Thomas Frank on Democratic Party: "They don't care"

This video, less than 5 minutes long, deserves to stand by itself.
The money quotes is 3:20 in, when Thomas Frank is asked how the Democrats can win back the working class.

Based on Shumer and Pelosi being selected to lead, it really does appear the Democrats are beyond saving.

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

gulfgal98's picture

The powers in the Democratic party really do not care. This is exactly why the Democratic party cannot be reformed from within. They made their choices and they continue to make the same choices among their leaders. It is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Those in the inner workings of the party will never reform. They love the money too much so they continue to do what they can to please their corporate donors first. They do not care about the people at all.

As for Thomas Frank, he is one of my favorites for spreading the message. He is not the only one who has said these things about how the liberal class has turned its back on the rest of the people. But he is the one who articulates it so well in a language than anyone can understand.

up
0 users have voted.

Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

snoopydawg's picture

It was very obvious that they would have lost with Hillary then win with Bernie.
And that was why we saw so many voters purged from the voting rolls and had their party affiliations changed in the states where Hillary needed to win.
I don't know how much Bernie fought against those tactics or if he even did, but the Nevada caucus showed just how far the DP was going to go to disfranchise Bernie's delegates and his supporters.
Then when we saw what they did at the convention when they put up white noise machines or refused to allow Bernie delegates in and hired people to sit it those seats should have appalled even Hillary's supporters to see how far the DP would go to make sure that Bernie's voice wasn't heard and that Hillary would win the primary election.
But we saw that her supporters refused to admit that Hillary was a warmonger even after her actions destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria and her economic policy endorsements devastated others.
But these are the same people that think Obama has been the best president since FDR, ended two wars and hasn't started any new ones even though as you wrote in the other essay that Obama has troops in over 135 countries.
Income inequality has gone way up since he took office, and his health care plan that gave the insurance companies billions has still left millions who have health insurance out in the cold because their premiums and deductibles are so high they still can't afford to see a doctor.
I remember him saying that he would rather try for good policies and be a one term president, then not try at all and be a two term mediocre president.
But then, I remember him saying a lot of things during his first campaign that he went back on even before he was sworn in.
Just like Clinton was able to pass NAFTA and the other bills that decimated the poor which were republican policies, Obama spent 7 years pushing for the TPP that would have given away our national sovereignty over to foreign corporations, which in my opinion is treason.
Frank told the truth when he said that the democrats don't care about we the people.
Here's another article that says basically the same things. Worth a read.
ww.commondreams.org/views/2016/12/04/no-dr-dean-democrats-do-need-fight-it-out

Clinton had five major achievements as president: NAFTA, the Crime Bill of 1994, welfare reform, the deregulation of banks and telecoms, and the balanced budget. All of them -- every single one -- were longstanding Republican objectives.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996, in particular, was a free marketeer’s wet dream. Not only did it give away airwaves for free, but it also removed the few remaining meaningful constraints on the media designed to assure that it met its First Amendment responsibilities.

The Democrats had a choice in this election: go with Hillary Clinton – a neoliberal in good standing – or Bernie Sanders, a progressive populist who called the neoliberal and conservative dogma what it is: a rigged system.

They chose wrong, and the DNC – which supported Clinton and worked to undermine Sanders -- was a big reason they did.

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

MsGrin's picture

...when DWS refused to schedule (or announce her schedule) the Dem debates:

It was very obvious that they would (edit: prefer to) have lost with Hillary then win with Bernie.

up
0 users have voted.

'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member

snoopydawg's picture

I just read my comment and saw I had left out 'prefer' but hope people understood what I meant anyway.
And Obama also would rather have had a republican congress so that he could hide behind their obstruction.
If he was upset with the results of the midterms, DWS would have been fired. And she was left in charge of the DNC to make sure that Hillary won the primary.

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

are so important, especially these:

… we saw that her supporters refused to admit that Hillary was a warmonger even after her actions destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria and her economic policy endorsements devastated others.

… Obama spent 7 years pushing for the TPP that would have given away our national sovereignty over to foreign corporations, which in my opinion is treason.

up
0 users have voted.

