History Lesson

I've been thinking about writing this for a couple of days. I've been on some of the blogs I mentioned in the previous posts, ones that support Obama no matter which one of his supporters he and the rest of the democratic party screws today. I leave comments and engage in, oh I don't know, spirited exchanges with other commentators.

There are a few points that seem to come up repeatedly. First, I would have attacked both FDR and LBJ because they weren't pure enough, in particular FDR and his treatment of African Americans and LBJ and Vietnam. Second, neither FDR or LBJ accomplished much during in the first few months of taking office.

The first arguments is sort of personal and I would have to say that I would hope that I would not have engaged in pointless snipping at either of those presidents. On the other hand I would hope that I would have opposed FDR and the conservative politics he adopted in his first weeks of office before he turned hard left and I would hope that I would have opposed his Internment policies during WWII. As far as LBJ is concerned when I got back from Southeast Asia I did become part of the anti-war movement and did participate in anti-war activities, although not as much as I should have.

The second point is one that shows an amazing ignorance of Twentieth Century American History. My undergraduate areas of concentration were Twentieth Century American History, Political Science, and Literature (which is why I am now a lawyer). It was almost a truism that if a president was going to get major programs through it would have to be within his first two years. Now that didn't work for FDR, he had his first and second New Deals, but the most famous period in American legislative history is FDR's "First One Hundred Days."

As far as Johnson is concerned, I remember being in Washington D.C. in the summer of 1964 on a trip after my graduation. This would have been about seven months after LBJ took office and watching the leadership of the senate announce the filibuster had been broken. Now one can argue that this was legislative, but anyone who is aware of history knows the influence LBJ had on the senate at that time and the fact that he did lead (and push and threaten and cajole and use his power and popularity) in getting this through the senate. The elections of that fall swept the democrats into power and immediately most of the last major social and civil rights legislation was passed, before the 1966 elections when the democrats lost big time.

A couple of good reads on FDR are Eric Rauchway's The Great Depression & The New Deal: A very short history, and for a longer read one could do worse than Arthur Schlesinger's three volume The Age of Roosevelt.

Of course these complaints are coupled with: Just you see how much Obama has accomplished this is more (in the case of HCR it is argued) than any other president has ever been able to accomplish. It is really difficult for me to take this argument seriously, given what the out come was and how what was done was done. In particular how Obama and the "leadership?" of the democratic party aborted the most popular parts of reform and sought to stifle any popular support for the bill there by letting the right wing get control of the narrative as they did. The rest, money for bankers, fumbling (on purpose) chard check, not providing real help for people whose homes are being foreclosed on, and on, and on, and on. History will tell, but I think that I know already what history will tell and as I've said before it will compare Obama more closely with Hoover than with FDR, although I'm beginning to think that it may be Buchanan he most closely resembles.

The final point is that I am simply too pure to understand how politics really operates and that is why I take these kind of positions. Kind of difficult for a person who has voted for the lesser of two evils all my adult life (starting with Hubert Humphrey) and who was the president of two small local unions to take these criticisms very seriously.

You know you have to give the right wingers credit, well no not really. They have consistently argued against the bail out. However, they have absolutely no other suggestions to offer. So I guess one needs to acknowledge that when they claim that the bail out is not working the way it is currently designed, they are right. On the other hand they seem to think that it would be best if the government not do anything at all and just let all these businesses collapse. Which will give us all the ability to go to some sort of pre-1929 heyday of free enterprise. Oh wait we were already there. So I guess the credit is much like that given a stopped watch (no not a digital, but an old fashion one with numbers around the dial).

I picked up a copy of Krugman's book The Return of Depression Economics the other day and was very depressed by what I read on the back cover (and yes I really am reading more than the back cover, thank you). At any rate shortly after Reagan was elected I said I figured that the country could be run with 25% unemployment and the right could scare enough people to keep power. What I didn't realize was the power of the concept of under-employment. Have most of us employed, but at less than full time with a close to minimum wage.

But the real idea from the back of the book, was what if Hoover had done the little necessary to prevent the 1929 recession from becoming the 1930 depression. We would not have had social security, probably not federal unemployment insurance or workers comp. Nor would we have medicaid or medicare (yeah, I know that these last two came later, but they built on the New Deal).

