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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 1:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Saying FDR was a borderline Communist is like saying GWB is a borderline fascist: it betrays the writer's bias and nothing else. |
I agree with you totally that FDR was not any kind of Communist, or even socialist really. I disagree with your analogy with Bush. (I think it's possible to argue that Bush is a borderline Fascist...nationalism, permanent war is good, gov't in bed with big business, little-to-no regard for civil rights)...
Usually, Kuros is a breath of fresh air and sanity on this forum. On this particular issue, he's not. (Perhaps an unwitting victim of brainwashing by space lizards?) He's allergic to big government.
FDR saved capitalism from its largest, most serious crisis. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| stillnotking wrote: |
Communism is a fundamental and all-encompassing theory of politics and the role of the state. If he wasn't in the tradition of Lenin -- and he wasn't -- then he's not a Communist. |
If I wanted to say FDR was in the tradition of Lenin, I would've called him a Leninist-Marxist
| stillnotking wrote: |
| I'm sure you can cite examples of FDR bludgeoning private enterprise or farms with the power of the state. I can cite similar examples for every single American President ever elected. None of them were Communists or "borderline Communists", whatever that is. |
Well, FDR had far more assistance from a willing legislature to put his market-control measures into place than any other President in American history. From Hawley-Smoot all the way through the excesses of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, right up until the Democrats decided he had gone too far with packing the court, FDR ruled by de facto economic fiat.
Here is as good an article as any that pulls the wool back from our collective consciousness concerning the New Deal mythos.
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| Unemployment stood at 20% in 1937, five years into the New Deal. As for the Dow, it did not come back to its 1929 level until the 1950s. International factors and monetary errors cannot entirely account for these abysmal showings. |
In terms of economic performance, there certainly is a lot of similarity between Roosevelt's America and Stalin's Russia.
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| In the summer of 1927, a group of future New Dealers, mostly junior professors or minor union officials, were received by Stalin for a full six hours when they traveled on a junket to the Soviet Union. Both Stalin's Russia and Mussolini's Italy influenced the New Deal enormously. The Brain Trusters were not, for the most part, fascists or communists. They were thoughtful people who wrote in the New Republic. But their ideas were wrong. Their intense romanticization of the concept of the economy of scale ignored the small man. One of the New Dealers from the old Soviet trip, Rex Tugwell, even created his very own version of Animal Farm in Casa Grande, Ariz. As in the Orwell book, the farmers revolted. |
You're right, to call New Dealers Communists would be too strong. That's why I used 'borderline Communists.' And yet, no respectable Democrat would advocate such leftist authortarianism today, not even John Edwards (who I do not find respectable).
But you know what? It's too late to convince you now. You've already dismissed me as partisan and biased.
| stillnotking wrote: |
| Again, this is like claiming George W. Bush is a borderline fascist because of Guantanamo Bay (for example). |
Oh, no! We wouldn't want to risk that, would we?!
Somebody inform Stillnotking I'm not the right-wing nutbar he thinks I am. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
FDR saved capitalism from its largest, most serious crisis. |
That's the traditional Schlesinger thesis.
I won't tell you what I think of Schlesinger's ideas, it might hurt your feelings. He was an excellent writer, however. And his style of history merged the great man theory with the historical movement theory of history well. |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Somebody inform Stillnotking I'm not the right-wing nutbar he thinks I am. |
You don't come across like a right-wing nutbar. However, I'd say you probably do have some right-wing bias in economics, at least. Everyone has bias...
I just don't like to see terms abused. It makes me itch. One is either a Communist, or one is not. FDR was not. |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| I disagree with your analogy with Bush. (I think it's possible to argue that Bush is a borderline Fascist...nationalism, permanent war is good, gov't in bed with big business, little-to-no regard for civil rights)... |
Even granting that those are all true, and some of them are very much open to debate, that wouldn't make Bush a fascist. Shutting down the legislature and proclaiming himself king-for-life would make him a fascist.
Y'know, there actually is a good reason not to use these terms (Communist, fascist) loosely. I can personally guarantee you that, if your object is to persuade others -- and presumably that's the object of all political speech -- you are doing nothing but harming your cause by using words like that. Anyone who doesn't already share your leanings will be completely turned off by that kind of rhetoric. |
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stillnotking
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Location: Oregon, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:13 pm Post subject: |
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Doesn't that put him smack in the most common demographic of American Presidents? Just sayin'... |
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Mosley
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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| If Edwards was far less wealthier, more rumpled, less good looking, less urbane and had far more charisma, you'd have...Huey P. Long! |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject: |
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| stillnotking wrote: |
Y'know, there actually is a good reason not to use these terms (Communist, fascist) loosely. I can personally guarantee you that, if your object is to persuade others -- and presumably that's the object of all political speech -- you are doing nothing but harming your cause by using words like that. Anyone who doesn't already share your leanings will be completely turned off by that kind of rhetoric. |
That's a good point. Too bad you came out and tried to legislate my word choice. Kinda stepped on the spirit of your own advice, didn't you? |
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