Category: Politics

We’ve opened up night schools to educate the adult illiterate. We have paved the highways. … We have built a new capitol. We have taken the insane out of the jail cells and placed them in modern institutions. We have eliminated barbarism. … And now, the corporate element of this state … who profited by, who ransacked this state … are being told what they can do, what they can’t do, what they will pay, what they can’t keep from paying for the welfare of the people of Louisiana and we expect to have this state ruled by the people and not by the lords and the interests of high finance.

It was almost exactly seventeen years ago that the first issue of Plant’s Review of Books appeared, just before the 1992 presidential election. Apart from publishing and editing the review, my major contribution to that issue was one of a pair of articles on political biographies I titled “Back By Populist Demand”. One was the then-new Truman by David McCullough. My review was of T. Harry Williams’s 1972 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Huey Long (which had been my father’s until I kifed it from his shelf), which has moved down a few positions over the years but is still the fifteenth item in a Google search of “huey long”.

Long, of course, was the Senator (and former Governor) from Louisiana who came to power in the state before the Depression but who made his name as a populist anti-corporate crusader. Needless to say, he was also labeled an American fascist (and/or communist), a demagogue, and the most dangerous threat to democracy in the United States before he was assassinated in the capitol building in Baton Rouge in September 1935. Regular readers know I post his Share Our Wealth economic plan as a tribute on the anniversary of his death; Florida Representative Alan Grayson invoked him on Bill Maher’s show last month: “You gotta put some jam on the bottom shelf where the little man can reach it”. My review was written during the recession that cost George H.W. Bush his chance at a second term; I ended with these words: “Populist campaigns are a barometer of how difficult the times are, and if you think things are bad now, wait until you hear a politician comparing himself (or herself) to Huey Long.”

This segment of Williams’s biography (pp. 561-563) is from the spring of 1932, when Long proposed a Share Our Wealth resolution and clashed with Sen. Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas — leader of the Democrats in the Senate from 1923 to 1937, vice presidential candidate in 1928, and majority leader from 1933 on. The debate sounds so familiar, despite being more than 75 years old.

The Democrats had a majority in the House and with the progressives controlled the Senate, he [Long] said, and this might be their last chance to do something to redistribute wealth, for the Republicans could well win in the November election. “All we can do is to get what we have now,” he cried. But the Democratic leadership, dominated by the same big banking interests that ruled the Republicans, was afraid to offend the rich. … He threatened that if the Democrats nominated a presidential candidate advocating the ideas of Robinson, he would vote for a Farmer-Labor candidate or a Republican candidate, if either of them stood for cutting down swollen fortunes “as God Almighty demanded and ordained.” Then came his clincher, his formal repudiation of Robinson’s leadership: “I send to the desk, Mr. President, my resignation from every committee…that has been given to me by the Democratic leadershup since I have been here.”

…

He [Long] exhibited to his colleagues a cartoon in color on the front page [of the Chicago Tribune] depicting Robinson carrying an American flag and Huey Long, “new Senate radical,” carrying a red flag. Affecting a tone of injured indignation, he complained that the cartoon did not do justice to his friend, the great minority leader. For one thing, it did not show any stars on the flag he was bearing.

But, Huey announced dramatically, he would supply the stars himself, forty-three of them, stars that should be in a flag carried by Joe Robinson. He then produced the legal directory of Little Rock, Robinson’s home town, and read off the names of the clients of Robinson’s law firm, forty-three corporations—oil, utility, and chain-store companies—some of them among the largest corporations in the South and the country. If he accepted the leadership of Robinson, he cried, he would be following the lead of a corporation attorney. “It may, Mr. President, be communism for me not to accept that as being a proper sphere and location for my activities,” he said sarcastically. He had never bowed to the will of the corporations, he shouted, and he was not going to bow to these interests in the Senate of the United States. If the leadership wanted to discipline him, let them try it. “The only way they can read me out of the Democratic party is to beat me down in the state of Louisiana,” he roared, “and that has been tried one or two times and can be tried again whenever they see fit.”

Abruptly dropping Robinson as though disdaining to give him any more attention, he charged that the Democratic and Republican parties were both controlled by two big New York bankers. Bernard M. Baruch was running the Democrats, even though he was “the twin-bed mate of Hooverism,” and Eugene Meyer, recently appointed to head the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, was running the Republicans. Thus Hooverism controlled the Senate, “spouting through the two foghorns, Baruch on the one hand and Meyer on the other, Robinson on the left and somebody else on the right.” Why, he said, the Republicans and Democrats reminded him of the patent medicines he had known in his salesman days: there was no more difference between them than between “high popalorum” and “low popahirum.”

