They hated FDR, too.

[smoogatz]

All the moneyed fascists and corporate Nazi sympathizers, the anti-Semites, the racists, the cowards, the simpering authority-lickers, the fundamentalist whackos and bigots of every stripe. They hated Roosevelt with a burning passion--they said vicious things about him and his wife in the press, they even schemed to overthrow him and appoint a dictator in his place. Right-wingers can't STAND it that their big ideas--outlawing abortion, eliminating taxes on the rich, eliminating gay rights, eliminating all corporate regulation, eternal war with anyone we don't like, installation of a rightwing dictatorship and suspension of civil rights--are, when expressed honestly, deeply unpopular. They can't STAND it that mainstream American opinion has (in their view) FAILED to embrace their twisted and idiotic agenda. They neither understand nor believe in the constitution or the bedrock concepts of Democracy. If they can't have their way, their first impulse is intimidation and violence. Same fucksticks, different century. We can't worry too much about them. They're morons, and mostly too lazy and stupid to do much real harm. It's the corporate/political neo-fascist oligarchs that are the real danger, and you won't be seeing them at any McPalin rallies, I'm pretty sure.

[annabanana]

1. The knuckledraggers are the oligarch's army. .

The are perfectly suited to the task. . . Authoritarian personalities with blind allegiance . .

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Too bad this doesn't get mentioned in U.S. History classes

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml

Although I'm fervently against capital punishment, I can't help but believe that our republic would have been better served if all these seditionists had been summarily executed instead of receiving an incredibly magnanimous gift from FDR - their lives.

[Captain Hilts]

7. As much as I'd like to believe it, it didn't go beyond dinner table talk.

I asked a couple of truly liberal FDR biographers. They dismiss it.

[nichomachus]

15. Which is why they held Congressional hearings on it and

the Bush Crime Family subsequently scrubbed the records in the archives????

Why would they go to so much trouble for "dinner table talk?"

I think you're buying into the propaganda -- just like the A-Bombing of Japan was supposed to be necessary to save millions of American lives. Also not true.

[Cirque du So-What]

16. No offense, but I'll take the word of respected journalists of that day

and transcripts of the McCormack-Dickstein Committee hearings.

http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/spivak-NewMasses.pdf

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCormack-Dickstein_Committee

[Captain Hilts]

23. I know historians that went looking for it. And, believe you me, WANTED to find it...

and found nothing of substance.

[enough]

3. My grandmother told me that her family hated FDR so much that

they would not speak his name in the house. They called him "THAT MAN."

She saw the light, however, and became a supporter of FDR and a Democrat for the rest of her days.

[morillon]

19. And I heard his uber-rich enemies threw big parties when he died.

Disgusting.

[suston96]

4. You are right. They did hate him, but....many, many people loved him.

...try saying something, anything bad about him to anyone who loved him....

Like my father........Big trouble.....

[elocs]

5. FDR was very polarizing with little middle ground. People either loved him or hated him.

A good many of those who hated FDR were just regular people and don't fit into the cozy caricature that is made of them. Both those who loved or hated FDR helped to establish in their children and grandchildren for decades and even today we are still invoking his name.

Republicans and right wingers and all they stand for are hated here with a burning passion. They and their wives and family get relentlessly mocked and belittled. If they would only understand that we want and know what is best for everyone.

Republicans tend to exist in a simplistic world where things are either black or white, right or wrong. I would hope that we would be better than that. Sometimes I wonder if Democrats had absolute and dictatorial power if the right wingers would be placed into reeducation camps for their own good. Republicans probably would, but I wonder sometimes how different we would be if we had the power. Sometimes beneath a velvet glove there is a steel claw.

[smoogatz]

8. Democrats don't want "absolute and dictatorial power."

That's the difference. they're idealistic enough to believe that generally, if you do the right thing by the people, they'll keep reelecting you most of the time. And yeah, FDR was so polarizing he was elected to FOUR terms. He was wildly popular: his narrowest victory was by three million votes, or a 7-point margin. His weakest electoral vote showing was 432-99. His strongest (in 1936, against Landon) was 523-8. Yeah, he was "polarizing" all right.

[elocs]

13. Ahh, I see we need a definition of "polarize" because the meaning of words is important:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/polarizing

polarize or -ise
Verb
<-izing, -ized> or -ising, -ised
1. to cause people to adopt directly opposite opinions: political opinion had polarized since the restoration of democracy

So yes, FDR was "polarizing" all right and yes, it is important to know what words really mean.

[smoogatz]

20. It is, indeed.

But it's misleading to suggest that FDR "caused" a few Nazi sympathizers and die-hard right-wingers to hate him: they were predisposed to do so, and would've hated anyone who wasn't a a fascist, for all intents and purposes. It's also misleading if we're using the term (as we use it now) to describe a more-or-less equal political division: if a big majority of the country supports Roosevelt, and a small minority despise him, is the country "polarized?" Or is it largely unified? Can it be unified and polarized at the same time?

[elocs]

24. Polarizing has nothing to do with the numbers being equal.

I see no reason why the country could not be both unified and polarized. FDR was unifying to those who believed in him and his policies, yet those same policies caused polarization with those who did not agree with him.

[Captain Hilts]

6. "I welcome their hatred." - FDR

ER: Me too! Our enemies do us credit, dear.

[morillon]

9. I read that speech again just recently.

It was awesome. FDR doesn't always get the credit he deserves. We need another one, for our own generation.

[skooooo]

17. What speech is that?

Is there a link to it?

[morillon]

18. Here's your link. It's an amazing speech.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15219

[skooooo]

25. I like this whole passage - it seems to fit today.

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred."

[Captain Hilts]

21. Franklin Field - 1936 - appropriately enough - 2nd nomination.

And he and his speech took a major tumble right before he had to give it. Papers everywhere and FDR sprawled on the ground like Humpty Dumpty.

Calm in a crisis, that FDR.

[Captain Hilts]

22. He was a bit of a duplicitous bastard, actually.

He ditched the World Court and League of Nations in order to get elected. But he did, indeed, keep his eye on the prize. LOVED sticking it to The Man.

[smoogatz]

10. Yep.

Great (and timely) quote.

[Wetzelbill]

11. they still do

[judasdisney]

12. Ding, ding, ding. They STILL hate FDR. That's what ALL this is about.

[goclark]

14. Thank you for your post - it's not just because Obama is Black

FDR was a wealty White Man but he was supportive of the poor and his wife was extremely supportive of Blacks.

That is what they hate -- the Die Hards are so insecure.

[Captain Hilts]

27. They like black Republicans, like Powell, but not Democrats.

ER: Yeah, baby!

[thatsrightimirish]

26. Oneof my favorite quotes from FDR

"Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred"