Is FDR Dead... In The Current Democratic Party... Because if It Is...

[WillyT]

I Would really Like To Know

[Dont call me Shirley]

1. I would love to say no, but the oligarchs have steamrolled over FDR several trillion times.

[PeteSelman]

2. Have you been paying attention?

Of course. Any New Deal Democrat is considered far left fringe these days. Pie in the sky pony beggars that are unrealistic and can never win.

You have be a Reaganite "realist" in today's Democratic Party.

Your choices are center right or far right.

[WillyT]

3. So... I Should Give Up On Voting For Democrats ???

Because you just told me I should.

[PeteSelman]

6. I fear that all is lost.

And has been for decades now.

Reagan type politicians are the best you're going to get from this party at the Presidential level.

There will always be a token voice for the People because of a few house seats and a few Senatorial seats but they'll always be toothless. They exist only to give the illusion of choice and freedom.

The system is way too corrupt to ever be changed.

Voting at this point is an ogre's choice. Die fast or die slow. We choose to die slow but at the end we're still dead.

[jwirr]

35. Reagan trickle down has failed miserably and much of what FDR did is still working. But

unfortunately many top Democrats still believe in trickle down and are afraid to champion FDR again. For that reason we on the bottom may know what we need while our leaders like the rethug leaders are still chasing the Reagan wet dream.

[IDemo]

7. No, because the alternative is roided-up republinazis

Lesser of Two Evils is the voting choice we are left with for the foreseeable future and...Dammit, Bernie and Liz, you two sit down and hush up!

[librechik]

25. they got us by the short and curlies. Too bad they've forgotten what they're supposed to do now

[moriah]

70. Strange, I heard "FDR Democrats" separated from "liberal, socialist Democrats"...

... on here last week or so.

I didn't get it then, either.

[PeteSelman]

73. I don't know why.

The liberal, progressive, socialist minded Democrats ARE the FDR Democrats.

Some people will do anything to discredit the left.

[world wide wally]

4. We may have to give up on "these" Democrats if we want FDR results

[woo me with science]

5. Pony lover.

Get in line and cheer. One corporate Democrat just threatened us with even more corporate tax breaks and assaults on ordinary Americans, but the head corporate Democrat might not let it happen this time.

That ought to be enough for you, ingrate.

[WillyT]

8. Ingrate ??? - Yeah...

[MisterP]

9. James Buchanan is too "extreme" for the Dems--because he took positions, and that rankles the

political nihilists of the post-1994 Democrats: they care only about winning, and half the time they'd rather punt to give the Pubs a seat than win by standing for anything in particular

[newfie11]

10. I know this is heresy.

Maybe it's time for a third-party. That's why I'm voting for Bernie if he runs. I would love Elizabeth Warren but she says she's not running.

[baldguy]

11. If the FDR coalition is dead, it's because the "progressive" purists killed it.

[WillyT]

16. Oh Please... Do Explain...

[geek tragedy]

20. It's dead because all of its members are dead. nt

[jwirr]

36. I'm still here. Born in 1941.

[mmonk]

12. Pretty much except for the outliers

such as Sanders and Warren the party discourages us from voting for.

[RiverLover]

13. And in some cases, Dems are to the right of Republicans (not just Obama)

I just read this yesterday~

Smoking Out the Impostors

Those numbers, and those across the country, are extremely compelling. And there’s another compelling reason for Democrats to push for Social Security expansion: the Republicans have outflanked them on this issue before. Republicans ran to the left of Democrats in 2010 with a “Seniors’ Bill of Rights,” promising to protect Social Security and Medicare.

This was a craven move, given the fact that their party opposed both programs when they were created and had been trying to cut them for decades. But it worked. Democrats lost the House of Representatives that year.

Now Republicans are once again seeking to blur the differences between themselves and their opponents on this issue.

On the wrong side of a winning issue.

It doesn’t help that Democratic leaders like President Obama, former President Clinton, and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer took their own whacks at the so-called “entitlement” piñata. Democrats like these have been steeped in the outdated, discredited, and widely unpopular economic theories of Wall Street-backed groups like “Third Way.”

These Democrats’ support for cutting Social Security has cost their party dearly in the polls, obscuring political differences and distancing Democrats from what may be their party’s signature achievement.

It made matters worse when the President introduced the “chained CPI” cut to Social Security benefits in last year’s proposed budget. It was framed as a gesture to Republicans on Capitol Hill, but we thought the Republicans would use the move to frame Democrats and not themselves as the ‘anti-Social Security party.’ We wondered how long it would take Republicans to use this proposal against Democrats, should the President proceed with it as planned.

We underestimated their zeal. A Republican House leader attacked the idea from the left within fifteen minutes, calling the move “a shocking betrayal of seniors.”

http://ourfuture.org/20140910/dems-can-win-on-social-security-by-fighting-to-increase-it

[Scuba]

15. Intentional betrayal.

Thanks for the link.

[WillyT]

18. + 1,000,000,000 !!!

Thank You !!!

[RiverLover]

14. Sux for me because I'm an FDR Dem...with no representation. ~nt

[Octafish]

17. A clue for the GOP-ish wingtip...

http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/

[geek tragedy]

19. FDR died 70 years ago.

The country was a much different place. So naturally the Democratic Party is much different.

Better in some ways, not as good as others.

This is not FDR's party. It will never be so again. The present belongs to the living. And very few people are alive who ever voted for him.

That is the beginning of the conversation not the end.

[WillyT]

22. Did The Democratic Party Die Too ???

I mean we held congress for 40 years because of FDR... and now ???

Have we lost our way?

[geek tragedy]

27. We held it because of segregation.

Southern whites deserted the party because it became too concerned with civil rights for their liking.

Racist southern whites were a key part of the FDR coalition.

It's easy to gloss over that part--that the Jim Crow establishment were all Democrats before LBJ.

[WillyT]

37. Really ??? - We Lost The Congress After We Passed The Voting Rights Act ??? - I Don't Think So...

Since the Republican Party was formed in 1854, the single longest period either party has controlled one House of Congress was the 40-year period from 1955 to 1995, when Democrats held a solid majority in the House. Democrats also held the Senate for 26 years during that period, but lost control for a time in the 1980s.

Part of the reason the 1994 "Republican Revolution" was so, well, revolutionary, was that House Republicans had been in the minority wilderness for so long.

Link: http://www.quora.com/Whats-the-longest-a-political-party-has-held-a-majority-in-a-body-of-Congress

[wyldwolf]

64. What do you think LBJ meant when he said, "We have lost the South for a generation?"

I'm dying to hear the new 'progressive' spin on this.

[WillyT]

69. Well... I Know It Took A Generation To Do It...

Voting Rights Act - 1965

Republican "Revolution" - 1995

That's 30 years... a generation.