At one stage in his remarks Huey was forced to take his seat when a senator complained that he was violating the rule not to reflect on another member: he was implying that Robinson’s corporate connection had influenced his votes. Allowed to continue but cautioned to observe the rule, he jumped up and said impudently: “I want now to disclaim that I have the slightest motive of saying, or that in my heart I believe, that any man could to the slightest degree be influenced in any vote which he casts in this body by the fact that association might mean hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars in the way of lucrative fees.” The Senate could not restrain an appreciative laugh.

Robinson had not been present when Huey began his speech. He came in later and sat by his desk, his face red with anger. But he made no attempt to reply. Significantly, no Democratic senator rose to defend him. The Democratic liberals were delighted with Huey’s attack. None of them had known of Robinson’s corporate clients because none of them had taken the trouble to dig up the facts. The Democratic conservatives, in an election year, hesitated to range themselves on the side of a man who had been exposed as a corporation attorney. The only senator who tried to defend Robinson was a Republican, David A. Reed of Pennsylvania, one of the most conservative members of the body.

…

Huey’s votes on other amendments to the revenue bill should have interested those commentators who had pegged him as a radical. Senators from various states offered amendments raising the tariff duties on various products coming into the country from abroad—oil and lumber, which were Louisiana products, and coal and copper. Huey voted for every increase and spoke at length in support of a pro-tariff policy. When other Democrats protested that high tariffs were contrary to Democratic tradition, he read from the record to demonstrate that the protesters had in the past voted to increase the duties on products produced in their own states. Walter George of Georgia cried angrily that the senator from Louisiana was “utterly lacking in the sensibilities which usually characterized the intercourse between men in this body.” Another senator, Millard Tydings of Maryland, said that Long had no concept of how courtesy was defined.

Barbara snagged us front-row center seats Saturday night.

Ringing on the telephone, pick it up and say

What’s a man to do with all the trouble ’round today?

Heard it takes a worried man to sing a worried song

Sing it now, but Lord, don’t let it all go on too long

Something in the air,

And it’s moving like a southbound train

Sun is going down,

And it seems like I’ll be the same

World keeps spinning ’round, people say there’s debt to pay

I don’t know––too busy with my life from day to day

But whosoever journeys up against that border line

The shadows of an ancient flame burn away in time

Hey,

I was down in Arkansas, working graveyard shift

Moving crates for exportation with a big forklift

Most were crackers, Coca-Cola, shoes and ceiling fans

Two were marked Top Secret, headed for Afghanistan

Something in the air,

And it’s moving like a southbound train

Sun is going down,

And it seems like I’ll be the same

See shadows on the sun, see a coming thundercloud

Nothing will persuade, but all will be allowed

And some will seek their god from a heaven in the sky

Defending their affliction with a holy alibi

Hey,

Ringing on the telephone, pick it up and say

What’s a man to do with all the trouble ’round today?

I’m calling up the president, ask him what he say

No answer, left a message, when he’s back from holiday

Something in the air,

And it’s moving like a southbound train

Sun is going down,

And it seems like I’ll be the same

Now the drums are pounding, hear them blowing on the horn

Two hands are on the hammer, and the fabric has been torn

Dam’s about to burst, floods are all around

No more water, little Sylvie, ’cause I think I’m gonna drown

Yeah,

Ringing on the telephone, pick it up and say

What’s a man to do with all the trouble ’round today?

Heard it takes a worried man to sing a worried song

Sing it now, but Lord, don’t make it all go on too long

All go on too long

Stan Ridgway, “Afghan/Forklift”, Snakebite: Blacktop Ballads & Fugitive Songs

On the left, former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Yuri Andropov. On the right, well you know who it is. Inspired by a comment on Facebook that the US foreign policy is now dictated from the Kremlin and my response “When was it not?”

As anyone who knows me is already aware of, I’m still waiting for my chance to either do well or flame out spectacularly on JEOPARDY! And while I wait, I get email from HQ about special events.

