Sirota: Did you hear FDR prolonged the Great Depression?

[Phred42]

Did you hear FDR prolonged the Great Depression?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/01/02/sirota_fdr_depression/

Conservatives' newest talking point -- designed to stop Congress from passing an economic stimulus package -- is breathtaking.

David Sirota

If you're like me, you sometimes find yourself speechless when confronted with abject insanity.

If you're like me, for instance, you were dumbfounded when "Forrest Gump" beat out "Pulp Fiction" for best picture; when HBO's "Sopranos" received more accolades than "The Wire"; and when George W. Bush insisted Iraqi airplanes were about to drop WMD on American cities

So if you're like me, you probably understand why I was momentarily tongue-tied last week after running face-first into conservatives' newest (and most ridiculous) talking point: the one designed to stop Congress from passing an economic stimulus package.

During a Christmas Eve appearance on Fox News, I pointed out that most mainstream economists believe the government must boost the economy with deficit spending. That's when conservative pundit Monica Crowley said we should instead limit such spending because President Franklin Roosevelt's "massive government intervention actually prolonged the Great Depression." Fox News anchor Gregg Jarrett eagerly concurred, saying "historians pretty much agree on that."

Of course, I had recently heard snippets.....

[ogneopasno]

1. Well, you can argue that if you think that if Hoover had been reelected, there would have

been revolution eventually during his term. So, you know, maybe.

[Puzzler]

24. The irony is that the so-called free market may very well have...

... "fixed" the Great Depression... by inducing mass starvation, or a host of other grisly alternatives.

(not that there wasn't already starvation, but you get my drift, I hope)

[Warpy]

2. Conservatives prolonged the Great Depression

by prematurely abolishing a lot of the successful programs early in 1937, thus ushering in a second steep recession later that year.

However, no conservative will ever take the blame for being stupid or doing the wrong thing.

[Cleita]

3. Where do they think this crap up? It's like they are calling this recent

economic downturn the Obama recession. I mean, Obama isn't even President yet. Yet, Rush/Sean/Billo et al are all sneaking those talking points into their radio and TV rants. How stupid is stupid going to have to be before the scales fall off the eyes of their lemming listeners and they realize that they have been lied to by their heroes for over a decade now?

[HughBeaumont]

5. Let them.

It will take them from destroyed credibility to clowns minus the suits and greasepaint. Only an idiot would believe this is anyone's fault but the Bewsh administration's and the various greedbag thugs who run Corporate America.

[TrogL]

10. They already have their conclusion in mind

...and make up crap to support that conclusion basically by blaming anybody they can possibly think of even if it doesn't make any coherent sense.

Their logic is:

A: Conservatives can do no wrong.
B: Something wrong happened.

Therefore it can't be a conservative that caused it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

22. Reminds you of J K Galbraith's Snr's: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of

man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." They never let up. But they will pay for it "world without end". Lawson, one of Thatcher's Chancellors came out with that tripe in the Daily Mail, and my reaction was the same as yours, plus a lot of anger.

If in an aberrant and fleeting moment of honesty, they made some honest statement, they'd be like the eponymous Peter of Peter and the Wolf. Who'd want to believe them? They'd be making a left-wing ecomomic point, and you'd begin questioning your own beliefs! At least, they're always true to type. Crooked idiots.

[Demeter]

21. It's Heirloom Crap Out of Great-Grandma's Attic

The right has always hated, lied, and conspired to overthrow FDR.

[HughBeaumont]

4. Yes, and Bewsh is second only to Pope Reagan in presidential greatness.

We're always the good guys, liberals are jealous of, and therefore punishing, success and Ann Coulter is greatly misunderstood. :eyes:

Conservatives need to put down the inhalants and fast.

