Born in 1911, he'd be so far out of his element that it would be laughable. As for his politics, the post-Vietnam world and the Cold War were his environment. Today is very different.

it kinda demonstrates you don't quite get it.

I spent less than five minutes on that OP. I spent four hours, though, writing new pages for an HVAC contractor's website. I got paid for that. DU doesn't pay. Nobody pays for my time here. So, I spend almost no time on posts here. You call it lecturing when I post, but something else when someone you agree with posts.

That's fine. I'll continue writing a couple of OPs a day here, as always. I duck in and out of DU during my workday. It doesn't consume much of my time or much of my thinking, either.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to tell me that, though.

They're the ones running. In some ways, it's the last political gasp for that generation.

bombing. Baby boomers started being born in 1946. My mom got pregnant just before my father flew to Europe to fly B-17s as the war in Europe was nearing its end. He flew a number of mission, including Ploesti, but did not max out on missions. That was due to his age. He became a first pilot while he was still 19 years old.

I'm a war baby. An end of the war baby, but not a boomer. So is Bernie.

Hillary, on the other hand, is a boomer.

There was massive support for RFK among boomers, despite him not being a boomer.

Yet you bring up Sanders and Clinton's ages as evidence for....something or other.

I supported RFK, too. Sadly, I did not get a chance to vote for him, and I wasn't old enough to vote for his brother, although I campaigned for him.

Last edited Tue Dec 15, 2015, 05:35 PM - Edit history (1)

is two years younger than me next May when I retire.

and he is partyially responsible for the mess we are in.

Vote for tomorrow, not for the 90-ies. Think reality, not the romance of recent history.

They've made that more than apparent on numerous occasions.

I have great admiration for FDR, for most of what he did while President. He was perfect for his time, with a few notable exceptions.

I fault him for his lackadaisical approach to racial issues, for his failure to help European Jews to come here to escape Hitler, for his unconscionable internment of Japanese people and some with German and Italian roots, and for being instrumental in creating nuclear weapons.

As far as fixing the economic disaster of the Depression is concerned, he did a great job. He turned around a disastrous economic establishment and made inroads in economic justice for the elderly.

but I like him a lot too.

You think you own FDR and MLK for some damn reason. Neither can speak to that but if they could I think they both would tell you that they can't be usurped for your self serving political needs.

He was a man of history who did great things. And also some not so great things. But he was more like Bill Clinton than Bernie Sanders. But with a bigger ego and less impulse control. Initially he came up with an endless stream of policy tweaks that he thought might help ease the Depression. And then he unleashed the beast of American capitalism to fight WW2. Everyone knows about the internment camps, but many do not understand how racist the distribution of New Deal money was or that redlining was created by the Roosevelt administration.

He was a great man, but a man of his times. I do not long for his return.

You are correct. FDR would be seen as dangerously adventuresome by today's Democratic Party. After all, he made us the majority party at all levels of government for half a century. The current strategy made us the minority party at all levels of government, so FDR would be a misfit now.

because his wife loved black folks too much

Apparently I excel at something, so that's a good thing. I count your words as high praise, indeed.

If you wonder what I grasp and do not grasp, you're missing a great deal in what I write.

Please don't be concerned about my comprehension of things. I'm doing just fine, thanks.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go look for other things to grasp.

are easy to wade in.

Your post is sillybecause it is an anachronism. There is, obviously, no telling what FDR would be like if he had been born 60 years later. Saying that FDR wouldn't be elected now is utterly devoid of meaning. It's a shallow

Please proceed.

he probably wouldn't win the Democratic nomination in 2016.

He made others, too, though. I detailed a few upthread.

If he was born in 1950, for example, he'd be different than he was. Glad, this discussion and the op are absurd.

Times may be different,. but in other ways, that old saying applies: The more things change the more they stay the same.

We've gone through a cycle where we've allowed a return to many of the problems FDR was addressing. An oligarchy and a rigged economy that was sending a majority down the economic drain.

Dramatic liberal steps were needed to address that. Just as todaY.

Clinton ignores that. she is happy with the status quo becaue she is part of the status quo. The wing of the democratic party she represents helped to create the problem.

We need change and reform, not moe of the same old, same old.

You must accept the approved, pragmatic candidate!

( )

I keep hearing that here, time and again: the man was born perfect, exactly as he is now, has held the same ideas for 50+ years, etc etc etc. Whereas Hillary, that awful woman, has changed over her lifetime as she has learned and experienced different things.

Hmmm. What to think, what to think.

It's pandering.

...then the Republicans will probably give us an anti-Clinton version of defining who is a "21st-Century President."

The GOP may say:
Hillary Clinton is stuck in the 1960s; Marco Rubio is a "21st-Century President."

I don't think the term "21st-Century President" is helpful in choosing a candidate. It's better to look at policy proposals: Who is sincere about opposing the TPP? Who has a better plan for college affordability?

They're going to end up with a clown as a nominee, whoever it is. The debacle will be entertaining, at least.

The TTP had over 600 corporate "advisers" and stands to make the transnational corporations billions while off shoring good paying American jobs.

Goldman Sachs pretty much runs the treasury and the FED.

The DOJ & the AG are on loan from Wall Street.

The MIC continues to expand and more of the jobs and services have been privatized with little to no oversight.

No. We need a strong leader that works for ordinary Americans. Not another one that the corporations own like they do most of our politicians. Corporations have a right to make profits but they shouldn't own everything including our government....

... those same economic royalists that FDR in those days openly took on verbally with loud cheers from those attending his rallies then.

The World and the People in it haven't changed that much since the 30s.
What HAS changed is the Democratic Party.
The Party has moved so far to The Conservative Right and abandoned the Working Class & Poor that it no longer resembles the Party I joined in 1967.

FDR wouldn't be able to recognize what passes for today's "Democratic Party".
He would believe he had fallen into a nest of Republican vipers.
I doubt he would even want to lead today's Party.

FDR was born in 1882. Indeed, the world has changed dramatically since then.

Times changed changed but we've allowed it to revert back to the Gilded Age

The products may be different, and the tactics of suppression and exploitation may be more complicated and less overt, but -- with the able assistance of the Centrist Democrats -- we've reverted into an oligarchy with wealth and power obscenely concentrated at the top.

but the WORLD and the People that live in it are pretty much the same.
Go read some History, especially old biographies so you can find out what motivated people. We are still ruled by the same virtues and vices that have been around for many thousands of years.

What is the real difference between you and an Afghan Goat Herder,
besides the luxury of school and money to buy more toys?
Does the goat herder love his wife and children any more or less than you?

Strip all the toys away, and the Afghan Goat Herder has better living skills than you have.

eom

I guess they want their daddy to give them a Fireside Chat, make it all better.

But seriously, FDR was able to do what he did because it was the Depression, people were starving in the streets and the government was on the verge of falling. He was not a pacifist by a long shot and wanted to be involved in the war long before Pearl Harbor forced us in. And once we were in, he release the capitalist beasts so we could produce enough war machines to be competitive. He was on the right side of history and did what he did for a good reason. But that was all about political necessity, not ideology. Eleanor was the conscience of the family. FDR was the political charm. And Louis Howe was the political brains. Not a single one was an angel.

How on earth you can compare that to today, I dunno. Nostalgia with a big does of historical fallacy added for spice, I guess.