[wyldwolf]

72. the south immediately began moving to the Republican side...

Lyndon Johnson lost 44 house seats and 4 senate seats.

In '68 Richard Nixon won five formerly Confederate (and Democratic) states (Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee)

By 1980, the transition of the south to Republicans was solidified on the presidential level.

The south began electing Republican senators to fill open seats caused by retirements, and finally governors and state legislatures changed sides beginning in 1980 when the GOP actually won the Senate.

Nope, didn't take a whole generation at all.

[WillyT]

75. And We Democrats Started Moving Away From FDR Priciples That Served Us Well, And Are Now...

Gettng Our Asses Handed To Us... Fucking Brlliant !!!

<snip>

Webb is one answer to the weaknesses of today’s center-left, the so-called “upstairs-downstairs” coalition described by Joel Kotkin, presidential fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University. Kotkin argues in his recently published book, “The New Class Conflict,” that the Democratic Party has been taken over by what he calls “gentry liberals,” an elite that has undermined the historic purpose of the Democratic Party.

Kotkin contends that:

The great raison d'être for left-wing politics – advocating for the middle- and working classes – has been refocused to attend more closely to the policy imperatives and interests of small, highly affluent classes, as well as the powerful public sector.

<snip>

And...

<snip>

Let’s forget Webb for a moment and take the question a step further. What are the prospects of winning the presidential nomination for a candidate who challenges current Democratic Party strategic orthodoxy? This strategy calls for identity group, rather than class-based, mobilization, on the assumption that turning out single women, the young, and racial and ethnic minorities is more effective than an uphill struggle to revive support in the recalcitrant white middle and working class.

As much as such a shift to a class-based strategy might result in economic policies more beneficial to less affluent Democratic constituencies, and therefore to more votes in the long haul, so far there has been insufficient intraparty pressure to force a change in strategic orientation.

It is not lost on Democratic strategists that President Obama won twice deploying a group-based rather than a class-based strategy. Even if the next Democratic nominee does not inspire the high minority turnout levels of 2008 and 2012, the 2016 electorate will be less Republican than it was in 2012. Every four years, the heavily Republican white share of voters drops by a little over 2 percent, and the disproportionately Democratic minority share grows by the same amount.

There are, however, fundamental problems with the current Democratic strategy, not least of which is that it is a strategy for winning presidential elections but not necessarily for exerting real political control.

The current approach depends on a Republican Party that refuses to adjust to the transforming composition of the electorate. The 2014 elections demonstrated, however, that the Republican Party and its candidates are not immune to feedback and will change if they have to in order to win.

Insofar as the Republican Party tempers its retrograde stance on social-sexual and moral-racial issues, Democratic campaigns stressing alleged threats from conservatives — the threat to freedom and privacy posed by the Christian right; the threat to Hispanic family unity posed by anti-immigrant activists; the threat to programs serving the poor posed by deficit hawks — will run out of gas.

That moment may be closer than expected. An Oct. 15 Washington Post/ABC poll found that the public held the Democratic Party “in worse regard than at any point in the past 30 years.” An Oct. 24 Pew Research Center survey found, in turn, that the public favored Republicans over Democrats on such key issues as handling the economy, the budget deficit, immigration and terrorism.

Democrats, according to Pew, retained an advantage on less tangible qualities such as empathy, honesty and a willingness to compromise. As attractive as those characteristics are, they are not top priorities for voters. Both Pew and Gallup have found that, except in times of crisis – for example, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks — voters’ top priorities consistently include bread-and-butter issues, jobs and the economy.

<snip>

DULink: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025874837

[wyldwolf]

76. Your long reply has nothing to do with your initial claim.

One wonders why you even bothered.

You shifted from denying the civil rights legislation caused Democrats to lose the south to the typical 'progressive' claim (unsupported by facts) Democrats lose in general because they're not sufficiently progressive.

[WillyT]

85. So... No Response... No Concern... How Do You Propose We Win Again ???

[wyldwolf]

92. stay on task much?

[WillyT]

93. Non Responsive...

[wyldwolf]

95. evasive. You completely changed the subject

[AverageJoe90]

58. "Racist southern whites were a key part of the FDR coalition." Erm, not quite.

They did play A part, yes. But they weren't key.....no, that was the urban "ethnics" in cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, etc.; he *could not* have won without them.

In fact, this isn't something they teach in schools, but didn't you know that MANY southern Dixiecrats were initially quite opposed to the New Deal, exactly because it was intended to benefit *all* Americans, and that they feared that progressive reforms would be used to topple the southern power structure? Sadly, I think we all know that F.D.R. couldn't help but give in somewhat, but at least his rapidly growing popularity ensured that the Dixiecrats couldn't afford to run against the grain.....and hopefully, the next F.D.R., whoever that is, can do a little more against the Third Wayers.

[wyldwolf]

66. The Southern faction did, indeed, play a major role

The New Deal program of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) generally united the party factions for over three decades, since Southerners, like Northern urban populations, were hit particularly hard and generally benefited from the massive governmental relief program. FDR was adept at holding white Southerners in the coalition[7] while simultaneously beginning the erosion of Black voters away from their then-characteristic Republican preferences. (sources cited at link)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Democrats#The_New_Deal_and_after

The New Deal coalition began with the Democrats' traditional core of support—the "Solid South," where traditionalist Southern whites still resented the Republican Party for its leading role in leading the North to victory in the Civil War and destroying slavery. Southern Democrats' conservatism made for an awkward partnership with Roosevelt's progressive agenda, but the "Solid South" did heavily influence the New Deal by setting certain boundaries beyond which Roosevelt could not go without upsetting his coalition. The New Deal's very mixed record on race, for example, is largely due to Southern Democrats' leverage in blocking progressive measures to benefit African-Americans.

http://www.shmoop.com/fdr-new-deal/society.html

[RiverLover]

68. Here's a black perspective, Mary McLeod Bethune's~

Judged from the standards of today, of course, there is much we can criticize about the New Deal/Roosevelt era. It did not bring to an end the tremendous injustices that African Americans had to suffer on a day-to-day basis, and some of its activities, such as the work of the Federal Housing Administration, served to build rather than break down the walls of segregation that separated black from white in Jim Crow America.

Yet as Mary McLeod Bethune once noted, the Roosevelt era represented “the first time in their history” that African Americans felt that they could communicate their grievances to their government with the “expectancy of sympathetic understanding and interpretation.” Indeed, it was during the New Deal, that the silent, invisible hand of racism was fully exposed as a national issue; as a problem that at the very least needed to be recognized; as something the county could no longer pretend did not exist.

http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/african-americans-and-new-deal-look-back-history

A different time. Racism is not acceptable to progressives now, but we'll take his support of the working class. We didn't need the racist southern whites to elect Obama, and we don't need them now either.

