We Were Warned About This ...

But I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, then Fascism and Communism, aided, unconsciously perhaps, by old-line Tory Republicanism, will grow in strength in our land.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, November 4, 1938

tags: politics franklin roosevelt impeach bush

Comments

[Kathy]

That's prophetic.

[Blogenfreude]

The guy was no lightweight, unlike, well, you know ...

[Agi T. Prop (Defeatist)]

WE ARE DOOMED!

CAPITULATE NOW!

[Blogenfreude]

Come on Agi, the only thing you have to fear is, uh, fear itself.

On the other hand, something you told me today might indicate that the world IS coming to an end.

[gary]

What's all that shit about hind-sight being better than foresight?

This is some powerful prophetic shit.

And Blogenfreude...Have you forgotten, you are supposed to be afraid for Bird Flu! Just ask Dumbya, he will be happy to remind you of your fear.

[Blogenfreude]

I live and work in lower Manhattan. We laugh at your bird flu! We are still breathing asbestos and other 9/11 crap down here! Nothing [cough] can [hack] kill us off! Not even Bloomberg's full-body-cavity subway searches! We fart in your general direction!

[HelenWheels]

Ol' FDR was spot-on. If it weren't for him, we'd have been in this mess a lot earlier.

[Kevin Carson]

Only the neocons around Bush aren't "old-line Tory Republicans."

FDR's New Deal corporatism was much closer economically to the corporatism of Mussolini than anything the decentralist, small-government Old Right had to offer.

And in their worship of foreign policy activism and crusades for "democracy," the big government conservatives at National Review and the Weekly Standard are ideological heirs of Cold War Liberalism. The Old Right positions that FDR condemned as an unwitting aid to fascism were their fear of foreign military involvement and large standing armies: pretty much the same as today's militarist neocons who attack anti-interventionists as "objectively pro-terror" or "objectively pro-Saddam."

Until about 1950, it was liberals who backed the national security state, global adventurism and the imperial presidency; it was conservatives who were isolationist and feared executive power.

[Kevin Carson]

BTW, as an illustration of what a departure the '50s New Right was from traditional conservatism, consider this quote from a 1952 Commonweal article by WF Buckley:

…we have to accept Big Government for the duration – for neither an offensive nor defensive war can be waged given our present government skills, except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores…

And if they deem Soviet power a menace to our freedom (as I happen to), they will have to support large armies and air forces, atomic energy, central intelligence, war production boards, and the attendant of centralization of power in Washington – Even with Truman at the reins of it all.

[Blogenfreude]

To me, the compelling part of the statement is the first clause, especially "if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force ..." The point here, Kevin, is that Roosevelt knew that fascism would creep in if we didn't seek to "better the lot of our citizens" and act to make our system more democratic. FDR may not have called the source correectly, but he sure called the result.

[Kevin Carson]

Well, that's true enough. Those in danger of slipping from the middle class have an unfortunate tendency to turn their frustration and resentment on the underclass and other out-groups, instead of the rich bastards who are really to blame. Thomas Frank has a pretty good radar for such proto-fascist tendencies in the beleagueared working class, and the dangerous appeal of Red State pseudo-populism.