Is Obama Trying to Dismantle Roosevelt's New Deal?

[Octafish]

Our good friends at TomDispatch.com (courtesy Alternet.org) ask a most pertinent question:

Is Obama Trying to Dismantle Roosevelt's New Deal?

By Steve Fraser, Tomdispatch.com
Posted on February 11, 2010, Printed on February 11, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145641/

On March 4, 1933, the day he took office, Franklin Roosevelt excoriated the "money changers" who "have fled from their high seats in the temples of our civilization they know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision and where there is no vision, the people perish."

Rhetoric, however, is only rhetoric. According to one skeptical congressional observer of FDR's first inaugural address, "The President drove the money-changers out of the Capitol on March 4th -- and they were all back on the 9th."

That was essentially true. It was what happened after that, in the midst of the Great Depression, which set the New Deal on a course that is the mirror image of the direction in which the Obama administration seems headed.

Buoyed by great expectations when he assumed office, Barack Obama has so far revealed himself to be an unfolding disappointment. On arrival, expectations were far lower for FDR, who was not considered extraordinary at all -- until he actually did something extraordinary.

The great expectations of 2009 are, only a year later, beginning to smell like a pile of dead fish with new rhetoric -- including populist-style attacks on villainous bankers that sound fake (or cynically pandering) when uttered by Obama's brainiacs -- layered on top of the pile like deodorant. Meanwhile, the country is suffering through a recovery that isn't a recovery unless you happen to be a banker, and the administration stands by, too politically or intellectually inhibited or incapacitated to do much of anything about it. A year into "change we can believe in" and the new regime, once so flush with power and the promise of big doings, seems exhausted, vulnerable, and afraid. A year into the New Deal -- indeed a mere 100 days into Roosevelt's era -- change, whether you believed in it or not, clearly had the wind at its back.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/news/145641/is_obama_trying_to_dismantle_roosevelt%27s_new_deal_

It's not just Social Security I'm worried about.

[Captain Hilts]

1. There is no Eleanor, Hopkins, Wallace, Perkins or Ickes around him. But different times require

different strategies. What he's done might be the right thing to do.

But, he's not got many progressives around him. Just sayin'.

[izquierdista]

14. I'm going to go out on a limb here

But without progressives around him, I don't think there's going to be much progress.

[Octafish]

22. Precisely stated..

The guy needs a Team comprised of people who know what We the People need done, not Wall Street and the War Party.

I'd nominate Dr. Howard Dean for Chief of Staff.

[vssmith]

46. And some of the following

Krugman
Stiglitz
Elizabeth Warren
Brooksley Born
Bill Bradley

[DemReadingDU]

68. and

William Black
Hugh Hendry (but he is in England)
and several financial bloggers

[bajamary]

74. And Bill Moyers

Obama should also have Bill Moyers as another of his Progressive Democratic advisor.

I know, dream on

But without our dreams.....

this corporate nightmare Obama and his current advisors are directing will continue

[defendandprotect]

28. Taking Rahm Emmanuel into the White House was "the right thing to do"????

Summers, Geithner, keeping Gates -- keeping so many others corporatists and Repug

appointees in power?

How does that connect with the alleged ideals of the Democratic Party???

[Captain Hilts]

32. Didn't say it was. I noted the lack of progressives around him.

Yet folks here keep thinking he's a progressive.

Beats me why.

[defendandprotect]

38. " What he's done might be the right thing to do" -- ???

But different times require
different strategies. What he's done might be the right thing to do.

Obama has no progressives around him because he has CHOSEN to surround himself

with right wing corporate-DLC and other notorious corporatists!!

Had I known anything of the full background of Obama I would have never voted for

him --

Obama certainly tried to sound populist -- progressive --

Any wonder that so many were fooled? I don't think so --

I held my nose and voted for him --

but from what I've learned since, I wouldn't have --

[Captain Hilts]

41. Some of the TARP funds were probably a good idea as were some of the bailouts....

as much as the banks have ticked us off. Some very well might have been 'too big to fail'. We'll have to wait and see.

