Huey Long (on whom this movie was based). He wanted to tax both wealth and income. He wanted to tax wealth beyond $8 million (1930's millions - about $150 million today) at %100 and income beyong $1M (about $18 million today) at %100.
Can you believe that? Even FDR feared him as an extreme radical.
Jesus Christ was also seen as a radical when he stood up to the religious politicians of His day. He came to save the meek and powerless from the religious hypocrites just as Long or Stark or anyone for that matter tries to do and then all hell breaks loose & they are called radicals. If the Son of God was treated this way what makes us think a mere man will not be treated wrongly for standing up to the strong for the weak. It's the way of the world to call good evil and evil good. That does not mean that they are evil and it will all be seen for what it is in the end. Also it is human nature to crucify what you do not understand. This we have at one time or another done to Christ as FDR did to Long. I believe there are times we need to raise our voices up against the powers that be but you can expect to get a backlash. JMHO. So that's my 2 cents. I will not debate this opinion so don't waste your time challenging me on it. Godspeed to all
Laura
Jesus Christ was also seen as a radical when he stood up to the religious politicians of His day. He came to save the meek and powerless from the religious hypocrites just as Long or Stark or anyone for that matter tries to do and then all hell breaks loose & they are called radicals.Being a radical isn't bad. To be radical merely means to go to the root of the problem and to address the fundamental structure of society. Lincoln was a radical when he abolished chattel slavery. Was that wrong?
Marxist? Lol. You say that like it's a bad thing.
Anyway, Marxists don't want to tax the rich; they want to overthrow the rich altogether and put the resources of society under full public ownership, and not allow a few parasites to monopolize it and exploit it for themselves and their own gain while leaving everyone else with empty pockets. No need to tax the rich when there's nobody to get rich in the first place because the resources of society and the wealth produced therefrom is commonly owned.
What's extreme is allowing a small section of society to monopolize the wealth of society in their own hands in the first place and let them leave everyone else with nothing. Long didn't even want to abolish their system of theft, as a Marxist would want to do, but to let all society share in a portion of the spoils of that theft, to let the victims of thievery get a share of what was stolen from them to begin with. Not even all of it, but a portion of it (as Penn's character said in the movie; he wasn't going to take away "their table", but to let everyone else share in what remained after they had eaten their fill). That's not radical. It's progressive but it's not radical. To be "radical" means to go to the root of the problem. Marxism addresses the root of the problem, which is the capitalist mode of production and the system of private ownership itself. Huey Long didn't want to alter the mode of production, didn't advocate abolishing capitalism and private property (unfortunately), but wanted to tax the resources produced from the existing mode of production so a larger portion of society could benefit from it after the fact. That's not Marxism. I say that as a Marxist.
"The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor."
- Voltaire
Yeah, I know - listening to his speeches it felt like one of Ayn Rand's two-dimensional lame villains, very fake - but that made me realize, that Rand's villains weren't as fake as I thought - I think the 20s-50's would have been an amazing time to be alive - so much was happening.
What hump?
His entire platform was taking care of the little guy. And there are a lot of little guys that all voted for him. He was a socialist all the way, which went over very well in a poor state like Louisianna.
shareGood thoughts on this thread.
I just ordered a book to read in more detail about Huey Long's life. Honestly, I don't know much apart from Wikipedia and a few other articles but over all, it seemed to me like he cared about doing something good for hicks like himself. And it seems like he did- more roads, schools, hospitals, bridges.....
Yes, he didn't believe very rich people should have it all while so many poor people have without. Is that really all that makes one Marxist?