[pretzel4gore]

6. the rightwing has to learn fear

the very ideology has the seeds of disaster in every rootstem. It has to hide to avoid exposure. It needs to fill history books with nonsense in order to succeed, and since 'journalism' is the 'first draft of history' the lying starts right away. For example, Israel is attacking 'Hamas' in Gaza, not the civilian population, just like they were attacking 'hezbollah' when they attacked Lebanon. This kind of lying (though Hamas may be among the civilians, the pignews is intentionally misleading the bored consumer who is the only one who actually still believes the pigmedia) ...Israel is being injured long term by the rightwing use of the Israel name in vain- and how many Jewish people really think the reactionary right ie russ limbah, bell orally or anus kkkoulter etc would not murder the entire Jewish people with easy glee? Best solution is that rightwing thinking (even the strictest lefty is a rightwinger on most things anyway) be put in focus, and monitored like a plague bacillus, which it surely is ie: see buchenwald/the soviet gulags etc

[MADem]

7. Sorry, that's a major LEAD balloon.

Even the Old Haters will sit before their tee vees, going "Uh huh...yeaaaaaah.....yup....ummmm hummmm" but when it comes to that FDR business, they'll say "Say WHUT????" They'd also be interested in LYNCHING the "historians" who "pretty much agree on that."

That's like saying the only reason Jesus did the loaves and fishes thing is because he wanted a fish sandwich. It's just....bullshit.

There are some saints you don't trash. Remember, most of those Old School Republicans were "Reagan Democrats." And those "Reagan Demoocrats" have profound respect for FDR and his legacy.

Talk about a bridge too far, that comment! But then, it's that dipshit Monica Crowley making it--she gained her bona fides in the GOP by doing scut work for the disgraced Richard Nixon, after all. And Richard Nixon didn't hesitate to rewrite history, either.

And of course, the guy disproves the thesis handily. When Bush's boy Bernanke disagrees, it's a dead argument:

To be sure, you can credibly argue that the New Deal had its share of problems. But overall, the numbers prove it helped -- rather than hurt -- the macroeconomy. "Excepting 1937-1938, unemployment fell each year of Roosevelt's first two terms the U.S. economy grew at average annual growth rates of 9 percent to 10 percent," writes University of California historian Eric Rauchway.

What about the New Deal's most "massive government intervention" -- its financial regulations? Did they prolong the Great Depression in ways the official data didn't detect?

Nope.

According to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, "Only with the New Deal's rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression." In fact, even famed conservative economist Milton Friedman admitted that the New Deal's Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was "the structural change most conducive to monetary stability since ... the Civil War."

OK -- if the verifiable evidence proves the New Deal did not prolong the Depression, what about historians -- do they "pretty much agree" on the opposite?

Again, no.

As Newsweek's Daniel Gross reports, "One would be very hard-pressed to find a serious professional historian who believes that the New Deal prolonged the Depression."....


And there ya have it--Monica Crowley is a parroting gasbag who got her start as a typist--not a "serious professional historian."

However, as for Sirota's other remarks--he's the one who is out-of-step. I thought "Forrest Gump" was a WAY better film than "Pulp Fiction" and though I greatly enjoyed "THE WIRE" I also enjoyed "The Sopranos" and I could understand why people preferred Tony and the gang and it got the the nod. If you didn't live in or were familiar with Metro DC or Bawl-more, a lot of the slang in The Wire was forever out of the reach of the average suburban bozo. The plot was complex, as were the characters, and it was harder for people to follow--you couldn't miss a single episode. The Sopranos was more forgiving in that regard.

[poverlay]

12. I wish you were right, but I know at least two Repugs personally who hate FDR with every

fiber of their being and who lay every problem imaginable at his feet. These are successful and intelligent businessmen. I heard this meme five years ago from them, so I don't think it's simply a desperate outgrowth of the current trap they've dug themselves into.

I never watched the "Sopranos", but I do think that "Pulp Fiction" was a great movie. Not necessarily better than "Gump", which appealed to a larger demographic than "Pulp", but in some eyes possibly more creative and edgy. I'm glad I don't have to compare two such wonderful and different movies and declare one the "winner", when it is obvious that they are both amazing in their own way.

[MADem]

14. They're probably "life-longers" though--not Reagan crossovers.

Too young to know their own history.

The Reagan crossovers, many of them, have that connection to WW2 and FDR was their CinC, after all.

The reality with those awards is that it's a huge lobbying effort, too. They take out ads in the trade papers, people with an interest in the production call "Members of the Academy" and try to persuade them to vote for a particular film, and the "fix" is often in on that stuff. The old line that "It's an honor to be nominated" is actually true. The "winner" is often the one who has the best publicists and other bigwigs beating the bushes for those votes.