I still marvel that so many people thought he was a progressive when he had no track record of one.

[Jackpine Radical]

44. I reluctantly agree that the bailouts might have been necessary--

especially given the timing. There wasn't much time to work out a more satisfactory way of avoiding a HUGE crash. The problem was that there were no proper regulatory constraints associated with the bailouts. Personally I would like to have seen the nationalization of the TBTF guys, but that is a very tricky thing to pull off in a crisis, but they should have at least re-enacted Glass Steagall, or perhaps imposed it by executive fiat, as a condition of the bailouts. Now the banks are setting us up for the next grand heist, after which there will be nothing left to steal. And Obama doesn't begrudge them the billion-dollar bonuses they are awarding themselves for their cleverness in reducing America to an empty husk.

[Captain Hilts]

47. The bonuses are obscene no matter how you look at them. nt

[defendandprotect]

51. Neither Obama nor Dems are pushing for reinstating Glass-Steagall . .

Byron Dorgan was going to work on it -- but after the actual bashing he

took from the Dem leadership and knocking down of "negotiation on drug prices"

I don't know if that went anywhere?

There seems no intention to amend the trade agreements --

nor to reinstate New Deal regulations on capitalists --

Unregulated capitalism is merely organized crime and that's pretty much where

we are now!

[Jackpine Radical]

61. Dorgan: Another casualty of the Rahmpage.

Well, now ND will no doubt replace him with a Republican, so Rahm can go a little further right with his "bipartisanship."

[defendandprotect]

50. One alibi after another . . . ???

We should NOT be bailing out capitalism --

The banks can be taken over -- and depositors protected --

This is simply another go-around on the first S&L theft and embezzlements --

No one is "too big to fail" -- the government backs all of this.

Obama certainly tried to present himself as progressive --

I don't know how many were fooled or how many of us simply did what we've

been doing for decades now ... "voting for the lesser of evils" -- ??!!

[laughingliberal]

2. K & R nt

[Octafish]

24. The guys who took advantage of the law to loot federally insured deposits are still in charge...

...Take Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner, spawn of Hank Paulson. Please. Goldman Sachs made billions by pushing AIG to bankruptcy.

Paulson is spawn of former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, who steamrolled the repeal of Glass Steagal. I call him the Meyer Lansky of the War Party.

Thank you, laughingliberal, for giving a damn!

[Foo Fighter]

40. Well, in case you hadn't noticed, there is a Dem in control of the WH now

and that changes everything. IOW, instead of criticizing anything that spouts forth from the current administration, you're supposed to direct your criticism at the previous administration, even though the Obama WH has so far proven themselves to be closer to a Bush/Cheney wet dream of a successor than anything even remotely resembling the "change" he campaigned on. Bush's Third Term run amok.

However, the problem isn't with the current administration. It's with the fact that people see them for what they actually do as opposed to what they say they intend to do. It's all about public perception and the only "change" needed here is that of the way the public views the current administration. Their goal is to change the way the public sees them but maintain the same exact policy at all cost. That's the way to maintain the status quo which, after all, is the government's one and only job. Everything else is just for show.

[Jackpine Radical]

45. My, my you're cynical. Unfortunately, Lilly Tomlin was right.

"No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up."

[burrowowl]

57. I love Lily Tomlin!

I voted for Obama because McCain would have been disastrous.
However, I wonder if Obama is really a corporate wolf in sheep's clothing.

[Foo Fighter]

79. Great quote. I hadn't heard that one before.

She nailed it, as usual.

Believe me, I'd love nothing more than to be proven wrong on my cynicism but unfortunately, that just never seems to happen. And I really, really wish it would. I'd be MORE than happy to eat my words if the peeps in DC would suddenly decide to kick their corporate masters to the curb and finally do what's right for the people of this country. But I think we all know that will never happen so I'm guessing my cynical attitude is safe for now.

Heh, I would have loved to have seen a George Carlin/Lily Tomlin ticket. I would have voted for that in a heartbeat. ;)

[defendandprotect]

52. Obama is taking us further backwards on many of these issues . . .

the longer capitalism is permitted to exist free from New Deal rules and

regulations the more likely we will have a repeat of this catastrophe!