Given the conversations among what might call the party activists on such places as TOP, I would include that only the democratic party leadership and donors as not caring about working class people, but also a good part of the democratic party base that elected Clinton during the primaries. This base rejected the pro-working class policies of Sanders. Not only rejected those policies but mocked, smeared, and slander them as goals.

up
0 users have voted.
Song of the lark's picture

You seem like a good person for a definition. I'm assuming the TOP stands for The Other Place. Am I correct?

up
0 users have voted.

up
0 users have voted.

"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

I know it referred to dailykos, but I thought it originally meant The Orange Place.

up
0 users have voted.
jwa13's picture

... and here I thought that TOP was an acronym for

"The Orc Palace" ...

my bad --

up
0 users have voted.

When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

LapsedLawyer's picture

up
0 users have voted.

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
-- John Lennon

MarilynW's picture

Diaries and comments = Trump, Trump, Trump...

up
0 users have voted.

To thine own self be true.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Not that I'm not with you in how I feel about what happened--
but propaganda has a crazy effect on people. As does being in a cult. As does being in an abusive relationship.
You could accurately compare the relationship between the Democratic rank-and-file and the party machinery to either of those things.

In other words, it's perfectly possible to find a Dem who supported Hillary who cares very much about the working class--and is still irrationally devoted to both Hillary and the Dems. There's a groupthink at work there that scares me more than a simple classist indifference.

I mean, people who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me protesting Reagan's wars rallied behind Hillary who wants a hot war between superpowers. Who actually talked about making sure our nuclear arsenal was "prepared for any threats we might receive." What the hell?!? I've never seen anything like this outside of intense groupthink situations like cults.

They just fall in line with the narrative. Some of them are people I've respected for decades. Noam freaking Chomsky?

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

is so important. Thank you for raising this issue and for combining it with the resemblance to being in an abusive relationship. You say,

... propaganda has a crazy effect on people. As does being in a cult. As does being in an abusive relationship. You could accurately compare the relationship between the Democratic rank-and-file and the party machinery to either of those things.

In other words, it's perfectly possible to find a Dem who supported Hillary who cares very much about the working class--and is still irrationally devoted to both Hillary and the Dems. There's a groupthink at work there that scares me more than a simple classist indifference.

Yours is one of the most interesting perspectives I've read since the election and its fallout. The most uncomfortable day I ever had at Daily Kos, in over 13 years, happened last Spring during the primaries when I tried to support a writer who warned that many Catholic Democrats, like himself, who opposed abortion and same-sex marriage, might not vote Democratic in the general election because Hillary Clinton was too far right, too Republican, on peace, justice, and labor issues. The attacks on this man were ruthless. I was called a bigot, a misogynist, and Felicia. The writer was advised to leave the Party. Although I made it clear I supported legal abortion and had supported same-sex marriage all my life, I was still described as unwelcome in the Party for supporting this man's point of view, which was that the Democratic Party was inclusive of many life-long fighters for peace, labor rights, civil rights, and justice, but who struggled with same-sex marriage and were vulnerable to veering right BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS HAD ABANDONED THE LEFT.

It was a tricky subject for all of us on that day, and it's still difficult to describe now. But the point was that this man was essentially thrown out of the community because of his views on those 2 issues. I gave up trying to take part in the discussion, but I could have posted President Obama's own public statement about his struggle with the concept same-sex marriage. I doubt they would have wanted to throw him out of the Democratic Party or ban him from Daily Kos.

The big issue I think you've raised, though, is that this kind of cult-like delusion about the Democratic Party may be the result of many people in this country truly having been in an abusive relationship for so much of their lives, not with the Party, but with the country, and they may see the Party as a force for good.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I was actually just drawing a comparison, because the dynamic looked the same to me--imagine an abusive parent, with some kids in denial and other siblings straight-up seeing the parent for what s/he is and talking honestly about it. The kids still in denial will be all over those who aren't, and the kids who aren't will end up getting scapegoated.

That's not something I personally experienced, as an only child, but I've heard enough tales from friends.

