Posted on 02/22/2014 8:35:23 AM PST by Lorianne
I was thinking just now about Huey P. Long, and how the hard times of the 1920s, and the so-called “Bourbons” — the elites that ruled Louisiana back then — produced Long’s governorship. Mind you, Long was an extremely savvy politician and peerless orator. He played the peckerwood on the stump, but he was so intelligent that he finished Tulane Law School in a single year and passed the state bar. He never went to college as an undergraduate; despite winning a debate scholarship to LSU, he couldn’t attend because he couldn’t afford the textbooks. Anyway, Long had a matchless political mind and fire in his belly to fight the state’s elites. He got the poor majority behind him, and worked wonders to change the lives of the poor for the better. But he also became fabulously corrupt and dictatorial, as we all know. He was one of the all-time great American demagogues, but he wouldn’t have gotten far at all if the political and economic system in place hadn’t been stacked against the many for the gain of the few.
So maybe America is waiting for a new and very different Huey P. Long today: someone who can articulate the grievances of the many, and focus their anger on effective political measures to make things more fair, or at least less abusive. Be careful what you wish for, though. The power Long had to break the grip of the Bourbons made a monster out of him, and saddled Louisiana with a political legacy of statism and corruption that we’ve never quite been able to overcome.
(Excerpt) Read more at theamericanconservative.com ...
I think I understand the gist of “finished Tulane Law School in a single year.”
Somebody at the university had to have been bought off.
We already have a Huey Long. His name is barack obama.
That’s nice. Nixon ran for student body president when he was not accepted in an upscale fraternity. There were more lower class students than upscale. It works. Sarah or Mr. Cruz scares the rats for that reason.
Just like Pogo allus said, “We has met the enemy and they is us.”
Corruption that we’ve never quite been able to overcome.
In D.C. they never let a good scam go Long would envy them if he lived today.
We need to wait for Dewey and Louie too.
The thing I think about when I hear of Long is his death. Bizarre. Maybe his own guys did accidently kill him...
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