"I welcome their hatred" FDR

midcan5

liberal / progressive
Jun 4, 2007
12,740
3,513
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America
Sometimes it seems history repeats itself. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech of eighty years ago with minor changes could fit into America today. It is an excellent example of what America can do if it has the will.

"It is needless to repeat the details of the program which this Administration has been hammering out on the anvils of experience. No amount of misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people.

What was our hope in 1932? Above all other things the American people wanted peace. They wanted peace of mind instead of gnawing fear.

First, they sought escape from the personal terror which had stalked them for three years. They wanted the peace that comes from security in their homes: safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their enterprise.

Next, they wanted peace in the community, the peace that springs from the ability to meet the needs of community life: schools, playgrounds, parks, sanitation, highways - those things which are expected of solvent local government. They sought escape from disintegration and bankruptcy in local and state affairs.

They also sought peace within the Nation: protection of their currency, fairer wages, the ending of long hours of toil, the abolition of child labor, the elimination of wild-cat speculation, the safety of their children from kidnappers.

And, finally, they sought peace with other Nations - peace in a world of unrest. The Nation knows that I hate war, and I know that the Nation hates war.

I submit to you a record of peace; and on that record a well-founded expectation for future peace - peace for the individual, peace for the community, peace for the Nation, and peace with the world.

Tonight I call the roll - the roll of honor of those who stood with us in 1932 and still stand with us today.

Written on it are the names of millions who never had a chance - men at starvation wages, women in sweatshops, children at looms.

Written on it are the names of those who despaired, young men and young women for whom opportunity had become a will-o'-the-wisp.

Written on it are the names of farmers whose acres yielded only bitterness, business men whose books were portents of disaster, home owners who were faced with eviction, frugal citizens whose savings were insecure.

Written there in large letters are the names of countless other Americans of all parties and all faiths, Americans who had eyes to see and hearts to understand, whose consciences were burdened because too many of their fellows were burdened, who looked on these things four years ago and said, "This can be changed. We will change it."

We still lead that army in 1936. They stood with us then because in 1932 they believed. They stand with us today because in 1936 they know. And with them stand millions of new recruits who have come to know.

Their hopes have become our record.

We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent."

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum - Our Documents

"On October 31, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a campaign speech before a crowd at Madison Square Garden. The words he spoke could be uttered in our present time. I have edited this just over 30-minute speech down to less than 10 minutes to provide highlights. We need this kind of leadership today."

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nuElu-ipTQ]I welcome their hatred F D Roosevelt - YouTube[/ame]
 
Sometimes it seems history repeats itself. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech of eighty years ago with minor changes could fit into America today. It is an excellent example of what America can do if it has the will.

"It is needless to repeat the details of the program which this Administration has been hammering out on the anvils of experience. No amount of misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people.

What was our hope in 1932? Above all other things the American people wanted peace. They wanted peace of mind instead of gnawing fear.

First, they sought escape from the personal terror which had stalked them for three years. They wanted the peace that comes from security in their homes: safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their enterprise.

Next, they wanted peace in the community, the peace that springs from the ability to meet the needs of community life: schools, playgrounds, parks, sanitation, highways - those things which are expected of solvent local government. They sought escape from disintegration and bankruptcy in local and state affairs.

They also sought peace within the Nation: protection of their currency, fairer wages, the ending of long hours of toil, the abolition of child labor, the elimination of wild-cat speculation, the safety of their children from kidnappers.

And, finally, they sought peace with other Nations - peace in a world of unrest. The Nation knows that I hate war, and I know that the Nation hates war.

I submit to you a record of peace; and on that record a well-founded expectation for future peace - peace for the individual, peace for the community, peace for the Nation, and peace with the world.

Tonight I call the roll - the roll of honor of those who stood with us in 1932 and still stand with us today.

Written on it are the names of millions who never had a chance - men at starvation wages, women in sweatshops, children at looms.

Written on it are the names of those who despaired, young men and young women for whom opportunity had become a will-o'-the-wisp.

Written on it are the names of farmers whose acres yielded only bitterness, business men whose books were portents of disaster, home owners who were faced with eviction, frugal citizens whose savings were insecure.

Written there in large letters are the names of countless other Americans of all parties and all faiths, Americans who had eyes to see and hearts to understand, whose consciences were burdened because too many of their fellows were burdened, who looked on these things four years ago and said, "This can be changed. We will change it."

We still lead that army in 1936. They stood with us then because in 1932 they believed. They stand with us today because in 1936 they know. And with them stand millions of new recruits who have come to know.

Their hopes have become our record.

We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent."

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum - Our Documents

"On October 31, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a campaign speech before a crowd at Madison Square Garden. The words he spoke could be uttered in our present time. I have edited this just over 30-minute speech down to less than 10 minutes to provide highlights. We need this kind of leadership today."