[Foo Fighter]

77. Fully agree.

The bailout bill should have included bringing back Glass-Steagall. Granted, the bill was passed during the waning days of Bush's disasterous reign but there was nothing preventing Obama from calling for the re-instatement of Glass-Steagall the first day he took office. Well, at least in theory anyway. Having the desire to do so is another matter.

But hey, history repeating itself isn't such a bad thing. Well, for those at the top anyway. The rich cashed in during the depression while the poor and working class were driven further into poverty. I guess those at the top figure they're due for another round and, judging by the way things are going, I'm afraid they will get it.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Sometime I'm gonna click on one of your threads

and find you saying something I disagree with. It's bound to happen.

Not so far, though.

K&R

[Octafish]

27. Gov. Don Siegelman illuminates another important aspect of the 'conservative bent' in Washington...

America. We have a problem.

Whistleblower’s Letter to Holder Reveals Corruption in Siegelman Prosecution

By Roger Shuler
The Public Record
Sep 29th, 2009

Leura Canary, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, wrote press releases about the prosecution of Gov. Don Siegelman that were distributed under the signature of assistant prosecutor Louis Franklin. Also, Canary regularly had two assistants communicate her suggestions about Siegelman’s case to Franklin.

All of this took place after Canary had announced her recusal from the Siegelman case. And they are two of many stark examples of prosecutorial misconduct outlined in a letter dated June 1, 2009, from whistleblower Tamarah Grimes to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Eight days after writing the letter, Grimes was fired from her position as a paralegal for the Department of Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. So far, there is no indication that Holder has taken any action in the matter.

The complete Grimes letter can be viewed here.

Grimes tells Holder that Canary’s recusal claims were false regarding the prosecution of Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy in what became known as “The Big Case” in the Montgomery office. Patricia Snyder Watson, the district ethics officer and first assistant U.S. attorney, was a frequent conduit of information to and from Canary. Writes Grimes:

Mrs. Canary publicly stated that she maintained a “firewall” between herself and The Big Case. In reality, there was no “firewall.” Mrs. Canary maintained direct communication with the prosecution team, directed some actions in the case, and monitored the case through members of the prosecution team and Mrs. Watson.

CONTINUED...

http://pubrecord.org/law/5615/whistleblowers-letter-reveals/

Just-Us is just another way the War Party aims to silence and profit from its enemies.

PS: Same goes for you, JackpineRadical.

[Jackpine Radical]

43. Jesus. I hadn't seen that.

How much more blatant can the venality of this administration get? Godawful as the Bushies were, we at least knew what we were dealing with, and had no illusions that they were "on the side of justice." But here is Holder, the appointee of the man we worked so hard to put in the White House, not only failing to act against the corruption, but turning a blind eye to retaliation against a whistleblower in his own Department. This is absolutely dismaying. Added to the health care sellout, the failure to regulate Big Finance, the continuation of the wars, the privatization of education, the continued incursions against human rights, and now perhaps the planned destruction of Social Security and Medicare…these people are actually going to want my vote this fall and in 2012? Oh, I forgot. Majority will doesn't matter any more.

[defendandprotect]

54. If you own government and legislators as capitalists now do, why worry?

And then there are the computers -- including those used by MSM to PREDICT and CALL

elections -- which coincidentally began to come in during the mid-late-1960's --

about the time that America was passing The Voting Rights Act!

[leftstreet]

4. Obama isn't personally trying to. As CEO of the US, it's in the job description

gotta maximize profits for the wealthholders

K&R

[Octafish]

35. CEO is right -- as in: ''We the Corporations, in order to form a more profitable monopoly...'

Corporate States of America

Thank you for understanding the situation, leftstreet. Thanks also for giving a damn.

