Walter F. Brown

Attorney at Law

16 Monticello Drive

Lake Oswego, OR  97035-1416

Office and Fax 503-636-4150  

Cell 503-490-4551

walterfbrown@gmail.com

July 7, 2008

Jeffrey B. Billman, Billy Manes and Deanna Morey

Orlando Weekly

100 W. Livingston Street, Orlando, FL, 32801
Phone: (407) 377-0400
Fax: (407) 377-0420

Dear Happytown column writers,

One upside of a free press is that it can help us become better informed citizens.  That assumes, of course, journalist integrity.  The following from your June 3, 2008 issue is journalism at it’s most irresponsible.

During the 2004 presidential campaign I was the Socialist Party’s presidential candidate.   Relatively few people today are so uneducated as to confuse Russian-style communism with democratic socialism. 

I beg to differ when you say, “Want to revive a government system that’s failed everywhere it’s been tried?”  There are many governments today with active socialist party leadership, to name a few:  Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Coincidentally it was a democratic socialist, A. Phillip Randolph, a native of Crescent City, Florida, who became the leader of the modern civil rights movement.  Randolph ran for public office as a Socialist, was honorary co-chair of the Socialist Party USA and was a lifelong but responsible foe of communism.  In 1964 President Johnson awarded Randolph the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Enclosed is a four page summary of Randolph’s life should you care to educate yourself on a great American socialist.

When you redbait a democratic socialist like Brian Moore you are also redbaiting democratic socialists like Jack London, Susan B. Anthony, Eugene V. Debs, Rev. Norman Thomas, Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Milwaukee mayor Frank Zeidler, and Gro Harlem Brundtland, MD (prime minister of Norway (1990-96) and later Director General of the World Health Organization).

I sincerely hope that you can clean up your act.

Walter F. Brown

Commander Judge Advocate General’s Corps, U.S. Navy (Ret.)(1944-71)

     (World War ll, Korea, Vietnam)

Oregon State Senator (Ret.) (1975-87)

Assoc. Professor of Law, Lewis and Clark Law School (1971-1980)

Member NAACP (1949-present)

Life Member, Sierra Club (1957-present)

Volunteer Attorney Consumer Justice Alliance

General Counsel Oregon Consumer League

Encl. (1)

CC      Brian P. Moore

          5559 Cactus Circle

          Spring Hill, FL  34606