I welcome their hatred F D Roosevelt - YouTube

1936 is nothing like today. In 1936 we were a nation that preferred isolationism to an awareness that no nation is an island. Today we see that a problem in Greece causes the whole world to hold there breath.

For a person that claims to be educated and wants to think he is intelligent you keep demonstrating that you are neither.
 
Government spending is now 46.85% of GDP & growing. In 2000 it was only 36.14% of GDP. We are now just 3% away from being a government controlled economy. That is the level we spiked to during WWII at the end of the great depression. Now government just remains at depression era spending levels & the economy is tanking.

Democrats scream that government has been cut to the bone over the last 20 years since Regan but the fact is government spending as percent of GDP rose under Regan, Bush & Bush. It only fell under Clinton.

usgs_line.php


Obama's Director of the White House National Economic Council & Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers at 22:00 in video
"If Hitler had not come along, Franklin Roosevelt would have left office in the beginning of 1941 with an unemployment rate in excess of 15% and an economic recovery strategy that had basically failed."
 
FDR: 20th Century's Biggest Failure. 20% unemployment for 7 years.
I thought the biggest failure of the 20th Century was WWII. The human toll was 52,000,000+ dead. The History Place - World War II in Europe Timeline: The History Place - Statistics of World War II

I've read other sources claiming higher totals than that. I'll go with the low figure above. The link breaks down the deaths into civilian and military and also by country.

America entered the fracas the week following the brutal Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor, December 7. 1941, and it had nothing to do with who was President of the United States at the time.
 
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FDR was tough as nails.

Exactly, and Obama is no FDR.

Nope.

He's not.

And I wish he would adopt some of FDR's combativeness. Being nice to a conservative is like being nice to a scorpion on your back while you are swimming across a river.

You are going to get stung..either way.

Oh, go right ahead, play the game as dirty and as partisan as you wanna be. It is not as if your party of choice has no experience at that; they have been every bit as bitter and unrestrained partisans as the other side. What did democrats do with their super majority in congress for two years; be nice to republicans? In words, perhaps, but Pelosi and Reid ran roughshod over the opposition as often as they could, with no apologies. Now, you are unhappy, because your president and his party can't do that anymore...because the American people said "Enough!" at the polls last November, remember. You only got that control because the country had a national temper tantrum in 2008. The voters giveth, and the voters taketh away. Deal with it! Just so you know, we conservatives trust you liberals every bit as much as you trust us-which is to say, about as far as we can spit.

Your party has lost its credibility; Reid lied, Pelosi lied, and Obama lied. You can crank up the rhetoric all you want, but the majority of the people ain't buying that snake oil you're selling any more. Same old tired mantras, same old failed policies, same old "solutions"; a polished turd, reworded and repackaged in a shiny new wrapper; but at the end of the day it's still a turd, and the voters know it!
 
The replies aren't as bad as I expected? FDR is rated our greatest president for a reason, did he neglect important issues or topics, of course he did, but then, as now, you have to fight for all the people and that he did. The youtube above is excellent and his ideas live on here. New Deal 2.0

"FDR Went to Wisconsin to Battle 'Economic Royalists,' But Obama Avoids the State and the Fight" by John Nichols http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/16-4


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZ5bx9AyI4]FDR Second Bill of Rights Speech Footage - YouTube[/ame]
 
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The replies aren't as bad as I expected? FDR is rated our greatest president for a reason, did he neglect important issues or topics, of course he did, but then, as now, you have to fight for all the people and that he did. The youtube above is excellent and his ideas live on here. New Deal 2.0

"FDR Went to Wisconsin to Battle 'Economic Royalists,' But Obama Avoids the State and the Fight" by John Nichols FDR Went to Wisconsin to Battle 'Economic Royalists,' But Obama Avoids the State and the Fight | Common Dreams


FDR Second Bill of Rights Speech Footage - YouTube

Economic royalists? What is that supposed to mean?
 
The replies aren't as bad as I expected? FDR is rated our greatest president for a reason, did he neglect important issues or topics, of course he did, but then, as now, you have to fight for all the people and that he did. The youtube above is excellent and his ideas live on here. New Deal 2.0

"FDR Went to Wisconsin to Battle 'Economic Royalists,' But Obama Avoids the State and the Fight" by John Nichols FDR Went to Wisconsin to Battle 'Economic Royalists,' But Obama Avoids the State and the Fight | Common Dreams


FDR Second Bill of Rights Speech Footage - YouTube

Economic royalists? What is that supposed to mean?

