Thanks MUCH! I looked, but I think I was just too anxious/early. I’ll check back there ;->

I was at Ft Lewis training to go to Vietnam. I can’t tell you how crazy that day and night was. After King, RFK and the convention in Chicago there was serious doubt in our unit about just who we were supposed to be fighting and for what.

It seems we’re always fighting ourselves. Something in us drives us furiously and it isn’t all smooth sailing, sometimes there’s turmoil (such as now).

The obvious way out is to recognize the good and hold on to it tightly, never let go. Our better leaders do that and they tell us so we can jump on their bandwagon.

The great leaders smooth the path, entice us to listen, tickle our ears with great prose as they teach us, remind us and gently, ever so gently, lead. That’s what we miss about the Kennedy “boys”.

So why a new book on FDR? — why recommend it here? Lots of reasons. Smith has essentially responded to out Bush disaster by comprehending that what Bush was really about was destroying any remaining vestage of the New Deal and the Progressive traditions on which that was built. Smith’s response is to use FDR as a guide to precisely that conflict in the early 20th century when the forces of economic royalism confronted those of a Progressive Commonwealth, and through mostly adroit politics, the common good won out, and indeed remained the core political center till at least the end of the 1960’s. In otherwords the overall point of Smith’s work is that we have been where we are now before, and it is useful to know how politics led to deep and profound change.

I think those newly interested in Democratic Party Politics will find the first half of the book very useful — afterall it took FDR a number of years to build the coalition that elected him in 1932 — and how he built it and out of what is highly useful information for any activist. I would particularly point folk here toward the near disaster of 1938, when Roosevelt tried to use the primaries to rid the Democratic party of ten ultra conservative Senators, and in the process nearly destroying his own base. Smith does a great job reconstructing that election, and showing how it really was responsible for denying FDR the latitude he needed in Foreign Affairs to confront the Fascist threats.

I also appreciate, in the context of today, the emphasis he puts on FDR’s relationship with Louis Howe, FDR’s version of the Karl Rove role. Howe, a newspaperman, first met FDR when FDR was in the New York State Senate, probably about 1910 — and he spent the remainder of his days making FDR President. Howe died in 1936. Smith, quite rightly, gives many pages to the Cox/Roosevelt Campaign of 1920, much of it designed by Howe — and in truth the first modern campaign for the Presidency. (FDR essentially invented the Whistle Stop campaign, and in 1920 he crossed the country four times, with side tours up and down both coasts. While Cox/Roosevelt went down to deep defeat, Howe essentially used the campaign as a dry run for what he would do between 1930 and 32 in first getting the nomination, and then winning the election. Understanding how the party was organized way back then — and how Louis Howe captured the existing political organization, and turned it to FDR’s purposes is just brilliantly done. Of course our party has evolved since then — but local and state dynamics remain much the same.

Smith also has a smaller book out, George Bush’s War, a fairly devastating critique of Bush’s statecraft — and he makes good use of that in framing FDR for a contemporary audience, most of whom have no memory of
“that man.” FDR is not really a comparative study, but anyone who has been following the news over the past six years will find the contrasts and comparisons leap off the page and many will delight Bush Critics. All the ammo you need to debate the Grover Nordquists of the world are right there — Government can’t do anything??? Well, once it did in the hands of a master — and the benefits were profound. Just take a little staistic such as in 1933 only 2% of American Farms had electricity — FDR built REA beginning in 1935, and by 1940 50% of Farms were on the grid. And it was all done by organizing farmer owned co-ops that could borrow money at low interest, long term, and build a local distribution system. This created jobs, reopened many a copper mine, created a market for electric milking machines and washing machines and radios. Targeted investment created markets, but it also created thousands of modern civic organizations. We’ve long forgotten all these programs that essentially disprove Nordquist — and we let him rant because we have lost the history that provides the response. And by the way, there were plenty of Republican Nordquists back in the 20’s and 30’s — and most of them ended up on the dustheap, but for some reason their ideology survived.

Likewise the 30’s were full of Religious Charlatans, many in full bleat against FDR on Radio. Did you know one reason the 1934 act creating the FCC had a “fairness” doctrine was because of the right wing radio preachers? Reading through some of the debate about FCC made me smile quietly. We all would be more confident that change is possible if we just knew details about how it once was created.

Anyhow, for anyone having something of a black hole in your available knowledge of the 20’s the depression, and then World War II and its politics — this is a very rich read, particularly because in the hands of a skilled biographer FDR’s politics are so similar to our contemporary debates.

What’s even more sad is all the people saying that he should not be punished for it. ‘He didn’t actually do anything… it’s just a Process crime’ is ludicrous! Clinton gets impeached for lying about something that was nobody’s business. Libby lies to get us into a war that’s going to bankrupt this nation and people want to give him a pass? Apparently the Rule of Law only applies if you’re not a rich white, male, Christian, Republican, right O’Reilly?

Then there’s all those BS letters. As though their word that he spent a lifetime of loyal service to the US could wipe away the fact that when we most needed him as a people he freaking stabbed us in the back. As it was pointed out, Libby’s not even freaking sorry about it! We needed someone with some damned sense to come out and tell us that Bush was lying to us about the war and when someone tried to, they moved to discredit him so they could move on with their war of choice anyway.

