Wendell Wilkie and Ronald Reagan were Socialists.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

Listened to Thom Hartmann tonight. He played two radio campaign ads.

The first was from Wendell Wilkie, 1940 Republican candidate against Roosevelt.
Wilkie was for: Minimum wage standards, maximum hour standards, collective bargaining by employees, enforcement of the right of collective bargaining by workers, regulation of the securities market, the stock market, the public health and safety, a G.I. Bill type-program promising full employment, and on and on.

The second one was Ronald Reagan campaigning for Truman in 1948. He was in favor of the same liberal social programs and policies as a New Deal Democrat would.


Mr. Hartmann also quoted the following letter from President Eisenhower to his brother Edgar:

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower in a letter to his brother Edgar, November 8, 1954.


Mr. Hartmann's point is that the political discussion has moved so far to the right that it's unbelieveable. Those men all sound like what Democrats USED to be!!

[Occam Bandage]

1. Reagan converted; there was no "political drift" at play there.

As for Wilkie? Well, I'll bet you that the Republican nominee in '08 is in favor of a minimum wage, maximum hour standards, collective bargaining, regulation of the stock market, OSHA, and on and on. There's only one Republican who isn't in favor of all of that, and Ron Paul has no shot at winning the election.

As for Ike's letter? Again, nobody short of the Paultards want to abolish social security, labor laws, agricultural subsidies, and welfare. And Ron Paul is not winning anything any time soon. Hell, Bush tried to modify Social Security and that went down in flames.

The political discussion has moved to the left since the '40s. All that jazz is stuff that everyone--even the Republicans--agree on maintaining.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. Republicans have gutted labor, health and safety.

And any kind of regulation of the market. They think that laissez-faire capitalism will solve all problems, because the rich, in their beneficience, will provide for the poor. Ha! There's a problem called infinite greed and lust for power over others. The "invisible hand" that Adam Smith wrote about is a mere passing reference in one of his works, not an economic doctrine.

Eisenhower had the Texas oilmen figured out fifty years ago. And he warned about the military-industrial complex.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

--Dwight D. Eisenhower, From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953


The republicans do not want to maintain regulatory agencies. The corporation is supreme over the individual and there is no social contract to provide old people with Social Security or any kind of protection against homelessness or want to persons of any age. The neocons (who are nothing like what Republicans used to be) want to make government so incompetent that they can privatize everything so their buddies can make billions of dollars providing services that the government used to do with our tax money. Like Blackwater, the private militia in Iraq, for instance.

I do not know what planet you're living on, but the neocons want to fight perpetual wars, eliminate raises in the minimum wage, don't want job programs, and Bush has dug us into the biggest deficit in history. They want the economy to be so bad that the only alternative for non-wealthy youth is to go into the military as cannon fodder. The horrendous student loans people take out nowadays are part of this plan. If you do go to college, you probably have to mortgage your future for the next twenty or thirty years and get hounded by the student loan agencies. And there's no guarantee that a good education will get you a job doing anything other than flipping burgers. And you won't be able to make enough money to buy a house, either.

The concentration of wealth in this country is just as lopsided as it was in the late 1920s, right before the Great Depression and the Wall Street crash of October 1929. He's basically destroyed the economy. He says he's against illegal immigration but looks the other way because the greedy employers won't hire Americans that cost more money than illegals.

They are lying about unemployment, inflation and everything else. I don't believe anything they say.

Roosevelt realized that he had to adopt liberal reforms to avoid a revolution. Societies that have a middle class are far more stable than those who only have rich and poor.

[Selatius]

3. They operate upon the principle that the government is a poor regulator.

I admit that it is a poor regulator, when corrupt politicians run it.

[Occam Bandage]

4. There is a wide gulf between

"do not believe that labor should have as much power as it does currently" and "do not recognize the right for unions to exist."

There is a wide gulf between "do not believe that health regulations must be as stringent as they currently are," and "do not believe that health regulations ought exist."

There is a wide gulf between "do not believe the minimum wage must be raised," and "do not believe there must be a minimum wage."

Pointing to a Republican in 1940 who felt it necessary to explain that he was not against the concepts of regulation, unions, or the minimum wage does not suggest the nation has moved right. Rather, it suggests we moved left. Think about it. In 1940, those positions were somewhat noteworthy. In 2007, those positions are all givens; no politician would dare publicly state that he doesn't want to see food safety regulated at all any more. The public would eat him alive if he tried.

Saying, "oh, well, the Republicans aren't in favor of expanding the minimum wage / health care" or "the Republicans are in favor of undermining union bargaining power" is, again, pointing to how far we've come. The Republicans can't destroy the min. wage, soc. sec., or healthcare any more; they have to settle for trying to delay progress. They can't outright destroy unions, so they have to try to sneak around and construct little roadblocks here and there.

Privately, among themselves? I'm sure plenty of Republicans would like to see all that destroyed. But they can't say that aloud in public. They can't run on it. They can't talk about it on the campaign trail. Why? Because the nation is far, far more liberal than it was in 1940, and it would outright reject any politician who was actually against any of the things you mentioned.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. Reagan's big roadblock was union busting the ATC.

So what do we have now? Unsafe skies, not enough air traffic controllers, overworked and stressed out traffic controllers, and far more near-wrecks than are reported. The companies save lots of money by not doing the required maintenance on the planes either and skating along. It's just like driving a car with no maintenance, but a helluva lot more people die when it falls out of the sky.

Thanks a lot, Ronnie, you sorry bastard.