Emperor Tigerstar: Huey Long- ‘The Dictator of Louisiana’

Source:Emperor Tigerstar– If the title fits, you can’t acquit. LOL

Source:The New Democrat 

“See the rise and fall of the Kingfish Governor of Louisiana. He’s more than a Kaiserreich meme, and has left quite a lasting legacy.”

Source:Emperor Tigerstar

I mentioned in my Huey Long piece last week that Huey Long had a lot in common with Senator Bernie Sanders today as it created to wealth redistribution and a socialist populism that was about high taxation on the wealthy to be used to help everyone else. And all of that is true, but as I also mentioned last week Huey and Bernie aren’t ideological twins.

Senator Sanders at least as far as how he speaks, what he proposes, and his political positions all suggest that he’s a Democratic Socialist. Governor Long, you could call him a Democratic Socialist on economic policy, but even as the guy in this video admits to Governor Long was essentially the dictator of Louisiana as far as how he was able to centralize a lot of state power for himself, but then the guy in this video says that Governor Long used all of this state power to benefit the people of Louisiana, not himself necessarily.

I’m going to argue that Huey Long wasn’t a Communist even though he did have dictatorial socialist leanings as Governor. But only because he didn’t close down private media organizations and churches, banks, that sort of thing where people can get to together and create their own private power. But he did centralize a lot of power within his own state to the point that if you tried to cross him, he could hurt your badly politically and professionally. And to work for his Administration in Louisiana, you have to donate part of your state salary to his political machine in Louisiana. At one point Huey, was both Governor of Louisiana and then U.S. Senator from Louisiana. Even when he was in Congress, he still had a lot of power in Louisiana.

A better way to describe Huey Long is say that he was a crook, but with good intentions and as long as you didn’t try to cross him, life could be very good for you in Louisiana. And again Huey wasn’t a Communist, but he did have things in common with Communists and Socialist dictators around the world. People who come into power promising the populist that he alone can make their lives better if they just give him all of this power. ( Remind you of any current President today? )

We saw this with Fidel Castro in Cuba, Hugo Chavez and now Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela. Men who have way too much self-confidence and probably couldn’t look up or define words like modesty and humility even if they saw them in a dictionary. Which is dangerous for any society to have which are leaders who have so much faith in themselves, because they see themselves as invincible and that it’s somehow treason for anyone to even try to question them. And when someone does that, they face cruel repercussions. That’s the type of leader or Socialist that I see Huey Long as.

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Senator Huey Long: ‘Huey Long Collection- Share Our Wealth Societies: 2/23/1934’

Source:Senator Huey Long– Governor Huey Long, D, Louisiana: the Bernie Sanders of his era?

Source:The New Democrat 

“Huey Long speaking with John A Simpson, President of the National Farmer’s Union, in 1934.
FORMER LOUISIANA GOVERNOR HUEY LONG, CALLED “THE KINGFISH”, SPEAKING WITH JOHN A. SIMPSON, PRESIDENT NATIONAL FARMER’S UNION, ON SHARE THE WEALTH MOVEMENT”

Source:Senator Huey Long

Governor Huey Long’s Share The Wealth Proposal

Source:Wikipedia

1. “No person would be allowed to accumulate a personal net worth of more than 300 times the average family fortune, which would limit personal assets to between $5 million and $8 million. A graduated capital levy tax would be assessed on all persons with a net worth exceeding $1 million.[citation needed]

2. Annual incomes would be limited to $1 million and inheritances would be capped at $5.1 million.[citation needed]

3. Every family was to be furnished with a homestead allowance of not less than one-third the average family wealth of the country. Every family was to be guaranteed an annual family income of at least $2,000 to $2,500, or not less than one-third of the average annual family income in the United States. Yearly income, however, cannot exceed more than 300 times the size of the average family income.[citation needed]

4. An old-age pension would be made available for all persons over 60.[citation needed]
To balance agricultural production, the government would preserve/store surplus goods, abolishing the practice of destroying surplus food and other necessities due to lack of purchasing power.[citation needed]

5. Veterans would be paid what they were owed (a pension and healthcare benefits).[citation needed]
Free education and training for all students to have equal opportunities in all schools, colleges, universities, and other institutions for training in the professions and vocations of life.[citation needed]

6. The raising of revenue and taxes for the support of this program was to come from the reduction of swollen fortunes from the top, as well as for the support of public works to give employment whenever there may be any slackening necessary in private enterprise.”

I’m not saying that Huey Long both as Governor Long and then later Senator Long was the George McGovern, or take it up today and call him the Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren of his era, but only because Huey Long wasn’t so much a Democratic Socialist as he was just just purely a Socialist: someone who mixed both democratic and authoritarian views into his own politics. He was more like a Nicholas Maduro ( the President of Venezuela ) than Neville Chamberlain ( Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 1930s ) as someone who believed in democratic socialism economically, but had authoritarian views when it came to how he governed.

