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REASSESSING THE LEGACY OF FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
2/20/2007 | Al Simmons

Posted on 02/20/2007 8:16:56 AM PST by Al Simmons

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To: Fiji Hill

"The T-37 was a light tank, used for reconnaissance, that wss developed in the 1930's. I doubt that it played a significant role in the war."

Wow. You are kidding right?


41 posted on 02/20/2007 8:46:43 AM PST by Kirkwood
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To: Al Simmons
The Soviet tank was the T 34 not 37. And it was quite a bit better than the Sherman, but what was it going to run on when no more US oil was delivered and the Caucasus' oil fields felt the sting of the B29s?

No one wanted a continuation of WWII with an ally, but you're kidding if you think Stalin wanted a war. He would have backed off if confronted at Yalta with determination.

The error at Yalta was surrendering Eastern Europe for Soviet participation against Japan. While the Army felt such participation was needed, Ernie King and Ken Arnold believed that japan would be defeated by air and naval assets, even without A Bombs. They may have overstated their capabilities, but not by much. Japan was isolated from resupply and vulnerable to overwhelming air assault, especially after the fall of Okinawa.

The agreements at Yalta gave way too much in return for very little of military value. It also, absent the A Bomb would have given Stalin a place at the peace table in the Pacific. Something not earned and something that would have had leasting political impact.

42 posted on 02/20/2007 8:46:45 AM PST by xkaydet65
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To: Al Simmons
Hoover had the economy on the upswing...it was that Marxist Roosevelt who leveled it out and then PROVOKED the war to finally get the GMP up. Roosevelt was despicable...

National debt and gross national product climbs from 20% to 40% under Hoover; levels off under FDR; soars during World War II. From Historical Statistics US (1976)

43 posted on 02/20/2007 8:47:02 AM PST by Vaquero ("An armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Al Simmons
Well (except for poster #1), I see that the 'traditional contingent' is out in force.

Of course, it is. Free Republic is a conservative site. Perhaps you would get a more favorable response at DU.

44 posted on 02/20/2007 8:47:05 AM PST by Fiji Hill
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To: Borges

Actually, I think Joseph McCarthy was nearly single-handedly responsible for keeping communism from getting a real foothold in this country.

McCarthy made it a shame and embarrassment to be a communist. It stopped being something people bragged about.

For what he did, thanks from his country have never been extended, and he has been reviled by both the left and the right, when in retrospect, he was spot on about the problem of communists in the government.

The Venona Files vindicated him completely. But his name is still trotted out with malicious overtones towards authoritarianism and fascism.

He deserves to have his reputation and name not only returned to him, but imbued with gratitude and respect.


45 posted on 02/20/2007 8:47:32 AM PST by rlmorel (Liberals: If the Truth would help them, they would use it.)
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To: Fiji Hill
Paerhaps I got my tank numbers mixed up, but the Russians main battle tank at the end of the war - produced in the tens of thousands - was almost equal to the Tiger and had thicker armor in terms of effectiveness. The enormous numerical edge of our tin-can Shermans against the Germans would have no longer applied, and it would have been a slaughter. Yes, our Air Force would have been better, but the Russians had developed some pretty good planes of their own (Remember the Sturmovik?)

At best you're talking about a repeat of an Eastern-front style stalemate BLOODBATH that would have been politically impossible to sell at home...

46 posted on 02/20/2007 8:47:44 AM PST by Al Simmons (Four-Time GWB Voter, 1994-2004....and proud of it!!)
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To: Tax-chick
"During World War II" would have been accurate.

Or during the European theater anyway. Roosevelt died a couple of weeks before Hitler and the end of the NAZI's aggression.
47 posted on 02/20/2007 8:49:17 AM PST by P-40 (Al Qaeda was working in Iraq. They were just undocumented.)
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To: wideawake

Funny how this high-minded blithering vanity stays in NEWS but the latest on Jennifer Lopez is banished to CHAT.


48 posted on 02/20/2007 8:49:31 AM PST by Monterrosa-24 ( ...even more American than a French bikini and a Russian AK-47.)
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To: rlmorel

Joe McCarthy was a true American hero and a patriot.


49 posted on 02/20/2007 8:50:03 AM PST by Al Simmons (Four-Time GWB Voter, 1994-2004....and proud of it!!)
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To: Monterrosa-24

Posted it in Vanity not News. So don't blame me.


50 posted on 02/20/2007 8:51:13 AM PST by Al Simmons (Four-Time GWB Voter, 1994-2004....and proud of it!!)
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To: Al Simmons
Explain to me how America could have been conquered, seeing as how all materiel would have had to come over by ship.

Also, Hitler, just like Napoleon, was defeated by the Russian winter.

You did not respond to any of the points I raised, such as the NRA (while we are talking morale) or the gold-grabbing (blatantly unconstitutional).

51 posted on 02/20/2007 8:52:14 AM PST by ikka (The US Catholic Bishops' position on immigration is objectively anti-American.)
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To: Al Simmons

This is what "conservatism" has been reduced to. The worship of tyrants and scoundrels. Pathetic.


52 posted on 02/20/2007 8:54:14 AM PST by UncleDick
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To: Al Simmons
Politically impossible.

Correct, but not physically impossible as you suggested.

The Red Army was not superior to the US Army in any way, except in terms of raw numbers. And many of those large numbers were severely malnourished and dressed in rags with outdated weapons.

