Rehabilitating Huey Long: It's Long Overdue

I'm a pretty religious reader of Jesse's Cafe Americain. Usually he's on the right side of the debate. But in his 2/23 entry 'The Word for the Week' he misses by a mile.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot...this-week.html/

The problem is not an 'individual' one or else it involves so MANY individuals that the term becomes well-nigh useless and you might as well call it systemic-by-practical-default. Alright we won't swing the bank tellers from the highest trees. I'm all for teller amnesty. But this is more than a few bad apples. This is in many ways about a rotten apple cart.Then there's a picture of Huey Long trundled out for demogogic effect. There's a pretty good case that Huey Long was shot by the same scumbags who brought us the Federal Reserve. I've reconciled myself to the fact that I'm steadily claiming more and more traditional tin foil hat territory in recent months. So be it. It's all out there on the Internet for those with a desire to find it.

Long has been maligned/marginalized of course as a corrupt drunken fool. With all due respect what politician is not laden with venality about an inch beneath his surface? So that's selective character assassination. If they're all croooks to one degree or another why sanction one as a crook --unless of course you have damned good reason? After all, some crooks are better than others. Long was all over the banking cartel. And along the way he delivered near-universal literacy to Louisiana. As we know, the elite hardly welcomes a literate underclass. Long was for the poor, a soon-to-be burgeoning class in 21st century America. So we would do well to get the revisionist pens writing on this fascinating character.

Demagoguery is in the eye of the beholder. Some leaders pose a clear and distinct threat to the powers-that-be. In these cases, the term is often wielded as a slur. Long was one of those. He scared the bejeevers out of the same guys who led the aborted FDR coup and whose offspring are no doubt in the forefront of the current TARP coup. The current wholesale theft of the public treasury requires a man --or people-- of Long's charismatic appeal to countervail it and rally the common man. Some will be demagogues in the worst sense of that word. Some will be leaders with fire in their belly and with a pulse on the legitimate outrage of the average American. We need a sustained progressive counterweight in this country like never before. It's 1932 all over again.