[unkachuck]

5. K&R....n/t

[Name removed]

60. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProSense]

6. Two reasons why this is not the case

Hinchey, Sanders and other reactions to Obama's bank reform proposal

Roosevelt historian offers lessons from the past on deficit, spending

[Octafish]

66. I'd love to see Obama sign Glass-Steagall II.

As for deficit spending, there wouldn't be as much if it weren't for all the illegal, immoral and unnecessary warfighting going on. To free up money for jobs, President Obama would give the orders to end them and SecDef Gates would see they are carried out.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

7. Where we are headed...?

Read the comments after the OP.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/enter-cede-co-ii-fed-now-backstopping-25-trillion-dtcc-cleared-credit-default-swaps


Enter Cede & Co II; The Fed Is Now Backstopping $25 Trillion In DTCC Cleared Credit Default Swaps
Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/10/2010 15:40 -0500

* AIG
* American International Group
* Counterparties
* Credit Default Swaps
* Federal Reserve
* Lehman
* Moral Hazard
* Net Notional
* notional value
* OTC
* Transparency



And you thought the $23 trillion in backstops for the financial system was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. Earlier today, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, best known for its Cede & Co. partnership nominee which is the holder of virtually every single physical stock certificate in the known universe, and accounts for over $2 quadrillion in stock transactions per year, announced that "the Federal Reserve Board had approved its application to establish a DTCC subsidiary that is a member of the Federal Reserve System to operate the Trade Information Warehouse (Warehouse) for over the-counter (OTC) credit derivatives."

With this approval the DTCC is now the de facto legally accepted global repository for over-the-counter credit derivative transactions. Simply said, the Federal Reserve is now the guarantor behind all CDS transactions that clear via DTCC, which would be pretty much all of them (sorry CME, you lose). The total bottom line in terms of gross notional? 2.3 million contracts with a gross notional value of $25.5 trillion.

When the next AIG implodes, and the CDS market is once again facing annihilation in the face, who will be on the hook? You dear taxpayer, that's who.

The new Fed-endorsed organization will settle CDS obligations in all currencies and process credit events. It will also include all OTC credit derivatives traded worldwide, and will be regulated by the Fed and the NY State Banking Department and will be overseen by other US and International regulators.

[Octafish]

76. David Stockman says these turds have ripped off the US Taxpayer.

The guy was on PBS last Friday, wondering out loud about the same stuff you brought up.

Reagan's Budget Director said the economy was in no danger of collapse when Bush and Co. rammed through the bailout bushwa.

PAUL SOLMAN: So, if you had been in the administration after Lehman Brothers, you wouldn't have supported bailing out AIG?

DAVID STOCKMAN: No, absolutely not. It was the single most, you know, drastic error in policy in modern history, going back to the 1930s. This was exactly the wrong thing to do.


Thank you for the heads-up, HCE SuiGeneris. Those comments are most telling...Kitler, indeed.

[Skink]

8. FDR took the helm of a ship on the rocks. Obama didn't think we were on the rocks.

It's hard to see. This year should tell.

[scarletwoman]

9. Get used to disappointment...

[Skink]

11. You've got a lot of hearts. What's your secret Scarlet Woman?

[scarletwoman]

16. I've just been around here a long time, and made a few friends over the years.

Or maybe it's because I'm a loose woman who gives her favors freely... ;)

[Skink]

17. Sign me up

:popcorn:

[TexasObserver]

10. Recommend

[Better Believe It]

13. K & R

[stray cat]

12. You really think Bush was trying to save it by putting it in the stock markets?

[amborin]

15. K&R and Robert Reich: 1 free market for Wall St. another for Main St.:

snip

In the midst of this paralysis, the President was asked about the giant pay packages of Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase & Co. ($17 mullion for 2009) and Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs ($9 million). “First of all, I know both those guys,” Obama said. “They’re very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That’s part of the free market system.”

Free market system? As I remember it, American taxpayers forked out hundreds of billions to keep JPMorgan, Goldman, and other big Wall Street banks afloat through most of 2009. Had we not done so, Dimon, Blankfein, and most other top executives on Wall Street would not have earned a dime last year. In fact, some would be out on the street, reather than sitting pretty on the Street.