[AverageJoe90]

71. Well......

It is indeed true that he DID let the Dixiecrats in, to an extent, but, again, they were never a major faction, nor did the start the New Deal coalition; that is a myth, an a persistent one that.....however, though, the Shmoop link did hit on some truths; in fact, it actually ended up backing up a good bit of what I'd said earlier. Here's a quote from elsewhere in the article:

Much of the New Deal's relief spending was funneled through liberal and Democratic political machines in the nation's large cities. That spending sustained huge patronage operations and won devoted adherents among the large populations of blacks, Catholics, Jews, and other ethnics who inhabited America's metropolises, and who came to view the New Deal as a lifeline in a time of industrial collapse.

And the quote you outlined:

The New Deal's very mixed record on race, for example, is largely due to Southern Democrats' leverage in blocking progressive measures to benefit African-Americans.

Also proves a point I've been making for a long while-The Dixiecrats never really supported the New Deal: they actually tried to sabotage it, and might have succeeded, if F.D.R. hadn't had such fortitude.

[wyldwolf]

74. "FDR let the Dixiecrats 'in to an extent.'" No, they played a major role in the New Deal's passage

1. This is a matter of electoral fact. It can't be spun away.
2. Where are you citing your 'facts' from?

.

.. And the importance of congressional power meant power for the Jim Crow South—because liberal Democrats never constituted a majority by themselves even in an era in which Democrats generally had huge majorities in both houses of Congress, southern Democratic support was frequently needed for legislation to pass. And because the one-party South meant lengthy tenures for many key southern congressmen, Southern Democrats used control the committee system to gain even more influence over the congressional agenda ...

http://prospect.org/article/fear-and-new-deal

The New Deal was supported by a heterogeneous coalition that included Southern and Western business interests, the Northern white urban working class and many Wall Street financiers. These groups did not necessarily like each other, but they formed a common front against the protectionist, isolationist Republican Party of Herbert Hoover, which represented the mostly white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) capitalist elite of the Northeastern-Midwestern industrial core.

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/01/how_fdr_created_todays_republican_party/

Regardless of WHY southern democrats supported the New Deal (and it's apparent they supported it in exchange for FDR not pushing civil rights), the electoral fact is Southern Dems did support and were often crucial to it's passage.

In fact, so successful was the south in preventing major portions of the New Deal from being extended to African Americans (to which FDR went along with), it could be said Southern Dems let FDR in to an extent.

[AverageJoe90]

80. "No, they played a major role in the New Deal's passage", I'm sorry, but that's a myth......

They did not play a major role, not with the New Deal as it had been originally proposed, anyway.

(And, by the way, Ira Katznelson, whom was quoted in the Prospect article, is not a good source, sad to say.....despite him being fawned over by many wannabe radicals today.)

In fact, so successful was the south in preventing major portions of the New Deal from being extended to African Americans

And that's all they really did, was sabotage it. The only reason they finally backed off circa 1935 was because of FDR's growing popularity, and they couldn't afford to be perceived as backstabbers, even back home where many conservatives still distrusted the man. And, frankly, the one thing that's tragic about this, is that, despite the popular myth, the New Deal actually could have succeeded WITHOUT the Dixiecrats; it would have been tougher, maybe, but it still would have been possible. If there is one major mistake FDR made, it was trusting that the Dixiecrats would stay loyal to the party as a whole and not try to screw things up with their own B.S. agenda; unfortunately, in a way, we can also admit that Obama made a few similar mistakes with the Third Wayers in our own party in this era.

[wyldwolf]

84. I just posted source material and you still contend it's a myth

Reminds me of the old Eddie Murphy 'it wasn't me' routine - as if merely denying the facts exist will make them not true. This is why it's so difficult to have a discussion with fundamentalists - left and right ones. If the facts don't fit your world view, you just deny they exist.

[AverageJoe90]

87. Re: "If the facts don't fit your world view, you just deny they exist."

Only problem is, the facts were on MY side, this time around. And, by the way, I'd like to add that not having any sources on hand at all is better than having a terribly flawed one such as Katznelson's piece.

Do note, btw, that I didn't deny that some did indeed come around and actually cast their votes in favor, but only after the legislation had been watered down, and after F.D.R.'s popularity begin to soar, even in the South. That is hardly tacit genuine "support", more like riding the waves(just as some Republicans may support ending the drug war in our era.).

[wyldwolf]

96. the source materials contradicted your opinions (what you're calling 'facts')

[AverageJoe90]

102. Those were not opinions.

Let me repost what I wrote earlier:

It is indeed true that he DID let the Dixiecrats in, to an extent, but, again, they were never a major faction, nor did the start the New Deal coalition; that is a myth, an a persistent one that.....however, though, the Shmoop link did hit on some truths; in fact, it actually ended up backing up a good bit of what I'd said earlier. Here's a quote from elsewhere in the article:

Much of the New Deal's relief spending was funneled through liberal and Democratic political machines in the nation's large cities. That spending sustained huge patronage operations and won devoted adherents among the large populations of blacks, Catholics, Jews, and other ethnics who inhabited America's metropolises, and who came to view the New Deal as a lifeline in a time of industrial collapse.

And the quote you outlined:

The New Deal's very mixed record on race, for example, is largely due to Southern Democrats' leverage in blocking progressive measures to benefit African-Americans.

Also proves a point I've been making for a long while-The Dixiecrats never really supported the New Deal: they actually tried to sabotage it, and might have succeeded, if F.D.R. hadn't had such fortitude.

I mean, when even one of one's own sources, ends up supporting the other guy's, even if only in part, that doesn't bode well for the first person's argument. The facts remain: the Dixiecrats didn't like the New Deal as it was first being drawn up.....you yourself admitted, and correctly so, to be fair, that they tried to block progressive measures that would have helped black Americans. But they went a lot farther than that. And they only backed away from their initial positions after they realized that this could really hurt them; some even begrudgingly signed on, just so they could keep their reputations intact(kind of like how some Republicans now are beginning to back off of same-sex marriage and legalization).....and, from what I've read further, it looks like that didn't even really last, as some of them allied temporarily with Mr. Taft and the rightist wing of the GOP to try to stop any more progressive legislation from being passed.....

And, by the way, I'm sorry to admit that finding a straightforward source on the "Conservative Coalition of '38" has been much more difficult than I'd anticipated. Perhaps I'll ask the DUer who posted that tidbit originally to see if he(she?) can give me a few good sources.

[wyldwolf]

103. Hm. Ok, un-sourced, un-linked cites.

[AverageJoe90]

104. I'll let you know when I find the sources I'm looking for.

This did happen, by the way. It's just that finding a good reference has been much harder than expected, probably because this is a political happening that has largely become a tad obscure in the scheme of things; however, though, it does appear I was wrong on one thing: the Conservative Coalition was formed in 1937, not 1938 as I originally believed.

