The More Things Change, etc.

I've been going over some of the remarkable Town Hall Los Angeles files, and was struck by how the same issues come up over and over and over and over and over. Here are a few, the latest from a speech 30 years ago - and I'll update with more current ones in the next post. I think you will chuckle as I did. Jon Goodman, President

“When we find a people spending more on old age pensions than in educating our youth, we have a civilization that is bankrupt."
Dr. Fredric P. Woellner
Professor of Education
UCLA
October 28, 1940

“The effectiveness of the weapons of the future may depend upon the new insights and the new advances we make in fundamental science today and tomorrow.”
Dr. James R. Killian, Jr.
President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
January 16, 1950

“Before you can have a world government, you have to have not only practical common interests, but also a common sense of right and wrong and a common sense of justice.”
His Excellency Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
United States Delegate to the United Nations
July 14, 1953

“Advertising does have moral standards. Its professional people respect and adhere to these standards, and therefore fulfill advertising’s obligations to educate the American public on a decent cultural level and to communicate worthy ideas in an honest and intelligent manner.”
Robert F. Carney
Chairman of the Board
Foote, Cone, and Belding
March 5, 1957

“It is interesting to note that the one other country in which there is as much preoccupation with family life is the Soviet Union.”
Margaret Mead
Anthropologist, Author, Lecturer
March 26, 1957

“Today the President of the United States must be responsible for the peace and security of the whole free world whether he likes it or not.”
Harry S. Truman
Former President of the United States
April 7, 1959

“I tell you that in my opinion the man who will not be nominated for President on the Democratic ticket is the man who will divide the country on race, religion, or foreign policy.”
Harry S. Truman
Former President of the United States
April 7, 1959

“Good institutions are no guarantee of good government.”
The Honorable Richard M. Nixon
Vice President of the United States, 1953-1960
April 24, 1962

“To complicate the problem and compound the challenge, California also labors under one of the nation’s most archaic constitutional systems – and this is a barrier to growth and progress in every other field.”
The Honorable Richard M. Nixon
Vice President of the United States, 1953-1960
April 24, 1962

“Europeans have dreamed of unity for a long time, but these dreams have always remained just that.”
John Scott
Special Correspondent
TIME Magazine
March 24, 1964

“American youth is sold on the “Do your own thing” philosophy.”
The Honorable Edward M. Davis
Chief, Los Angeles Police Department
December 16, 1969

“If all new-born infants could grow up to be totally law-abiding citizens, it still would take 15 years to see any visible reduction in crime.”
The Honorable Edward M. Davis
Chief, Los Angeles Police Department
December 16, 1969

“At 31, the younger generation says I no longer can be trusted. The older generation thinks I am a hippie in a Brooks Brothers suit.”
Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
Attorney, Tuttle & Taylor
Trustee, Los Angeles Community College District
February 10, 1970

“Frederick Jackson Turner, the historian, described the American frontier as our country’s ‘safety valve.’ California was our last frontier. Now it offers traffic jams, smog and high taxes.”
Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
Attorney, Tuttle & Taylor
Trustee, Los Angeles Community College District
February 10, 1970

“It’s obvious that the sea is our planet’s life blood.”
Jean-Michel Cousteau
President, Living Sea Corporation
May 26, 1970

“Just as we need a new method for reapportioning legislative districts, we need a new method for financing political campaigns.”
Robert Abernathy
KNBC News Correspondent
January 21, 1972

“Nearly everyone with any kind of identification with the Democratic Party, and some without, has decided this year that he ought to become the next Chief Executive of the US.”
Tom Brokaw
KNBC Anchorman
January 21, 1972

“No matter how much Israelis may travel in Europe or in the United States, they now realize that their fate will be decided in the Middle East.”
Dr. Rita R. Rogers
Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA
Chief, Division of Child Psychiatry, Harbor General Hospital
September 19, 1974

“In order to create a realistic health plan we must realize that financing alone is not the answer. The real challenge is to establish a system of accountabilities. We must ask ourselves, to whom is our health care system really accountable?”
William A. Guy
President
Blue Cross of Southern California
February 27, 1975

“The irresponsibility of the ERA would mar, cloud, or destroy a whole block of established law. Laws like the homosexual law or our military draft laws.”
Rita Miller
Researcher, California “STOP THE E.R.A”
July 6, 1976

“Those who oppose ERA want freedom from responsibility. Those who favor it want freedom for responsibility.”
Gloria Allred
Legal & Legislative Chairperson,
National Women’s Political Caucus – L.A.
July 6, 1976

“Do we really have to destroy tomorrow in order to live today?”
Gaylord Nelson,
Chairman
The Wilderness Society
Former U.S. Senator, Wisconsin
September 10, 1981