Johnson's nickname was "Landslide Lyndon" in Texas because he won his first election by the narrowest of margins using blatantly corrupt tactics.
He himself told a joke about a little Mexican kid seen weeping after his election:
When asked what was wrong the kid said that his father had not come to see him.
"But Juan, your father is dead."
"Yes but he came back to vote for Lyndon Johnson!"
A famous Texas Ranger, Frank Hamer, went to investigate this voting fraud in one town and was told he should leave town or be killed, when he left town. The rest, as they say, was history.
Well, I'm not sure he's been able to put out the fire he started himself, so I guess there's no room for applaud, yet.
Nevertherless, it was a responsible act and think it worth noting. I realize all too well the level of hate that is out there. Check my blog for today. The one about the Democrat and the Rat. I was supposed to be in the same restaurant with the Chairwoman but I'd forgotten the meeting.
In the greater scheme of things, it is but a small sample of the hate that is being stirred up -- hate that may spin out of control as the economic crisis deepens. A quick check of the pundits lets you know that they see it too.
Again, I think it was a wise and noble move on Senator McCain's part. I just hope his Party will listen.
You yourself cannot decide, El G., if the U.S.A. is the leader of the Free World or if it is the self-proclaimed leader of same, when these are two very different things. I asked you to please stop typing for a moment to think about which is is and decide.
The answer is laughably obvious that American power stretches out across the Universe so that when George W. Bush cuts a fart wheezy old Darth Vader's black gown flutters up there on the Death Star .
Anyone who don't know that, well, don't pick "America" when you show up on Mastermind is all I can say!
As our military genius Donald Rumsfeld might say of this situation we have here, I know what I don't know but you don't seem to know what you don't know, no.
Where was I? Oh yes... If we are the bee's knees then you go right ahead whining about American this and that, since it obviously matters to everyone everywhere, even those with an ocean separating them from us.
On the other hand, if you maintain that our pan-Galactic mega-domination is just a fantasy, child's dream and will o' the wisp, mere low-grade swamp gas, then kindly say so but then get busy with what really matters to me and millions of other concerned Americans too! Namely: a Cuban bolt-hole!
Don't make me grovel here, El G. I have my pride!
Dushan, now, he would never admit he's wrong about Cuba but I am not like that. When I read about how things are getting back home I begin to think about what really matters to me, namely Number One, me, chuks.
Suddenly Cuba begins to sound like not such a bad deal. You got the sunshine, the palm trees, the pound of chicken a month... I just need some information about how to get there and all, how to work the system and you know the sort of stuff I need to know.
I mean, there I am up to my knees in the Cuban surf, dead chickens left over from Sunday's Santeria ceremony washing about my knees but next I wake up on the boat back to Key West because I was supposed to make it up past the high tide line before I could qualify for asylum. What a chump, eh?
I go to the block warden to rat out my neighbour but it turns out there is some form I need stamped to get his pound of chicken transferred to my account. The twelve other people in our Havana luxury flat would laugh at me!
I didn't want to have to come right out and say it but, yeah, tell us more about Cuba because I think we really need to know.
...inferiority and insecurity that many Americans feel..
Nah, its not insecurity. It's just not too often that you Europeans encounter Americans who are unapologetically American.
I'll never forget sitting in a bar in Southern Spain in the mid-eighties. I ordered a San Miguel and the bartender asked me where I was from.
"The States" I replied. Inevitably, the Spanish bartender then launched into the 1980's version of leftist claptrap we hear (and see on PPRuNe) today.
"I'm sorry," I said, "I just wanted a beer."
Just then an old British bloke at the end of the bar stood up, came down and admonished me for apologizing. Turns out he was a WWII vet, and a fierce cold warrior.
"Don't ever apologize for being American," he said. "Europeans will never be able to repay the debt they owe to the States, and they have the arrogance to take their good life for granted."
I've lived and worked in Europe for the past 20 years. I've heard it all, and I've heeded his sage advice ever since.
