Arizona Mentality vs Democracy
Richard Blankenburg
April 11, 2009
Arizona State University has invited America´s new President Barack Obama to be the speaker of their commencement, however, the University determined that they would not confer the customary honorary doctorate on President Obama because of ´his lack of experience´; it is an obvious affront to the President and humiliating.
I am not an alumnus of Arizona State University but I am an alumnus of ASU´s rival school, the University of Arizona, earned Ed. D. 1966. When I read of ASU belittling the Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, by inviting him to commencement but denying him a customary honorary doctorate for ´lack of experience´, I was hardly surprised because of a traumatic experience I had at U of A.
On November 22, 1963, I was attending the U of A and ironically I was in a Constitutional Law class when President John Kennedy was assassinated. Not being aware of the situation, when I left the class and found Law School students in the hall cheering and laughing; I was dumbfounded and asked what had happened. "Kennedy has been assassinated!" was the gleeful answer.
It was a shocking, disgusting, and frightening experience. At the time it was too scary to be embarrassed for the students and the University. My reaction was to race to my car, drive to my daughter´s first grade class to make sure she was safe. That was my first experience at what I believed to be a bloody revolution. I never forgot it. The experience is set in my mind as the ´Arizona mentality´.
The President of the U of A respectfully called an assembly the next day to memorialize the memory of the slain President Kennedy; I was one of the few attending and there was an abundance of empty seats.
Since then I have experienced the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy, and lived through the Administration of George W. Bush and I have become calloused to the behavior, violence, and hate of the forces of fascism in the United States. However, I still find it a threat and offensive when I hear of the abusive and hateful remarks about President Obama by Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O´Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh; to me, it is a real and continuing threat to my American democratic Republic.
The episode of the Arizona State University insult to President Obama, is just another example of the Arizona mentality and a tiny part of the larger and serious fascist threat to American democracy.
I am not an alumnus of Arizona State University but I am an alumnus of ASU´s rival school, the University of Arizona, earned Ed. D. 1966. When I read of ASU belittling the Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, by inviting him to commencement but denying him a customary honorary doctorate for ´lack of experience´, I was hardly surprised because of a traumatic experience I had at U of A.
On November 22, 1963, I was attending the U of A and ironically I was in a Constitutional Law class when President John Kennedy was assassinated. Not being aware of the situation, when I left the class and found Law School students in the hall cheering and laughing; I was dumbfounded and asked what had happened. "Kennedy has been assassinated!" was the gleeful answer.
It was a shocking, disgusting, and frightening experience. At the time it was too scary to be embarrassed for the students and the University. My reaction was to race to my car, drive to my daughter´s first grade class to make sure she was safe. That was my first experience at what I believed to be a bloody revolution. I never forgot it. The experience is set in my mind as the ´Arizona mentality´.
The President of the U of A respectfully called an assembly the next day to memorialize the memory of the slain President Kennedy; I was one of the few attending and there was an abundance of empty seats.
Since then I have experienced the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy, and lived through the Administration of George W. Bush and I have become calloused to the behavior, violence, and hate of the forces of fascism in the United States. However, I still find it a threat and offensive when I hear of the abusive and hateful remarks about President Obama by Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O´Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh; to me, it is a real and continuing threat to my American democratic Republic.
The episode of the Arizona State University insult to President Obama, is just another example of the Arizona mentality and a tiny part of the larger and serious fascist threat to American democracy.
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