The free market system has been unleashed instead on average Americans. According to real-estate data firm First American CoreLogic, about one-fourth of American households with a mortgage are under water – owing more on their homes than their homes are worth. Mortgage-bond trader Amherst Securities estimates that 7.1 million of the 7.9 households now behind on their mortgage payments will lose their homes to foreclosure if nothing is done to modify their loans. Already cities and towns are littered with foreclosure sales, pulling down the values of all homes in the area.

Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, and most of the rest of Wall Street don’t worry about what’s happening to homes on Main Street because their savings are invested in stocks and bonds. But most middle-class Americans do worry because most (if not all) of their savings are in their homes. As home values continue to slip, average Americans’ one big asset is shrinking.

The best way to help reverse this downward slide would be to let bankruptcy judges restructure shaky home mortgages, reducing what borrowers owe. The problem is, the big banks hate this. If mortgages could be restructured this way, the banks would take big hits. They’d be forced to cut the amounts owed by borrowers. They figure they do better by squeezing as much as they can out of distressed homeowners, then collecting as much as they can on foreclosed properties.

So, not surprisingly, the big banks have been mounting a major lobbying campaign to block legislation that would allow homeowners to use bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy has been part of the “free market system” for hundreds of years, but its details are determined through politics – the same politics that arranged the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. In fact, you might say that during 2009, Wall Street went through its own kind of bankruptcy restructuring, with the generous aid of American taxpayers. JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, along with their top executives, traders, and major investors, have benefited handsomely.

Now, a quarter of American homeowners need help restructuring their loans, but Wall Street is blocking the way.

Rather than defending the outsized paychecks of Dimon, Blankfein, and the rest of Wall Street as part of the free market system, the President needs to demand that Wall Street help homeowners on Main Street. The Obama White House should have made this a condition of getting the giant bailouts in the first place. The least it can do now is to is to make the free market system work for everyone.

snip

http://robertreich.org/post/383841199/one-free-market-system-for-wall-street-another-free

[bvar22]

18. Recommended.

Well worth the read.

"Would the Republican right and its tea-party populists -- marginal, mockable political freaks less than a year ago -- have enjoyed their current growth spasm if the administration hadn't been committed to bailing out the very institutions most people considered the villains responsible for running this country into a ditch? Would the Democratic Party have been in imminent danger of losing its faltering grip on Congress had it found the will to pursue serious health-care reform and environmental legislation, or wrestled the financial oligarchy to the mat as Roosevelt did? A long generation spent cowering in the shadows of the conservative ascendancy has left the newly empowered Democrats congenitally incapable of seizing their own historic moment.

After a year of feinting to the left without meaning it, how seriously is anyone going to take the administration's latest call to tax the banks or break their addiction to reckless speculation? Even if Obama now means to push ahead with some sort of health-care reform or put some teeth into new financial regulations, he has spent so much political capital moving in the opposite direction and seeking partners where there never were any that his quest, even if genuine, may now be purely quixotic. As for the surge in Afghanistan and the endless war that goes with it, by election time 2010, it's an even bet that it will have further undermined any hopes of a late-inning Democratic Party revival.

So much squandered HOPE.

"When given the choice between a Republican, and a Democrat who acts like a Republican, the voters will choose the Republican every time." ---Harry Truman

QED Massachusetts

[scarletwoman]

20. Gads! It's just been so damn FRUSTRATING! The strategy has been ALL WRONG right from the start.

It was absolutely unforgiveable that the FIRST priority of the new administration was NOT going after serious reform of the Financial sector. Why they didn't strike while the iron was hot is completely beyond my comprehension.

If Obama had come in fists a-flying and declared that Wall Street was gonna get a major re-adjustment, the whole damn country would have cheered him on.

But no, they let the bastards get away with all their shit, with a few belated sternly worded speeches, and then it was on to health care and Afghanistan.

It was just fucking ridiculous, to not grab on to the issue of the moment in January of 2009, and fucking DO something about it besides letting billions of taxpayers dollars -- protection money, let's be clear about it -- get vacuumed up by the Financial system.

