FDR helped bust up the shanty towns WWI vets were squatting in when they went to Washington DC to get their rights. He only responded to the Depression because he had to, the idea that people would embrace socialism as a solution to the problems they were facing was in the air.
Roosevelts programs gave temporary aid to many, but it was WWII that lifted the US out of depression, and the US has been on perminent war footing spending ever since. No Republican or Democrat since then has challenged this economic model (including the inexplicably newly popular Harry Truman, who practiced mass murder on a level Bush can only dream about - so far).
After WWII, the owners and the brokers of labor (Union management) worked together to provide high wages, but no ownership for workers in the US. It seemed like a reasonable deal as long as industry hummed along - but when US industry faltered, and factories closed, workers found they had nothing.
The New Deal laid the foundation for this, by buying people off with wages instead of offering them ownership.
Obama may have to make significant adjustments, so the comparison to Roosevelt may not be off the mark. However, to call him, or anybody that gets into his position (as the candidate for one of the two wings of the Capitalist Party) a Marxist is so ridiculous (like so much the right wingers say) it doesn't even earn a response.
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/ jonas/118
Dr. J.'s Short Takes: Obama and FDR; Obama a Marxist?; Iran Attack, not
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 06/24/2008 - 10:55am. Steven JonasObama and FDR
Numerous observers and possibly even more numerous wishful thinkers are comparing Barack Obama to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They do so in the sense that they are hoping that if elected, he will make major changes in American policy (in FDR's context, primarily domestic at the time; in Obama's case, obviously both foreign and domestic.)Let's just briefly look at the pre-election picture. He had been an Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Woodrow Wilson Administration and had been the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate in the election of 1920. Nevertheless, before his election as President in 1932, FDR was widely considered to be a rich, dilettante, lightweight who simply felt that he really had to do something to help the American people (and rescue American capital at the same time). He grew in the job, in part because he was pushed by a powerful, broad-based industrial union movement.
Barack Obama is currently widely considered as a very smart, very politically savvy, but very inexperienced candidate who wants to help the American people (and suppress that sector of American capital that, under CheneyBush leadership, is currently attempting to dismantle U.S. Constitutional Democracy and replace it with some form of fascist dictatorship). Let's hope that Obama is elected and then learns on the job as well. And let's hope for the development of the first effective mass movement in the United States since the Congress of Industrial Organizations was born in the depths of the Depression so that some truly progressive changes can be made.
DeLay on Obama: 'Unless He Proves Me Wrong, He Is a Marxist'
On right-winger Mike Gallagher's radio show of June 5, 2008, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) declared that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is a Marxist. "I have said publicly, and I will again, that unless he proves me wrong, he is a Marxist," DeLay declared. Gallagher chimed in that "old school Marxist, radical liberal failed ideology." Fascinating stuff. Neither of them further defined "Marxism," but since folks from Goldman Sachs (and other major Wall Street firms) to Warren Buffett to right-wing economists from the University of Chicago do too, I guess that we now know what "Marxism" is really all about.
The Republicans: "So What's it All About, Barack?"
The Republicans are working oh ever-so-hard to keep the campaign focus on the personalities, the wives, the process, how "mysterious" Barack is, great speaker and all that, but we "don't really know him." So you see articles such as "What We've Learned About Barack" by someone named Kimberley Strassel (Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2008) in which she says: "many people don't know what Mr. Obama proposes policy-wise" and "Mr. Obama was so good at his message that we still don't know much about the man." These themes are frequently picked up the MSM as well. Now let's see. Obama has published two autobiographical books and his Web site is filled with great deal about his endless list of policy proposals.For several months now, he has been giving Hillary Clinton-like speeches with laundry lists of proposals (but his sound so much better than hers, because he reads so much better than she does and never sounds as if he is whining). But the Repubs will carry forward with this "we know nothing about him" theme (which will be continually presented by the MSM, not just the Fox "News" Network, in the interests of "balance") right up until Election Day. Why? Because they can't argue on the issues, so they just have to go with this kind of stuff. Ah well. There's the pity.
An Iran Attack?
Just about daily now, we are treated to predictions that BushCheney will bomb Iran, either before or now, courtesy of John Bolton, after the elections. Starting on the Left, we have been treated to such predictions from a variety of sources for over two years now, some with very definite dates given. Over a year ago on these pages (referring to earlier columns of mine on BuzzFlash and The Political Junkies.net), I said I thought the warnings were all false alarms. I still do -- of any attack on Iran, even by the Israeli Right (which will not make a move without the approval of CheneyBush, which would have to back them up). But I do take the threats and talk of them very seriously -- as a diversion from the one military move the Georgites could conceivably make: an attempted coup here. The U.S. military simply will not countenance an attack on Iran after it has been so seriously weakened by CheneyBush. Except for certain pockets, such as the growing Christian Air Force being graduated in recent years from the Air Force Academy, neither would the U.S. military would support a coup. But CheneyBush would not need them for the latter. In addition to their Christian Air Force, they have their very own Blackshirts, their very own SS-in-the-making: Blackwater, et al. This is the "October Surprise" military threat with which I'm concerned, as are an increasing number of observers elsewhere.
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY), a weekly Contributing Author for the Web zine The Political Junkies.net; a Special Contributing Editor for Cyrano's Journal Online; and an invited contributor to the Web log The Daily Scare.
--
Love me, love my vids
http://uk.youtube.
--
Love me, love my vids
http://uk.youtube.
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