If it helps, RiverLover found the Wikipedia article on F.D.R., and found some good tidbits-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt

In his first hundred days in office, which began March 4, 1933, Roosevelt spearheaded major legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce:

- relief (government jobs for the unemployed)

- recovery (economic growth),

--reform (through regulation of Wall Street(created the SEC), banks and transportation).

The economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1937, but then relapsed into a deep recession. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the Supreme Court. For the rest of his days in office, it blocked all proposals for major liberal legislation (apart from a minimum wage law).

It abolished many of the relief programs when unemployment practically vanished during the war. Most of the regulations on business continued in effect until they ended about 1975–1985, except for the regulation of Wall Street by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which still exists. Along with several smaller programs, major surviving programs include the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which was created in 1933, and Social Security, which Congress passed in 1935.

I'll continue to search for another link, however, if this doesn't suffice.

[XemaSab]

106. That one

has had the exact same convo with hella people here.

It's not you.

[wyldwolf]

63. We didn't hold 'congress for 40 years because of FDR.'

[adirondacker]

21. “government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob.” FDR

United States of the Oligarchic Mafia.

[Cleita]

23. Maybe we need an FDR Democratic Party to challenge the

status quo of the Wall Street Whores' Democratic Party.

[Le Taz Hot]

24. +1

[geek tragedy]

28. How would you get southern white racists to sign up?

Because if you want to recreate the FDR Democratic Party, they're part of your base.

[Cleita]

29. Really?

I thought racist white trash are already Republicans. I think real southern Democrats want FDR style politics as much as anyone does.

[geek tragedy]

44. They were Democrats under FDR because Lincoln

was a Republican.

[Cleita]

46. Well now they have been Republicans for decades now.

No one is going to win them back, but there is a growing population of poor brown and other white people that a populist, social democratic message will resonate with.

[geek tragedy]

47. That is not the FDR coalition though. nt

[Cleita]

48. It can be if our activists explain it to them. eom

[geek tragedy]

49. No, it's a modern coalition, for better or worse.

Arguing for policies is healthy, but looking backwards is not the way forward.

Millenials don't care about FDR.

[Cleita]

50. I didn't care about FDR when I was in my early twenties and I was

alive during the last leg of his administration. It was in later years I have learned to appreciate whom he was and frankly how great he was. I think millennials will appreciate him once they know about him.

[SidDithers]

26. No Americans have been thrown into internment camps lately...

Sid

[Cleita]

30. Anytime anyone mentions FDR someone brings up the internment camps

while throwing away every great thing he did for this country that I know made my life better even after he died. How about you? What would your life had been like if we had has a succession of Hoover style politicians? That and maybe WWII which resulted in the internment camps were mistakes at the end of his life when he was very ill and probably under some very misguided advise.

How about Gitmo since you bring it up?

[wyldwolf]

113. Then how about...

several hundred thousand Mexican Americans, both immigrants and citizens, living in the Southwest forcefully deported?

[Cleita]

116. That was started by Hoover. eom

[wyldwolf]

117. and FDR continued it.

[Cleita]

118. You've made your point. One of the greatest Presidents of this country also made

some decisions that aren't popular in this century, but that most Americans thought were fine back then. So therefore I guess we need to throw all of them under the bus who actually did things that make our lives better today, like ending slavery, ending the robber baron era, ending the Depression, making Social Security, instituting the Marshal Plan after WWII that has Europe and Japan as prosperous countries instead of failed states like North Korea and Afghanistan, instituting Medicare, Civil Rights, the Affordable Care Act and so on. Yes, every single President who made these things happen also did things that were wrong. However, they didn't do every damn thing wrong like all the Republican Presidents with the exception of Eisenhower yet he did some bad shit as well.

But you know that because all you want to do is stir shit. If you don't like Roosevelt, put up a separate post about it because criticism of him on this OP is out of context.

[wyldwolf]

119. And your point is...

If a president does something that's fine with most people, his legacy shouldn't be tainted when people decide it wasn't a good thing?

[WillyT]

38. No... But A Couple Have Been Killed By Drones...

Without any due process.

[BlindTiresias]

31. Yes

[MineralMan]

32. FDR is dead, period.

His memory lives on, however. We remember things FDR did and said during his multiple terms in office. Memory, though, is selective, and is often selective to suit our current beliefs and understandings.

The Democratic Party remembers FDR. Democrats remember FDR.

His actions as President are remembered. All of them. Some are remembered in one way. Others are remembered in other ways.

For example: In 1941, FDR set in motion the development of nuclear weapons and began the nuclear age. October, 1941. Not too many people remember that. It was a secret. Here's a link:

http://www.nww2m.com/2011/10/fdr-approves-building-an-atomic-bomb-70th-anniversary-october-9-1941/

About four years later, the United States became the first nation to use a nuclear weapon in warfare.

[KoKo]

40. That was Truman's judgement, through advisement, to use it, though.

Just to keep fact straight.

[MineralMan]

42. It wasn't built not to be used.

Yes, Truman made the final decision. FDR would have made the same decision, though. I don't think there is any question about that. The point is that FDR initiated the design of this weapon before the United States was even involved in the war. Truman wasn't even advised on the project until he took office. It was that much of a secret.

Was he wrong to start creating nuclear weapons? I don't have a good answer for that question, really. I'm simply stating what the facts are.

Economically, FDR was a revolutionary who changed much. In other areas, he was a man of his own times. Today, he would be a man of these times, but he is dead. What would he do today if he were alive? Nobody knows the answer to that question. Democrats have not forgotten FDR. Not at all. However, his solutions to today's problems are unknown. We can't ask him for them, either.

It's a long time since FDR was in office. A very long time. Times have changed enormously since his Presidency. It's a mistake to look to FDR for solutions to today's problems. They are not the same as the problems he faced.

[lumberjack_jeff]

33. *checks my pulse*

Not yet.

[raouldukelives]

34. You can sensse his spirit so often in our party. "You have to compromise!" he was fond of saying.

Whether it is backroom sweetheart deals for bankers, the TPP, destruction of public education or letting massive environmental terrorists roam freely about our countryside you know they are channeling the very essence of FDR.

[jwirr]

43. I do not think FDR would have been for TPP, the ending of public education or environmental

terrorists destroy our country. The was a reason why big business hated him. Also it is somewhat unfair to speculate that he would not have cared about the environment - as far as I know he did not ignore science and he was intelligent enough to know that climate change could indeed be real and man-made. We do not know for sure but I for one would have trusted him like my parents did.

[KoKo]

39. FDR....Who?

????