But no. As soon as the Gods of Wall Street appeared to be sufficiently appeased, the whole thing got put on the back burner and it was on to Health Care Reform (tm) -- which was a useless waste of time.

The Obama administration has been wrong-headed from the start. If it isn't sheer stupidity, then it's something much more sinister. Then it's aiding and abetting the WORST of the Capitalist monster to destroy all "hope" (sic) of ordinary people having a fair and decent shot at their "pursuit of happiness".

sw

[MissDeeds]

25. Well said n/t

[Skink]

33. Yep.

[proudohioan]

49. "Sinister"???? I like that one.......

I guess that's the word that i've been afraid of using, lest I be considered "paranoid" by my friends and family. Thanks for bringing it out in the open.

t.

[tomp]

73. between that and not going after bush/cheney, inc....

...obama=fail from the get go.

[earth mom]

19. K & R & Bookmarked. nt

[Octafish]

69. Cass Sunstein’s Conspiracy Theory: The Tuskegee Experiment

The one thing they can't take away from us is what we know.

Cass Sunstein’s Conspiracy Theory: The Tuskegee Experiment

Obama Administration Czar Cass Sunstein wrote a paper in 2008 stating that the government should respond to conspiracy theories via "cognitive infiltration of extremist groups."

In other words, Cass Sunstein advocates thought and speech control.

SNIP...

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Using Humans as Laboratory Rats

For 40 years ... from 1932 to 1972, the U.S. government conducted an experiment on 399 black men with syphilis. These men were mostly illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama.

The government never told them what disease they were actually suffering from, nor of its seriousness. Instead, the government told them they were being treated for "bad blood." The government and its doctors never had any intention of curing them.

These (black) men were not only given false information about their disease, but were inflicted with dangerous "treatments" as well - while genuine treatment was intentionally withheld. In 1947 for example, when penicillin became the drug of choice for sufferers of syphilis, the United States Public Health Service (PHS) refused to offer it to the 399 "subjects" of their study.

CONTINUED...

http://the-classic-liberal.com/cass-sunstein%E2%80%99s-conspiracy-theory-tuskegee-experiment/

Please know I appreciate what you do, earth mom.

[earth mom]

80. That is a horrific story Octafish. How many other experiments have been conducted

that we don't know about? How about GMO foods? The autism epidemic?


And I appreciate you more than you know Octafish! :hi:

[Octafish]

81. American children used to test radiation sickness. 'Degenerate' Puerto Ricans were given cancer...

...It's beyond the pale, what these traitors, warmongers and greedheads have done.

Know your BFEE: American Children Used in Radiation Experiments

The chain is long and links to those using torture today.

Know your BFEE: Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection

To get what they want, they are willing to kill innocence itself -- children.

Bush DoJ Says President Has Legal Power to Sodomize and Torture Children

If it weren't for my real Friends on DU, this would all be unbearable. Thank you earth mom. The feelings are mutual!

[earth mom]

82. You have a ton of friends here on DU because you haven't given up on the truth.

You've educated many people on DU and that can't be measured. Thank you Octafish! :yourock:


Wish I could be as truthful in a less abrasive way, lol!

[unapatriciated]

21. k&R

[saracat]

23. K+R 1 million

[defendandprotect]

26. Somebody has to do it -- !!! This has been going on since the coup on JFK . . .

which took not only our president, but our "people's" government --

and our Democratic Party!!



Those who want to deceive us well understand how to do it --

If you remember SC Justice Thurgood Marshall, as he was retiring, he gave us a

bit of a heads up on the future --

"It's not the color of a snake that counts, it's whether or not the snake bites!"

Poppy Bush then appointed the notorious pervert, Clarence Thomas. Biden helped

him win the seat by blocking the evidence against him.

This also goes for women -- 'cause that will probably be the next play down the road!

[troubledamerican]

29. FDR faced angry mobilized unions, a budding U.S. communist farm movement -- Obama faces none.

We are not forming any "Tea Party" therefore he cannot be an FDR.

Blame someone? Take a look in the mirror. And crack open a book about FDR.

