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Kingfish
By David Glenn Cox
How often the name of Jesus Christ is commonly bandied about, and for a fictional or faith based character, I suppose thats all right. I mean, well, Jesus allegedly cast the money changers out of the temple and he healed a few lepers and cured a couple of cases of blindness. He was, after all, a carpenter by trade and a messiah only by a calling later in life. Jesus received much well deserved praise for siding with the poor, the uneducated, and the troubled. The common folk loved him for it. But the rich folk, as rich folk often do, perceive any such individual who avows a mission to assist the poor as a threat, and so, as the story goes they nailed him into the sky.
Funny thing about these religious messiahs, they always want to help the poor but they always tellem theres a better world a waiting for them somewhere else, tomorrow, if youll only believe today. The Buddha traveled through the land and met with kings and potentates and told the poor people it was their desire which was the cause of their suffering. Politics has long been called the art of compromise, give and take or whats commonly referred to as log rolling.
What if there was a politician who wouldnt compromise on his principals? What if there was a politician who dedicated his life to aiding the poor and unfortunate. A politician who didnt just rub spit and mud into the eyes of the blind, but instead built hospitals for the blind and trained doctors for the sick, schools for the children, night schools for the illiterate. What if there was a politician who cut taxes for the poor, abolished the poll tax and instituted a foreclosure moratorium, built a medical school, doubled the size of the state university and built a public hospital for the mentally ill? Not to mention, over nine thousand miles of paved roads, 111 bridges including three major bridges.
What would you call such a politician in America? He was called a scoundrel and a crook, a demagogue and a dictator.
A man is not a dictator when he is given a commission from the people and carries it out. Huey Long
Everybody gather round
Loosen up your suspenders, hunker down on the ground
Im a cracker, you are too. Gonna take good care of you
Who built the highway to Baton Rouge?
Who put up the hospital, built you schools?
Who looked after shit-kickers like you?
The Kingfish do
Who gave a party at the Roosevelt Hotel?
Invited whole north half of the state down there for free
People in the city had their eyes bugging out
Cause everyone looked just like me
Who took on the Standard Oil men and whipped their ass
Just like he promised hed do?
Aint no Standard Oil men gonna run this state
Gonna be run by little folks like me and you
Heres the Kingfish, the Kingfish
Friend of the working man
The Kingfish, the Kingfish
The Kingfish gonna save this land
Randy Newman
More at The Leftist Review;
http://www.leftistreview.com/2012/08/20/kingfish/davidcox/
Taverner
(55,476 posts)No masters, no gods, no leaders!
you quote Debs?
Taverner
(55,476 posts)Last edited Wed Aug 22, 2012, 09:59 PM - Edit history (1)
I guess if you would consider Emma Goldman or Nestor Makhno "leaders" then he would be...
But my definition of leader is more that of authority, which by nature I see as illegitimate
Let me add that to quote someone is not to make them a leader
Daveparts3
(49 posts)So don't think I'm faulting you, but,
Member of the Indiana General Assembly
Founder of the American Railway Union
Socialist Party Presidential candidate 1900, 1904,1908,1912, 1820
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)AsahinaKimi
(20,776 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Unofficial anthem of my adopted hometown.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Huey P. Long, former Governor of Louisiana in the 30's who stood up to the corporate pigs of his day, and was assassinated for it.
I only mention this because you are young and have probably never heard any unapproved U.S. history.