Getting back to the thread topic, just ponder this from Cliff May at National Review:
With a veto-proof Senate majority, what would stop an Obama administration from granting statehood to Washington, DC (that was among Bill Clinton's campaign promises long ago) which would guarantee two more Democratic US Senators pretty much forever?
What would prevent immigration policy from favoring immigrants who will vote Democratic?
And isn't the governor of Virginia among those already pushing to allow felons to vote — and which party do you think most will vote for?
Out of all this and more, you can't see a permanent Democratic majority shaping up in the House and Senate?
A famous Texas Ranger, Frank Hamer, went to investigate this voting fraud in one town and was told he should leave town or be killed, when he left town. The rest, as they say, was history.
I don't remember reading it quite that way. I'm not a fan of Hamer but I can't imagine him leaving town for anyone. Which book were you reading -- Robert Caro's ? (Some of the very best I've ever read BTW.)
What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
I make no apologies this time.
I will try this form of communication.
Chucks
WTF has Cuba got to do with anything.
The topic of debate is the forthcoming US election
Can someone please have a word with this singularly minded squawker.
Matari, you fall into the trap that many slower thinking people often do. You know the kind, the ones that cannot see further than their county border or country border if lucky.
I travel and I mean TRAVEL the world. I meet and talk to hundreds of people of many creeds, cultures and attitudes.
I meet many Americans in the course of my work who I would trust with my car my house or my wife (go on chuckie have a bit of wordplay fun with that one son)
The vast majority of Americans I meet are fine people. It is usually the ones who have been given a modicum of power that are the worst. Anything from Border people to highway patrol people to hotel desk clerks.
The fact is, as I am sure you are aware, that the reputation of "The American" around the world has never been great and has probably never been worse than it is today.
That selfsame reputation is perpetrated and proliferated by many of the US contributers to these forums (fora, forai) you tell me chukie boy.
I have often said that in an effort to be smart, contrite, witty, all-knowing etc etc, they are doing nothing for the reputation of their country other than perpetrating a particular viewpoint. They come over as small minded and insular.
Funny thing is that they are always first on their feet when someone makes a comment about the US shouting "Anti American" "US Hater" or the like.
It always strikes me as odd why the vast bulk of contributers here are from the right wing of American politics and why that same selection seems to harbour some of the more extreme.
It is neither representative or flattering of the USA
LBJ is quoted as saying about someone who one of his cabinet wanted fired, "better inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in." El Grifo you being outside the tent, stop pissing in until you spend time inside.
Forgot about Paul Volcker-there was something good in those years. What else? Medicare will bankrupt us, worse than anything GWB has alleged to have done; Vietnam we lost due to a Democrat Congress refusing to own up to treaty obligations that settled the war in '73, Carter gave amnesty to US citizens that ran to Canada, (my Canadian compatriots are pleased the Harper government is sending back our deserters nowadays), let the Iranians hold us hostage for 444 days (Walter Crankcase was good on that one), Carter gave a misery index in excess of 20% (inflation + unemployment) where, in today's parlous times it is only 11%), Ford told us to Whip Inflation Now, (ha, ha to that nonsense as demonstrated by Volcker), Nixon gave such turkeys as price controls, the EPA (now bent on regulating lawn mowers and breathing in a silly effort to control CO2) and detente that let the Soviets control the Warsaw Pact for 17 more wasted years.
What was horse hooey?? And how was any of those guys responsible for OPEC?