[leftstreet]

37. Important distinction. The 'left' in the US today is dead

Labor, social front - deader than doornails

[defendandprotect]

55. Ignored, certainly -- but not dead -- simply NOT organized . ..

[RoyGBiv]

64. +1

Thank you for saying this.

[defendandprotect]

30. Grayson in 2012---????

[tnlefty]

31. K&R

Curious minds want to know, or at least question.

[johnaries]

34. Well, first of all, we should look at REAL history.

"Rewriting history" is a favorite ploy of the RW, and it seriously pisses me off when people claiming to be "Progressive" use the same ploys and techniques that Progressives (rightly) criticise RightWingnuts for using.

Secondly, see my first objection.

[nashville_brook]

70. so, what's the "real" history?

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Uzybone]

39. Jesus Christ....

the foolishness is getting worse. So now even FDR laws that were repealed under other presidents are now Obamas fault?

[asdjrocky]

42. In a word? Yes.

[mod mom]

48. Perhaps he fears how the elitists reacted to the New Deal:

1934: The Plot Against America
DEPARTMENT No Comment
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED July 28, 2007
I’m back from the land of heather and thistles, not to mention wee drams and lukewarm ale, but on my way out a friend at the BBC alerted me to this, a not-to-miss program on the BBC this morning, accessible over the next several days by internet. It’s the story of the Plot Against America. I don’t mean the Philip Roth novel, nor even the Sinclair Lewis book, It Can’t Happen Here, but rather the historical events upon which these two works of fiction were based.

In November 1934, federal investigators uncovered an amazing plot involving some two dozen senior businessmen, a good many of them Wall Street financiers, to topple the government of the United States and install a fascist dictatorship. Roth’s novel is developed from several strands of this factual account; he assumed the plot is actually carried out, whereas in fact an alert FDR shut it down but stopped short of retaliatory measures against the plotters. A key element of the plot involved a retired prominent general who was to have raised a private army of 500,000 men from unemployed veterans and who blew the whistle when he learned more of what the plot entailed. The plot was heavily funded and well developed and had strong links with fascist forces abroad. A story in the New York Times and several other newspapers reported on it, and a special Congressional committee was created to conduct an investigation. The records of this committee were scrubbed and sealed away in the National Archives, where they have only recently been made available.

The Congressional committee kept the names of many of the participants under wraps and no criminal action was ever brought against them. But a few names have leaked out. And one is Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the incumbent president. Prescott Bush was of course deep into the business of the Hamburg-America Lines, and had tight relations throughout this period with the new Government that had come to power in Germany a year earlier under Chancellor Aldoph Hitler. It appears that Bush was to have formed a key liaison for the group with the new German government.

Prescott Bush, of course, went on to service as a U.S. Senator from Connecticut, and his son, George H.W. Bush emerged from World War II as a hero.

-snip

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000651



The Whitehouse Coup
Monday 23 July 2007



The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.




http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml


Or perhaps his good friend Ted Kennedy had some words or warning to him. :hi:

[anonymous171]

56. So he's not a corporate stooge. He's just a coward

Right? :shrug:

[newspeak]

87. thanks mod mom and octofish

A few days ago Rachel was talking about a repug congress critter (I forgot his name ), maybe someone here saw her story. Anyway, on his site, he basically is identifying liberals (socialists) with Hitler. When she said that, I was incensed because my german great grandfather was a democratic socialist and hated Hitler. And, I wonder if this ignorant senator was attempting to change perceptions, since Hitler murdered the socialists, the unionists and communists. He was pro-industry all of the way-and this man coming from the greedy old party should know that.

In college, I thought about writing a paper on the business plot and those in power who were very much pro-fascist. We had industrialists at that time monetarily supporting Mussolini and Hitler--we had repuke congress critters, I believe, taking money from the Hitler regime to stay out of the war. I know we had people in this country who were Nazis sympathizers (my old boss' father was one of them). If the business plot had been successful-our country would be quite different today--if those unconscionable, greedy bastards had been successful, we very well be seig heiling today. Because, not only would they have fully supported fascist thugs; they probably would have put us in the war on the wrong side.

