warfare with reality, solid and sustainable policy choices, simple arithmetic, human nature and the majority of the American people and history.” ‘Majority of the American people’…unless you disagree with them , then it’s time to break out the voter fraud. I’m not a fan of the GOP either, but the smarminess in your post is nauseating.
Tammy Minton Haley July 21st, 2014 at 14:05
…i love that James Garner sued the McCain/Palin campaign over the use of the term “maverick”…
hehehe…
Prof B in LA July 21st, 2014 at 14:05
Actually he says in his memoir that he never really did that, it was just an urban legend. But, he says, he wished he had!
Tammy Minton Haley July 21st, 2014 at 14:11
…it’s a good legend…i vote we let it be…
Anomaly 100 July 21st, 2014 at 15:46
I’m down with that.
Tammy Minton Haley July 22nd, 2014 at 01:21
i had just re-read the story a few days ago in a HuffPo archive–i did wonder why that factoid had not been included in the couple of obits i’d read… :)
now i know!
Tammy Minton Haley July 21st, 2014 at 14:05
…i love that James Garner sued the McCain/Palin campaign over the use of the term “maverick”…
hehehe…
Prof B in LA July 21st, 2014 at 14:05
Actually he says in his memoir that he never really did that, it was just an urban legend. But, he says, he wished he had!
Tammy Minton Haley July 21st, 2014 at 14:11
…it’s a good legend…i vote we let it be…
Anomaly 100 July 21st, 2014 at 15:46
I’m down with that.
Tammy Minton Haley July 22nd, 2014 at 01:21
i had just re-read the story a few days ago in a HuffPo archive–i did wonder why that factoid had not been included in the couple of obits i’d read… :)
now i know!
m2old4bs July 21st, 2014 at 17:29
Thanks Russell. Nice post.
m2old4bs July 21st, 2014 at 17:29
Thanks Russell. Nice post.
JamesMMartin July 21st, 2014 at 19:32
He really was a liberal. He smoked weed, too.
JamesMMartin July 21st, 2014 at 19:32
He really was a liberal. He smoked weed, too.
Sunka July 21st, 2014 at 22:44
James is a great soul! Bless his eternal journey. Gratitude for what he gave to earth.;
Sunka July 21st, 2014 at 22:44
James is a great soul! Bless his eternal journey. Gratitude for what he gave to earth.;
Cherylln July 22nd, 2014 at 11:15
Good one I actually chuckled. And the smile on my face remains. Thanks.
Joel Ian July 22nd, 2014 at 20:42
Amen!!
Joel Ian July 22nd, 2014 at 20:42
Amen!!
LAguy323 July 22nd, 2014 at 22:37
Excellent article. Thank you!