Posted on 01/20/2008 7:12:16 PM PST by Lorianne
Alter's readers would never suspect that [FDR] scores as badly if not worse on the typical kinds of charges hurled against George W. Bush and his administration: militarism, ideological cabals, secrecy, lies and lying-us-into-war, unscrupulous punishment of political enemies, disrespect for the Constitution and our political traditions, run-amok Wilsonianism, special favors for Big Business, and, most of all, incompetence.
As historian William Leuchtenburg documented in his essay "The New Deal as Moral Analogue to War," Roosevelt's presidency was drenched in martial metaphors and militaristic appeals to loyalty and unity long before World War II. The New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA) funded enormous rearmament, including two aircraft carriers, and even the Civilian Conservation Corps was organized along military lines. The preeminent Progressive historian Charles Beard was driven to the point of crankery in his rage against FDR's "Caesarism." Roosevelt's famed Brains Trust was the original ideological cabal, intent not so much on fixing the Depression as on using it as a pretext for schemes of radical reform. The president ordered the domestic surveillance of his political enemies, and the House Un-American Activities Committee was organized in the 1930s—a decade before Joseph McCarthy became a senator—to hunt down "Browns," real and imagined. FDR's attempt to pack the Supreme Court was an assault on constitutional propriety far more sinister than the alleged irregularities of the Bush v. Gore recount decision. The four-term Roosevelt was our first and only president-for-life, flouting the two-term tradition begun by George Washington. He ran for his third term on the promise that he would keep American boys out of another "foreign war," even though he probably had other intentions.
(Excerpt) Read more at claremont.org ...
I am two chapters into this book right now. Thoroughly enjoyable.
PING FOR LATER
Trust me, a must read if you really want to get some keen insight into what drives the modern day democrats. If you want to further your understanding, followup with another enlightening book, “Blacklisted by History, The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against Americas Enemies”. It is a long read at 600+ pages but, well worth the time invested IMHO....
“Blacklisted by History, The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against Americas Enemies”
Gee, I didn’t see that down at Barnes and Nobles...
Don’t forget Wallace, FDR’s vice president was a Communist Agent. Later he ran himself against Truman in 1948 on the Progressive ticket.
Did FDR know? Probably, given the code breaking activity documented in the Venona files. I can just imagine Joe Stalin salivating over old and sick FDR when the VP was a agent of International Communism.
That is how close we were to losing the Cold War.
Thanks, that was a fascinating interview.
Too much truth for the main stream to handle, IMHO....
We need to be aware of the old FDR as we prepare to defeat the new FDR (Billory)...Go Fred!
We need to be aware of the old FDR as we prepare to defeat the new FDR (Billory)...Go Fred!
Well, how about that.
I wonder where our local B&N has it tucked away.
Wakeup call! FDR’s economic & political fascism is very likely what we can expect from an Obama presidency!
Amity Shlaes’s The Forgotten Man is a careful, even-tempered, and much needed corrective to this sorry history of FDR: “FDR was economically incompetent, as Shlaes demonstrates, but he was politically ingenious. Indeed, as she and others have chronicled, FDR’s economic missteps were part of a larger political ballet. He transformed American politics by creating vast client constituencies who depended on the government—and by extension the Roosevelt Administration—for their livelihood. Such an enterprise stemmed first and foremost from a philosophical vision, not a mere economic one. FDR’s economic policies, like his political maneuvering in general, were means to an end. Recommitting liberalism to the doctrine of a “living constitution” pioneered by Woodrow Wilson, the New Dealers believed that the Constitution could be reinterpreted on the fly, to create a new open-ended constitutionalism that depended not on texts, but on the will of those in charge of interpreting them. “I want to assure you,” FDR’s aide Harry Hopkins told an audience of New Deal activists in New York, “that we are not afraid of exploring anything within the law, and we have a lawyer who will declare anything you want to do legal.”
bump
That is how close we were to losing the Cold War.
What agreat thread combining FDR’s Fascism and his Communist enabling admin as proven by Joe McCarthy and Venona history.
Losing the Islamo Fascist war is as close as electing the NEW, NEW DEAL, aka Obama!
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