I've also seen a cult at work closer than I'd have liked to--got someone out of it. The rearranging of reality to suit the narrative that certain people are always good is what stands out to me in all these situations. And the people who support the Dems are often (not always) like that.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

divineorder's picture

given up, apparently.

up
0 users have voted.

A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

jwa13's picture

no matter what.

up
0 users have voted.

When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.

hellinahandcart's picture

because I haven't seen anything of it anywhere in MS media.
"Karen West, Book Passage’s events director, said tickets to the San Rafael event sold out in six hours and the store stopped adding names to the waiting list when it reached 700. Earlier Friday, Sanders spoke to about 2,000 people during a sold-out appearance at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Auditorium."
This seems like news, right? Sen. Bernie Sanders is the most popular senator in America, so his sold out appearances are making news, right?
No. Not at all. They're still blacking him out, putting him on ice-- while they scream about Trump calling Taiwan and Russians hacking the vote (qualifier: I agree w/ the recount... just to show Americans that 'all is not well').
Again, thank you, becuz we have to keep the real issues- and the people who are touting the real issues- in the forefront.

up
0 users have voted.
orlbucfan's picture

They're not, and the deliberate mangling/dumbing down of our language is one good reason why we're facing The RWNutjob Horror Show: Part 3.

up
0 users have voted.

Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

Peter Daou, the former chief executive of Shareblue, an online venture described by the New York Times as “Hillary Clinton’s outrage machine,” blasted Sanders on Twitter this week.

“I’ll be crystal clear: Bernie Sanders has absolutely no business determining the course of the Democratic Party after the harm he did to us,” Daou wrote in one tweet. [link]

Want smug - read the Hillbot responses in his tweet.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Nancy Pelosi made it very clear to the rich donors that Warren did not speak for the democratic party either.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/nancy-pelosi-elizabeth-warren-wall...

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

as far as I can see, since she generally takes a stand only when it's no longer dangerous.

Twice in one year--not endorsing Bernie/endorsing Hillary and not speaking out on DAPL until today. Sheesh!

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Pelosi Confirms Plan to Treat Sanders Progressives as Second-Class Citizens
After Hillary Clinton's stunning loss, the only thing Democratic elites plan on changing is their party's marketing strategy

In a recent interview, House Minority Leader Pelosi confirmed that the Democratic Party doesn’t plan on enacting any reforms or making any changes beyond different marketing strategies. “I don’t think people want a new direction,” she said in a December 4 interview with CBS’ Face the Nation.

This hubris is what brought the Democratic Party to this point in the first place; relying on fear-mongering in anticipation of Republicans losing the White House and majorities in congress is a self-destructive political maneuver.

Democrats cannot expect to start winning again while simultaneously continuing to treat progressives as second-class citizens. Scaring, shaming, scolding and blaming are political strategies that will only serve to create a greater rift among Democrats. But in the post-election, Democrats have continued using these tactics just as enthusiastically as before.

OK, I'm done venting now.

up
0 users have voted.
SparkyGump's picture

Bernie exposed them and slime doesn't like the light.

up
0 users have voted.

The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

hellinahandcart's picture

the light exposes what money-grubbers they are, at everyone else's expense.
The Clinton Machine is a very old, very connected, very powerful international machine who's portrait is now being brought down from the attic, to expose all of its' evils. And the Clinton machine is pushing the media to push propaganda- not the least of which is "false news," and Russian influence.

up
0 users have voted.
boriscleto's picture

About handing the next administration all the tools it needs to set up a dictatorship either...

Renowned Canadian Photographer Heading To Standing Rock Detained For Hours and Refuse Entry to US

up
0 users have voted.

" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

Hillbilly Dem's picture

They will do worse to Medicaid. They will expand the surveillance state. They will loosen regulations on the financial sector. And mark my words, the Democrats will go along with it because they are part of the con. Oh, they will pay lip service like "This is the best we could do. It would have been much worse if we hadn't gotten compromise X (in reality a meaningless, but 'feel good' throw the dog a bone)."

