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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 that’s 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 messiah’s, they always want to help the poor but they always tell’em there’s a better world a waiting for them somewhere else, tomorrow, if you’ll 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 what’s commonly referred to as log rolling.
What if there was a politician who wouldn’t compromise on his principals? What if there was a politician who dedicated his life to aiding the poor and unfortunate. A politician who didn’t 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
I’m 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 he’d do?
Ain’t no Standard Oil men gonna run this state
Gonna be run by little folks like me and you
Here’s 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/
11 Comments
The Stingy Artist
Gessen was an artist monk. Before he would start a drawing or painting he always insisted upon being paid in advance, and his fees were high. He was known as the “Stingy Artist.”
A geisha once gave him a commission for a painting. “How much can you pay?” inquired Gessen.
“‘Whatever you charge,” replied the girl, “but I want you to do the work in front of me.”
So on a certain day Gessen was called by the geisha. She was holding a feast for her patron.
Gessen with fine brush work did the paining. When it was completed he asked the highest sum of his time.
He received his pay. Then the geisha turned to her patron saying: “All this artist wants is money. His paintings are fine but his mind is dirty; money has caused it to become muddy. Drawn by such a filthy mind, his work is not fit to exhibit. It is just about good enough for one of my petticoats.”
Removing her skirt, she then asked Gessen to do another picture on the back of her petticoat.
“How much will you pay?” asked Gessen.
“Oh, any amount,” answered the girl.
Gessen named a fancy price, painted the picture in the manner requested, and went away.
It was learned later that Gessen had these reasons for desiring money:
A ravaging famine often visited his province. The rich would not help the poor, so Gessen had a secret warehouse, unknown to anyone, which he kept filled with grain, prepared for these emergencies.
From his village to the National Shrine the road was in very poor condition and many travelers suffered while traversing it. He desired to build a better road.
His teacher had passed away without realizing his wish to build a temple, and Gessen wished to complete this temple for him.
After Gessen had accomplished his three wishes he threw away his brushes and artist’s materials and, retiring to the mountains, never painted again.
The Giver Should Be Thankful
While Seietsu was the master of Engaku in Kamakura he required larger quarters, since those in which he was teaching were overcrowded. Umeza Seibei a merchant of Edo, decided to donate five hundred pieces of gold called ryo toward the construction of a more commodious school. This money he brought to the teacher.
Seisetsu said: “All right. I will take it.”
Umezu gave Seisetsu the sack of gold, but he was dissatisfied with the attitude of the teacher. One might live a whole year on three ryo, and the merchant had not even been thanked for five hundred.
“In that sack are five hundred ryo,” hinted Umeza.
“You told me that before,” replied Seisetsu.
“Even if I am a wealthy merchant, five hundred ryo is a lot of money,” said Umezu.
“Do you want me to thank you for it?” asked Seisetsi.
“You ought to,” replied Umeza.
“Why should I?” inquired Seisetsu. “The giver should be thankful.”
Interesting people, these ZEN Buddhists.
Perhaps the ultimate question whenever the issue of being ‘Christ-like’ is bandied about is why would the inheritors of the humanism of the Enlightenment base in any nuanced manner their anthropic weltanschauung on various distorted reincarnations of the myth of Horus, Osiris, and Set invented over created 3000 years ago.
How about ‘do no unnecessary harm to any living thing’ and ‘we are all brothers helping each other to experience and enjoy this wonderful gift of life to the utmost’ as being ‘human-like’?
Strange: myth is accepted without question and facts must be proved time after time.
Sadly, human intelligent is the ultimate oxymoron.
Thanks and recommended
Those are really great stories, C!
Yes, very interesting people, these Zen Buddhists.
Great diary entry, as usual, Dave.
Highly rec’d!
No good deed goes unpunished.
But you knew that.
“Strange: myth is accepted without question and facts must be proved time after time.
Sadly, human intelligent is the ultimate oxymoron.”
Sadly truer words were never said. Myth must be accepted without question, thus the greatest myths always come with a caveat: faith. Thus the effectiveness of the free-market myth.
Human intelligence? Sadly, said intelligence only of the minority. The majority, … well they believe in the magical genie in the sky, who as the creator of the universe with unlimited and unimaginable powers can’t even feed the hungry children across the world, and so thousands die every day due to starvation. Magical genie indeed.
“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.”
Ummm…that looks like cherry-picking to me, Dave. The Buddha also told the rich to give up their attachment to possessions and power to escape their suffering, and was very critical of ascetic Hindus who starved themselves and engaged in self-mutilation to show their piety.
You seem to imply that the Buddha was telling the poor to blame themselves for their suffering and not to blame the powerful for causing it. If so, I must strongly disagree with you there.
Even the “intelligent” are guilty of bad faith.
Recommended.
Back in the 1960s, Mike Wallace’s show Biography featured Huey Long in one episode. I have been a big fan of his ever since I saw the show. But Wallace called him a “demagogue”, a huckster, a charlatan.
You mention some great ideas and policies of his. Maybe his biggest hit was “share the wealth”: Congress has the power to create money and regulate its value.
That got to the heart of all economic problems: Bankers who have the ability to create money create it only for their friends. But our Constitution empowers Congress to create it, not banks.
So all economic problems are caused by bankers wanting more money. Europe’s current economic tailspin is a direct function of what the bankers involved are demanding.
Huey Long pointed out that money can be distributed to those who need it. That would end starvation and eviction.
You ask “What if there was a politician who wouldn’t compromise on his principals?” You know what happened to Huey Long, don’t you?
You
Wait — even if a dyslexic once told them they had an IQ of 150?