ext_36450 ([identity profile] underlankers.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] talkpolitics2011-02-09 09:10 pm
Entry tags:

Speaking of legends instead of facts:

Which US President presided over one of the most infamous racially motivated incarcerations of US citizens in the country's history, for which he is ironically lauded by the opposition that hated him then? Which US President willingly sent Soviet dissidents to certain death at the hands of Stalin's death squads? Which US President successfully hid the effects of a major disease with the collaboration of the US Media? Which US President assumed the most wide-ranging power of any POTUS in the country's history, shamelessly breaking one of the oldest precedents, forcing US soldiers to go fight foreign wars against an enemy who really was none of our business in imperialism against a people that appointed an unpleasant megalomaniac, but he was the problem of that part of the world? Which President used a new and insidious means of communication to spread his shameless propaganda into our HOMES? 

Which President was it that shamelessly violated the letter and the spirit of Neutrality Acts passed by the Congress representing the Silent Majority of the American People who weren't in the least bothered by what the aforementioned megalomaniac was doing? Which President yielded to dangerous radicals who exploited without shame a war against that self-same megalomaniacal radical for purely selfish ends? Which US President was it under whom the US government assumed a power that it had never before considered remotely valid, only to extend these immoral and unjust expansions, including (horror of horrors) lifting a dirt-poor mountainous region out of the Stone Age (I kid, but barely) to that most evil and immoral of things, the draft? Under which US President was the HUAC led by a Soviet spy?

The answer is beneath the cut:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt

Now, this is the problem with pointing out that Reagan of propaganda-bordering-on-myth is not really the Reagan of real life. This is very much a valid point, but the patron saint of the progressive-liberal state did a lot of things that most modern liberals consider among the most immoral aspects of US society, such as acceptable use of strategic bombing, beginning the Manhattan Project, interning Japanese only on the mainland foreknowing that there was nothing but racism in it (as opposed to the Germans and Italians who actually were pro-Nazi), edit he also was POTUS when HUAC took its full form as a standing Congressional Committee, while expanding the US government's political power in ways that while necessary were entirely unprecedented. Similarly he was an undeclared member of the Allied Powers from 1940 which was very much violations of international law then and now.

So, I'm going to ask a simple question: As it's pretty much a given that Reagan, as an actual human being as opposed to a monomanical ideologue did not match his ideology, what does the real record of Franklin Delano Roosevelt mean? Would it be fair to say that he's actually not that much of a Progressive any more than Reagan was a zealous Conservative?

One more thing:

Remember when Reagan was responsible for losing the Cold War?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE5DD163FF934A25752C0A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

[identity profile] paedraggaidin.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 06:01 am (UTC)(link)
Image

Sorry...couldn't resist....

[identity profile] fizzyland.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 06:37 am (UTC)(link)
I had no idea. Fascinating.

[identity profile] fizzyland.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 06:44 am (UTC)(link)
Now I want to ask people which war/battle they'd like to re-enact. I think I'd go with Punic Wars - Hannibal's campaign.

[identity profile] fizzyland.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
Sleeper cells honing their skills via imitating musket brigades? Sure, why not.

[identity profile] headhouse.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
Is it bad that I heard that whole first paragraph in the voice of the guy who does movie trailers?

"In a world... that they did not create... two people..." etc.

[identity profile] the-rukh.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 07:07 am (UTC)(link)
WWI. Argh mustard gas! *urk aaaagh* Mortar! *Blooey!!* and scene. Seems like that one would be fun.

[identity profile] paedraggaidin.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 07:11 am (UTC)(link)
Actium, 31 BC.

[identity profile] fizzyland.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 07:17 am (UTC)(link)
Mmmm, trench warfare, charging into incoming fire, and wire barricades, sounds like a party! Mitt mustard gas.

[identity profile] fizzyland.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 07:21 am (UTC)(link)
Could you say a little bit about what draws you to that?

[identity profile] paedraggaidin.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 07:25 am (UTC)(link)
Two things, really. I'm a big naval history buff, and it represents the last great battle of one of my favorite historical periods to study, the Roman Republic.

[identity profile] mikeyxw.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 08:45 am (UTC)(link)
Now that's what you call a big tent.

[identity profile] mikeyxw.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 08:48 am (UTC)(link)
Just another chance for big boys to play in the mud.

[identity profile] gunslnger.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 09:09 am (UTC)(link)
interning Japanese only on the mainland foreknowing that there was nothing but racism in it (as opposed to the Germans and Italians who actually were pro-Nazi)

There are some Germans in Texas that would like to speak to you about your historical revisionism.
http://www.gaic.info/internment_camp.html

Re: Reagan vs FDR

[identity profile] jerseycajun.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 09:10 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, you can parse out a specific expression of devotion as unique to one political clique or another, but that's missing the point because blind devotion takes all kinds of forms. Does that somehow make one expression of it worse than another, or perhaps is there more wisdom in taking note how blind devotion is pretty much bad in principle and that it's unhealthy regardless of political affiliation?

Hair splitting in this case does not reveal anything of much use. "Yeah, but they do it worse just sounds all to much like "but he did it first".

Re: Reagan vs FDR

[identity profile] gunslnger.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 09:11 am (UTC)(link)
It's been long enough. You also don't see Nixon like that any more either.

[identity profile] gunslnger.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 09:12 am (UTC)(link)
Too long ago...

[identity profile] anfalicious.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 09:17 am (UTC)(link)
Too far away...

[identity profile] anfalicious.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 09:17 am (UTC)(link)
They have a hamburgler!

[identity profile] anfalicious.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 09:22 am (UTC)(link)
This Summer, coming to theatres near you:

UNDERLANKERS: Verbosity

[identity profile] badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 12:33 pm (UTC)(link)
Absolutely. But there is no one less deserving of the accolades he gets than FDR.

[identity profile] mrbogey.livejournal.com 2011-02-10 12:50 pm (UTC)(link)
I never said he never said that. I said you were rambling and going off the topic rather than deal with the issues raised about your assertions.

This incorrect interpretation you keep having regarding everything you read supports my position that all your historical assertions are likely wrong too

Page 2 of 5