Albert J. Beveridge Quotes

See {585638} for the kind of statement that led people to fear him as a dictator.

“Assessing” did not mean evaluating. It described a process where each civil servant was “assessed” an amount of money—based on his salary—that was to be paid to the Political Party that appointed him. This historical quotation gives us a feel for the common political practice of 19th century. In the 21st century, this practice looked unethical and corrupt. Consider that Americans of the 22nd century will likely view private campaign contributions as corrupt. Standards have improved over time in America.

An independent, civilian intelligence agency reporting directly to the president Both the military and the FBI opposed any “new” intelligence agencies to compete with their efforts. President Roosevelt did not accept their argument being a great believer in multiple sourcing about everything. The OSS went on to produce a large proportion of the major WWII intelligence successes in spying, analysis and covert action with minimum assistance from the military and the FBI.

In the latter part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, right wing talk show hosts had extensive conservative audiences who were very susceptible to hyperbole, exaggerations, vitriol, ideology, and conspiracy theories. They in turn pressured the conservative politicians along the lines of the media shows version of conservatism. The result was that the most powerful conservatives in America were media personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. They had more influence on the Republican party than any of the Republican elected officials. Moyers, used to working with Republicans in many bi-partisan efforts attributed the extreme hyperpartisanship, and nasty, gridlocked political scene that developed in these media personalities.

There are few national organizations who would keep a director who made statements as vicious and racist as this about anyone much less the President of the United States. The use of the Nazi slogan of “subhuman mongrels” was stunning at the time. However, the National Rifle Association is a single issue organization and of the racists and neo-Nazis in America many have affiliated with the NRA so forcing Nugent out would have caused a split in their ranks. The larger problem was for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, running for Governor, who kept campaigning with Nugent and even refused to repudiate Nugent’s language or facts. He too wanted the votes of the racists, KKK and Nazis of Texas and did not want to anger them. However, many of the independents and conservative Democrats who otherwise might have supported Abbot will likely not. One of the biggest problem for every candidate is what to do when one of his extreme supporters makes extreme and reprehensible statements. The strongest candidates repudiate them right away and if that loses a few votes from the base, so be it. The weaker candidates try and play the middle and remain silent. A month later, after a huge press story covered the media, Nugent made a half-hearted apology.

Syria has occupied parts of Lebanon from time to time and the Terrorist Hezbollah party was very close to the Syrian government and often acted as their proxies. In the latter part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, many of the major Lebanese politicians who opposed the Syrian occupation and the close Hezbollah relationship with Syria, were assassinated usually by means of a bomb that was planted by Syrian agents, assisted and supported by Hezbollah.

There was huge pressure on the central government to decentralize as they held all the power in Indonesian society. However, if they devolved power to the Provinces (States), many of them could be large enough and independent enough to secede and become an independent country as East Timor had done. So the Indonesian power structure bypassed the Provincial governments and devolved power directly to the local governments, none of which was independent enough to go it alone. The desired objective was met—no more secessions. However, there was no one to worry about regional and national issues and problems as the politicians who had power were all local. The country was becoming non-functional in many ways.

San Francisco Machine Boss Abraham At that time, there were very few jurisdictions with primary elections. Most, like California, selected the party candidates at party conventions. At the time the Railroads had bribed or employed enough delegates to the Party Convention to veto any candidate they did not like. And Pardee was in their sights as he was a supporter of the Theodore Roosevelt concept of preservation of public lands. That meant less land for the Railroads to obtain, develop, build a railroad line and station in the area and then sell the land in smaller parcels at a huge profit.