So you wanted a few million additional American dead as Russia kicked us out of Europe

Russia could not have kicked us out of Europe. Our presence in Europe was tolerated by Russia not out of love or thanks, but because the Russians knew they were physically incapable of removing us from Europe.

I will point out that the Russians occupied almost all of Austria after WWII, but ceded control to the other allies and allowed Austria to democratically elect a non-Communist government. They did this not out of the kindness of their hearts but because they were afraid of antagonizing the Allies any further.

followed by a nuclear holocaust - that's just nuts.

A nuclearabandoned holocaust is usally taken to mean an exchange of nuclear blasts that leaves numerous targets on both sides obliterated.

I was suggesting a single target in which the damage was sustained by one city on one side.

US military strategy concluded that two nuclear blasts were useful for the goal of ending Japanese militarism.

If it were not for the politics of the situation, one nuclear blast in Russia would have gone quite a ways to accomplishing a goal of rolling back Communism or ending the Communist regime.

53 posted on 02/20/2007 8:55:14 AM PST by wideawake
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To: UncleDick

http://www.senatormccarthy.com/


54 posted on 02/20/2007 8:57:42 AM PST by Vaquero ("An armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: ikka
Nuclear tipped ICBMS would have been on their way - and had we not had the Manhattan project due to isolationism, we would have been *ucked then.

The only thing that defeated Hitler's invasion of Russia was the timetable - set back 2 months by his petulent invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece.

Had Britain fallen, those countries would have probably folded into non-aggression pacts, Barbarossa would have kicked off in April or May, and - despite suffering FAR greater losses than anticipated, the Germans would have captured Moscow, cut Russia in half, and eventually - at great cost to be sure - defeated Russia. Stalin would also have been killed or captured as he refused to leave Moscow, which would have destroyed Russian morale as much as the fall of Moscow.

55 posted on 02/20/2007 8:59:03 AM PST by Al Simmons (Four-Time GWB Voter, 1994-2004....and proud of it!!)
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To: The Great RJ
FDR's greatest legacy however was dumping Henry Wallace from the VP slot during his last term.

It is indeed fortunate that he had the foresight to dump Wallace--whom he had installed after dumping Cactus Jack Garner, a conservative Texas Democrat, who had served with him for two terms.

56 posted on 02/20/2007 9:00:05 AM PST by Fiji Hill
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To: Fiji Hill; The Great RJ

Henry Wallace later apologized for his support of the U.S.S.R. and actually ended up endorsing Nixon in 1968.


57 posted on 02/20/2007 9:02:00 AM PST by Borges
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To: Borges
FDR may very well have prevented a communist revolution in the U.S.

No...he just put it off for a while. It is alive and well in today's politics I assure you.

58 posted on 02/20/2007 9:05:00 AM PST by rightwingextremist1776
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To: Al Simmons

You don't appear to be of a mind to respond to specific facts or objections to your historical "analysis" on this thread. But here are a few more...

FDR's State Department (riddled with red symapthizers and collaborators) cut off funding for the nationalist Chinese and guaranteed the communist takeover of China.

The communist alternative which looked so attractive to the downtrodden in the early '30's was a lib/media concoction. It failed to acknowledge the terror-famine killing millions of Russians. Instead Duranty was winning Pulizers for extolling the miraculous transformations due to Stalin's five-year plans.

And FDR aped Socialist style remedies that led to more misery in 1937-38 than there had been in 1931-32.

Honesty on the realities of Soviet communism would've gone a long way of disabusing our populace of any communist alternative to a better society/economy.

As a "historian", maybe you've heard of Clarence Carson. He argues FDR's policies lengthened and worsened the Depression. And imo, he's right.


59 posted on 02/20/2007 9:06:10 AM PST by olderwiser
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To: Fiji Hill

Yep. 'Witness' was, for me, the most socially and politically profound book I have ever read.

I read Ann Coulter's 'Slander' and 'Treason', after which I began reading everything I could get my hands on regarding the communist presence in the USA back in the 30's, 40's and 50's. I started out with 'Witness', and before I knew it, my outlook on a lot of things had completely turned upside down.

For me, what really turned the worm, was reading about Joseph Welch in the Army-McCarthy hearings, and his famous "Have you no sense of decency" line. Ann Coulter's description of that event was so completely and profoundly different than what I had been told growing up, in school, in college and by the current media. As Ms. Coulter so succinctly put it, "His name was a malediction." But how could her version be so radically and completely different?

I actually found the transcripts of those hearings and downloaded them from one of the government archival sites...do you know what? Her description of events that day matched the transcripts nearly completely.

I had been led all my life to think that exchange was the result of McCarthy intimidating, badgering, lying and being deceitful about the people in question. (In reality, he was pretty focused on people who DID turn out to be communists in the government. I now wonder if he DID have a source feeding him information from the Venona Project)

But that famous exchange was in response to Welch badgering, insinuating and ridiculing McCarthy's assistant for an extended period of time. McCarthy was remarkably tolerant and patient, and only brought up the name of Fischer, an assistant to Welch, who WAS working for a legal firm which WAS a front for communists.

Bottom line...we were fed a pile of crap, which we readily ate with unquestioning relish, from the liberal media. And I really resent it. And the thing is...their tactics back then against Whittaker Chambers are the EXACT same tactics they use today against anyone who disagrees with them.

Exactly the same.


60 posted on 02/20/2007 9:06:59 AM PST by rlmorel (Liberals: If the Truth would help them, they would use it.)
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