There will be a couple of outliers. A firebrand or two, but we won't have a united party, standing as one, taking to the floors of both houses nor, more importantly, taking to the airwaves to expose the final corporate takeover. They'll make Philippe Petain look like Simone Segouin.

up
0 users have voted.

"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey

polkageist's picture

Petain and Segouine? I hadn't thought of Petain in years, but I think maybe all of our Presidents from both parties from Ronald Reagan on should be designated as Petain I through Petain V.

up
0 users have voted.

-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962

saving, and the Republican Party is beyond beyond saving (unless Trump can rehabilitate it which is very unlikely). So the USA doesn't have a salvageable political party -- unless one considers the Greens to be one, which I don't.

up
0 users have voted.

native

Cassiodorus's picture

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

Listen to Jeremy Corbyn

up
0 users have voted.

about how to proceed at this time. My crystal ball is all fogged up. The over-all global situation and the national mood are both so volatile, it's hard for me to get a grip on what might, or might not be about to happen.

I do appreciate your efforts in thinking about and trying to conceptualize a new political party. I think we will need one, sooner or later. My intuition in that regard leans toward forming something closely resembling Bernie Sanders' populist campaign, but with even more of an anti-war emphasis, and perhaps more left/libertarian ideas too. It would need to somehow unite rural Americans with urban Americans, and that would of necessity mean abandoning, or at least de-emphasizing certain cherished leftist prejudices and demands.

I think t would need to be something broad-based and popular enough to draw from a wide social and cultural spectrum, and it would need to avoid, as much as possible, divisive social issues, rather than focusing on them -- basing itself instead, as Sanders' campaign did, specifically on a platform of radical economic and governmental reform.

Once the Trump administration kicks into gear, and the 99% starts feeling the probable effects of its policies, we might just have a ready-made constituency for this. At the moment, I think it might be premature to be actively organizing anything very specific.

up
0 users have voted.

native

Near the end of the interview..."smugness and complacency"... of the Democratic Campaign of Hillary Clinton

up
0 users have voted.
SparkyGump's picture

up
0 users have voted.

The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

Lily O Lady's picture

we stay or go, but they will blame us for their failures anyway.

up
0 users have voted.

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Cassiodorus's picture

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-trump-hamilton-...

It has this juicy quote:

On President Obama's watch, Democrats have lost a net grand total of 939 state legislative seats, 30 state legislative chambers and a dozen governorships. When Obama first took office, Republicans held just 3,223 state legislative seats. After Tuesday's vote, the number stands at 4,162. There are now more Republican state legislators than at any time since 1920. And if Gov. Pat McCrory holds on in North Carolina, Republicans will match their all-time high of 34 GOP governors last seen in the 1920s.

Or consider this: Today, Democrats control both the governor's office and the legislature in just five states — Oregon, California, Hawaii, Connecticut and Rhode Island. By contrast, Republicans have total control of state government in 25 states — half the country.

Whole legislatures have been #DEMEXITing, and their response has been to put the same old losers into power. If they don't care if they lose every legislative seat in America, as long as they get paid, why should they care if we leave the Democratic Party?

up
0 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

travelerxxx's picture

Since I see no chance the Democrats will change or kick out the present leadership, the number of state legislators will decrease even further. I suspect that after that mid-term election you'll be able to count the number of Democratic governors on one hand. Easily.

It's what Frank said, "They don't care." They do get it, but they just don't care. Only a bloodbath even worse than the last election has any hope of getting them to pull their heads from the sand.

For now, they have no problem running the Bernie flag up the same flagpole as the Schumer/Pelosi flag ... just as long as it stays well below it.

up
0 users have voted.

I vary from Frank on two points, important ones, I think. It was apparent that Hillary was going to be the candidate in 2016 not for a year, but for 8 years, 5 at the very least. The other point is that the Democratic Party was never the party of FDR, Truman or LBJ, all three of whom were anomalies in the Party whose apparent populism was driven by fear of popular uprisings. Maybe I will do a blog entry about this because I know it's a hard sell for those who love viewing the Party pre-Clinton through rose-colored glasses that have been smeared with Vaseline, much like camera lenses when a director attempts to conceal the age or visual flaws of actors.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

without both Huey Long and the activities of socialists outside the Democratic party, I agree with you. I've tried to make that point to more mainstream Dems without success.

