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The campaign to undo FDR
JWR ^ | 6/18/01 | Charles Krauthammer

Posted on 09/30/2005 1:11:33 PM PDT by paltz

"PEARL HARBOR," the movie, is an engagingly ramshackle mess of comical improbabilities, '40s cliches and dialogue so corny it must have been (was it?) deliberate. It is entertaining enough but would hardly merit serious attention were it not for one scene too egregious to go unremarked.

(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: fdr; krauthammer; presidents
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To: Vicomte13

You are full of crap and have no clue about reality.
You sound like a bitter person who never set foot
on a battle field and have sucked in the usual left wing
crap.


41 posted on 09/30/2005 4:25:28 PM PDT by SoCalPol (More Died At Chappaquiddic than Guantanamo)
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Comment #42 Removed by Moderator

To: SoCalPol

Have you set foot on a battlefield, son?


43 posted on 09/30/2005 4:28:26 PM PDT by Vicomte13 (Et alors?)
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To: Vicomte13

They don't take disabled women


44 posted on 09/30/2005 4:34:24 PM PDT by SoCalPol (More Died At Chappaquiddic than Guantanamo)
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To: SoCalPol

They shouldn't.
I never set foot on any battlefield, because I was hovering 15 ft. over them.

When commanders do stupid things that get men killed because of their recklessness, like McArthur did in the PI and Korea, Kimmel did at Pearl Harbor, and Halsey did taking his fleet through the heart of a typhoon for no good reason, they need to be called on the carpet for it.

McArthur had plenty of good moments, but the PI and the overextension in North Korea were not among them. Blaming the Presidents under which he served is unfair. FDR and Truman did not make those errors in judgment, McArthur did.

Supporting Stalin by sending him supplies was a very good way of making sure that Russians were doing the heavy fighting against Hitler, so that American troops didn't have to. FDR was smart to give them materiel, which was cheap for an industrial power like the US, instead of letting them be rolled and forcing American men to have had to have borne the brunt of pushing back the Nazis.
That was how our discussion began, with a critique of FDR.
You said that FDR left the forces in the PI hung out to dry, while supplying Stalin.
Not true.
FDR supported the Russians with lots of material. That is true. And it was very wise.
FDR did not cut off supplies to the Americans in the PI. The Japanese came on, and they won. The Americans were caught by surprise in the PI and at Pearl because the respective military commanders didn't believe the intelligence and didn't have the forces properly disposed and alerted. Perhaps we ought not be too hard on McArthur and Kimmel: nobody comprehended just how powerful air power was in December, 1941. But to blame FDR for what happened in the PI is unjust.

FDR had to fight like hell politically, and maneuver around like a fox to be able to get America onto a war footing AT ALL over the objections of the blind and stupid Republican Isolationist bloc in Congress. When it came to economics, FDR has a lot to answer for, but when it came to the War, FDR was positively Churchillian in his foresight, and in the difficulty he faced getting the country to go along with him to finally do what was right.

We must not let late 20th and early 21st Century political animus about Democrats or social programs obscure or deform the fact that FDR was THE pillar that got America ready for the War, over and against a Republican Party that, had they prevailed in their policy, would have resulted in America's defeat.

FDR's legacy is a mixed bag, but the War was more important than the New Deal, and he handled the War brilliantly.


45 posted on 09/30/2005 4:48:42 PM PDT by Vicomte13 (Et alors?)
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To: Javelina
Well, and that whole World War II, Great Depression, and 4-terms thing...

Roosevelt's record on WWII isn't that great. Because of Roosevelt, the Holocaust claimed more lives than necessary. He did nothing to help Jews come to America when he could have. Instead, he used the war to advance the New Deal policies. It was during the war, I think 1942, when he attempted to implement a 99 percent tax rate on incomes more than $100,000. He issued an executive order taxing all income over $25,000 at 100 percent.

Roosevelt gave Stalin everything he wanted at Yalta - in fact he even said he would - and thereby set the stage for the rest of the 20th Century, the horrors millions would face living under Soviet control. Roosevelt's Soviet policy may not have been directly responsible for Korea and Vietnam, but it was undoubtedly directly responsible for the Cold War.

It was Roosevelt's New Deal policies that extended the Depression.

And as far as the 4-terms go, that was such a great accomplishment that congress was prompted by Roosevelt to limit presidential terms to two.

If you want to find the heros of WWII, look to Ike and Patton and the boys that went up the hills, not to the man in the White House.

Roosevelt was not the president your school teachers told you he was.

46 posted on 09/30/2005 7:14:22 PM PDT by SittinYonder (Flea, feather, bird, egg, nest, twig, branch, limb, tree, and the bog down in the valley - o.)
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To: GreenLanternCorps

He also started the draft. I know my cousin should have been out, the draft at that time was to be for one year, the first of Nov. 1941.


For some reason he did not get home. Then of course we all know what happened 12-7-41.

I have repeated this over and over, but am not going to look up the figures.

In 1936, FDR's first reelection campaign, his DEFICIT was larger that his receipts. I say his because he had a congress that rubber stamped everything he put before them. That is until he tried to pack the Supreme Court and that started some of the solid south starting to question.