I take it you didn't bother to read the article? "The old fight between patriotic proponents of economic justice and the Tory defenders of economic royalism had, Roosevelt argued, come to a head with the arrival of the Great Depression. ¶ Recalling the 1932 election that swept Democrats to power and ushered in the New Deal era, the president argued, “In the great national movement that culminated over a year ago, people joined with enthusiasm. They lent hand and voice to the common cause, irrespective of many older political traditions. They saw the dawn of a new day. They were on the march; they were coming back into the possession of their own home land.""

America starting at the end of the Civil war (?) entered a period in which corporate power wanted to and often did control the state. Lincoln recognized this, "It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."**

America today has moved back to those days in which corporate power gets what it wants or it cries and takes its ball home. Note the only discussion is about taxes and nothing about supporting America and rebuilding it. Corporations today see these two links.

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/827

http://open.salon.com/blog/steven_rockford/2011/01/20/citizens_united_-_one_year_later


For a discussion of language and its uses see this piece: Economist Debates: Language


** Abraham Lincoln in a letter to William F. Elkins, November 21, 1864
 
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The replies aren't as bad as I expected? FDR is rated our greatest president for a reason, did he neglect important issues or topics, of course he did, but then, as now, you have to fight for all the people and that he did. The youtube above is excellent and his ideas live on here. New Deal 2.0

"FDR Went to Wisconsin to Battle 'Economic Royalists,' But Obama Avoids the State and the Fight" by John Nichols FDR Went to Wisconsin to Battle 'Economic Royalists,' But Obama Avoids the State and the Fight | Common Dreams


FDR Second Bill of Rights Speech Footage - YouTube

Economic royalists? What is that supposed to mean?

I take it you didn't bother to read the article? "The old fight between patriotic proponents of economic justice and the Tory defenders of economic royalism had, Roosevelt argued, come to a head with the arrival of the Great Depression. ¶ Recalling the 1932 election that swept Democrats to power and ushered in the New Deal era, the president argued, “In the great national movement that culminated over a year ago, people joined with enthusiasm. They lent hand and voice to the common cause, irrespective of many older political traditions. They saw the dawn of a new day. They were on the march; they were coming back into the possession of their own home land.""

America starting at the end of the Civil war (?) entered a period in which corporate power wanted to and often did control the state. Lincoln recognized this, "It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."**

America today has moved back to those days in which corporate power gets what it wants or it cries and takes its ball home. Note the only discussion is about taxes and nothing about supporting America and rebuilding it. Corporations today see these two links.

Democracy after Citizens United | MIT World

Citizens United - One year later - Steven Rockford - Open Salon


For a discussion of language and its uses see this piece: Economist Debates: Language


** Abraham Lincoln in a letter to William F. Elkins, November 21, 1864

Why read an article that points out that Obama is not FDR? That is so obvious I do not need to waste my time.

Nor am I going to read anything you linked to, all I want is a simple definition.

Can you supply it, or are you going to continue to link to wild rants and stupid political blogs?
 
FDR: 20th Century's Biggest Failure. 20% unemployment for 7 years.
I thought the biggest failure of the 20th Century was WWII. The human toll was 52,000,000+ dead. The History Place - World War II in Europe Timeline: The History Place - Statistics of World War II

I've read other sources claiming higher totals than that. I'll go with the low figure above. The link breaks down the deaths into civilian and military and also by country.

America entered the fracas the week following the brutal Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbor, December 7. 1941, and it had nothing to do with who was President of the United States at the time.

Oh yeah? Are you sure?
 
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FDR presided over an economy worse than the 7 Biblical lean years. As fucked us as Obama has us today, imagine twice the current unemployment rate and for another 5 years, that's how bad FDR was
 
Why read an article that points out that Obama is not FDR? That is so obvious I do not need to waste my time.

Nor am I going to read anything you linked to, all I want is a simple definition.

Can you supply it, or are you going to continue to link to wild rants and stupid political blogs?

You do realize your above statement explains well your ignorance of history, of presidents, and of the world in general. There is no need for me to answer again, I did above, you on the other hand are just engaging in the same idiotic right wing counter to a president who the conservative republicans have fought since he brought back the American dream of freedom and equality for all. American principles have always been a problem for conservatives.

Washington, Lincoln, and FDR Were Great Presidents - and Great Radicals » New Deal 2.0

'Washington, Lincoln, and FDR Were Great Presidents - and Great Radicals'

"Given the state of American politics and public life, we need to embrace our radical past and start putting it to good use. I refer here not — or at least not simply — to the great tradition of American radicals that has included such figures as revolutionary patriot Thomas Paine, feminist Fannie Wright, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene Debs, anarchist Emma Goldman, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Just as much, I have in mind those figures whom both historians and the American people at large consider our greatest presidents: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Rarely thought of as radicals, they definitely do stand as radicals in the American grain."
 

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