Open Thread: If You Want FDR, Find Huey Long Edition

Why isn't this the Jules Verne edition? (4.00 / 1)

http://blog.makezine.com/archi...

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 09:32:12 AM CST

QED (4.00 / 1)

I have discovered incontrovertible proof that centrism does not work.

The Grammies.

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 10:25:59 AM CST

how do you position in a monopolized market for ticket sales ? (4.00 / 1)

How do you position left and right in a market with CD sales declining 20% a year, in a market where people used to tour to support albums but now do live shows to support reduced CD sales and downloads, and where the biggest promoter, Live Nation, is in a proposed merger with the biggest ticket seller, Ticketmaster?

BTW,I actually kind of liked Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus, live, the way they sang about being 15. It was real for them, and the harmonies were sweet. The only other songs I liked liked were Smokey Robinson and Jamey Foxx pinch hitting for the Four Tops, and when Allison Krause and Robert Plant did their number with T-Bone Burnette on rhythym. They were not the crowd favorite, but the crossover genre is key for industry success. I hated the production values and can only echo Plant.
The Who sell out.Dylan does Pepsi.

The music of the left is what ?

The Boss ways in on the merger and asks you to call or contact your representative.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.co...
Bruce Springsteen isn't happy about it. After reports that Ticketmaster was re-directing log-in requests for tickets to their secondary-seller site, TicketsNow, Springsteen posted a message to fans on his site blasting the company. He also warned fans to be wary of the reported merger:

   The one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing. Several newspapers are reporting on this story right now. If you, like us, oppose that idea, you should make it known to your representatives.

We represent the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop guild.

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by: JonnyBBad @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 10:46:35 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Left can't agree on music (0.00 / 0)

Surprising no one.

But, that is healthy.

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 10:54:11 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Stevie Wonder and The Jonas Brothers.? (0.00 / 0)

Or Robert Plant and Alison Krauss?

QED, my arse.

www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 10:49:36 AM CST

[ Parent ]

You endorse these choices? n/t (0.00 / 0)

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 10:53:35 AM CST

[ Parent ]

1 of 2 (4.00 / 2)

Plant and Krauss went on a journey that few had faith in.
A LedZep reunion is bank, but Plant followed his muse.

I like Lil' Wayne.

www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 11:04:10 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Agree on both counts (4.00 / 1)

"A Milli" is a killer tune.

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 11:09:11 AM CST

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is like Obama appointing Gregg n/t (0.00 / 0)

We represent the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop guild.

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by: JonnyBBad @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 12:20:29 PM CST

[ Parent ]

White House dress codes (0.00 / 0)

I gather the Bushies are horrified that Obama is holding White House meetings in which he and his staff don't wear their jackets.

They're not wearing jeans; it isn't even "business casual" khakis and open collar shirts. They're wearing ties.

But they have taken their jackets off, and the Bush people are scandalized.

This was the culture of our "MBA Presidency". Not the dynamism of a high-tech company - which Obama's style approaches. Instead, the stultifying conformity that IBM itself, home of the formal blue shirt and suit, gave up thirty years ago.

Maybe that's why our MBA President never successfully ran a business either.

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by: elwood @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 12:34:05 PM CST

The Not-So-Green House (4.00 / 2)

There was an interview with David Axelrod or Robert Gibbs a while back that touched on the Oval Office dress issue. The administration official - I think it was Axelrod - pointed out that Obama was from Hawaii and liked it warm. The direct quote, I believe, was "you could grow orchids in there."

I'm not suggesting the president start wearing Jimmy Carter cardigans, but how about knocking the thermostat down a few degrees, saving some energy and setting a good example?

Besides, if it really is that warm in the White House, do we want half the cabinet getting drowsy and nodding off in the middle of meetings?  

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by: Tim Ashwell @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 14:22:41 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Maybe that's why he wanted a team of rivals (0.00 / 0)

Fall asleep, and the knives might find you.

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 14:50:38 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Who cares what they wear (4.00 / 1)

as long as they do a good job.

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by: Alex Gallichon @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 15:08:41 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Recommended Reading: Alan Brinkley on Long, Coughlin, Etc. (4.00 / 2)

Harry Williams' sympathetic biography of the Kingfish is a must read for anyone interested in the Depression Era. For a good overview of Huey Long, Fr. Coughlin, Dr. Townsend and the New Deal era, pick up Alan Brinkley's Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression (1982).

FDR's great virtue was ability to instill hope. His great strength was his willingness to take action - and not hesitate to change course if the original action didn't pan out. He also understand that successful leadership required building coalitions and not getting so far out front of public opinion that support for action evaporated.

Long, Fr. Charles Coughlin, Dr. Francis Townsend - who advocated cash payments from the government to senior citizens that had to be spent within a designated time - and other populists of the era certainly stirred the pot and allowed FDR, on occasion, to present legislation as a more prudent alternative to more radical proposals.

But it's hard to find causality. Much of Long's platform (such as it was) came straight from the old Progressive playbook: government regulation of utilities and other major corporations, subsidies for education, health care, housing and jobs, public works projects aplenty.

The Townsend Plan was a truly harebrained scheme, but some argue it helped set the stage for the Social Security Act. Perhaps, but FDR and his allies had been moving toward some sort of old age pension since his (and Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins) days in Albany and a general consensus on the need to help the elderly had been reached by the mid-1930s. The battle over the Social Security Act was not really over the pension portion of the law. The hottest debate centered on the unemployment insurance provisions of the act and the federal mandate on states and employers to fund the program.

I'd hesitate to characterize Long as a person "of [the] left." Critics, including many close to FDR, considered Long a Fascist. I've always liked to think of his career as tragic, in the sense that he so confused the ends and the means, brushing aside morality and the law to achieve what he saw as a greater good.

Of course, Long can also be seen as another of those classic political bosses who's secret credo was "everything for everyone and a little something for me."

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by: Tim Ashwell @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 14:58:02 PM CST

In other words (0.00 / 0)

I've always liked to think of his career as tragic, in the sense that he so confused the ends and the means, brushing aside morality and the law to achieve what he saw as a greater good.

Robert Penn Warren nailed him?

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 15:00:56 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Oh Yeah (4.00 / 1)

(and that's sort of Harry Williams' sub-text, too.)

But then you get to the fundamental question: When do the ends justify the means? And who gives one person the right to decide?

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by: Tim Ashwell @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 15:05:06 PM CST

[ Parent ]

The ends ARE the means n/t (0.00 / 0)

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 15:09:09 PM CST

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So did Randy Newman (0.00 / 0)

There's a hundred thousand Frenchmen in New Orleans...

Very ominous music for the Kingfish - but the charisma comes through too.

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by: elwood @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 15:11:37 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Yeah, 'left' isn't the right word (0.00 / 0)

But then it's a pretty useless term in general, in this multi-dimensional world.

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by: elwood @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 15:09:49 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Elwood goes postpartisan (4.00 / 1)

Film at 11.

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 15:20:08 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Found him (0.00 / 0)

http://www.movieactors.com/fre...

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 14:59:33 PM CST

Every Man a King 10-4 (0.00 / 0)

Broderick Crawford in the 1949 version - a much superior Willie Stark to Sean Penn.

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by: Tim Ashwell @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 15:02:46 PM CST

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Never saw it (0.00 / 0)

Guess I shouldn't.

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by: JimC @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 15:18:18 PM CST

[ Parent ]

The Kingfish Legend (4.00 / 1)

We represent the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop Guild, the Lollypop guild.

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by: JonnyBBad @ Mon Feb 09, 2009 at 16:39:45 PM CST

[ Parent ]