So FDR had all sorts of people advising him many from the left, who does Obama have? Mostly folks who were right there urging things on when those things were going down the crapper. So what are the ideas? Throw a lot of money at the wealthiest, and make sure the wealthiest bankers and corporation executives remain in power because who else knows how to spend that money after all? I mean they may have effectively destroyed their companies and the world wide economy, but hey we're all friends here. No need to look outside the narrow group people who have run this country for the last thirty years.

So what I'm looking at is this country kind of half assed coming more or less out of this little trouble we've gotten ourselves into and limping along for a while without a lot of overt hunger etc. I mean less face it the middle class and working class have been willing to see their real wages cut continuously for the last twenty years without really kicking about it. Why should they complain now.

However, this bring us back to where I started. Eventually, things will probably get really bad for the poor and middle class and liberalism and progressivism will be seen as failed options, socialism and communism are already seen as failed so where does that leave us? I do remember at the history department of my middle of America state college in the 70s and the professor saying that when middle class societies have a revolution it isn't a socialist one, it is a fascist one. (No not the Goldberg kind of fascist, the real honest to god 1930s kind of fascist ones).

The First African American Hoover

You know I always thought that Obama wanted to be the first African American FDR, not the first African American Hoover. But I would not be surprised to begin seeing some Obamavilles around soon, if this ass hole doesn't get his act together.

I am having the same sinking feeling I had with Carter and Clinton. Perfectly good republicans.

As usual Greenwald has some interesting stuff about who put the protection for bonuses into the bailout bill. His piece and the links are very interesting. In one of his updates he states the the Times has changed it story to reflect the reality of who (the administration not Dodd) insisted protection for bonuses be put into the bill.

I find it interesting that the Times would change its story after being confronted by outsiders with the truth. I would be encouraged by this, but I am reminded that we do have a "democratic" president, no matter how incompetent he is turning out to be. Perhaps just because he is turning out to be incompetent they will be more willing to pile on.

And Now For Some Good News

So Hugo Chavez has been allowed to run "indefinitely" for president, eh? You mean just what all American Presidents were allowed to do until FDR scared the shit out of the Republicans? What if the ghost of FDR came back to run again? So Chavez can run and be re-elected again and again as long as he is successful. How dangerous is that? Well I guess those who rule really do not like the little people to control things.

Anything that makes the plutocrats squeal like little piggies is usually good news.

Progressive Politics

So I read Greenwald's post about how progressives/liberals need to constantly push Obama. How we cannot allow him to become our "cause." Just as conservative allowed Bush to become their cause and got badly burned we will have the same thing happen to us. Read the whole thing......I think it's for more than just political junkies.

But at any rate I started to think about the most progressive/liberal presidents: Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ (domestically). A pretty short list, really. But each of those guys came into office with a long history of independent progressive groups pushing liberal/progressive agendas.

The anti-slavery people for generations before Lincoln, the unions and good government folks for generations before FDR, and the civil rights folks and the remnants of the New Deal coalition for LBJ. They did indeed all push their presidents to the left.

So what do we have? A few years of blog activism?

New Deal Economics 101 and a Movie

So how many movies have you all seen where the romantic male lead is a middle level federal bureaucrat? Huh, Huh? Well the only one that I can think of is The Wild River staring Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick. It's great.

Watch Montgomery Clift get beat up more than once. Watch him propose to Lee Remick after they both get knocked out by Albert Salami (the only one dimensional character in the film). What's even better is the proposal line: "I'll probably regret this and I know you will." I had forgotten that I'd taped it some time ago and we watched it again last night. What a great film. Having a hard time finding a DVD of it though.

The feeling for the time and the place are near perfect. The writers' and director's liberalism shines through all. Highly recommended.

And just for the wonks a little Krugman. Just in time for the new Depression the right rides forth to attack the New Deal and try to convince us that it is better to starve and freeze then to try to do once again what worked in the past. (No I'm not talking about the New Deal itself [which tried, but didn't go far enough], but rather the spending from the Second World War).

I sometimes wonder if that isn't what has gotten us here. The lesson learned from the period 1932 through 1940 isn't that we can spend on stuff to make our lives better to get out of depressions. Nope. It's that we can get out of and keep out of depressions if we put mass amounts of money into our military. 1984 anyone?