Some of those out there on the right should take note of what Lyndon Johnson once said about giving a speech on economics: “Did y’ever think that making a speech on economics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else”. Right now, a lot of right-wingers are pissing down their legs.
Nope, she's not funny ...
You’ve seen the cringe-inducing cluelessness of the Grant sisters, as they tell their followers “Hi I’m Bea … and hi, I’m Elice … and today we’re gaing to be telling you abite Sayshlism. Nigh Sayshlism is jolly ghastly” (except it goes on for a few minutes, as in a few minutes too long). This shows why right-wingers aren’t funny. But they think they are.
... and nor is he
So one might expect other right-wingers to get this fundamental point, and desist from making video content that is not funny. But that thought would have been misplaced, as two aspirant right-wingers who have been favoured by our broadcast media with airtime have concluded - wrongly - that this means the public out there wants to hear from them.
The two are Chloe Westley, formerly with the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance and now showing her free market credentials by sponging off the taxpayer, and Tom Harwood, replacement teaboy to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog. They have joined forces to create a broadcast from the fictional Elite TV.
The video begins with the false premise that broadcasters - that’s the same people who give airtime to Harwood and Ms Westley - “know best”. Teaboy Tom plays someone who is identified with the hashtag #FBPE, which means he is one of those hated and bitter Remoaners. They’re going to discuss his new book “Brexit: how the poor idiots got it wrong”. She asks him “Just how stupid are the general population?”
Yes, those pesky broadcasters have been taking the electorate for fools, but don’t mention the times they invited Chloe and Tom to do just that. It is not only not funny, it is badly scripted, badly acted, the false premises and projection are far too obvious, the two pundits are easily identifiable as Tories, and the result is a pile of steaming horseshit.
Which is why it was subjected to a less than rapturous reception. “Can you imagine how dead their group chats are? This is why nobody thinks right wingers are funny … This is just part one of a 5min skit, I couldn’t bring myself to link the rest. Torture” was one observation. Another Tweeter added “This is just harrowingly unfunny. A barely concealed tantrum, it's like one of those youth theatre groups that come into assemblies and do plays about the evil of drugs”. It was not just bad. It was seriously bad. And there was more.
“There are youths from families barely surviving on Universal Credit; with hand-me-down cracked screen smartphones who make vids infinitely better than this. Embarrassing” … “Was this part of their GCSE coursework?” …”If so, their school should be in special measures” … “This is just sad” … “'The right is starting to get better at...' ah Jesus, I can't even” … “As a comedian, I can confirm that this in no way passed for comedy”.
While yet more right-wingers piss down their legs, out there in the real world their efforts just show, once again, that they are not funny. I’ll just leave that one there.
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There aren't many to admire in US public life now or previously. Certainly Johnson is acknowledged as their most corrupt president - and that's some claim in view of many of his predecessors and successors.
ReplyDeleteBut John Kenneth Galbraith, an economist, was among a few exceptions who proved the rule. Unsurprising, then, there is no DVD* of his seminal TV series The Age of Uncerainty, which was made in the late 1970s. He foresaw the looming swing to neofascist socioeconomic politics in the West. We live with the dreadful results. Sadly, public figures like Galbraith are as virtually extinct in the USA as they are in Britain.
Social conscience has long been abandoned in both countries. Almost all of that abandonment has been instigated by economists, particularly from the aptly named extreme right wing "Chicago School".
Even Johnson - who stood down in disgrace - was not the worst of it.
*A poor quality copy can be viewed on YouTube.
@1
ReplyDeleteThe Johnson quote was from a conversation with Galbraith.
It can be found in the latter's memoirs, along with a similar example of scatology concerning Gerald Ford.
My Name Is, My Name Is, His Name Is...What?
ReplyDeleteVoting a dump in to The White House aways back
Was seen as a somewhat incredible feat
But here in good ole Blighty, us Limeys
Have actually managed to trump even that...
Slipping, "a flaccid Johnson", into number ten Downing St.
Peace.
@Anon 14:09
ReplyDeletePresident Lyndon B Johnson served his full term in office and, therefore, did not stand down.
Did someone hack into your e-crib sheet and replace 'Nixon' with 'Johnson'?
I love it when Tories try to be 'down with da kids' as it always backfires.
ReplyDelete@ 17:19.
ReplyDeleteMere sophistry.
Johnson served a single term and wouldn't run for a second. He was universally reviled for his role in the Vietnam invasion and the false flag Gulf of Tonkin "incident".
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vOs7BjZrgqY......If that's not "standing down", gawd knows what is......
Addendum.
ReplyDeleteThis one's better - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rYqmO0PJ5Zk
Ohh, ohh sir, please can you play that one of "Govey" performing Wham Rap?
ReplyDeleteAnon 19:50
ReplyDelete'Standing down' means leaving a position before its expiration date.
You say, "Certainly Johnson is acknowledged as their most corrupt president" What? You think that Nixon was less corrupt?
List Johnson's corrupt activities.
Try this: 'Why Lyndon Johnson, a truly awful man, is my political hero' by Jack Bernhardt https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/22/lyndon-johnson-anniversary-death-awful-man-my-political-hero
Highlights - Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, Civil Rights Act, Food Stamp Act.
In a field including Harding, Nixon and Trump, LBJ comes across as a veritable saint.
ReplyDeleteThere are none so blind as those who can't or won't see.