GF
Here the Wiki history of OPEC, don't see anyone from the 64-80 time frame listed:
Quote:
Venezuela was the first country to move towards the establishment of OPEC by approaching Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in 1949, suggesting that they exchange views and explore avenues for regular and closer communications between them.[citation needed] In September 1960, at the initiative of the Venezuelan Energy and Mines minister Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo and the Saudi Arabian Energy and Mines minister Abdullah al-Tariki, the governments of Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela met in Baghdad to discuss ways to increase the price of the crude oil produced by their respective countries.[citation needed] OPEC was founded in Baghdad, triggered by a 1960 law instituted by American President Dwight Eisenhower that forced quotas on Venezuelan and Persian Gulf oil imports in favor of the Canadian and Mexican oil industries.[citation needed] Eisenhower cited national security, land access to energy supplies, at times of war.[citation needed] When this led to falling prices for oil in these regions, Venezuela's president Romulo Betancourt reacted seeking an alliance with oil producing Arab nations as a preemptive strategy to protect the continuous autonomy and profitability of Venezuela's natural resource: oil.[
It always strikes me as odd why the vast bulk of contributers here are from the right wing of American politics and why that same selection seems to harbour some of the more extreme.
El Grifo
Despite what lefties as GTF say, it wasn't an accident that Ronald Reagan, George the First and George the Son were elected. Americans are a CENTER-RIGHT country who quite believe we are "exceptional", just ask that idiot Sec State Albright-"the indispensable country" as she termed it. The American attitude cuts across party lines, political opinions and state lines. Hell, GTF has a leftist, Euro political viewpoint and he is proud to have never the left the good ole USA, except Canada as a child.
Sheesh! No sense of humour, some people! (Low reading comprehension too but we aren't supposed to say that here, are we?)
Worse yet, I shall be spending some time in Spain over the next six months or so, promoting international understanding. "Hoe-lah, Seenyor. Done-daye ess-tah el Mack Donn-allds? Comm-pren-day? Yoe ness-aye-see-toe oon Quarterpounder pronn-toe ee hold the garlic you greasy dago."
Perhaps we meet in a tapas bar in a toothpick duel over the last olive with President McCain's inauguration showing on the big screen, instead of that stupid so-called football you people play half-naked.
How we shall laugh, remembering all this gay badinage!
You share one characteristic of BHO, the ability to ignore questions, evidence or inquiries about where you or him would take this country. "Hope and Change" are pretty empty slogans, if not backed up by ideas, principles and argument. Everything you post are empty attacks on what you see as political enemies, personal attacks on other posters and silliness.
Will you actually post some reasoned arguments relative to the American presidential campaign and US politics or "IS THIS IT!"
Hey, you guys do a nice line in falling-down castles and stuff like that but I think Europe peaked when the Romans had to pull back. I am cool with that; not everyone gets to have an empire so that it's just down to us and the Russkis right now and we are eyeball to eyeball so that I think this here ee-lection must be purty durn important to decide who gets to rule the Galaxy for the next few years or until the oil runs out, whichever comes first.
Do not let my childish humour dissuade you from your critical and critical role in dispensing unwanted advice about how we should be getting on with things.
A former colleague said that his small Southern town had a lunatic who used to stand on the railway overpass and signal the passing trains. I always wondered, what did he mean by that?
Matari, you fall into the trap that many slower thinking people often do. You know the kind, the ones that cannot see further than their county border or country border if lucky.
Do you really want to compare passport stamps? I've been married to the same lovely European lady for 20 years. My children all have dual European (French) / US nationality. I've lived and worked on and off in Europe, Africa and Latin America. I love the continent, and its people. I just know Europe's limitations as well, and you apparently don't like hearing anything that goes against your preset Eurocentric world view.
Again, don't mistake clarifying the record and defending my point of view for arrogance...after all, it is Jet Blast.
Chuks thinks I am some sort of Cuban politician nor something although he does not have the spine to say why. Actually now he seems to be suggesting that I am Spanish or something.
What are you saying Matari, oh yeah Eurocentric - - - not bad for somone who is reckoned by the old guy to be Fidels right hand man.
Rather than defending against what you see as an attack, why not just address the issue.
Chucks has cleary lost them (his marbles that is)
Brick has not come up with a response,and now galaxy has gone shtum.
Is a democrat win that scary that it brings on verbal paralysis in normally verbose men
Linear Mode
