Looking for FDR

For over half a century, we have been looking for FDR. Now, during this election cycle, in which we have seen the corporate media take their Two Man Race between Obama and Hillary to the ridiculous extreme of continuing it in the face of John Edward’s second place finish in Iowa, I know why we have not heard from FDR in all that time.

It isn’t because his spirit does not live on in America. FDR's New Deal gave birth to LBJ's Great Society. That in turn is the reason why polls show that Americans are turning away from the "me, me, me" trickle down morality of the Reagan era in order to embrace a more compassionate ethic. Children of the 1960s, who grew up cheering for civil rights and women's rights are now adults, and as adults they honor the same values of individual liberty and justice that they saw championed as kids. Forget pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Americans nowadays are willing to offer a helping hand to their neighbor. Hell, they will even pay more taxes if it means that their neighbors' kids have health insurance.

We are all searching hard for FDR, after seven years of Federalist "Let's roll us back to the Great Depression" bs. The reason we can not find him is because the corporate media has muzzled him.

During the 1950s and 60s they called him a “Red” and silenced him that way. They used the FBI and wiretaps and the tactic of Divide and Conquer to keep opposition leaders weak and jailed and incapable of joining together to effect meaningful change. Sometimes, they assassinated the new FDRs, when they thought they could get away with it. Later, they sent George Bush Senior to Iran to arrange a Hostages for Votes deal, beginning a tradition of elections stolen by manipulation of the Democratic primaries, voter suppression, fraudulent vote tallies and---when that did not work---blatant election theft by the US Supreme Court.

And still we keep looking for FDR, because the economic ills that plagued us earlier in the century---the monopolies, the plight of farmers, rising wealth disparity, credit crises—have not gone away. The farther we get from the New Deal, the worse they have gotten, and the greater our longing for FDR’s voice becomes.

That is why John Solomon did not even wait for the Democratic primary to get underway before he penned his series of articles for the Washington Post that would set up the Edwards is a phony narrative. For the corporations of America and the world, this was an FDR emergency. This was why the media blacklist of John Edwards began when he was still the front runner in Iowa and why the corporate media came up with the “Two Man Race” between Obama and Hillary when the Senator from Illinois was barely a blip. The mainstream media has very sensitive FDR detectors. They can smell populism from miles away.

Here is a radio speech that FDR delivered in the spring of 1932 entitled “The Forgotten Men.”

http://newdeal.feri.org/speeches/1932c.htm



The “snip” is important. FDR does not claim he will lead America to the promised land. He does not make vague statements about being an agent of change. He talks specifics in a calm, cool, rational voice designed to inspire confidence and ease fear. He invites his listeners to join him. He does not condescend. He does not patronize. He speaks as a fellow American, not as Mom (Hillary) or as a Messiah (Obama).

This strategy is terribly effective. An informed electorate is no longer afraid. Once fear is overcome, voters can make rational, sensible decisions at the polls that are based upon their own economic best interests. Plus, they can work together to effect real economic change that improves their communities. This strategy is terrible for groups that rely on fear—like the current Republican Party or certain large corporations. When FDR used this strategy during his long administration, he changed the nation irrevocably—the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s were proof of that.

FDR’s most recent incarnation is John Edwards, and for this the corporations and the news media which they control can not forgive him. They have made every effort to keep Americans from hearing what he has to say. If he is heard, they want it to be through the haze of the media lie “That Edwards is just a rich phony pretending that he cares.” They might have said the same thing about FDR. Since his message is so persuasive—and since it is what so many of us have been searching for---they have done their best to make him the Invisible Candidate, silent, friendless, poor.

The nomination was no cakewalk for FDR, but he did not have it this bad.

http://campaigningforhistory.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/fdrs-rough-road-to-nomination/

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,859284-5,00.html


Several powerful people, such as William Randolph Hearst, who would later come to regret his decision, helped him at the nomination convention. I guess the corporate media learned its lesson back in 1932.

If the corporate media has its way, America will never find FDR again. That is why it is so important that we look for FDR on our own. They can deny him equal time on TV and radio, but if we search him out on the Internet and spread the populist message where we find it, the corporate media is SOL.

I'm for anyone but Hillary and Richardson and am all for an Obama/Edwards...Edwards/Obama ticket

He's short, fiery, and he saw a UFO. But the mainstream media made him disappear (using things like the UFO), so now we're going to have to settle for a new JFK. He's got the nice haircut and all.

I'd have preferred FDR, but I can definitely live with JFK. And he will be getting my vote.

because he's been right.

Edwards spoke of "Two Americas" in 2004, but it was Senator Kerry who had the record and history to back his support for everyday Americans. He still is at work for the people of this country. Unfortunately, Edwards is more difficult to believe this time out. I will agree with you on the point that we need a Democrat President like FDR now. Sadly, I don't think any of them could measure up. More the tragedy this time out when CW suggests that this could be a Democratic year for the White House.

I know he won't run and couldn't win. The media would chew him up and spit him out.

It's just a different era. The OP had a lot of it right. There's really no place for an FDR figure in today's politics.

Who knows, maybe someone will come along and change everything. But for now, it looks like Edwards is the sensible choice. He's no FDR, but he's on the right track.

fortunately, we have the free press of the Internet to link like-minded people together as easily as a phone call and cheaper than broadcast TV. It is the only thing that will help us save ourselves, our futures and our country.

enact his (relatively) radical policies because the country was buried in the great depression at that time and people were suffering. Without the depression there would not have been a President Roosevelt or the New Deal. Radical problems require radical solutions. Another cornerstone of Roosevelt's victory was his eloquent speaking voice, and Obama certainly has that. Whether Edward's or Obama has the solutions Americans want and need at this time I don't know, but Edwards certainly is the most radical of the two, and the country is now in a mood for radical change.