Just snarking. Sorry. Things aren't looking so good lately. Maybe it's just a "time out" for our Dems to reflect. But, I suspect there's more to the quiet than that, sadly.

[jwirr]

41. I have read this post and apparently it is dead. So what the hell do we care what happens to Social

Security? Or having the government involved in every day life such as regulating big business or paving our highways, etc.? Obviously we do not need Glass-Stegall back. We just need to get government out of our lives. Oh, that sounds very much like the rethugs!

Back in the 60s-70s we still had all the laws to prevent another Great Depression in place. After Reagan we started dismantling these laws. Our economy has been unstable ever since and the 1% have been getting more and more of the wealth. But we do not want to be like FDR because we don't need him anymore.

Obviously there were mistakes made - the internment camps. I will not include either the nuclear bomb research or WWII in those mistakes because Nazism is not something that was safe to ignore then or now. As to the bomb - Germany was developing their own program and would have won the war if allowed to continue. I do think dropping the bomb was a mistake but the was Truman.

So yes, unfortunately the FDR Democratic Party has very little power today because we like trickle down better.

God help our kids.

[KoKo]

52. Recommend...you are addressing the Roosevelt programs that

Last edited Wed Nov 26, 2014, 06:05 PM - Edit history (2)

served this country well for decades. They served so well that they had to be dismantled bit by bit and it was our own Democrats (DLC/Third Way) that were complicit. Full Disclosure:I believed the DLC new tack to support more Business emphasis was the way forward for us Dems after our painful candidates losses pre-Clinton. So....I bought it... But..."live and learn." Clinton no sooner left office than the results of the DLC policies started to kick in with NAFTA passing in his first months in office and the Deregulation in his Second Term which caused harm that we are still living with today.

And, we still had strong labor up through Carter. NAFTA got rid of that. Send the manufacturing to China, Mexico..wherever the labor is cheap and force a Consumer Society, at home, hooked on Credit Cards.

Both parties leadership are to blame. And, now that we see that....we've got to do something about it.

But, WHAT...is the question. What we Dem voters and activists have tried, so far, since Reagan, has not worked out. Those we elect don't deliver. They blame everything on Republican obstruction. While there truly is Republican Obstruction, that doesn't mean that we couldn't have done better.

[jwirr]

55. I agree. One of the things I think that could have been done better is talking more about the things

that the Party has done successfully like the things I was talking about. We also were responsible for ACA Medicaid and Medicare. Civil Rights were once something we were very involved in. Gay rights legislation. We once even had roads that did not have potholes in them. There are so many things that people have just forgotten.

The problem is that everything we talk about the Koch brothers will pay someone to deny.

I would like to see plans for the future that include free educations, help creating more alternative energy programs and things like that. Maybe we cannot get them through the congress now but we can educate the country regarding what we are trying to do.

I do not really know WHAT we can do. I guess we wait for the next depression and then maybe people will listen. We are so close to one now for most of us but still the country believes what the opposition has to say and falls for it.

[KoKo]

60. Agree with what you say.

And..think it will probably have to take another Wall Street or Banking Meltdown for people to wake up. It's the only thing the 1-2% really care about or pay attention to.

Grass Roots suffering is going to make a difference at some point, though and people standing up against abuse like OWS/Ferguson and all the other actions that are going on here in the U.S. and worldwide with the people rising up. Our MSM doesn't do the actions justice...because they don't want us to "connect the dots" on these citizens actions against Fracking, Food and Water contamination and even Peace instead of War overseas draining our economy.

There is much to do. Just wish we had back-up from either party that was supportive.

[jwirr]

61. I think it may even be making a difference already. How many of us are spending as much at

Christmas as we did even 5 years ago. I am dead broke when it comes to discretionary spending. When enough of us can no longer buy even when they offer specials on special days they will no longer be making any money.

But I think it has to get a lot worse than that for them to care. As long as their table is full they are not going to care.

[maxrandb]

45. It died because FDR wasn't Progressive enough

And just like today, since some on the left didn't get everything on their liberal "wish-list", we've pushed progress back another generation.

Let me say up front that I consider FDR our greatest President.

But I also don’t think that folks comprehend that he was NOT a flaming Liberal. Most Progressive President of the past 100 years? Sure, but President Obama would give him a run for the money on that title.

Below are a few policies that FDR supported and pushed for. Try to imagine, if you will, how some on DU would react to these issues, and you’ll get an idea of my point.

Bottom line is that I firmly believe that if DU existed under FDR’s time, we would have DUer’s consistently questioning his liberal bonafides, and quite possibly, saying the same shit that they say today;

- “On the Eve of the Election, explain why we should support FDR”

- “Let me get this straight” – FDR did something, or said something I don’t approve of

- “Hoover more Progressive than FDR”

And on and on….

Just try to imagine the vitriol we would see on DU regarding just a few of the things FDR did. (Source is Wikipedia)

- In March 1917, after Germany initiated its submarine warfare campaign, Roosevelt asked Wilson for permission, which was denied, to fit the naval fleet out for war. He became an enthusiastic advocate of the submarine and of means to combat the German submarine menace to Allied shipping: he proposed building a mine barrier across the North Sea from Norway to Scotland. In 1918, he visited Scotland, England, Wales, and France to inspect American naval facilities. Roosevelt wanted to provide arms to the merchant marine; knowing that a sale of arms was prohibited, he asked Wilson for approval to lease the arms to the mariners. Wilson ultimately approved this by executive order, and a precedent was set for Roosevelt to take similar action in 1940.

- Roosevelt needed the support of Southern Democrats for his New Deal programs, and he therefore decided not to push for anti-lynching legislation that could not pass and might threaten his ability to pass his highest priority programs

- Roosevelt campaigned on the Democratic platform advocating "immediate and drastic reductions of all public expenditures," "abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagances" and for a "sound currency to be maintained at all hazards."

- Roosevelt expanded a Hoover agency, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, making it a major source of financing for railroads and industry. Roosevelt made agricultural relief a high priority and set up the first Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). The AAA tried to force higher prices for commodities by paying farmers to take land out of crops and to cut herds.

- Roosevelt tried to keep his campaign promise by cutting the federal budget – including a reduction in military spending from $752 million in 1932 to $531 million in 1934 and a 40% cut in spending on veterans' benefits – by removing 500,000 veterans and widows from the pension rolls and reducing benefits for the remainder, as well as cutting the salaries of federal employees and reducing spending on research and education.

- Enemy aliens and people of Japanese ancestry fared badly. On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 that applied to everyone classified as an "enemy alien", including people who had dual citizenship living in designated high-risk areas that covered most of the cities on the West Coast. With the U.S. at war with Italy, some 600,000 Italian aliens (citizens of Italy who did not have U.S. citizenship) were subjected to strict travel restrictions; the restrictions were lifted in October 1942. Some 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were forced to leave the West Coast. From 1942 to 1945, they lived in internment camps inland. Those outside the West Coast, and in Hawaii, were not affected.