Your favorite celebrity contestants return to compete in the “Jeopardy! Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational!” Each month, three bright stars battle it out to raise funds for their special causes, with one million dollars serving as the grand prize. The first round of the star-studded competition begins this Thursday, September 17th with CNN host Wolf Blitzer, actress Dana Delany, and comedian Andy Richter.

The show’s doubtless already been taped, but I have absolutely no inside information apart from the fact that there’s no way in hell I would consider Wolf Blitzer a “bright star.” I don’t know enough about Delaney to gauge her intellectual chops, but just the law of averages says she’s gotta be smarter than Wolf. I didn’t watch Richter on Conan O’Brien’s old show, but based on what I saw in the sitcoms Andy Richter Controls the Universe and Andy Barker, P.I., my money’s on him for the win.

As ever, we remember the anniversary of the day Huey Long died with this quote from his autobiography, Every Man a King:

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE MADDENED FORTUNE HOLDERS AND THEIR
INFURIATED PUBLIC PRESS!

The increasing fury with which I have been and am to be, assailed by reason of the fight and growth of support for limiting the size of fortunes can only be explained by the madness which human nature attaches to the holders of accumulated wealth.

What I have proposed is:—

THE LONG PLAN

1. A capital levy tax on the property owned by any one person of 1% of all over $1,000,000 [dp: $14,275,000 in 2005 dollars]; 2% of all over $2,000,000 [$28,550,000] etc., until, when it reaches fortunes of over $100,000,000 [$1,427,500,000], the government takes all above that figure; which means a limit on the size of any one man’s fortune to something like $50,000,000 [$713,750,000]—the balance to go to the government to spread out in its work among all the people.

2. An inheritance tax which does not allow one man to make more than $1,000,000 [$14,275,000] in one year, exclusive of taxes, the balance to go to the United States for general work among the people.

The forgoing program means all taxes paid by the fortune holders at the top and none by the people at the bottom; the spreading of wealth among all the people and the breaking up of a system of Lords and Slaves in our economic life. It allows the millionaires to have, however, more than they can use for any luxury they can enjoy on earth. But, with such limits, all else can survive.

That the public press should regard my plan and effort as a calamity and me as a menace is no more than should be expected, gauged in the light of past events. According to Ridpath, the eminent historian:

“The ruling classes always possess the means of information and the processes by which it is distributed. The newspaper of modern times belongs to the upper man. The under man has no voice; or if, having a voice, his cry is lost like a shout in the desert. Capital, in the places of power, seizes upon the organs of public utterance, and howls the humble down the wind. Lying and misrepresentation are the natural weapons of those who maintain an existing vice and gather the usufruct of crime.”

—Ridpath’s History of the World, Page 410.

In 1932, the vote for my resolution showed possibly a half dozen other Senators back of it. It grew in the last Congress to nearly twenty Senators. Such growth through one other year will mean the success of a venture, the completion of everything I have undertaken,—the time when I can and will retire from the stress and fury of public life, maybe as my forties begin,—a contemplation so serene as to appear impossible.

That day will reflect credit on the States whose Senators took the early lead to spread the wealth of the land among all the people.

Then no tear dimmed eyes of a small child will be lifted into the saddened face of a father or mother unable to give it the necessities required by its soul and body for life; then the powerful will be rebuked in the sight of man for holding what they cannot consume, but which is craved to sustain humanity; the food of the land will feed, the raiment clothe, and the houses shelter all the people; the powerful will be elated by the well being of all, rather than through their greed.

Then those of us who have pursued that phantom of Jefferson, Jackson, Webster, Theodore Roosevelt and Bryan may hear wafted from their lips in Valhalla:

EVERY MAN A KING

On this date in 1935, US Senator and former Governor Huey P. Long was fatally wounded in a shooting at the Louisiana Capitol building. He died two days later.

The flooding of New Orleans from levee failure in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina nearly four years ago consumed my thoughts at the time, for weeks afterward, and from time to time ever since. In those first days I was incensed and I did an insane amount of reading, writing, and even research. In honor of the city and its people, as well as the others in the Gulf Coast and beyond who were affected by the storm and the morons in the Bush administration, I offer up most of the posts I wrote on the subject.

Memory of New Orleans

31 Aug 2005. Going to New Orleans the year before Katrina.

The City That Care Bush Forgot

31 Aug 2005. That damn photo.

FOXnews.com: Laziness or Something Else?

