Obama's first term? "At the end of the first year, in his annual message to the Congress, January 4, 1934, President Roosevelt said: 'It is to the eternal credit of the American people that this tremendous readjustment of our national life is being accomplished peacefully.'"
Obama's second term? No crisis goes to waste?
"The scientific study of revolution included of course analysis of opportunity. First and always the master of revolutionary technic is an opportunist. He must know opportunity when he sees it in the becoming; he must know how to stalk it, how to let it ripen, how to adapt his means to the realities. The basic ingredients of opportunity are few; nearly always it is how they are mixed that matters. But the one indispensable ingredient is economic distress, and if there is enough of that the mixture will take care of itself.
"The Great Depression as it developed here was such an opportunity [that was not wasted] as might have been made to order. The economic distress was relative, which is to say that at the worst of it living in this country was better than living almost anywhere else in the world. The pain, nevertheless, was very acute; and much worse than any actual hurt was a nameless fear, a kind of active despair, that assumed the proportions of a national psychosis."
. . .
"This revolutionary elite was nothing you could define as a party. It had no name, no habitat, no rigid line. [There was a Communist Party but it was too obvious, too crude.] Nobody could say that about the elite above . . . What it represented was a quantity of bitter intellectual radicalism infiltrated from the top downward as a doctorhood of professors, writers, critics, analysts, advisers, administators, directors of research, and so on — a prepared revolutionary intelligence in spectacles . . . there was a shibboleth that united them all: "Capitalism is finished." [and one idea] the idea of a transfer of power. For that a united front; after that, anything. And the wine of communion was a passion to play upon history with a scientific revolutionary technic.
. . .
[The aims of the recovery from the Great Depression could be considered two sides of a coin] One side only would represent the revolutionary intention. The other side in each case would represent Recovery — and that was the side the New Deal constantly held up to view. Nearly everything it did was in the name of Recovery. But in no case was it true that for the ends of economic recovery alone one solution or one course and one only was feasible. In each case there was an alternative and therefore a choice to make."
(Sounds like Cass Sunstein's "libertarian paternalism"; libertarian in the sense that the people will make the choice and paternalism because the elite will define the only options while nudging the people to choose the "correct one.")
I think that the first part down to "PROBLEM ONE TO CAPTURE THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT" is kind of an overview and the naming of the steps; then after that it gets into detail.
I think that this is also important to know our future..
Garet Garrett, born Edward Peter Garrett, was an American journalist and author, who is noted for his opposition to the New Deal and U.S. involvement in the Second World War. I don't know if he was one of the "bloggers" charged but he was..
the perfect target of The Great Sedition Trial of 1944 that targeted minor players in critics of the government. Powerful ones like Senator Taft were left for later after getting the little people. Fortunately the judges back then stopped the travesty. There ain't many of them kind of judges nowadays -- most seem to be in the "doctorhood".
We haven't reached the point where conservatives are charged en masse but there is precedent -- and yes it was a Democrat president. Yes it was W.W.II but those charged were long-time, pre-war FDR critics and critics of the U.S.S.R. The U.S.S.R. was a combat ally against the Nazis thus the sedition charge for criticizing the U.S.S.R. To try to insure conviction and stir up public opinion against the accused, the FDR DOJ included known Nazi sympathizers, totally unrelated to the FDR critics, in the group charged.
There are so many good quotes in that article - but you picked up on ones that I also found pertinent. But like I said, although a long read, it is AMAZING how the same things are being set in motion today by Obama, and it makes for good reading. I imagine Obama is using FDR’s playbook in the hope of completing FDR’s vision.
Interesting, and scary, information on FDR’s attacks against his opponents.