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Since Alan Keyes did so well in the first two runs, and in his run for the Illinois Senate position (moving from Maryland to Illinois to run just a few years after slamming Hilary Clinton as a “carpetbagger”), he’s hoping the third try will be the charm.
I wouldn’t have much against the guy except for his horrible treatment of his daughter Maya. Maya came out as a lesbian (and an anarchist) and her father basically disowned her. She has a blog of her own. She was a teenager when he turned his back on her. There’s no excuse.
I’ll expand on this post more later on. I’ve got a few things to say about it all.
The photo above comes from an old In These Times article about his senate run.
Maya’s photo comes from her blog. She’s a very remarkable young woman, and potentially a brilliant writer. Her consciousness apparently diverged from her father’s view after volunteering her time with teenage AIDS victims. While she has abandoned her father’s politics, she remains very much a Christian and pro-life.
More later.
Rich Somerville makes the comparisons. It’s not altogether a negative association. Huey Long did a lot of good for his constituents, corruption aside. Thinking of the line from Evita, “and why not do one or two of the things we promise too.”
Long had some great quotes:
“One of these days the people of Louisiana are going to get good government – and they aren’t going to like it.”
“The time has come for all good men to rise above principle.”
“Hard work is damn near as overrated as monogamy.”
Of course, his corruption was legend, as well as his “Share our Wealth” associations such as the anti-Semitic nutjob Father Charles Coughlin. The SOW Silvershirts were considered the American manifestation of the international fascist movement – the equivalent of the German Brown Shirts and Mussolini’s Black Shirts.
This wasn’t really Long’s agenda however, and some left wing historians have some grudging admiration for his willingness to take on prevailing power. From Spartacus:
Long quoted research that suggested “2% of the people owned 60% of the wealth”. In one radio broadcast he told the listeners: “God called: ‘Come to my feast.’ But what had happened? Rockefeller, Morgan, and their crowd stepped up and took enough for 120,000,000 people and left only enough for 5,000,000 for all the other 125,000,000 to eat. And so many millions must go hungry.”
Obviously you can only carry the analogy with Arkley so far.
The photo comes from the Spartacus page linked above.
Not that old actually. It’s from the big Eureka anti-war demo circa March of 2003, taken from the vantage point of the Courthouse steps. I believe my mother found it at Indymedia.
What she noticed in the photo was me, my kid (then about 1.5 years old) and my dog. After you click on it to enlarge it, you should notice to the left of the center of the photo you’ll see a guy in a red jacket (me) with my son in a backpack on my back, and an Australian shepherd/spaniel mutt on a leash (my dog Yuri).
FYI, in the foreground the Women in Black are sharing the Courthouse front yard with a counter-demonstration, with at least one participant most likely in the John Birch Society (nobody else is really obsessed with the UN). I remember the moment well. As I walked by there were a couple of arguments but nothing intense. It was, and remains, the largest anti-war demonstration in Humboldt County history. A good day for the First Amendment if nothing else.
Posterity.
OJ, well… yeah right. You really think I’m going there?
Due to a family emergency I’m in the Bay Area. I had to endure about 45 minutes of OJ coverage on Fox News yesterday – most of it Geraldo’s!! I mean, it’s one thing to be a right wing power-hungry wantabe media overlord, but what possessed Murdoch to give this guy a camera and microphone!
I have to admit, there were some amusing moments; such as when Mark Fuhrman’s crypto-fascist mug popped onto the screen in a box with a caption that read his name followed by “Fox News Analyst.” They forgot to mention his history with OJ. I guess they had a lot on their minds. You can’t write better satire, you just can’t!
Okay, get it out of your system because I’d just as soon dedicate all of my posts for the next month on Britney Spears’ new baby as spend any time on this. This is your OJ thread on this forum. Make hay while the sun shines.
Gawd! Can you imagine what the blogosphere would have looked like if it had existed, what is it now, 14 years ago?
I subbed at his high school a few times. He went to Galileo High School in SF, located near Ghiradeli Square. I’d been told that he’d attended Woodrow Wilson, but no, they just had a big painting of him in their library. I hope the district sold it for some good money.
Not that I’m going to pay much more attention, but let’s hope that the Las Vegas Police are a little more competent than L.A.’s, who proved so inept they couldn’t frame a guilty man.
Photo comes from ESPN’s Black History Month article on race in sports politics, a good read actually.
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