01 Sep 2005. Research is soooo difficult.

Who Coulda Thunk?

01 Sep 2005. It’s hard to deliver disaster relief in the middle of a disaster zone!

New Orleans Lockdown

01 Sep 2005. One of the first reports from the bridge.

Over Here (Now On FX)

02 Sep 2005. Re-imagining a TV series from one hellhole to another.

Poor, Picked-On Pentagon

02 Sep 2005. Whining from the Pentagon about their failure to move faster.

The Bad Bush Official/Bad Bush Strategy

02 Sep 2005. Reconciling the “people should have left” story with the “nobody anticipated a disaster” narrative.

Who Coulda Thunk 2?

02 Sep 2005. The weird coincidence of a hurricane and high water!

How Long Does It Take to Drive From Shreveport to New Orleans?

03 Sep 2005. The odd disparity between “prepared” and prepared.

Disaster Fatigue

03 Sep 2005. After spending three months chasing around Aruba for Natalee Holloway, it only took a week for the cable shows to start getting bored of New Orleans.

Continue to Think

03 Sep 2005. Treating people like they’re idiots with bootstraps. Continue to think!

Why Did the Convention Center Relief Take So Long?

04 Sep 2005. Not understanding how things were so bollixed up.

Who Coulda Thunk 3?

04 Sep 2005. Nobody could have predicted a threat!

Half-Staff or Half-Assed?

04 Sep 2005. For Immediate Release.

That Explains It

05 Sep 2005. The connection to failure.

Fear of a Black New Orleans

05 Sep 2005. The fear factor.

Photo from the Bayou

06 Sep 2005. Me and a gator.

Nagin on Race and Class

06 Sep 2005. For all his faults…Nagin on the way out of town.

The Hand That Feeds Jonah Goldberg

07 Sep 2005. NPR’s timing at picking JG as commentator was near-perfect.

Did the Proclamation Have to Be Requested, Too?

07 Sep 2005. Prying recognition out of Bush.

8 September 1935

08 Sep 2005. A review of a Huey Long bio on the date Long was fatally shot.

Six Days Before the Presidential Proclamation: Why it Matters

08 Sep 2005. Why’d it take six days to recognize the dead?

The Howler Pleasures Himself Daily

09 Sep 2005. Bending backward to give Bush the benefit of the doubt when news reports going back a year say otherwise.

New Orleans: The No-Fault Disaster? Naaah.

09 Sep 2005. Who knew what when.

Ignoblesse Unoblige

11 Sep 2005. Barbara Bush and her beautiful mind.

Feedback Loop

12 Sep 2005. Bad information will be free.

Bush vs. New Orleans

12 Sep 2005. George Bush doesn’t like black people.

Las Cucarachas

13 Sep 2005. aka “the residents of the city”.

The Plan Unfolds

13 Sep 2005. Oregon’s response.

Feedback Loop 2

14 Sep 2005. How New Orleans dodged the bullet.

Natalee vs. Katrina

21 Sep 2005. How much time MSNBC devoted to the “missing woman” story of the summer vs. New Orleans.

Letter to Dan Abrams, “The Abrams Report,” MSNBC

21 Sep 2005. Natalaee Holloway vs. New Orleans.

Sing Along With Georgie

22 Sep 2005. That other photo.

Ouroboros

27 Sep 2005. Asking impertinent questions.

New Orleanians Want to Go Home

08 Dec 2005. Rayh Broussard’s photos of his city..

Commemoration

27 Aug 2006. The Hurricane Katrina commemorative bowl.

Half-Staff or Half-Assed Redux

17 Apr 2007. The selective on-the-ballness of George W. Bush.

Postmark Katrina

30 Aug 2007. Down the memory hole by two years out.

What’s Important to John McCain

24 Apr 2008. John McCain on New Orleans. Or not.

From the LA Times article about how Joe Biden’s a player in the Administration despite his gaffes:

Some who’ve known Biden for years say he has picked up new habits. “Joe’s on the teleprompter a lot more than he was at the beginning,” Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell said.

Yet Biden is still valued in settings where he can be himself. It was no accident that Biden was invited to Obama’s “beer summit” last month to smooth over the arrest of Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

“If you said to me, who’s the person in the administration you’d most like to have a beer with, Joe Biden would be the guy most Americans would choose,” Rendell said.

Really?

Yeah, I’ll probably burn for participating in this…