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Banned
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Originally Posted by dc_dux
host...I really dont know what you are looking for.
I think Obama balances his progressive agenda with the reality of politics today. Its ridiculous to make comparisons to Woodrow Wilson.
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_dux, take away effortless home price appreciation, cheap gasoline, and the ability to zip over, in a new SUV, to the suburban shopping mall to charge that gasoline and those shopping trip purchases on a plastic card with a credit balance, along with the loan payments on that SUV, rolled over to zero, time after time with "cash out refis".....then take away that "cashed out" home in a foreclosure, and it won't be long until many identify with this description:
Quote:
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5107
“Huey Long Is a Superman”: Gerald L. K. Smith Defends the Kingfish
Nine years ago, Louisiana was a feudal state. Until that time it was ruled by the feudal lords in New Orleans and on the big plantations: the cotton kings, lumber kings, rice kings, oil kings, sugar kings, molasses kings banana kings, etc. The state was just a “mainland” of the territory. The common people in New Orleans were ruled, domineered over and bulldozed by a political organization known as the Old Regulars. The great mass of people in the city and the country worked like slaves or else lived in an isolation that excluded opportunity. Labor unions were very weak and the assembly or workers was prohibited in most industrial center. It was not uncommon for labor organizers to be beaten or assassinated.
The great corporations ruled the state and pushed the tax burden onto the poor. The Chambers of Commerce spent money in the North urging industry to come South for cheap labor. Illiteracy was as common as peonage. The commissary plan was in force in mills and on plantations; it kept the workers from receiving cash and left them always in debt to the employer. The highway system was a series of muddy lanes with antique ferries and narrow bridges with high toll charges. Great forests sold for a dollar an acre, to be “slaughtered” and removed with nothing left to enrich the lives of stranded cut-over population. Families north of New Orleans were forced to pay an $8 toll to cross Lake Pontchartrain into New Orleans and return.
Of course, we had our grand and glorious aristocracy, plantation mansions, the annual Mardi Gras festival, horse races, and those staunch defenders of the old South, the newspapers. Of course, the old Louisiana aristocracy, with its lords, dukes and duchesses, had to be preserved, regardless of what happened to the people. State institutions constituted a disgrace. The insane were strapped, put into stocks and beaten. The penitentiary was an abyss of misery, hunger and graft. The State University had 1,500 students with a "C" rating. Most of the young people were too poor to attend Tulane, the only big university in the state. Ten thousand aristocrats ruled the state while 2,000,000 common people wallowed in slavery with no representation in the affairs of the state. Half of the children were not in school. Great sections of the adult population could not read or write. Little consideration was given to Negro education. Professional training was available only to the sons of the privileged.
Huey Long grew up in the pine woods of Winn Parish. He had witnessed the sale of trees worth $10 each for $1 an acre. He was sensitive to injustice. He knew the difficulty of receiving a higher education. He seemed to have an intuitive appreciation of ideal social conditions. At the age of twenty, his Share the Wealth ideal was fixed in his mind. Shortly after, he announced his ambition to become Governor. He was ridiculed, patronized and pitied. True enough he was a mustang—rough, wild, vigorous, and at the same time mysteriously intelligent. At thirty, he was the best lawyer in Louisiana. He had the surface manners of a demagogue, but the depth of a statesman. This dual nature accounts for many of his victories. He wins like a demagogue and delivers like a statesman. His capacity for work was unlimited. He waded through mud, drove along dusty highways and soon became the poor man’s best friend. After fifteen hours of hard work, he could recover completely with three hours of sleep. He recognized the value of entertainment in leading these sad, enslaved people out of bondage. He is Louisiana’s greatest humorist. It was his wedge, but behind that wedge was a deep sympathy and a tender understanding of the needs of his people.
In 1928 he was elected Governor. He had promised many things that even his staunchest admirers questioned his ability to deliver. He moved to Baton Rouge, tore down the old Governor’s mansion, built a new one, built a new capitol, built new university buildings, refused to entertain socially, attended no banquets, snubbed the elite and opened the mansion to the muddy feet of his comrades. He offended the sensibilities of the tender sons and daughters of privilege. He whipped bankers into line, he struck blow after blow at peonage, he gave orders to the Standard Oil Company, the bank trust and the feudal lords. Society matrons, lottery kings, gamblers, exclusive clubs and—not to be forgotten—leading clergymen with sensitive flocks joined hands to impeach this “wild,” "horrible,“ "terrible,” "bad" man. The war was on. Impeachment proceedings failed. State senators, representatives and appointees began to obey like humble servants—not in fear but quite as anxious parents obey a great physician who prescribes for a sick child. He was recognized by friend and foe as the smartest man in Louisiana.
Severance taxes were levied on oil, gas, lumber and other natural resources, which made possible free schoolbooks for all children, black and white, rich and poor, in public and private schools. Telephone rates were cut, gas rates were cut, electric rates were cut; night schools were opened up and 149,000 adults were taught to read and write. Then came free ferries, new free bridges, 5,000 miles of paved and improved roads (six years ago, we had only seventeen miles of pavement in Louisiana); a free medical school was built, as fine as any in the country. Free school buses were introduced the assembly of workers for organization was guaranteed, new advantages were created for the deaf, the blind, the widows, the orphans and the insane, the penitentiary was modernized, traveling libraries were introduced and improved highways were forced through impassable swamps. Recently poll taxes were abolished, giving the franchise to 300,000 who had never voted. Legislation has been passed, removing all small homes and farms from the tax roll. This means that 95 percent of the Negro population will be tax free. This transfers the tax burden from the worker to those who profit by his labor.
