Hagiographers Masquerading As Historians: The REAL Reason The Movie 'Selma' Is Being Attacked

Hagiography is an ancient literary art, perfected through antiquity via the practice of whitewashing the lives of saints to make them appear much better, more superior, than they really were. Carried to an extreme an expert hagiographer could make a veritable slime ball seem like the most perfect and decent human ever to walk the Earth. As you would gather from this, the word means to portray someone as much better than they were. Originally confined to devotional books, hagiography has recently entered the historical realm to make certain political personalities, politicians, past presidents appear much better than they were.

Alas, it is when hagiography eclipses facts and history that the critical mind must take note and understand when the wool is being pulled over its eyes.  Sadly, too many in the U.S. today are unprepared to cast a critical eye on goings on, far less be disposed to expose a so-called history as really pulp hagiography.

But this is not surprising because historians themselves can often become trapped in their own bullshit and believing whatever they want to - especially concerning some past politician currently regarded as some hero, say of civil rights.

Such is the case now, as we witness another movie subject to slurs and attacks based on the claim that "it gets history wrong". WHOSE history? That which is real and unvarnished or that of a hagiographer out to reconstruct the person to be something he never was? The movie to which I refer is the soon to be released 'Selma' and the subject of the criticism is how one Lyndon Baines Johson is portrayed within it - basically as a reluctant civil rights warrior and even racist.

But those who complain don't have one remote clue about LBJ and what a feral, bastard rat he was- a likely architect of the JFK assassination, as well as a racist pig through and through who once referred to the emergent civil rights bill as the "nigger bill". But don't take my word! Do your own research!

So why are all these schwein hund latter day "historians" crawling out of the woodwork to hurl invective and criticism at an authentic portrayal of LBJ in the film?. Well, because at heart they can't handle the truth and are actually hagiographers of LBJ as opposed to genuine historians.

They are determined to reconstruct his image and cleanse it to make this pig some kind of hero with a legacy as opposed to a filthy scum ball not much better than Dick Cheney.

Salon.com's Joan Walsh  was actually one of the few to get the contretemps between Johnson and King as she observed last year, in her piece ('The Radical MLK We Need Today') :

"King crossed some Democrats and labor leaders when he turned against the Vietnam War in 1967, after his unparalleled Riverside Church speech. He knew the war was not only wrong, but was making Johnson’s alleged “War on Poverty” fiscally impossible"

Though she doesn't venture into the plot to kill Martin, we in the deep politics community are aware that once he came out aggressively against the Vietnam War his days were essentially numbered.  We know from more than a year earlier LBJ had his pal J. Edgar Hoover monitor Rev. King's comings and goings - who he spoke to, who he affiliated with, as well as his motel rooms We also know - despite the Neolib media wanting to cover it up- LBJ had already gotten away with the crime of the century in the JFK assassination, using the bogus Warren Commission as a Potemkin investigation to cover his crime.

LBJ's propensity to remove obstacles by murder was finally uncovered by 1984, in a Dallas Morning News headline article, e.g.

Billie Sol Estes reported that Johnson had Henry Harvey Marshall, a USDA official in charge of the federal cotton allotment detail,  killed because he had attempted to link Estes’ nefarious dealings to the then Vice-President.  While Estes ended up doing prison time, he did have his say before a grand jury (which subpoenaed him) after his release in 1984. As reported in news story, Estes linked Johnson and two others to the slaying of Marshall.  

 In the follow-up grand jury investigation, Johnson, his one-time aide Cliff Carter, and ‘Mac’ Wallace were all deemed “co-conspirators in the murder” of Marshall[1].

Re: the JFK assassination, most of us in deep politics firmly believe that Vietnam was the “Devil’s deal” LBJ struck with his JFK assassination collaborators, in order that he be catapulted into office – while facing  felony charges(barely days before) .  This isn’t “blowing smoke” either. As Steve Kornacki reported in his ‘UP’ journal on MSNBC, the morning of Nov. 23, 2013. Using tapes and media documents, Kornacki showed that Johnson was about to be exposed as an influence peddler in conjunction with the Bobby Baker scandal by LIFE magazine in its upcoming issue.

A paper trail of bank statements and payments was to have been included, and as Kornacki pointed out a Senate investigation would likely have ensued with LBJ being dumped from Kennedy’s 1964 ticket.  In other words, LBJ had by far the most to gain from JFK’s assassination, since he’d then be next in line as President, and not have to face justice in the Baker scandal. Just consider the contrasts: dishonor and imprisonment versus ascension to the top office in the land and the power to set in motion an “investigation” that would not only hide the real culprits but quash the Baker episode in its tracks.

Philip Nelson, whose book ‘LBJ – The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination’ – is noteworthy for its exacting documented detail, observes (Chapter 6: The Conspirators, p. 317):

“The crime could only have been accomplished with at least the acquiescence and foreknowledge of the only man capable of choreographing the massive cover-up which was immediately launched. It is axiomatic that since the cover-up started before the shots were fired, the order for JFK’s assassination could only have come from his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.”

He goes on to note that no other conceivable person, whether Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana, Clint Murchison, H.L. Hunt….or Lee Harvey Oswald…" had the motive, means, the opportunity, the demonstrated pattern of previous criminal – even murderous conduct, and the resolve to see it through.”

All this may appall some delusional,  Pollyanish Americans, and I can picture some of them holding fingers to their ears  and doing a screaming song:  ‘La la la la la la..nay....nay....nay”.. But they had better damned well wake up to the facts. This guy not only saw to it Kennedy was offed, and he could take his sordid place in history without being prosecuted, he also paved the way for the massive expansion of the Vietnam war (via the Tonkin Gulf incident- and resolution) as payback to his nefarious  allies (especially in the national security state) who helped him do it! 

As for the Civil Rights Act, let's get it clear that the conception for the bill was largely due to JFK, but his assassination prevented completion of the process. LBJ,  then, though a reluctant civil rights warrior, realized he could kill two birds with one stone by getting the legislation through: 1) Further adding to his cover (as assassination mastermind) by deflecting attention to Kennedy's bill and its successive passage, and 2) building a basis for a legacy to take hagiographers (nee, 'historians') minds off his actual deeds - making them build him up as some latter day civil rights 'hero'.

Do not believe it! Johnson was an exploitative sewer rat, who expediently used civil rights and the voting rights act to build his so-called legacy and deflect attention away from his real and ongoing misdeeds - including the bogus Warren Commission as a cover-up device for the Kennedy assassination. As one HuffPo author put it:

LBJ was an awful man. He only promoted and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act because he thought it was politically expedient. He disagreed violently and kept it a secret, something I think is unreservedly detestable. Or is it a common politician's disease?
Let's look at another quote attributed to "Great Society & Civil Rights Hero" LBJ:

"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them, we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again."

The best thing anyone can do in the midst of all the anti-Selma blather is to go see the movie and tune out the cacophony of zeros trying to disparage it. And if they claim creds of a "historian" - don't buy that either. They are merely  LBJ hagiographers masquerading as historians!

See also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1rIDmDWSms