Surely the fact that it's hardly newsworthy would explain why no news organisation reported it? Particularly if you take the view that his language was hardly shocking at the time.
Great Quotes II: Source and Context are Key
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The point is that no credible source is reporting it. But at the same time, there is an organized effort to drive a wedge between blacks and the Democratic party and the liberal movement. And there is an old ongoing effort to portray any progressive leader as some sort of monster.
So, on the one hand, LBJ wasn't that nice of a guy, so maybe he did. But on the other hand, if he did, why is there no evidence of it from a neutral source? And on the gripping hand, it serves the political agenda of enemies of LBJ's legacy to make it up and try to get people to believe it.
Gucumatz
JS, secretly Rod Serling
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Again take it as you wish - many biographers really only like to count quotes if more than one individual/source can account for it - so you are right on that, but even then it isn't really un-LBJ of him. Robert Caro who is probably the most respected LBJ biographer out there has some pretty incendiary stuff from LBJ when it comes to race. That said, I am not really sure how this quote discredits LBJ. LBJ was known for playing everyone and everything at once. If this quote is true and he was addressing southerners - then he was playing to some of their sensibilities - he could flip at a moment's notice on anything from being the largest Pro-Truman guy you have ever met to his staunchest critic in seconds. Everyone thought LBJ was with them - that's the genius of LBJ, certainly this doesn't discredit that.
Pretty much all of the Southern Senators even throughout the Civil Rights movement thought LBJ was on their side, that's how good he was - years later after some of the southern stalwarts finally left the Senate they later commented on how much he had duped them and led them to believe he was one of them the whole time.
IE here is a quote from several sources (LBJ secretary and other members of Congress I believe) during one of the early moments of civil rights legislation: "“I’m on your side, not theirs,” "But be practical. We’ve got to give the goddamned n------ something". Which is pretty much the exact opposite of what he told to his apprentice Hubert Humphrey
Edit: I can't find the quote I wanted to add online, but it goes something like this "I finally have the power I needed, now I intend to use it for what is right" shortly after LBJ becomes President. LBJ's "We of the South" speeches and playing to the low and high denominators were all for a purpose - his grand vision.
madviking
north american scum
ReindeerThistle
Zimmerwald Left
"The Newsroom: First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers (#2.1)"
(2013)
Borachio
Way past lunacy
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I was highly entertained by the passage I quoted.
It's from Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich p. 571
Which doesn't seem to be available on-line, afaik.
It's an interesting book. Not least because Shirer was actually in Germany until 41 or 42(?).
But undoubtedly it's only a partial history.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
It's ridiculous of them to attack a dead man with fresh accusations of racism, if they never affected his policies. If LBJ was lolsecretlyrasist, it doesn't suddenly make the Great Society now racist, or anything else that he did. If it's a private matter in an off-hand comment that never materially affected anything or mattered, then in my opinion that's just it: it doesn't matter. Whether LBJ used the N word or not doesn't matter. End of story.
Inversely, what does matter is that Wilson is painted as a progressive, while his administration was actively working to turn back all the advancements POC had made since Plessey vs. Ferguson, including entry into the civil service and even White House staff. That would be a case where going back and revising history in light of relevant revelations about his character and attitude toward Blacks would matter.
Wilson was a racist, and set back Civil Rights in his day. That doesn't mean he wasn't a progressive in other respects.
The point with LBJ is, he was certainly a racist earlier in his life and career. And he was certainly an opportunistic political operator as president. Now maybe he said something like that, maybe he didn't. It certainly does not seem to be any form of a verified quote. But the real point here is that people say that it happened, and say it, and say it, and say it, even without any evidence, because their real goal is to discredit the legacy of the target person. And hope that by discrediting the person, they can discredit the policies associated with that person. And by doing so reduce the public support which keeps that policy in force. Also, there is a lot of people who want to try and pry blacks away from the Democrats by discrediting the people and programs.
It's not a quote, it's a particularly ugly and unprincipled form of political warfare.
yeah i really appreciate how he cracked down on those damn dirty reds and the krauts during the war, honestly a jail cell was too good for traitorous scum like them
wilson kept us on the straight and narrow to the rich white male-dominated anglo society we enjoy today
you might call it whig history; i call it america
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
None of this repudiates his cred as a capital P progressive from the early 20th century, which is one of the reasons socialists et al don't have much love for progressives.
I'm liking this evolution in your opinions btw
I'm sure I'm pretty late on the train for noticing it.
ReindeerThistle
Zimmerwald Left
The Newsroom: "Bullies" (Season 1, Episode 6) (2012)
classical_hero
In whom I trust
^^
Doesn't know what she is talking about.
Doesn't know what she is talking about.
ReindeerThistle
Zimmerwald Left
After all the other news outlets announced Congresswoman Gabby Giffords' death. The fictional news team had other info and refused corporate pressure to announce her death....
from HBO's The Newsroom, Season 1, Ep 4 "I'll try to fix you."
from HBO's The Newsroom, Season 1, Ep 4 "I'll try to fix you."
Thorvald of Lym
A Little Sketchy
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray youll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
- Siegfried Sassoon, "Suicide in the Trenches"
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray youll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
- Siegfried Sassoon, "Suicide in the Trenches"
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