This was not easy to accomplish. Numerous attempts have been made to assassinate Huey Long, vigorous plots have been made to assassinate his character. These plotters have at all times enjoyed the cooperation of the Louisiana newspapers. We who hold mass meetings in the interest of our movement are threatened, guns are drawn on us and every conceivable hazard is put in our way by hirelings. Prior to the last legislature, when word was received that the tax burden was to be completely shifted from the little man to the big man, the newspapers actually appealed to and encouraged violence. They prompted mass meetings in the state capital and encouraged armed men to come to Baton Rouge, and expressed the implied hope that Huey Long would be killed. Although these meetings had the support of the combined press of the state, they fell flat in the presence of the sincerity of Governor [Oscar K.] Allen and Senator Long. The moratorium bill protected homes and farms and personal property against sheriff sales.
In the midst of all this, Huey Long was elected to the United States Senate, and began to preach in Washington what he had been practicing in Louisiana. He made the first real speech and introduced the first real bill for the actual redistribution of wealth.....
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Huey Long was an SOB. and he did the things described above, during the economic status quo that fostered the economic and power distribution described above.
The people trying to maintain and defend the status quo are big SOBs, too, and there are lots of them, with lots of lawyers, compared to a Huey Long. They also have the option of killing the political irritant.
"Nice", pragmatic, and "compromising", get you crumbs, dc_dux, because it's all about giving away only the appearance of compromise, not the substance. Obama is the appearance....Nader gave a "people's" answer to the Bear Stearns bailout question, Obama gave the status quo, at the expense of the people, answer.
Maybe if you could comprehend how bad it's going to get for lots and lots of formerly middle class Americans, and how quickly it will happen, you could better see what I want. Most have the bulk of their non-liquid assets in their home values, and in retirement funds. The wealthiest have only a small percentage trapped in those holdings.....the inequity in wealth distribution is going to get much worse.....and there is no left of center political element to counter the Obama "center" window dressing.....none!
There was in the 1930's....yet even then, those at the top were able to stuff the investigative revelations of the Temporary Committee, back in the box, information sealed for the rest of the century......
They concede crumbs, _dux, but you see it as "progress".
Quote:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/...,7769096.story
From the Chicago Tribune
Bailout of Wall Street firm shocks markets
Federal Reserve forced to save company squeezed by mortgage securities
By William Sluis, Tribune reporter Tribune reporters David Greising and Becky Yerak contributed to this report
March 15, 2008
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune's editorial board Friday, Sen. Barack Obama said he was generally wary of government intervention to bail out struggling institutions, such as the Fed's move, but said exceptions can be made in an effort to prevent "a cascading decline in credit markets."
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Quote:
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader04052008.html
How Taxpayers Can Fight Back
Runaway Bailouts
Weekend Edition
Apri1 5 / 6, 2008
By RALPH NADER
Is there a larger, more exploited, defenseless group of undifferentiated Americans than the 133 million individual federal income taxpayers? Their dollars are used to subsidize organized corporate interests, giveaway taxpayer assets like minerals under the public lands, and bail out speculative, self-enriching corporations and their crooked bosses.
As large corporations, and their trade associations, complete their takeover of the federal government-a process that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called fascism in 1938-the corporations become the government.
Just look at the recent headlines in the business press. Article after article features abuses and over-runs by companies contracting with the Department of Defense and other agencies. The enormous volumes of waste, fraud and poor delivery affecting the Iraq war-occupation now only produces ho hum newspaper and television stories.
Recently, the student loan scandals, exorbitant burdens on students graduating from college imposed on them by companies with influence in Washington, like Sallie Mae, whose government guarantees make a mockery of capitalism, have riled members of Congress to some modest action.
Once again this year, the big boys on Wall Street stretched the envelope of risk and greed and ran down to Washington, D.C. to be bailed out by the accommodating Federal Reserve. Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before the Senate that he had no choice but to take on about $30 billion of Bear Stearns obligations or there could be a run on other big banks. Where was the Federal Reserve when this credit, debt and risk spree was building during the past five years?
There is no penalty for failure-whether on Wall Street or in Washington, D.C. for misusing or wasting the taxpayers' monies.
When the heads of Citigroup and Merrill Lynch were asked to leave their positions recently as CEOs after tanking their companies' shares, they could barely avoid tripping over the many millions of dollars they were taking with them through the exit door. Among many perverse incentives operating within these Wall Street firms, there are rewards for failure-big bucks rubber-stamped by the look-the-other-way, well paid Boards of Directors.
Back in 1971 and 1980 respectively, the White House proposed a $250 million loan guarantee for Lockheed corp., and a $1.5 billion loan guarantee for Chrysler with the government taking back warrants that it later sold for a profit. There was intense debate and discussion at public hearings in the House and the Senate before they authorized the guarantees.
Now federal agency bailouts of big business, even Mexican oligarchs, rarely seek Congressional approval. Just have the Executive Branch do what it wants. No public hearings. Midnight bailouts without transcripts.
I asked a powerful Senator: "What are the discernable legal limits on the Federal Reserve's bailout authority and how much total risk can the Federal Reserve heap on the taxpayers?" "Can they go to a trillion dollars?" He did not know.
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