- Roosevelt stressed both his proven leadership experience and his intention to do everything possible to keep the United States out of war. In one of his speeches he declared to potential recruits that "you boys are not going to be sent into any foreign war”.

AND HOW WAS FDR REWARDED?

In the November 1938 election, Democrats lost six Senate seats and 71 House seats. Losses were concentrated among pro-New Deal Democrats. When Congress reconvened in 1939, Republicans under Senator Taft formed a Conservative coalition with Southern Democrats, virtually ending Roosevelt's ability to get his domestic proposals enacted into law. The minimum wage law of 1938 was the last substantial New Deal reform act passed by Congress. Following the autumn Congressional elections in 1938, Congress was now dominated by conservatives, many of whom feared that Roosevelt was "aiming at a dictatorship," according to the historian Hugh Brogan. In addition, as noted by another historian, after the 1938 election increased the strength of Republicans,

“conservative Democrats held the balance of power between liberals and Republicans, and they used it to prevent completion of the structure of the Second New Deal.”

See, even the great FDR was not “progressive” enough for some, and just like today, the reins of power were turned over to the 1938 equivalent of the Tea Baggers.

[RiverLover]

51. Here's a short snip from a great article that explains why we want FDR progressivism to LIVE

in the Democratic party~

...Undeniably, the “Age of Roosevelt” and the progressive pursuit of the Four Freedoms can seem a very long time ago. But even now, after so many years of conservative political ascendancy and concerted class war from above – more than 30 years of deregulating corporate activity, reducing the taxes of the rich, assailing labor unions, shuttering industries and neglecting the public infrastructure – the democratic legacy of that generation continues to nourish us. We all live in the long, long shadow of those men and women, of what they did and what they afforded us. And in the intervening decades, the Four Freedoms and what they encompass have actually broadened. Pick any area of American life. The consequences of that generation’s commitment to the promise of those freedoms are evident. Moreover, our most volatile political and cultural contests often fall precisely along the fault lines of those freedoms.

All of which renders it all the more remarkable that we do not honor those men and women for their progressive struggles and achievements. That the right and conservative rich continue, as they always have, to work at delaying, containing and rolling back that generation’s greatest democratic accomplishments is not remarkable. But that liberals and leftists have lost their association with that generation is. How is it that the most celebrated generation in American history is not remembered for its most enduring accomplishment and greatest gift to the nation, the embedding of FDR’s Four Freedoms in the very bedrock of American life?...

http://billmoyers.com/2014/04/10/we-need-to-remember-the-fight-for-the-four-freedoms/

[WillyT]

53. Thank You For That !!!

[RiverLover]

56. My pleasure WillyT!!!

Back at ya!

[Drahthaardogs]

54. This Democratic Party is nothing like my father's.

Even on DU anti-union posts are common. We have a President who has done next to NOTHING to help Labor. I don't bash Obama because he is way better than the alternative, but he is NOT an old school Democrat and NOT a populist.

[RiverLover]

57. Not at all. He campaigned as one, though. And he won big!!

I'm still waiting for the guy I voted for in 2008. I guess that's why I want Elizabeth Warren to run so badly. I want what we didn't get back then.

[Drahthaardogs]

82. He never did break out those comfortable walking shoes did he?

Too sad. I really think a Populist would win, and win BIG. I think people thought Obama would be a populist, but he turned out to be Republican-Lite. This country is hungry for a FDR.

[99Forever]

59. The Turd Wayers want FDR gone from OUR party...

... I say keep FDR and his DEMOCRATIC principles and dump the scummy Turd Way and all of the DINOs with it.

[wyldwolf]

62. The FDR you're imagining never existed. Just as the Reagan the right imagines never existed

I'd LOVE to have yet another conversation on this. Fact only, please.

[KoKo]

77. ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

"Fact Only, Please."

well...that ends discussion. "Whose Facts are the Only Facts" that you would Accept?...and that's the question. And, that's also an "End to Discussion" when it's phrased in that way.

Did ya' think?

[wyldwolf]

78. How about...

Sourced material vs. "this is what I think"-style rebuttals. Hmm?

How about text from speeches, policy papers, congressional roll calls, biographies and autobiographies vs. "this is what I think"-style rebuttals. Hmm?

It really isn't difficult to set a standard of fact vs. truthiness.

[KoKo]

79. I'm okay with that......are you?

Go at it.

[wyldwolf]

81. definitely, which I why I always suggest it.

How about this: FDR wasn't the left-progressive today's 'progressive' movement imagines he was. He was a good president in a profession where the bar is set pretty low. He sensed a shift in the electoral mood in the early 1930s and went with it (Some here would call him an opportunist.) He co-opted much of the left's rhetoric to keep progressive third party threats at bay, he saved capitalism and he undercut 'progressives' of his day, 'progressives' of his day didn't care for him much, he cut deals with conservatives on civil rights to get parts of the New Deal passed (some here would call that triangulation), many of his policies were racist, he didn't intend for welfare to be a permanent government expenditure. He was propagandist, criticized as a war monger and a one-percenter.

[RiverLover]

86. Where are the links you demand from others?

[wyldwolf]

94. glad you asked.

First, your reply is another example of how 'progressives' seem to snub the idea of corroborating evidence. Secondly, this was KoKo's opportunity to tell how she views FDR before we start presenting evidence. But what the hell...

FDR was a one-percenter

Roosevelt's net worth in 1932 was $6o million (http://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/politician/president/franklin-d-roosevelt-net-worth/)

Roosevelt saved capitalism and the principles of privately owned business for the U.S. economy... Roosevelt did not think in dictatorial or even anti-business terms. Amid speculation that his administration would nationalize the banks, Roosevelt's emergency banking bill extended government aid to help banks through the crisis... Roosevelt's New Deal reforms didn't challenge the system of private profit but sought to regulate and channel it.

In the New Deal there was a tug of war between those who favored a centrally planned economy and those who believed that a reliance on small business and decentralized economic power would bring about recovery. The decentralizers prevailed.

This belief in decentralized and democratic economic power characterized the most important reform of the Roosevelt era: Social Security.

Social Security, by guaranteeing income to elderly retired Americans, established the proposition that the individual has social rights.

But Roosevelt, against the advice of economic planners who would have made it solely a relief program for the poor, insisted on adding responsibilities by funding Social Security through taxes deducted from every wage earner's paycheck.

