An old man (relatively recently deceased) I conversed with somewhat over the Internet once suggested that he has argued with black Americans that they oughta all hang one giant picture of Lyndon Johnson in their houses for all he did for them, in doing the legislative legwork that brought about the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1964, and 1965. I found it a somewhat patronizing statement, but at the same time it sort of raised for me the question of how one relates to the cynical and duplicitious politicos and the incorrigible system they can’t help but promote by being a part of — indeed, an integral cog in the machinery.

I placed this book on a half revamped sidebar book link. (Have to change those things every so often.) It is an important book, and offers much by way of our nation’s political history. Several months ago I did read a blogger, I believe at the washington monthly blog, rail against it saying he’s tried to read it, and asking who the heck could actually read this — as it runs into the minutiae of the Senate at the mid-point of the last century. Maybe it might be a little dry, but there is no other way. But feel free to skip the first thousand pages or so and go to the final 400 pages, which is the most important — how Johnson manuevered a civil rights act through the Senate in 1957.

Understand, Lyndon Johnson came to the position of Senate Majority Leader by toadying up to the Southern Dixiecrats. Senator Russel, the baron of the Southern Caucus, ended with the goal of making Johnson president, to redeem the Southland. Hence, his allowance for Johnson to pass a civil rights act. So long as it didn’t mean anything.

So Lyndon Johnson thread the needle very finely in pushing a civil rights act with the tacit approval of the 22 Filibuster and delay obstructionist happy Southern Caucus. (The two Senators from Tennessee — Gore and Kefauver — broke the mold.)

But, by way of showing the cynicism and duplicity of Lyndon Johnson, it is important to note that he set up the system that forced the very fine needling, from the review in The Nation of this book:

Johnson’s first maneuver was to help defeat an effort by Republicans and liberal Democrats to rewrite Senate Rule 22 in order to short-circuit the expected Southern filibuster. At the opening of the 1957 session, pro-civil rights senators sought a ruling from Vice President Richard Nixon, acting in his capacity as the Senate’s presiding officer, that the Senate was not a continuing body and therefore was not bound by previous rules. That would mean that a majority of senators could establish a new rule allowing debate to be shut off with only a simple majority, not the usual and nearly unobtainable sixty-four votes. Indeed, Nixon, hoping to swing black votes to the GOP, would have issued such a decision. But before he could do so, Johnson used his prerogative as majority leader to move to table the proposed rules change. Using all the skill and power he had amassed as majority leader, Johnson managed to get a majority for his motion. But it was a 55-38 tally. If only seven votes had gone the other way (the three absentees having announced against Johnson’s motion), the motion would have lost, Nixon would have issued his decision, the filibuster would have been broken and an effective civil rights bill would have been passed in 1957, not 1964.

And with that cynical manuever, the Democrats became party of civil rights. And held onto the South for another handful of years. Interestingly enough, the 1958 midterm elections — where the Democrats triumphed with corruption in the Eisenhower administration and a severe recession — swamped norther Democrats into the two branches of Congress, which is sort of where the Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn quote on not wanting so many Democrats elected because it’s harder to control them comes into play — Johnson (or any future Senate majority leader) could no longer play the facilitator between the Dixiecrat Segregationists and the civil-rights oriented northern Democrats as easily, out of necessity for party.

… all of which is a sort of “I wish I had this down in my online discussions with elderly male” thing to suggest that, no, no, no giant portrait of LBJ is required in the homes of black Americans.

Dear Larry Craig:

Please.  Don’t just stop at completing your term in office.  Take a stand, and RUN FOR RE-ELECTION!!

Seriously, I want this to happen not just for crass partisan reasons.  I believe in the myth of Don Quixote.  I almost would like him to wind up renominated in a bloody primary — due to a large number of primary opponents seeing this as an opening, and then see Idahoans groan and re-elect him to office, due to the deep Republican nature of the state of Idaho.  Just to screw with the way the world is supposed to be working here.

Dear Republican Party:

Really?  You’re thinking of a Senate Ethics Commission?  What good could that possibly do for your party?  Also, what the hell is there to investigate?  The answer to both questions is nothing.  But by all means.  Investigate.

Dear Joey DiFatti:

How many of you are there?  And by “you” I mean Republican politicans crusing public bathrooms for gay sex?

The reactions to the evidently competent, recently published LPAC exclusive “Halo 3: The ‘Third Wave’ of Destroying the U.S.”, as received by its authors in the form of “Letters to the Editor” by swarms of agitated Internet-addicts, reinforce the simple points outlined, but not understood by its relevant audience, due to certain, cumulative effects of turning over the sovereign function of creativity to a Tweener-oriented culture of “groupthink”, as typified by Ayn Rand’s Wikipedia.org.

The sacrificing of one’s will to a higher commitment toward the Common Good would be appreciated by future generations. But to sacrifice one’s will to the third-wave of the counter-culture fostered by DARPA, Microsoft, BAE Systems, and the new religious revival known as the Fools of Silicon Valley, is to submit to America’s long-standing enemy—the British Empire!

“Ayn Rand’s wikipedia.org”. Interesting and bizarre, and met with the appropriate “WTF is this insanity?” by the “internet addicts” (seems to be interchangable with video-gamers) who have encountered this, before they run into the part about the “British Empire”. “Ayn Rand” appears as much a slur against things that are not centrally controlled as anything else — and we all know where that bias comes from.

“Internet Addicts”? “Sacraficing of one’s will to a higher commitment to the common good”? This is just a little too transparent.