ReplyDeleteFor details of Johnson's corruption you could start at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7EtN8NZmIw
Then go on to The Washington Pay-Off by Robert N. Winter-Berger (Secaucus, N. J; 1972)
Follow the sources in both. There are plenty of other works exposing Johnson for what he was. But you'll have to get off your arse and do your own research.
Johnson was also in league with convicted felons Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes. Early in Johnson’s presidency, panicked by the looming Bobby Baker scandal and possible exposure, he appeared in John McCormack the House Speaker’s office and told him, “John, that sonofabitch is going to ruin me. If that cocksucker talks, I’m going to land in jail......I will give him a million dollars if he takes the rap.”
Texas, Johnson's "bailiwick", has long been noted as a cockpit of US urfascism and political corruption. For example, John Connally was a contemporary of Johnson's who switched parties and eventually went down for bribery and corruption in the wake of the Watergate scandal. All this despite the existence of a tiny but noisy liberal minority led by Ralph Yarborough - who Johnson and Connally hated.
Johnson went to war in Vietnam by executive order after lying about the Gulf of Tonkin "incident". A war crime which eventually took the lives of over three million Vietnamese and almost 60,000 US military. A war which predecessor Kennedy finally realised was beyond winnable and which he had decided to withdraw from. Johnson reversed that decision within days of succeeding him.
To cap it all Johnson appointed the whitewash Warren Commission and thus participated in the cover up of the Kennedy assassination. You can find what a criminal farce that was by listening to relevant telephone recordings in the Johnson Library.
Johnson was a rotten to the core individual, Nixon or no Nixon, Grauniad or no Grauniad, sophistry or no sophistry. The public record is clear - except for those who don't wish to acknowledge it.
@Anon 13:54
ReplyDeleteYeah, the nasty Johnson administration passing the Civil Rights Act knowing that they'd lose millions of votes in the southern States.
Robert N. Winter-Berger
http://3197d6d14b5f19f2f440-5e13d29c4c016cf96cbbfd197c579b45.r81.cf1.rackcdn.com/collection/papers/1960/1960_0608_NYWinterberger.pdf
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-n-winter-berger/the-washington-pay-off-an-insiders-view-of-corr/
The Civil Rights Bill came about after many years of gradual social pressure and came to a head during the Kennedy presidency. At which point it was composed and made ready for action - like many other important policies - in Kennedy's second term, if he was elected. The assassination and ensuing national shame meant Johnson had a run to get the Bill passed. He had virtually nothing to do with it during his useless vice presidency.
ReplyDeleteAny claim that Johnson was solely or even mainly responsible for conception and passing the Bill is patently absurd. Evolving consensual politics did that, not some tenth rate Texas cowboy on the make. Even racist Harry Truman began integration of the military. Even Eisenhower tried to face down Southern racism. Kennedy was finally handed the politically poisoned chalice and was forced by events and the movement led by Martin Luther King to confront the legal and cultural problems. Which his administration was in the process of doing when he was murdered. There is no evidence whatever that political opportunist Johnson would have gone down that road without previous political and cultural underpinning.
As Robert Caro's four volume work shows, all Johnson's political life consisted of taking advantage of circumstances for his own political and financial gain, including ballot fraud. He was a thoroughly corrupt shyster in the US political "tradition." Which is why he intensified the Vietnam War and helped enrich his Texas gang in the military-industrial mob. He even appointed two of the worst racists in US politics to the Warren Commission, Richard Russell and Hale Boggs, both of whom hated Kennedy, as did two other appointees Allen Dulles and John McCloy.
The man was a thoroughgoing counterfeit exposed by a politically-conscious generation and what remained of US political and cultural decency. Which is why he stood down and wouldn't contest the next election. His presidency was a disaster for the USA and the world. The public record shows why.
Lyndon Johnson is the only US president to come to that office by killing his predecessor.
ReplyDeleteJohnson strongly opposed civil rights, but,following his successful seizure of the presidency, he knew that he needed to expand his support in order to be the nominee in 1964.
I am not surprised that people do not see him for what he really was.
There are about 6 books that identify him as the man behind the assassination of JFK but they never get reviewed in the newspapers.
The best one is by Philip F. Nelson and it is called 'LBJ: Mastermind of the JFK Assassination'
It was Johnson who lured JFK to Texas so that he could kill him.
The Altgens photo shows that he ducked before the first shot was fired. LBJ's personal hitman was Malcolm Wallace who shot at the president from the Texas School Book Depository.
As the swearing in ended, LBJ exchanged winks with his henchman Congressman Albert Thomas.
@ 13:07.
ReplyDeleteThere is no evidence whatever that Johnson was involved in the murder of John Kennedy.
The character assassinations of Johnson on this thread are very much similar to the current character assassinations of Corbyn by overpaid, talentless cokeheads.
ReplyDelete@ 08:43.
ReplyDelete"Character assassination" my arse.
Johnson's character is a matter of public record. Even noted by favourable biographers.
You could start with A Texan Looks at Lyndon by J. Evetts Haley (Palo Duress Press), a short book published in 1964. There have been many other detailed descriptions of Johnson's corruption
While you're at it, look up the saga of "Box 13" and the electoral fraud that led to the sarcastic nickname "Landslide Lyndon".
There's no need to assassinate Johnson's character. He did it himself, all through his political life.