[net-gold] Maggie Kuhn, Streaks of Fire in Her Gray

From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:38:36 -0400 (EDT)

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Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 06:55:36 -0400
From: Dwight Hines <dwight.hines@xxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Net-Gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: Net-Gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Net-Gold] Maggie Kuhn, Streaks of Fire in Her Gray

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Maggie Kuhn, Streaks of Fire in Her Gray

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Maggie Kuhn and the Gray Panthers

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On her 65th birthday, the Presbyterian
Church forced her to retire.
She banded together with other retirees
and formed the Gray Panthers Movement.
Seeing all issues of injustice as
inevitably linked, they refused to
relegate themselves to elder rights,
but focused also on peace, presidential
elections, poverty, and civil liberties.
Their first big issue was
opposition to the Vietnam War.

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After an elderly woman was killed and
robbed of $309 after cashing a check,
Kuhn enlisted the help of Ralph Nader
who set up a meeting with the
president of the First Pennsylvanian
Bank. The bank agreed to establish
special check-drawn savings accounts
for people over 65 free of charge and
make loans more accessible to older
people.

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The Gray Panthers' motto was "Age and
Youth In Action," and many of its
members were high school and college
students. Kuhn believed that teens
should be taken more seriously and
given more responsibility by society.
To her, this was but another example
of our fast-paced, exploitative culture
wasting vital human resources.

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The Gray Panthers also combated the
then-popular "disengagement theory,"
which argues that old age involves a
necessary separation from society as a
prelude to death. Kuhn implicated the
American lifestyle for treating the
old as problems of society and not
as persons experiencing the problems
created by society. And she accused
gerontologists of perpetuating the
illusion of old people as incapacitated,
noting that grant money only
seemed to fund such research. She
called into question the representation
of old people in popular media.

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Kuhn raised controversy by openly
discussing the sexuality of older people,
and shocked the public with her
assertion that older women, who outlive
men by an average of 8 years, could
develop sexual relationships with younger
men or each other.

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She also took a stance on Social
Security, arguing that politicians had
created an intergenerational war
over federal funds in order to divert
public attention from the real
budgetary issues: overspending on the
military and extravagant tax breaks
for the rich.

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Kuhn criticized housing schemes
for the elderly, calling them "glorified
playpens". While admitting that they
helped to keep seniors safe, she
contended that they also segregated
the elderly from mainstream society.
During her years as a Gray Panther
activist, she lived in her own home
in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. She shared that home
with younger adults, who received a
break on rent in exchange for their
help with chores and their
companionship. Kuhn founded the
Shared Housing Resources Center.[1]

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Kuhn wrote her autobiography,
*No Stone Unturned*, in 1991.
Four years later, she died of
cardiac arrest in Philadelphia
at the age of 89.

.From Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Kuhn

downloaded

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April 25, 2012, 7:30 A.M.

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[net-gold] Maggie Kuhn, Streaks of Fire in Her Gray

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