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/25/news/ss-26179

He sensed a shift in the electoral mood in the early 1930s and went with it



http://books.google.com/books?id=z8wSCZG9O6AC&pg=PA406&lpg=PA406&dq=fdr+opportunist&source=bl&ots=uS-ItBAquz&sig=-g7THj75It4D9BiqplduDbcTr-o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=B4J2VLXvCs_ToASfiYDQAw&sqi=2&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=fdr%20opportunist&f=false

Broadly representative measures of public opinion during the first years of the Depression are not available — the Gallup organization did not begin its regular polling operations until 1935...

... the most striking difference between the 1930s and the present day is that, by the standards of today’s political parlance, average Americans of the mid-1930s revealed downright “socialistic” tendencies in many of their views about the proper role of government.

http://www.pewresearch.org/2010/12/14/how-a-different-america-responded-to-the-great-depression/

National surveys suggest that the leftward shift in public opinion during the 1930s was even more extensive than indicated by third-party voting or membership in radical organizations.

http://www.hoover.org/research/how-fdr-saved-capitalism

Like President Obama and those in Congress who favor government programs to put people to work and ensure that all Americans can enjoy a healthy and productive life, FDR’s New Deal—including his passage of unemployment insurance and Social Security—was attacked as “undisguised state socialism” by one senator. Others went so far as to insist that FDR was a communist, including FDR’s erstwhile colleague Al Smith, who, as one of the founders of the right-wing American Liberty League, warned in the 1936 election that “the people could either breathe the clear fresh air of America, or the foul breath of Soviet Russia.”

FDR brushed aside these attacks in part by insisting that we were a rich nation that could “afford to pay for security and prosperity without having to sacrifice our liberties into the bargain.”

http://rooseveltinstitute.org/franklin-d-roosevelt-socialist-or-champion-freedom

He co-opted much of the left's rhetoric to keep progressive third party threats at bay

The economic crisis of the 1930s presented American radicals with their greatest opportunity to build a third party since World War I, but the constitutional system and the brilliant way in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt co-opted the left prevented this...

Franklin Roosevelt demonstrated his skill at co-opting the rhetoric and demands of opposition groups the year before his 1936 reelection, when the demagogic Senator Huey Long of Louisiana threatened to run on a third-party Share-Our-Wealth ticket. This possibility was particularly threatening because a “secret” public opinion poll conducted in 1935 for the Democratic National Committee suggested that Long might get three to four million votes, throwing several states over to the Republicans if he ran at the head of a third party. At the same time several progressive senators were flirting with a potential third ticket; Roosevelt felt that as a result the 1936 election might witness a Progressive Republican ticket, headed by Robert La Follette, alongside a Share-Our-Wealth ticket.

To prevent this, Roosevelt shifted to the left in rhetoric and, to some extent, in policy, consciously seeking to steal the thunder of his populist critics.

http://www.hoover.org/research/how-fdr-saved-capitalism

Progressives' of his day didn't care for him much

In my examination of the historical record, it is clear that Roosevelt endured vicious, unrelenting attacks from his left that often exceeded the level of vitriol directed at President Obama, and correspondingly, Roosevelt was not viewed by liberals of his day with the adulation and reverence liberals view him today.

In fact, it's pretty remarkable how closely the attacks Roosevelt experienced from his left echo the attacks that liberals make against Obama today. (numerous links and examples follow...)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/08/11/891631/-UPDATED-Liberal-Criticism-of-Franklin-Roosevelt-and-The-New-Deal#

He cut deals with conservatives on civil rights to get parts of the New Deal passed, many of his policies were racist.

Most women and minorities were excluded from the benefits of unemployment insurance and old age pensions. Employment definitions reflected typical white male categories and patterns.[6] Job categories that were not covered by the act included workers in agricultural labor, domestic service, government employees, and many teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social workers.[7] The act also denied coverage to individuals who worked intermittently.[8] These jobs were dominated by women and minorities. For example, women made up 90 percent of domestic labor in 1940 and two-thirds of all employed black women were in domestic service.[9] Exclusions exempted nearly half of the working population.[8] Nearly two-thirds of all African Americans in the labor force, 70 to 80 percent in some areas in the South, and just over half of all women employed were not covered by Social Security.[10][11] At the time, the NAACP protested the Social Security Act, describing it as “a sieve with holes just big enough for the majority of Negroes to fall through.”[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Social_Security_in_the_United_States#Initial_opposition

The harsh logic of Roosevelt's racial stance was expressed most clearly in 1938, when liberal congressmen attempted to pass federal anti-lynching legislation to halt the most horrific type of anti-black terrorism. (Several thousand blacks were killed by lynching in the United States between the 1880s and 1960s.) Southern Senators angrily filibustered, and FDR defied black leaders and his own wife by refusing to throw his support behind the measure. "I did not choose the tools with which I must work," he explained. "Had I been permitted to choose them I would have selected quite different ones. But I've got to get legislation passed by Congress to save America. The Southerners... occupy strategic places on most of the Senate and House committees. If I come out for the antilynching bill now, they will block every bill I ask Congress to pass to keep America from collapsing. I just can't take that risk."

http://www.shmoop.com/fdr-new-deal/race.html

He didn't intend for welfare to be a permanent government expenditure.

The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of sound policy. It is in violation of the traditions of America. Work must be found for able-bodied but destitute workers.

The Federal Government must and shall quit this business of relief.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=14890

He was propagandist

This was propaganda. FDR's talks were scripted by policy advisers and stylized by the playwright Robert Sherwood. Through these homey "fireside chats" the aristocratic Roosevelt recast himself as a plain-talking everyman. ...

http://www.thenation.com/article/fdrs-democratic-propaganda#

He was a warmonger.

As World War II began, Roosevelt was among those concerned at the growing strength of the Axis Powers, and he found ways to help Great Britain, the Chinese Nationalists, and later the Soviet Union in their struggle against them. His program of Lend-Lease supplied military equipment to those powers despite the U.S. government's official neutrality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Franklin_D._Roosevelt#Criticism_of_Roosevelt_as_a_.22Warmonger.22

Like I said, a great president in a profession where the bar is set pretty low. Certainly not the progressive hero the left has made him out to be.

[RiverLover]

99. Thanks for the links. But NOTHING here negates what he did for us while in office.

I'll say it again(linked below), we owe gratitude to his administration for~

-Minimum Wage
-SEC
-FDIC
-Public works for the unemployed & the greater good(I like Parks & Bridges!!)
-Social Security
-Glass-Steagall, which protected us for 50 YEARS until Bill Clinton repealed it. Thanks for 2008 Bill!!

I don't know why you are trying soooo hard to diminish him & what he stands for.

I suspect its only because you are such an ardent supporter of Ms Hillary Clinton, and she is the antithesis of FDR,

[wyldwolf]

100. which isn't what I contended

I've said repeatedly he was great president, did a lot of great things, but wasn't the great 'progressive' hero the left today make him out to be. We shouldn't lionize our leaders. I mean, Democrats love to point out how Saint Reagan did things that run counter to conservative mythology. The left's treatment of FDR is exactly the same thing. Making men into myths is dangerous.