My son has looked up unemployment when he took over and what is was when we got into war.he says it was lower when he took COMMAND.

Can you imagine what kind of deficit we would have today if any president tried that.

You might want to check it out. I don't know how.


47 posted on 09/30/2005 7:38:50 PM PDT by frannie (Be not afraid of tomorrow - God is already there!)
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To: SoCalPol

He is a troll


48 posted on 09/30/2005 7:47:12 PM PDT by cynicom
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To: SoCalPol
How true, I think if you check McArthur was not in charge of the Pacific when Pearl Harbor was bombed.

I also had a friend that went through the Batan Death March, I worked with his sister.He was Navy, his name, Max West.
If any have seen Ollie's program relating the story about the March, you know how horrible it was.
49 posted on 09/30/2005 7:48:38 PM PDT by frannie (Be not afraid of tomorrow - God is already there!)
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To: Javelina

Did you live through those years. I did. I am 82.

Much of what you read is not exactly how it all came about.

I have been interested in politics since 1940, I was 17, couldn't vote for 4 more years.


50 posted on 09/30/2005 7:56:44 PM PDT by frannie (Be not afraid of tomorrow - God is already there!)
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To: SoCalPol
That is one way to put it.

FDR, we knew at the time, decided to all out fight the European War then take care of the Pacific War.

My brother was a Marine in the Pacific,the Marines were sent to storm island after island. He never talked about it, but Marine's lost more proportionally than any other service, Look it up.
51 posted on 09/30/2005 8:12:03 PM PDT by frannie (Be not afraid of tomorrow - God is already there!)
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To: cynicom; frannie

I figured he was a troll. He had the left talking points
down.
My dad was with the 1st Marines in Korea.
Many relatives in the Pacific and Europe in WWII
Many in WWI, seveal in Union Army, Civil War and
over 12 5th greats in the Rev. War.
A jerk like that guy wouldn't last one day in a war.


52 posted on 09/30/2005 8:25:56 PM PDT by SoCalPol (More Died At Chappaquiddic than Guantanamo)
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To: SoCalPol

The troll worships FDR, hates MacArthur...If he comes back tell him FDR and MacArthur were related, they were. FDR hated Mac cause Mac had brains, he did not, he had only money.


53 posted on 10/01/2005 12:32:55 AM PDT by cynicom
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To: Maceman

http://www.rooseveltmyth.com


54 posted on 10/01/2005 4:55:59 AM PDT by RaceBannon (Presently in Beijing China.)
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To: SittinYonder
The New Deal followed with Johnson's Great Society have done more to destroy this nation than any foreign aggressor could have hoped to have done.

Amen, brother. Amen.

55 posted on 10/01/2005 5:06:13 AM PDT by Hardastarboard
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To: Vicomte13
FDR had to HIDE the truth,

That one statement says it all.

FDR had to lie to the American people because he brought socialism to our country and made it acceptable.

He was more communist dictator than leader of the free world.

His legacy is the giving away of eastern Europe to the communists and putting millions into slavery.

His legacy is social security which is a ponzi scheme.

His legacy is more government and less freedom.

His legacy is the Income tax.

Today, FDR would be seen as a fascist mass-murdering fanatic.

Nope...he is thought of as Franklin the Red Delano Roosevelt.

He was a socialist...he prolonged the war and brought us the cold war. He prolonged the depression with his policies.

He brought greater power to the federal government and he made sure that the Soviets survived.

we would have been better off with Germany controlling the Soviets and let them sink into a guerilla war with the Soviet people.

Many American lives would have been saved.

And don't forget the Japanese..who was goaded into war with the US via Roosevelt's policies.

We would hae been better off to let the Chinese fight the Japanese via guerilla warefare than to loose all those American men.

Seems to me that the only party in the WWII tragedy that we saved worth a damn is the English. WE gave up Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe to the Russians and we paid the price of the cold war...the #1 legacy of FDR.

56 posted on 10/01/2005 5:44:23 AM PDT by Radioactive (I'm on the radio..so I'm radioactive)
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To: alloysteel
So the highest public service any political movement could pursue in this country is to DISMANTLE the last few shaky remnants of the New Deal.

"Last few shaky remanants"? Do you have any idea how much of the federal government is dedicated to controlling aspects of our lives that "substantially affect commerce among the several states"? I only wish we were down to the last few shaky remnants.

57 posted on 10/01/2005 6:01:46 AM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: tacticalogic
I only wish we were down to the last few shaky remnants.

I agree. The statement didn't make much sense to me, either. The New Deal is firmly entrenched, and as some posts on this thread indicate, the American public is grateful for FDR's safety net. In fact, the New Deal is so firmly entrenched, and the philosophy behind it, that a Republican president pushed for and got a prescription drug deal. There are no shaky remnants, just an overall statist philosophy that people take for granted as the role of the government.

58 posted on 10/01/2005 11:42:31 AM PDT by SittinYonder (Flea, feather, bird, egg, nest, twig, branch, limb, tree, and the bog down in the valley - o.)
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