General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This is what a REAL Democrat sounds like. [View all]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)She was a teenager and college student during the era of FDR and adores him to this day.
Both Roosevelts, Teddy and Franklin, distant cousins, were raised in extreme wealth.
Teddy Roosevelt in particular, but Franklin as well, hated corruption and tried to limit it.
Neither of them really needed to be corrupt. They knew where to draw the line between necessary accommodation and compromise and crass corruption.
The reason that many of us are so soured on the extreme influence of wealth in our government is that it masks and is linked to corruption. It isn't that rich people are evil. Not at all. It is that they want their opinions and needs to precede those of others.
A teacher who stays after school to help a child develop his or her talents, who gives the great gift of her knowledge, her character and her time to that child is worth far more in our society than the stockbroker who does speed trading and does it so efficiently that in reality he or she is cheating investors with less knowledge and shoddier equipment. But which one of them is not only better paid but HAS MORE AND WIDER INFLUENCE IN OUR GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY?
The Roosevelts appreciated the principle that hard work, discipline, character and fairness are more important than all the wealth they were born with and could have yielded to run the world to suit their own interests.
Wealth is no impediment to virtue if the wealth is accompanied by the determination to achieve justice.
But sadly, most wealthy people today have no allegiance to justice. Couldn't care less about it.
Or at least that is the impression that the rest of us get when we see the rampant corruption in our government. There are exceptions. John Kerry is a very wealthy man who tries to do what is right. There are a number of exceptions like him, but Obama's penchant for appointing Wall Street cronies suggests corruption -- it justifies the perception of corruption. Obama should appoint someone from outside the Wall Street and investment crowd to some of the top Treasury, Commerce, Fed jobs.
There is really an appearance of corruption with the appointment of Weiss.