If you mean FDR was an unregenerate shithead who doesn't deserve ANY of the credit he's given, I probably wouldn't agree with that.

I kind of believe that FDR meant what he said in his 1932 acceptance speech (for both good and ill):

The great social phenomenon of this depression, unlike others before it, is that it has produced but a few of the disorderly manifestations that too often attend upon such times.

Wild radicalism has made few converts, and the greatest tribute that I can pay to my countrymen is that in these days of crushing want there persists an orderly and hopeful spirit on the part of the millions of our people who have suffered so much. To fail to offer them a new chance is not only to betray their hopes but to misunderstand their patience.

To meet by reaction that danger of radicalism is to invite disaster. Reaction is no barrier to the radical. It is a challenge, a provocation. The way to meet that danger is to offer a workable program of reconstruction, and the party to offer it is the party with clean hands.

This, and this only, is a proper protection against blind reaction on the one hand and an improvised, hit-or-miss, irresponsible opportunism on the other.

There are two ways of viewing the Government's duty in matters affecting economic and social life. The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small business man. That theory belongs to the party of Toryism, and I had hoped that most of the Tories left this country in 1776

But it is not and never will be the theory of the Democratic Party. This is no time for fear, for reaction or for timidity. Here and now I invite those nominal Republicans who find that their conscience cannot be squared with the groping and the failure of their party leaders to join hands with us; here and now, in equal measure, I warn those nominal Democrats who squint at the future with their faces turned toward the past, and who feel no responsibility to the demands of the new time, that they are out of step with their Party.

OK, well, that last bit was more optimism than reality on Roosevelt's part--it absolutely was, at more times than one, the theory of the Democratic party. But I appreciate him making the attempt to carve out a discursive space that disallowed that theory.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Just Wow! Thank you for this.

up
0 users have voted.

my post said.

Reductio ad absurdum as to FDR was no part of my post. Neither was false choice. I am capable of seeing politicians as a mix of good and bad--as I believe the vast majority of our great politicians have been. Case in point: A recent post of mine about Ted Kennedy doing something I consider awful, even heinous, but also emphasizing that, overall, he was a decent person who did many good things in his personal and political life. http://caucus99percent.com/content/why-america-got-obamacare-not-nixoncare

People who idolize politicians often need to either (1)refuse to believe anything is wrong with them, even if they have to make up stuff to convince themselves, or (2) throw them under the bus if they can't deny something is wrong with them. I try to stay away from idolatry. Politicians are human and all humans have failings. And they don't always do what we want or hope.

OK, well, that last bit was more optimism than reality on Roosevelt's part--it absolutely was, at more times than one, the theory of the Democratic party.

As for the part of Roosevelt's speech quoted in your post, I've learned not to take politicians' speeches to heart anymore. Most politicians are usually very good speakers with a knack for saying what voters love to hear. It's how they get elected. They're a bit like evangelists in that respect.

The excerpt you quoted in particular is not only unduly optimistic about the distant future, it's also deceptive about the past and the very near future. Do I fault FDR for making it? Not much, if at all. He was both a professional politician of the Democratic Party and a newly-elected President of a nation circling the drain. Besides, as I said, it was only a speech. It's not enough for me either to fall in love with FDR or to excoriate him. And, IMO, a public speech says zero about what the Democratic Party actually stood for, then, now or ever.

Respectfully (and, yes, I do know you worked in D.C. for some period of time), you have no way of knowing for certain what the theory of the Democratic Party really was. It is your opinion and your POV, not what "absolutely was" the case in FDR's day or LBJ's day. Also, it depends upon whom you mean by "the Party" and what you believe the motives were.

