Eric Hoffer once wrote, “Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.” This comment is frequently misquoted, but the idea is always basically the same.
The Republican Party in Louisiana is an example of this phenomenon. When I registered to vote 45 years ago, I insisted to register as a Republican despite my inability to vote in the Democratic primaries, which were where all the elections actually occurred. I was determined to protest the incompetence and the graft that was everywhere. We few, we happy few, grew in numbers over the years as Louisiana fell further behind other states and the obvious contrast with the competent (Texas, North Carolina, etc.) became more and more blatant.
We even eventually elected Republican governors! Alas, the results were not good. Treen and Roemer were politically incompetent and nothing really changed. But we kept hoping that the right man would actually change things. Then we moved to Foster and the reality was in your face: The Republican party was now officially a racket. The coup de grâce (or cup of grass) was for John Alario to convert to the Republican party. O tempora o mores!
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Slabbed commenter Uptown Music is a resident of New Orleans.
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They are the majority party, so of course that is where the money is. But it is a little discouraging as to how quickly they got there.
Eventually, all sensible people will be part of the “Angry Centrist” movement,
Sock, I wholeheartedly agree. The class warfare has to stop, and we all need to join together to solve the country’s problem of spending money it does not have. We are mortgaging our children’s future.
I read Eugene Robinson’s column every now and then in the WaPo. He seems pretty sensible for a liberal, even though I disagree with him a great deal. But, his insinuation that people earning more than $250,000 per year are “tycoons keeping their pantries full of caviar,” which he made in today’s column, is just stupid and base class warfare.
I make slightly more than that, but I can assure you that I pay more than my fair share in taxes (over 34% of what I earn) and when you add state and local taxes, the tax burden approaches almost 50%. I ask you if that is fair? This is why the tea party’s original message resonates with so many people. Our government continues to take more and more, and the question is “where will it stop?” Plus, I hate caviar.
“Fair”?
Certainly that was an euphemism bandied about, too, when the kulaks were rounded up, kamerad.
Political parties pretend to be based on ideology, but really they have always been built around pork and patronage. The ideology is for public consumption to provide justification for policies that favor the interest groups and factions that are aligned with the party establishment. It is easy to do because both parties want the same thing – they want the public to believe that there are two and only two alternatives for every public policy concern – one that serves this party’s insiders and one that serves that party’s insiders – so the public is pushed to align with one party or the other and not look for solutions outside the two major parties.
Wherever one party dominates – currently Democrats in big cities, Republicans in Southern and Western states and suburban counties – the real political power consolidates behind the scenes where the party and interest group insiders decide who they will back and what their chosen officials will do once in office. This is inevitably corrupt, which is why the first offices they want to control usually are the prosecutors and judges.
Bravo. Great comments.
What a timely comment … and Mary’s stirring the proverbial “bottom of the shit-pot:
Landrieu expected to name three candidates to replace Jim Letten in 4 to 6 weeks
By Bruce Alpert, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune
on December 11, 2012 at 6:41 PM, updated December 11, 2012 at 7:34 PM
“Among other Democrats mentioned as possible candidates for the U.S. attorney’s job include New Orleans white-collar attorney Kenneth Polite, Louisiana Democratic Party Chairman Karen Carter Peterson and former New Orleans city attorney and current Entergy New Orleans CEO Charles Rice.
Others names being floated locally include Kim Boyle, a partner at the New Orleans law firm of Phelps Dunbar, Keva Landrum-Johnson, an Orleans Parish criminal district judge; Criminal District Judge Karen Herman, who served as prosecutor under former New Orleans District Attorney Harry Connick; Civil District Court Clerk Dale Atkins; Municipal Court Judge Desiree Charbonnet, and attorney Allen Miller, also of Phelps Dunbar. Also reportedly in the mix is Steven Gonzalez, 30, a Kenner attorney and former prosecutor in Cannizzaro’s office.”
Personally I doubt that I will able to swollow any serving Mary offers.
If memory serves me straight:
The Blues versus the Greens at the time of Constantine
And of course Tweedlede and Tweedledum.
And the R and D wings of the EinPartei, one supporting the warfare/welfare state and the other the welfare/warfare state.
Choosing the lesser evil is as we know, still choosing evil.