I’m sure Bush will pardon Libby as one of his last few acts as President. So none of this has much relevance anyway and that, will be a travesty of justice.

But it does go along way to explaining why the Washington Journal is fueled by the anger of people who believe that the government is never to be trusted or believed. This is a terrible problem, probably one of the greatest that the next President will face. Even as we need to start redeeming government from Grover Norquist’s bathtub and begin to have a conversation about what the appropriate role in our lives that government should play, people have been rendered so cynical and so jaded, so thoroughly convinced that those to whom governance has been entrusted like Scooter Libby and his letter writing pals can do nothing right that re-engaging the public at a level necessary to redeem this country from the problems we are going to face will be extremely difficult.

Akin to the saying that “the best work the Devil ever did was making people believe he never existed,” is the way authoritarians promote the belief that government in and of iself is bad so people don’t trust it to protect them.

The claim is made by some people of interpreting all state action as mere “interference,” as if a popularly elected government was merely a protections racket, is intellectually fraudulent. I see from such people little rational discussion on where to draw the lines between government and everything else that arises from a society and its fundamental belief systems.

The term “limited government” is a baseless canard, as if anyone defends “unlimited government,” and as repugnant is the use of the term “government” that does not recognize differences between the popular will of the people via democracy and other less legitimate forms of government.

Refusing to see the distinction renders democracy unthinkable and void and legitimizes a mindset that rejects social contracts between people for the common benefit. What surely follows is not anarchy, in its true political sense, but the law of the jungle. And I can only assume that is the plan of most of the more virulent authoritarians, who believe that they are the strong and will rule the jungle. It is not in any sense a political philosophy, rather one of a method of achieving power.

i believe that amer. history was profoundly changed by the assassinations of the 60’s (to include the attempt on george wallace; kept the election out of the dem. house of representatives. convienent that. wallace’s removal also had the regrettable impact of not forcing the dem. party to explain to white working class americans, their base, that helping blacks was in their best interest, and they were getting screwed by the ptb, powers that be. the dems have wondered in the partially self imposed wilderness ever since then by failing to take care of working class america’s wallets. this sh*t has been going on in amer. ever since bacon’s rebellion in virginia circa 1670ish. and every time forces bring forth a champion that will unite black and poor white amer. the establishment about breaks out in hives and sh*ts itself, and takes action.)

i want to call your attention to a new book out there by david talbot. brothers. the hidden history of the kennedy years. while i have a gripe or two, overall it is magesterial. it chock full of insights. i thought i knew post ww2 american history. besides a life long love affair, i have spent the past 8 years researching this era for a book i’m going to write. (i’ve spent too much damn time following the ongoing train wreck that is awol boy and deadeye dick, and not enough time researching, but, c’est la vie.)

do yourselves a favor. go and buy it. it is a treat. it is, quite simply, one of the most important books you will ever read.

I believe we are in a ideology tug-o-war between (among many things) two generations – the boomers that came of age just a hair b/w WWII and Vietnam and those in our 30’s and 40’s. I see glimmers of a desire to move beyond the Darwin philosophy of the past 20 or so years which bred aselfish “all about…” attitude that is now wearing thin. (aka George and Dick). We simply don’t have the time in our lives to be anything more then authentic. Those with the me attitude are taking from us all.

Leadership is our responsibility. Both to reach for it within ourselves and to support those who are willing to put themselves out there. I’m hopeful that this trend towards authenticity, which Bobby embodied in his last few years (ahead of the curve as always), will result in a new understanding of how we should govern, support and live.

Being an avowed “independent” it is disgusting to realize that the American people are less concerned about the economic “terrorism” inflicted by corporate America on the citizens via our own government, instead preoccupied by the cost of gas and inflated terrorist threats to America while we have inflicted brutal displaced anger in the form of destruction of Iraq. We where played for fools by BUSH AND EXECUTIVE OIL ET ALs

It is a CF of colossal proportions:
-Health care is tied to employment
-Debt is at all-time high
-Corporations have developed private security/
police entities to threaten,
invade and intimidate whistleblowers
-Law enforcement has been corrupted
(has become an much an extension of
private, partisan security as v.v.)
-Congress is in bed with corporations
-Campaigns are financed by corporations

Did I miss anything?
Although it is not *right* by any stretch,
from a systems standpoint, a major blowout
in some direction was predictable.

It will require as much a social consciousness
evolution as it will an economy-and-currency modeling evolution.

We must drive the meme of corporate terrorism,
to speak directly to the ELEPHANT in the room, that of absolute misery, terror and oppression in the workplace. Then we must stand together,
reverse the trend of being complicit with
“divide and conquer” – i.e., participating
in whatever is the latest individual public
humiliation (mini-Iraqs), and direct all
shaming towards corporate abuses, regardless
of whatever shiny objects they dangle.

We can’t seem to get beyond the titillation
and drug of public individual humiliation,
whichever side of the fence we’re on.
/2nd rant of the day *g*