I like Bill Clinton, for example. Warts and all.

If pointing this out makes you uncomfortable, sorry. We'll never really know the behind the scenes deal-making of politics, but we do know what's in the public record.

[RiverLover]

101. I'm not idolizing him. He came to be a populist slowly. I've read alot. What he DID though in ofc

I'd like to see in ANY do Democrat again. I don't think we've had a Democrat like him in the White House since, truly fighting for the middle class & the under-privelged. They talk like that when they're running for office, and then turn around & crap on us.

FDR really shook things up back then. He fought the centrist dems & the rethugs in a big way.

I highly recommend reading Roosevelt's Purge: How FDR Fought to Change the Democratic Party
http://www.amazon.com/Roosevelts-Purge-Fought-Change-Democratic/dp/0674064305

It didn't work long term, we're living that now, but at that time, he made many progressive bold moves we're still benefitting from.

I'm glad you like him though. Thanks for clarifying that again. Just don't assume idolizing his accomplishments and wanting that for us today with idolizing the man as a saint.

**I can't turn this damn bold off--please ignore!

[KoKo]

89. Okay...what about his "New Deal" and "Regulating the Banks?"

You are positioning him currently sort of a "tween" between what Clinton and Obama Proposed as Candidates and how they Governed.

Yet,WHY did the RW spend DECADES co-opting Both Parties to Undo his most Progressive Legislation where he did more to put in Safe Guards against Wall Street Raping Investors and the Public and did Public Works (putting men and women to work building roads, bridges and environmentally sound Projects) along with employing thousands to Catalog America's History to put the Liberal Arts folks to WORK...which is responsible for much of our Catalogof "American History" in Libraries for Research to this day.

There is More...that's different from what you are focusing on (which is to focus on the "flawed Man/President..They All Do the Compromise MEME&quot
to try to make him into the Compromising Clinton & Obama that I'd like to get into.

But....later...because I've got "TG Family" coming in so I've got to get out of here. We should try to reveal what a complicated man Roosevelt was. But, it was the legislation he passed that got the RW's "Knickers in Knot" where they worked for decades to undo his "New Deal Legislation"....that I'm focused on. And that's the legislation that he is KNOWN FOR.

"Happy TG" to you.....I'll check back and pick it up...later on.

[wyldwolf]

97. It was the center ground

The left wanted him to nationalize the banks. The right wanted him to keep his hands off the banks. He chose a middle ground.

Most of the new deal was like that. Social security, for example. Roosevelt, against the advice of economic planners and the left who would have made it solely a relief program for the poor funded by the government, insisted on adding responsibilities by funding Social Security through taxes deducted from every wage earner's paycheck. The right wanted nothing at all to do with it.

[RiverLover]

83. Way to go, Koko! Nicely played. :-)

[AverageJoe90]

88. I hate to say this, but.....

All you've offered me so far, are an article that quotes from Ira Katznelson's "revolutionary" piece, and another link that actually ended up supporting a good number of my own points......i.e., that urban "ethnic" whites played a HUGE role in the support of the New Deal, and that the Dixiecrats initially tried to sabotage the New Deal, with some only publicly getting behind it, so they wouldn't look bad by opposing this increasingly popular President later on.

And, if I recall correctly, someone else posted on here, that, in 1938, some of the Dixiecrats even went as far as to ally themselves with Robert Taft to prevent the New Deal from going any further.....so there we are(will be trying to find a good source on that, though).

[wyldwolf]

98. all you've offered me is...

nothing but your opinion.

[WillyT]

105. LOL !!! - IRONIC !!!

[wyldwolf]

107. Again, you reveal how fundamentalists have different definitions

People like you equate 'fact' with gut feelings and 'opinions' with sourced material.

[Zorra]

108. blahblahblah If the FDR I studied is not real, then who said this:

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. ~ FDR

[wyldwolf]

110. So you 'studied' FDR and came away with one quote?

[Zorra]

111. I simply don't have any more time to waste on RW corporatist bullshit. nt

[wyldwolf]

112. Cop out alert!!!

[Zorra]

114. Buh-bye!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5767160

[wyldwolf]

115. aww! You found time to come back and say bye!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025767160#post61

[RiverLover]

65. FDR's Democratic Propaganda

[div class="excerpt"...]But the best propaganda for the New Deal lay in the material projects themselves: the parks built, roads constructed and young people put to work by the Civilian Conservation Corps; the integrated system of power, agriculture and industry of the Tennessee Valley Authority; and the handsome, handcrafted Timberline Lodge, built atop Oregon's Mt. Hood by the WPA.

These accomplishments were then publicized. In one imaginative effort, the Bonneville Power Administration even paid Woody Guthrie to visit the Columbia River Gorge and write songs in homage to the land, the river and the new federally funded dams....

http://www.thenation.com/article/fdrs-democratic-propaganda

[craigmatic]

67. Honestly I'd like to see the democratic party go into a more socialist direction. We need to

reign in wall street, big pharma, the banks, and these huge multinationals. We should set a maximum wage in this country and use the profits to fix our infrastructure and finally create universal healthcare here but I doubt we'd see any of these policies in my life time.

[RiverLover]

91. Me too. ~nt

[RiverLover]

90. FDR fought Wall Street, helped the unemployed become employed, and more...

In his first hundred days in office, which began March 4, 1933, Roosevelt spearheaded major legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce:

- relief (government jobs for the unemployed)

- recovery (economic growth),

--reform (through regulation of Wall Street(created the SEC), banks and transportation).

The economy improved rapidly from 1933 to 1937, but then relapsed into a deep recession. The bipartisan Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the Supreme Court. For the rest of his days in office, it blocked all proposals for major liberal legislation (apart from a minimum wage law).

It abolished many of the relief programs when unemployment practically vanished during the war. Most of the regulations on business continued in effect until they ended about 1975–1985, except for the regulation of Wall Street by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which still exists. Along with several smaller programs, major surviving programs include the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which was created in 1933, and Social Security, which Congress passed in 1935.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt

Rethugs have been dirty little bastards for a long time, haven't they?

But aren't we lucky have had FDR to create:

Minimum wage law
Social Security
SEC
FDIC
Public Parks works programs
TVA
Most importantly to me-Glass Steagall, which Bill Clinton repealed, and we have 2008 to prove what an enormous mistake that was...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legislation

[pampango]

109. FDR's policies are still alive in Europe. Strong safety net, high taxes,

strong unions and better business regulation.

The Democratic Party should realize that not only could FDR's policies still work, they are still working today.

[True Blue Door]

120. Huh?