I used to believe about the Democratic Party what you believe. After a lot of study, thought and observation, I now have a different POV and opinion than I once had. I didn't flip entirely--things are not typically that black and white, so to speak. That doesn't mean my opinion is right, or that your opinion is wrong. It does mean that a flat statement from you simply contradicting what it has taken me years to come to is nowhere near enough to change my mind. Nor is an excerpt from a politician's speech, no matter how sincere and accurate you assume it was. Nor would I expect to change your mind, or anyone's, that way.

“What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so.”
Mark Twain

"No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up."
Lily Tomlin

up
0 users have voted.

because I am a rare Democrat in her 70's who is just learning to appreciate that there were some good things about FDR. But I come from a family of pacifists.

I take heart in the fact that you and others who study the period have not drowned in the kool-aid and have read from a lot of sources. I'm hoping that from this point we can begin, I mean that the American people can begin, to study the period that led to WWII and focus at least in part on people like Averell Harriman, Nazi industrialist and money-launderer, heir to the Union Pacific Railroad, Soviet industrialist, and practical owner/operator of the DNC, who bankrolled FDR's presidential campaigns. It's time we got to this.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

took the country to war against the Nazis. Or were the war profits enough to make him happy about it?

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

as Harriman ran the Marshall Plan almost single-handedly, surely softened the sadness. I do believe the U.S. corporations that built, fueled, and financed the German war machine expected the United States to come into the war on the side of Germany. Either way, they expected the Axis powers to win. For them, it was a war against democracy and labor rights, focused on the Soviet Union of course and also on all socialist/labor-centered movements in Europe. They were, this cadre of U.S. corporations, directly involved in the Soviet Union as resource exploiters, but were also essentially at war with the Bolshevik movement, which was labor.

I am a socialist, a leftist, a pacifist, and a life-long Democrat, but I have tried to be a realist about FDR. He was a wealthy corporate investor, and he handled the socialist movement in the United States from the perspective of an open-minded realist himself. I agree with all who would say that he did a tremendous amount of good in a terrible time. But the times were terrible precisely because of the people he ran with and who ran him.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

FDR was pretty good to the common man--most of the time. Compared to the rest of his class at the time, he looks very ethical indeed. And some of the efforts of his first administration did real, measurable good in this country, some of which persists even till today (I've been loving watching generations of plutocrats bust their heads in a fight against a dead woman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Perkins)

But I've never been blind to the fact that the class he was really saving was his own. The asswipes didn't even appreciate it, most of them, and have been bellyaching like a bunch of Princesses sleeping on peas ever since.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

I'm so glad you've started a discussion about him. I think the more we study him and his times the more we'll find that he was courageous in ways we have't even begun to realize.

up
0 users have voted.

"good" to the "common man" out of ethics or out of self interest? And, if the class he was saving was really his own (the rich), what does it really mean when we say the Democratic Party is (or was) the Party of FDR? (Given the Russian revolutions, I would not even make it as abstract as his own class. How about his own life and the lives of his children and his own wealth? Campobello as public housing?)

As the French say (but in French) "You can't have the flag and the money," meaning something like, "You don't get to cover yourself in glory if you do something for your own benefit."

We often talk about collateral damage, but there are also incidental beneficiaries. I believe Roosevelt and Kennedy were scared that Americans, having been fleeced and screwed to a fare thee well by Wall Street and banksters, would follow the example of the Russian Revolutions. So, they took measures to forestall that. And while we tend to look only at things like the Conservation Corps, Social Security and welfare, there were other measures, like the Securities Act, the Bankruptcy Act of 1934 and the FDIC that were intended to restore the confidence of John and Jane Q. Public in those institutions, even though those institutions had just bankrupted millions and starved some. Kennedy and Johnson, too, feared public uprising, IMO. (And let's not even get to whether those that violated the Act got punished, after some symbolic prosecutions--I don't mean to imply that I know if they did. However, going by what I saw after Enron and after the crash of 2008, I am suspicious.)

