Lonzie Cox, Jr. – 9/19/04

This page was last updated on September 22, 2004.

‘History is lies agreed upon’; Lonzie Cox, Jr.; Beaver County Times; September 19, 2004. I am not related to Mr. Cox.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Most schoolchildren have returned to the classroom where their teachers may begin to reverse the miseducation [sic] they received from news media this summer.

“Points of miseducation: [sic]

“* Ronald Reagan was depicted as a great president when he was actually the worst since Herbert Hoover - until George W. Bush arrived. Reagan’s anti-labor, civil rights and government policies created the hateful attitudes in America today.”

[RWC] Poor Mr. Cox has it bad for President Reagan. Mr. Cox bashed Reagan in a June 2004 letter entitled “Reagan wasn’t that great.”

“* Vietnam was nearly presented as a noble cause against a worthy enemy. In reality, the Vietnam War was a terrible waste, just as Iraq will be. Kerry, Clinton, Bush and the 58,000 names on The Wall should not have been sacrificed like that. As John Kerry has said, ‘Who wants to die for a mistake?’”

[RWC] I don’t know if Mr. Cox knows this or not, but John Kerry, Bill Clinton, and President Bush were not “sacrificed like that” in Vietnam. They are alive and well.

While accusing American servicemen – including those in North Vietnam prison camps – in Vietnam of committing war crimes as standard operating procedure, what Kerry actually said was, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” Come on, Mr. Cox, get your quotes straight.

“* This summer, the media gave Bush what amounts to a scapegoat for his mindless invasion and occupation of Iraq. The media did this by letting the neoconservatives blame the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies for the invasion decision. No one could have stopped the neoconservatives from starting this stupid and dangerous war. The commander-in-chief (Bush) had the last word. He wanted his very own war, and now we can’t get out.”

[RWC] The media gave President Bush cover? Is Mr. Cox kidding? The press is doing its damnedest to help elect John Kerry. CBS even went so far as to use forged documents against President Bush.

I get a kick out of the folks who like to use “neoconservative.” I call them paleoliberals.

No one blamed the intelligence agencies for the decision to attack Iraq. President Bush has always taken full responsibility for his decision. Investigations showed some intelligence was faulty, but I haven’t heard anyone try to hide behind it.

Let us for a second say the press did give President Bush a scapegoat. If so, the press also gave John Kerry cover. When asked if he would still have voted for the Iraq War Resolution knowing what he knew in August 2004, John Kerry said, “Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have.”

“He wanted his very own war?” When I hear or read comments like this, I have to wonder how you develop such contempt for a person. Ignoring all the baseless claims of liberals who want their power back, what did President Bush do to deserve this contempt?

“* Some media stated that Elvis Presley ‘invented’ rock ‘n’ roll. That is a blatant lie that after years of repeating has started to be believed by the younger generations. Elvis himself gave credit to blues and R&B artists whom he imitated in his early years. This ignoring of the truth resulted in the Miller Brewing Co. apologizing for not including any black musicians in its Roots of Rock and Roll series. An oversight? This is how lies are accepted as truth.”

[RWC] For someone who doesn’t let the truth get in the way of his letters, Mr. Cox is concerned about a lie?

I guess I hang out with the wrong crowd. I never heard Elvis Presley invented rock ‘n’ roll.

Regarding the Miller gaffe, perhaps Miller believed whites were historically underrepresented in similar programs and employed affirmative action to increase white participation in the pursuit of diversity. <g>

“So study hard, students, to cleanse your minds of the summer’s miseducation. [sic] Dr. W.E.B. DuBois once said, ‘History is lies agreed upon.’ It shouldn’t be that way.”

[RWC] Mr. Cox just can’t seem to get his quotes right. In this case, he didn’t even get the attribution correct. It was Napoleon Bonaparte who said, “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” Mr. Cox would probably like to claim Napoleon stole the quote from DuBois, but Bonaparte died 47 years before DuBois was born.

And Mr. Cox writes about “miseducation?”