I debated posting this but finally decided it shows the DUmp denial mentality in all its glory. There were only a few posts when last I looked at this OP so I lugged them all over.
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/1251971565AZ Progressive (2,387 posts)
No Democratic President was perfect, not even FDR
Is it realistic to put our politicians to very high standards?
As transformational as FDR was, he had several big blemishes:
1. He started the relationship with Ibn Saud, leader of Saudi Arabia, hooking the United States to middle eastern oil and oil dependency and ultimately leading to the mess in the middle east, due to Saudi Arabia being protected by America as it funds Sunni Islamic extremists, including Al Qaeda and ISIS, and promotes the extremely conservative Wahabbi form of Islam around the sunni muslim world.
2. The Military Industrial Complex originated with FDR:
In the formative years of the military-industrial complex, the public still deeply distrusted privately owned industrial firms because of the way they had contributed to the Great Depression. Thus, the leading role in the newly emerging relationship was played by the official governmental sector. A deeply popular, charismatic president, FDR sponsored these public-private relationships. They gained further legitimacy because their purpose was to rearm the country, as well as allied nations around the world, against the gathering forces of fascism. The private sector was eager to go along with this largely as a way to regain public trust and disguise its wartime profit-making.
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Roosevelt's use of public-private "partnerships" to build up the munitions industry, and thereby finally overcome the Great Depression, did not go entirely unchallenged. Although he was himself an implacable enemy of fascism, a few people thought that the president nonetheless was coming close to copying some of its key institutions. The leading Italian philosopher of fascism, the neo-Hegelian Giovanni Gentile, once argued that it should more appropriately be called "corporatism" because it was a merger of state and corporate power. (See Eugene Jarecki's The American Way of War, p. 69.)
Some critics were alarmed early on by the growing symbiotic relationship between government and corporate officials because each simultaneously sheltered and empowered the other, while greatly confusing the separation of powers. Since the activities of a corporation are less amenable to public or congressional scrutiny than those of a public institution, public-private collaborative relationships afford the private sector an added measure of security from such scrutiny. These concerns were ultimately swamped by enthusiasm for the war effort and the postwar era of prosperity that the war produced.
- http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174959/chalmers_johnson_warning_mercenaries_at_work
3. The Japanese Internment of course.
4. FDR appointed a member of the KKK, Hugo Black, to be a supreme court justice, and when a scandal broke out when that fact was found, FDR tried to cover it up, using the age old tactic of media manipulation, with his "quarantine" speech:
<cartoon link omitted it wasn't all that good anyway>
I for one do not need to be convinced about FDR. The man is an urban legend but in his own time he was not universally loved. I actually ran across a very uncomplimentary article in a paper I found from 1938. I suspect it would bring tears to a DUmmies eyes.
Kalidurga (10,424 posts)
1. Internment camps is all I need to not admire him.
Look at how Donald Trump is skewered here and for good reason for saying we should bring them back for Muslims. Most people here wouldn't vote for Trump is he was promising us all lollipops, rainbows, kittens, puppies, and a pony, based on that stance alone.
Response to AZ Progressive (Original post)Sun Jan 3, 2016, 08:10 PM
Star Member Vattel (7,452 posts)
2. Yes, and Truman was a mass murderer. (no sarcasm) Serious mistakes with huge costs.
I suspect the DUKGB has opened a file if not already heating the pizza stone
Response to AZ Progressive (Original post)Mon Jan 4, 2016, 12:31 AM
zalinda (4,800 posts)
3. No human is perfect.
Hindsight is 20/20 for every one, no matter what their status.
IBFTL or I need to boost my post count post
Response to AZ Progressive (Original post)Mon Jan 4, 2016, 01:08 AM
Star Member uponit7771 (24,269 posts)
4. FDR had an 80% progressive congress, was a union buster and wasn't that enthused at helping
... Jewish people not be inslaved and murdered on an industrial scale.
To expect perfection from any human is unreasonable.
Well yeah, there was all that but after all lets not be unreasonable? Thus the thread ends not with a bang but a whimper.
I have little insight into the named DUmmies but my guess is that one or more on this very short OP are Hillary confederates. Burn Outs like to compare
Barney the Big Purple Socialist to FDR so I doubt they would defame him on DU.