So, This website is up and running. I think it is probably the best resource available on the Internet for anything you need, even in its incomplete form. But I wonder about the FAQs page. Surely xlcer knows what he is putting together and has his real reason for putting these questions there — questions asked to him, I am guessing — but:

Some say it is a cult. But what I can see is that LaRouche has been a political figure all his life. How could you explain that?

It is a question only a Larouchite can ask, and is thus just sort of jarring. Doing the math, a college Freshman would now be born … right when Larouche was a… um… “political prisoner” bunking with that other political prisoner, Jim Bakker, who they’ve probably never heard of.

Comments here. Comments there. And the magic number is “Zero”.

…………….

Interesting idea here as to what Larouche is preparing for after his “demise”. I had wondered about that particular meme.

Oh, dear lard.

Blazak says Hammerskin Nation might have picked Portland for its event because groups like it have long looked to the region for the so-called “Northwest Imperative.” The imperative is the two-decade-old idea started by the white supremacist group Aryan Nations that Oregon, Washington and Idaho will someday secede to create an autonomous Aryan homeland.

I don’t think that group would be in attendence at the latest meeting of would-be-secessionists, as it would make awkward seating arrangement placed next to the Cascadian Independence Movement, as I suppose they would have to be seated.*  (Geographic arrangement, right?)

As for the “Hammerskin Nation” Music festival — happening in a mythical corner of Portland by hidden shadows sometime this weekend.  Um.  I still want to see what the Top 40 charts for that genre of music (?) looks like.

*Note: the blog post I linked to just there is a lie.  I never did that; that never happened.

I already went through this one, somewhat naseously, but Mike Gravel’s 1968 Senate campaign was a lie.  So, here’s a transcript of an NPR “All Things Considered” profile on Gravel and 1968.

Mr. GRAVEL (in 1968): The proposal that the United States leave

Vietnam unilaterally is an unsound one and I think a very immature

one.   

KASTE (NPR): The thing is, even as he was making these ads, Gravel

privately shared Gruening's dovish position on Vietnam. He was 

simply telling Alaska voters what they wanted to hear.   

Mr. GRAVEL: I said what I said back in 1968 because it was 

to advance my career.   

KASTE: It worked. Gravel beat Ernest Gruening in the primary

and won the Senate seat in the fall. Since then, he's been 

quite frank about how he passed Gruening on the right. But 

what's important, he says, is what he did with the Senate 

seat after he won.   

Mr. GRAVEL: I now become opposed to the war, as vigorously as 

Ernest Gruening was. I released the Pentagon Papers in my efforts. 

So, there you go.  The Mike Gravel campaign worker who posted a comment here more than half a year ago was correct.  It is indeed outrageous to say he would have been voting to fund the Vietnam War right up to 1968.  That statement was based on his campaign, and it the fabled Oscam’s Razor has always suggested simply that he was lying — or that would be one Hell of an epiphany.  This is the first time I have encountered Mike Gravel acknowledge this fraud in his little presidential campaign, but I guess that this may be have been the first time a news outlet had it under their purview to cover it.

Oh well.  Progress in politcs sometimes works off of duplicity.

“Paid for by Philip Morris USA”.

The next sentence offers up whatever organization Philip Morris USA is funneling its money into — something like “Oregonians Against Taxes” or something or other.   I don’t know what the Campaign Finance Law is that requires that Philip Morris can’t just rummage straight to “Oregonians Against Taxes”, but it seems to be a good one.

The rule of thumb seems to be that if you want the name to be remembered, you place it at the end of the advertisement.  If you want it forgotten, it is thrust quickly at the start.

But the line “What?  I thought this was a tobacco tax!”, said by the man at the kitchen table with his wife sincerely investigating these things they must vote on once he learns that it is more than just that — it is a constitutional amendment– clashes with the opening “Paid for by Philip Morris USA”.

This is the time when fortunes are made, during periods of economic turbalence in a prime segment of the economy.  If you have enough money, you can make prime investments by buying low and then, when things pick up, selling high.  Case in point:

 As the credit crisis started to shake global financial markets in August, the owners of the 22-acre (9-hectare) estate at 309 Taconic Road in Greenwich, Connecticut, cut their price to $19 million, showing turbulence in the U.S. housing market penetrating the wealthiest strata of American society.

If you have an extra $19 million lying around, now is the time to use it and wait for this property appreciate in value.  Make a tidy sum, I’d think.

(For a round-table discussion of these problems, try the Onion.)

It has become somewhat pointless to follow the discussions of conservative talk show hosts.  I have this general sense that we have sort of moved past them for the moment.

But, they’re out there.  And what do we find?  Bill O’Reilly said something interesting last week.  Sylvia’s?  Why, they eat food and have fun there!  Who knew?  After that we run into the whole self-parody thing that O’Reilly has going for him, where the whole story becomes about the unfairness of “liberal secular non-Traditionalist outlets” attacking him — taking him out context (um.  no.) and poisoning racial relations by making it impossible for people to speak openly.  (I… guess?)

I don’t know.  It may be worthwhile to run back and stare and dissect this O’Reilly comment for awhile.

And Rush Limbaugh said something interesting.  Something about “Phony Soldiers”.  We have a slightly better counter-example for the “moveon.org” fracas than the example that was brought up throughout the controversy — Max Cleland.  So, to make a point, some Congressional Democrats have issued a resolution to condemn Limbaugh, ala that stupid fracas over the moveon.org “Betray Us” advertisement — because you cannot attack a 2012 Republican presidential candidate for some reason.  A pointless procedure, methinks, even for the point made.  Um.  “Move on”?

But.  Phony Soldiers.  Phony Soldiers.  Phony Soldiers?

Thank you very much; you’ve been great!