Alan Dershowitz challenge to debate Bill Bulger last week had me thinking.
What did Bill Bulger do to cause him to get canned as President of U. Mass?
Then I saw Yvonne Abraham’s homework she turned in to the Globe last Sunday.
Good I thought, now I can be reminded of all the bad.
Instead what I read made me more confused.
As ever, the biggest self-styled victim is Billy Bulger. He doesn’t bring up the coverage of his brother, or his pension. Instead, what he can’t forgive is the Globe’s coverage of school desegregation in the 1970s that he says tarred his hometown of South Boston. And he says the Globe ruined his reputation.
The Globe could not find a writer who was on Mars during busing. But they could find one who was on the other side o the world. Go get him Yvonne.
Empathy. That’s a big word lately. But empathy never mattered to the Globe and liberal elite while writing about white middle and lower class white/ethnic neighborhoods in Boston and the people who lived there.
Yvonne obviously has no empathy for tens of thousands of families asked to give up established roots and connections and tear down a major hub of the community.
Bill Bulger stood in front of crazed young people outside Southie High. For every kid with a rock there were thousands of Southie residents embarrassed but also mad as hell at what the government did.
The expected violence of course was just what the doctor ordered for the Globe and the liberal elite. Anyone against busing was a violent racist. Boston got an undeserved reputation.
It wasn’t just Southie either. But it was perfect for the Globe to make ground zero. East Boston, Hyde Park, Charlestown and other places had problems. The Italian neighborhoods went ape shit too.
What would happen if Burlington, Weymouth, Hudson, Weston, Dedham and other towns were forced to bus their kids to other schools around metro Boston?
Hmmm. I guess it would take some empathy to figure it out.
Yet Yvonne wants us to believe that Bulger doesn’t care about busing. It’s all about his rat fink brother.
Hmmmmmm.
Why did Steve Lynch refuse to sign a letter trying to save the Globe?
What did his brother do?
But back to my original question.
What was it again that Bulger did to get fired from U Mass?
jimc says
It’s been a while since I’ve been there, so it may be better now, but its reputation was well-earned.
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cannoneo says
Racism was and is a problem in Southie no doubt, but that never justified the collective punishment of busing.
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p>Ernie makes a great point about the suburbs. I’ve never understood how liberals on this issue can so thoughtlessly use municipal boundaries as the basis for absolutist moral claims.
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p>Local control of schools is where segregation happens. It’s only gotten worse.
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p> This was well known in the 70s too!
southshorepragmatist says
This is what got him fired…
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p>Generally speaking, when you’re the president of the state university system and you have contact with a wanted fugitive and are unhelpful with the FBI…it’s not a career booster.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
HMMM,
I would never talk to the FBI. Especially if the I was a prize potential indictment.
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p>Do you know it is a federal offense to give false information to a fed. So if they don’t like you and you tell them somethin g happened at 3:00 but it really happened at 3:10 they can go out of their way and indict you.
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p>Did he help heis brother?
somervilletom says
You wrote:
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p>I guess that’s why you’re not the president of the state university system, right? đŸ™‚
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p>Whether we are for or against Mr. Bulger’s politics (or political history), his firing was absolutely the right thing to do.