The media of course is a big player in
fostering the memes that corporate America
wants implanted in people's minds.

One meme is that of rugged individualism, a
big hangover from the Hoover era.. coupled
with the idea of the American Dream.

By golly, if you come to America and you
just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and
work golldang hard, you'll make it. You
don' need no stankin welfare or help.. you
just gotta get up every dam day and go to all
those jobs and work your ass off.

All fine and dandy, except it's all rigged
to make life good and easy for the rich and
powerful, and to keep everyone else in line,
virtual slaves or prisoners to the corporate
system.

There's even a dress code, and every male in
America.. and even the world now.. must follow
it in order to succeed or to be perceived properly.

With Obama now the heir apparent to Bush, it's
going to be hard to deal with the inherent racism
in our collective and corporate thinking because
now there will be a token Black at the nominal
helm. However, the racism has always been, and
still is, a subset of the classism that informs
this kind of thinking which relies on divide and
conquer strategies.

Of course, the big losers are people, and particularly
people who have retained their humanity in the
face of such brutal corporatism, and who can still
think critically and independently of the system.

This is going to be super confusing for Blacks and
under-represented groups who are looking to Obama
with so much hope. The come-down is looking to be
huge and painful.

Obama has turned to the right since joining the Senate,
and he looks more and more like a corporate lackey..
along with appealing to religionists and cultural
conservatives.

Unless Obama is faced with a liberal tide in Congress,
and masses of people forcing him out of the corporate
and religionist box, government will pretty much be
the same.

Change? Hah!

like so many of your dim, pretentious posts that look like nothing so much as a parody of Counterpunch.

Feeble and full of flat out lies and ridiculous projection.

Fits your reply to a t. ananda's original post, OTOH, was true, every single word.

drinking Jim Sagle- to use Saglicious rhetoric.

:beer:

but you don't do yourself any credit by posting a slam, without the least hint, shadow or glimmer of specifics.

For the record, {edit -- wherever that part of your criticsm comes from, it didn't occur to me when I read this post} I *like* Counterpunch. At the very least, the opinions are informed and thought-provoking. It's one of the few places on the Internet where a shared concern for "the common good" trumps both ideology and conventional wisdom.

Edwards' actions? Not so much.

We're not ready for an FDR. The average citizen needs to be beaten senseless by the Predator Class before (s)he is ready to vote for real change.

I wonder if we aren't close to an economic collapse in the near future. I would hate to see such an event but it maybe what it takes to get the pendulum swinging back again.

No candidate mentioned the Republicans but accepted the framing of "we have to end divisiveness." And the attending problem framed was that "nothing gets done in Washington." Well, if you're going to tell lies, make them really big ones and tell them on all the channels.

A good example is the Medicare Bill. Where was the media complaining about divisiveness when the vote was held open, extortion was conducted on the floor of the Senate, and the executive branch instructed employees to lie about its cost? Not a peep about Kumbaya throughout the entire Republican Revolution as they dismantled our democracy by selling it out from within, but now the media is concerned that some folks might be angry - or actually expect results.

When that piece of corporate welfare was being enacted, don't tell me "nothing was getting done." A LOT has been accomplished in Washington, the problem is that none of it has been good for the citizens of this country. The media has helped reduce us to being "consumers" and delivered us into The Company Store.

A kick and a recommend for McCamy Taylor and FDR.

I'd say "consumer herd", and the media are the laconic, indifferent, very well-compensated cattle drivers, moving us right along. (Yippi ki-yo, nothing to see here!)

Your example of the Medicare "reform"/Prescription Drug sell-off was one of the worst examples of that.

As a case study in how the system is corrupt.

"Well-compensated cattle drivers" indeed. Yip, yip. :)

Bush was/is the Anti-FDR, and Edwards, I believe, is the remedy.

the R's have screwed things up so badly, it has taken a D to fix the problem, (Eisenhower being the exception, to a point).

We are standing on the brink of the greatest economic collapse in history. The current administration has not only put us trillions of dollars further in debt, they have set it up to the point that the foreign entities that are supporting our economy, will go down with us, so their continued support is virtually mandatory to keep a global economy alive. The old "tax and spend" has been replaced by a GOP that is nothing little kore than "borrow and spend". It will take decades to get out of this mess.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it is not an oncoming train. Americans of all stripes have come to learn they've been used by the GOP, and especially, the neo-cons. This should set the GOP back for a generation. The biggest problem we have in the future, are irresponsible D's that may get into the House and Senate.There needs to be a new awareness in Congress, we the people who actually put these people into office, expect results that benefit this nation above all else. Few people realize that Iraqi's have Universal Health Care, paid for by the American taxpayer...and yet none for us here? The trillion+ that has been spent in the ME has had zero positive effect for this nation, or the world for that matter. It is going to take time to get our men and women out of there, but we must begin.

bush has destroyed the GOP, we must capitalize on this. I urge everyone to vote, get those who live around you to vote to put an end to this nightmare. I cannot tell you who to vote for, that is your decision, but when it comes down to the wire, take a look at what is out there, make sure you understand the issues, and then cast a ballot. We The People can take back our nation, but it is going to take work.