[.... callchet ....]

8. Well guess what

The conservatives know for sure that they are going to have to pay for the depression they caused. They know they are going to face an aggressive

progressive tax reform and an increase of tax on savings and assets. You are going to hear everything imaginable trying to tell the middle and low

class people how well off they are, and to just be quiet and things will get better. And let me ask this question. Everybody always refers to the

middle class. That begs the question of what are the other two classes on either side of the middle class. Upper class and lower class. Are we

brainwashed enough to deny the existence of lower class. That is a starting point. The pundits have everybody thinking that there are only two

classes. Upper class and middle class. Even our President elect uses the term middle class to include everybody not in the upper class. Time for a

reality check.


" People First "

[47of74]

9. Heard it before

From both the local GOP contingent and the national party as well.

[DavidDvorkin]

11. I don't think that's new

I heard something along those lines when I first came to the US 51 years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if it was old then. The GOP probably invented that nonsense during FDR's lifetime.

[DBoon]

13. based on a 1994 UCLA paper

from profs in their Econ department

I actually read this thing a few years ago and it made me flinch, the logic was so bad.

They were arguing that high wages during the early years of the depression delayed recovery (WTF?). The high wages were supposedly caused by the National Recovery Administration programs of the New Deal, which tried to set wages and prices at a national level.

When it was pointed out that these programs were never implemented (the Supreme Court said NRA was unconstitutional), the economists tried to argue that the "fear" that these programs *might* be implemented was enough to cause a prolonged slump.

I mean, like wow, they aren't even blaming the New Deal, they are blaming fear of what the New Deal might have done but didn't.

IMHO, the paper was a miserable piece of political propaganda.

Let's also ignore the fact that Obama is not proposing anything like the NRA in his economic plan. Nobody is proposing central administration of wages and prices, and no sane person has since the days of Nixon.

[Captain Hilts]

15. Live and learn...

FDR: Well, whatta ya know?
ER: Oh, the poor dears, they don't really believe that, DO they?

[benld74]

16. Be prepared to hear this from the GOP from now on,,,

one of their new talking points from their little pointed heads. Boner and his cohort are also stating similar things in Congress.
HEard nothing of the sort when Wall Street was being bailed out, and look how well that did! Pretty soon Rush, HAnnity etc all will be spoting the same

[.... callchet ....]

17. They are right !

"Their goal is for cheap labor and no taxes. They are right in "their" logic to acheive "their" succes. Forget about "we". They don't care

about human rights, universal health care or your kids.

Their winning phrase is " Make it better for your kids " Well their kids are never going to have it bad. But they use that phrase to play on your

conscience.. Suffer now and your kids will have it better.. BS Their kids will never have a bad day.

" People First "

[.... callchet ....]

18. They are right !

They are right !
Edited on Fri Jan-02-09 02:32 PM by callchet
"Their goal is for cheap labor and no taxes. They are right in "their" logic to acheive "their" succes. Forget about "we". They don't care

about human rights, universal health care or your kids.

Their winning phrase is " Make it better for your kids " Well their kids are never going to have it bad. But they use that phrase to play on your

conscience.. Suffer now and your kids will have it better.. BS Their kids will never have a bad day.

" People First "
" People First '

[libodem]

19. Yep,

I heard that on AM talk-radio. I don't remember which asinine 'entertainer' was promoting the meme, but I do remember him saying that the great depression was prolonged by at least 10 years. A-holeos.

[ladym55]

20. You bet you will hear this, and many will believe

First, you have SO many people in this nation who are basically ignorant of our history AND our government (one of the reasons so many of our rights disappeared so easily during the last 8 years). They are the ones forwarding the emails about how "under God" has ALWAYS been part of the pledge, how we were created as a Christian nation (that would be a no), etc.

Then you add on the life-long conservatives who HATE FDR still and all he stood for. I come from such a family (who pretended that my grandfather got a job MAGICALLY in 1933 ... not from one of the FDR works projects). I had family members who hinted that FDR started WW II on purpose to pull us out the Depression because his programs weren't working.

I wish Fox and AM radio would be held to some sort of journalistic integrity, but I know that's way too much to ask.

[Puzzler]

23. Yeah... Phlem Beck was going on about this...

... just before he left CNN.