Let's assume, just for a second, that I am correct about the benefits to common people being carrots intended to stave off armed uprisings or something close to them. If I am, I don't think the measures contemplated by Kennedy and taken by Johnson after the assassination and the measures taken by FDR make the Democratic Party the Party of FDR and Johnson, at least not among the PTB. I think the Democratic Party is the Party of the totality from Jackson to the present, with the New Deal and the Great Society being anomalies crafted to protect the plutocrats against threats from common people perceived and feared by the plutocrats.

http://caucus99percent.com/content/theory-conspiracy-theory-or-healthy-c... (relevant to my current understanding of US politics in general only to the part where I quote Plato saying "The unexamined life is not worth living." The rest is about Hillary and not relevant to this discussion..)

And, IMO, the plutocrats should have been correct to fear, except that Americans were far too sheeple-like for their own good. And now, it's probably too late.

BTW, whether or not you were agreeing with me in whole or in part is not an issue for me.

up
0 users have voted.

any confusion, I intended to reply to the post of Can't Stop the Signal, not to your post.

I once did see Democrats as the party of certain good things, as did my parents and my entire extended family. As my cousin said of our mutual elders, "They didn't even know how to split a ticket." (By which he meant only that they would not have dreamed of voting for anyone but a Democrat, not that they literally didn't not know how to split a ticket, if that were what they wished to do.)

In any case, I used to see Democrats only as the party of civil rights, of social safety nets, of welcoming immigrants, etc. In the actual history of the Democratic Party, starting with Andrew Jackson, the motives are much murkier and more self-interested.

As far as war, I am non-violent. I don't know if I could have maintained that stance in the face of a Hitler--and, as you no doubt know--Hitler is the example everyone wants to use to justify war. If and when another Hitler comes along, I don't know how I will feel. However, I do know that there have been many wars all over the world since Hitler that I sure wish had never happened and that muttering about Hitler did not justify.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I thought I was agreeing in part and possibly disagreeing in part.

I was trying to figure out whether I actually was disagreeing in part.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

has had the trickle-down theory Roosevelt described there, or that they simply have no theory at all. From at least 1992-the present.

Put it this way: they have the trickle-down practice.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

I never held any important position whatsoever in DC. I mainly worked on campaigns and a little in the non-profit world.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Jazzenterprises's picture

Want to see an elected Democrat fight?

Take away their money.

Now we have a brawl!

up
0 users have voted.

Progressive to the bone.

I wonder how much of this high level of financial support the Party can expect after the loss of this election. Typical per plate donor prices to Hillary Clinton's campaign fundraisers were from $10,000 to $50,000, the $353,400 cost to sit at the George Clooney "head table" price notwithstanding.

I seriously wonder how they can expect that group of high rollers to pony up next time. I know there are a lot of rich Democrats as well as Republicans who want to support right wing Democratic candidates. But really.

up
0 users have voted.

to raise a ton of money. Most Democrats who go to the polls will vote for them, no matter what. And if they lose, oh, well. The Clintons did just fine under Bush the Lesser, thank you, very much. Far better than they did under Bill Clinton, in fact. Chris Dodd, Kerrey, et al. They all made more money after the left so-called public service. Biden was one of the least rich and even he had $2 million when he ran for VP. At least $2 million that he had to report under the generous reporting rules Congress has set for itself.

As Mel Brooks observed, "It's good to be the king." Or even a member of the U.S. Senate and the overblown House. Not to mention they get treated like kings during their so called public service and get nice perks afterward, too.

up
0 users have voted.

not just because more and more of us are humming, "Springtime for Hitler," but because we need him now more than ever.

up
0 users have voted.

Nathan Lane version, but that had to be one of the funniest scenes in film history.

With very few exceptions, I usually do not laugh out loud when watching a film by myself. My companion(s) or a theater audience have to be present, but that scene was very definitely among the exceptions. And I could not stop. I just dissolved into a helpless, delighted heap.

I hope people really can "die laughing." What a way to go!

up
0 users have voted.

will do just fine? If the two parties are interchangeable cogs, both willing to do their corporate master's bidding, why would the 1% continue to pay the Dems? I doubt that the Dems will even pretend to be obstructionist anymore, unless it's for show. Soon enough, they'll become a rump party and, if Jill seriously wants to grow a third party, 2018 is as good a time as any. Her newly acquired $millions from Hillbots should be a good start.

up
0 users have voted.