Governor Huey Long, was as close to a dictator that we’ve ever had in this country when he was Governor of Louisiana and had so much power over the government there and didn’t believe in checks and balances and separation of powers. But on economic policy he was someone who had strong populist tendencies and someone who wasn’t a big city leftist or populist, but someone who could appeal to rural voters in the deep South, because of how poor they were and that he spoke about their poverty and promised to get them out of it with his economic populism that we would call democratic socialism today. Which is what he has in common with Senator Bernie Sanders today.

What Governor Long has in common with Senator Sanders is what again what was called economic populism in the 1930s that we call democratic socialism today: Bernie, doesn’t call his economic agenda Share The Wealth, but that’s probably more for political reasons than ideological. He’s already a self-described Democratic Socialist and one of just a few in Congress today and doesn’t want to be confused with Socialists who are even to the Left of him. But ideologically Bernie’s vision of democratic socialism is very similar to Huey’s when it comes to money and wealth. They would both essentially outlaw wealth in this country and use that money for their social welfare agenda.

Huey Long in the 1930s, was talking about old age pensions and what we call today a national basic income where every American would be given a financial allowance in this country to make sure that they don’t have to live in poverty. Bernie Sanders, believes that every single American has a right to go to college and get health insurance and health care provide to them from the government. And that the wealthy should be forced to pay for all of these services for everyone else. What Huey and Bernie have in common politically, is that they’re both anti-wealth and economic independence. And see it as the role of the U.S. Government to guarantee every single America and basically national income and quality living in this country.

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SPPN Channel: Huey Long: All The Kings Men

Source:SPPN– Louisiana Governor Huey Long. 

“See priceless and rare footage of the actual Kingfish in action and see the real story right here! This newsreel culminates footage from Paramount and Pathe News, which we are the copyright holders of.”

From SPPN

I think the best way to describe Huey Long ( aka Louisiana Kingfish ) would be compared him with the recently deceased President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez. Even though Huey was a lot more Democratic than Hugo and believed in a greater deal of freedom. But they were both basically dictators who were corrupt who meant well and wanted to do good things. But weren’t really cutout to be chief executives and people with strong Socialist leanings.

Both Huey and Hugo spoke about share the wealth and Social Justice, but wanted as much power as possible even centralized all the power with them to do these good works for the people. Huey Long was clearly a Democrat as far as party and politically and believed in democracy except when it went against him. And Hugo Chavez was a Socialist, but certainly not a Democratic Socialist.

Hugo was not a full-blooded Communist like Fidel Castro, but probably more like Neo-Communist. Someone who allowed for political opposition and a certain level of economic and personal freedom, but someone with strong dictatorial leanings as well. Huey was probably more Democratic than Hugo, but politically they were similar.

You cam also see this post at The New Democrat, on Blogger.

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AJ Fowler: Huey Long: ‘Share the Wealth’

Source:AJ Fowler– Huey Long, talking about his Share The Wealth agenda, in 1934. 

“December 1934. Huey Long speaks passionately about income inequality and the wealthy in the United States.”

From AJ Fowler

The socialist side of Huey Long coming out that basically no one is entitled to a certain amount of money in society. Other than to meet their basic needs, even if they create all of that money for themselves. Not sure if Huey was supporting lets say an excise tax on wealthy individuals to give to the people who do not have enough money or not.

With this excise tax going to government and then government decides how much money individuals need which is part of the socialist philosophy of there shouldn’t be any rich, middle or poor people and that it’s the job of the central government to prevent that from happening. That the central government should collect the nation’s resources and then give them back based on what they believe people need to live well.

And the central government does this by basically collecting most of the resources in society and then giving that money back to people based on what it believes that people need to live well. I’ll look it up in the future to see if that’s what Senator Huey Long believed in. But from this video he did seem to believe that it was it was unfair for a few people to be so rich while others are struggling. And that government should play a bigger role to see that no one is poor and perhaps no one is rich.

You can also see this post at The New Democrat, on Blogger.

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Dread Not: All The Kings Men 1949- Broderick Crawford: As Willie Stark

 

Source:Dread Not– Broderick Crawford, as Willie Stark, in All The Kings Men.

“From American Rhetoric. Hosted here because .wmv streaming sucks for me and its not on here so…

From Dread Not

One of the best speeches ever from a political movie, because it was so real. Because it sounded not so political with a man talking to the people where he came from and how he grew up. And his whole background rather than trying to convince people of how great the country and state is and how patriotic he was and everything.

What Willie Stark was doing instead was telling the people the plain truth and telling them that things aren’t that great right now. Too many people in poverty without enough food, the roads aren’t good enough for farmers and other business people to be able to get their products to market and so-forth. That they also need better hospitals and better schools. That they need a better educated workforce and community and that Stark knows these things because he comes from the same community and is one of these people himself.

But what he was also saying is that we can do better than this and that we can and must do much better than this. And that he has a plan to do it. Which is why you should vote for him. He balanced realism with a positive vision for the future.

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