Anyway for that repuke congress critter to make such an ignorant statement--comparing liberals to Nazis-looks like mirroring to me. Because, being a pro-corporate whore, business against the people, sounds more like Mussolini's fascism, to me.

[LynneSin]

53. I think the Republicans have done a good job doing that for the last 70 years

:D

[WillyT]

58. Huge K & R !!! - Yep... We Wrote The Fucking Playbook...

and then act like we have no ideas about what to do.

Curious, eh ???

:mad:

:kick:

[Octafish]

65. The Repukes are the Harlem Globetrotters. The Democrats play the role of the NJ Generals.

We get beat every time, especially seeing how the refs -- the news media -- have been bought off. (Thanks for the excellent analogy, Bartcop!)

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. spoke about integrity. He said about 5-percent of Republicans have it and about 75-percent of Democrats.

That sounds about right.

[McCamy Taylor]

59. Corporate America has been doing this for years---Obama just works for them.

[ProSense]

62. Clinton was the one who repealed Glass Steagall. Obama is left

cleaning up his and Bush's mess. So the whole notion that Obama is the one trying to destroy the New Deal is quite bogus. Who was the last President to reform the financial system for the better?

[Greyhound]

63. What? "Wrong Way" Obama?

Shirley you jest.
:eyes:

[Edweird]

67. K&R.

[TheKentuckian]

71. Trying or not it seems to be a runaway freighttrain heading this way

Watching Conrad's snow day Budget meeting was extremely depressing. Conrad told his tale of growing up on Social Security after his parents died and how important it is to many people in his state BUT things can't go on blah...blah...blah

Almost none was there save for Conrad's economists, Whitehouse, Sessions came in at some point, and maybe another Democrat. Whitehouse tried to push for standard of living considerations and tried to press the economist (Richart from Maryland, I believe, some kat from the IMF, and another guy from Georgetown, I think) about the value of investing in infrastructure and got blown off. He rebutted with surely we need to at least repair the stuff the government is already responsible for and was rebuffed again.

It really sounds like their will be extreme resistance to any significant reinvestment in the country and there can be little question of a huge push to cut back and/or privatize the safety net.

They're all about deficit reduction at the expense of whatever it takes. They're going to do anything to take stuff off the books they can possibly be allowed to get away with and there won't be a lot of resistance in the Senate.

I think we're in deeper than we're scared to think, folks. They're going to fuck us. We might have enough real Democrats to mitigate the reaming but the fix is already in the pipeline.

[Kurovski]

72. I'm just too ill to live in this country anymore.

The fight is for the healthy. I'm looking elsewhere these days.

Perfectly horrendous times on every front.

K&R

[lib_n_proud7650]

75. It sure looks like it

[Jack Sprat]

78. The wingnuts sure are and the floor is spinning away.

What have conservatives ever done for the general good of the people?

What if there had been no social security? No unemployment especially in times like these? What if there was no medicare? No FHA or VA loans to compete with private lenders? What if there was no FDIC when banks failed? What if there had been no TVA or WPA during the depression?

My father was a child of the depression era. Most of the children that he went to school with patched the soles of their shoes with cardboard where the soles had worn away.

Until the New Deal, the common man and woman had little chance of having more than just bare necessities. Workers had few rights and union organizers were literally clubbed, beaten, and killed for standing up for themselves. This is what the conservatives want America to return to. For years, many of them have wanted to prohibit all but property owners from voting. It may sound outrageous to us, but consider civil rights before 1964. People at the top of the foodchain have little regard for the struggles of the common man. It is easier than you might think for them to turn away and pretend that it is supposed to be that way and that they are privileged. It sounds strange but it's real in so many cases.

[democracy1st]

83. kick

[gulfcoastliberal]

84. Well he issued an executive order to give the congress needed cover to destroy social security &

medicare.

No one made him do that. Judge by actions, talk is cheap.

[macsrule55]

85. I would believe so, sadly

[lucas_g20]

86. self-delete