Why is FDR considered such a Great President by Liberals?

[FrenchieCat]

Considering what he did to Japanese-Americans with a mere executive order? :shrug:

I understand that at the time, most (non-Japanese-Americans might have found it palpable), but we have known for some time that what FDR did went totally against the Constitution. And why didn't he include Germans, based on the logic given as to why Japanese-Americans were intered.

But the bigger question is why is FDR still revered by so many liberals as the most progressive President ever, when he trashed the constitution and used the excuse that it was WarTime? That so sounds like George Bush's rationale.

After the December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. This act based on ethnicity permitted the military to bypass the constitutional safeguards of American citizens in the name of national defense. The order excluded persons of Japanese ancestry then living on the West Coast from residing and working in certain locations. This traumatic uprootment culminated in the mass evacuation and incarceration of most Japanese Americans, most of whom were U.S. citizens or legal permanent resident aliens. They were detained for up to 4 years, without due process of law or any factual basis. They were forced to live in bleak, remote camps behind barbed wire and under the surveillance of armed guards. Japanese American internment raised questions about the rights of American citizens as embodied in the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
http://www.42explore2.com/japanese.htm

Over 127,000 United States citizens were imprisoned during World War II. Their crime? Being of Japanese ancestry.

Despite the lack of any concrete evidence, Japanese Americans were suspected of remaining loyal to their ancestral land. Anti-Japanese paranoia increased because of a large Japanese presence on the West Coast. In the event of a Japanese invasion of the American mainland, Japanese Americans were feared as a security risk.

Succumbing to bad advice and popular opinion, President Roosevelt signed an executive order in February 1942 ordering the relocation of all Americans of Japanese ancestry to concentration camps in the interior of the United States.

Evacuation orders were posted in Japanese-American communities giving instructions on how to comply with the executive order. Many families sold their homes, their stores, and most of their assets. They could not be certain their homes and livelihoods would still be there upon their return. Because of the mad rush to sell, properties and inventories were often sold at a fraction of their true value.

On the whole, however, life in the relocation centers was not easy. The camps were often too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. The food was mass produced army-style grub. And the interns knew that if they tried to flee, armed sentries who stood watch around the clock, would shoot them.

Fred Korematsu decided to test the government relocation action in the courts. He found little sympathy there. In Korematsu vs. the United States, the Supreme Court justified the executive order as a wartime necessity. When the order was repealed, many found they could not return to their hometowns. Hostility against Japanese Americans remained high across the West Coast into the postwar years as many villages displayed signs demanding that the evacuees never return. As a result, the interns scattered across the country.

In 1988, Congress attempted to apologize for the action by awarding each surviving intern $20,000. While the American concentration camps never reached the levels of Nazi death camps as far as atrocities are concerned, they remain a dark mark on the nation's record of respecting civil liberties and cultural differences.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/51e.asp

[w4rma]

1. The New Deal. (nt)

[FrenchieCat]

2. That was enough to make him the most Progressive President ever

even though he was trashing the constitution for like a whole bunch of years?

[glowing]

11. Pres. Obama will be judged as well. He knows this as he decides which

way to direct the nation. He also knows a dead president is a dead president... not much you can do when your 6ft under. Doesn't mean that we can't push like hell for what we need or want.

At the end of the day, these people are human. We'd like to believe not.. but they are. They may have no idea what they are really doing... I can't stand the economic team. Its a new day, most realize its not working out the way it was sold. People are not happy. Best way to destroy a democracy is to ask people to suffer for too long.. don't forget, many have been suffering even since the 90's.

Anyway, don't get your panties in a wad worrying about defending too much. Everyone here that bitches and moans does so because its anonymous and because they need a sounding board for their frustrations. Its not like most are in a power of any position to change a damn thing; and will vote for your man in 2012.. and they know it too.

[Oregone]

38. This is a good point. And add to that, it wasn't exactly all his Deal too

It was his "New Deal" to be re-elected. A lot of the political influence behind the New Deal came from the populist left, which was essentially holding him hostage. As a good politician, he smiled, embraced it, and sold it further.

But pair that fact with the constitutional abuses, and, well, I don't know. I think history is a lot more complicated than people make it. People like to see simplicity by buying into, or hating, caricatures that fit into their pre-conceived notions.

[karynnj]

57. Look at the competition

It is interesting though that LBJ is somewhat similar, but is treated very differently - his Great Society programs and his support of the Civil Rights Act, done knowing it would cause his party's loss of the South for decades are incredible progressive actions. But, there was also his escalation of the Vietnam War. (Maybe because WWII was a victory and Vietnam was a disaster - In addition to the mistreatment of Japanese Americans, it is also troubling that FDR refused to admit more Jews to the US before the Holocaust.)

There is no President who was perfect on all domestic/foreign policy issues according to the values I hold. In fact, a few years age - my youngest daughter mentioned that an assignment she had for high school government was impossible. She was asked to rank the Presidents from FDR through I think Bush 1 and explain the rankings. Her problem was the same one I would have had - how do you deal with someone who did incredible good, but also did some really bad things. She had put together nice lists on each of what she thought were significant good actions and bad actions. Weighing the long term good vs the long term bad of each President was not easy. I tried very hard not to influence her list and in fact did not see the final list. What I did see was that even though she knew her values and knew what the Presidents had done, it still wasn't easy.

Both while he was a candidate and now as new President, it is easy to think that Obama (or any candidate in the primaries - this year or another year) would be 100% good according to an observer's values, but looking over all the Presidents of my life time, none were.

[Hieronymus]

36. Bingo, FDR got us out of the Great Depression by spending, which Hoover

had refused to do.

[Oregone]

40. To be fair to Hoover (if thats possible)....

LOL...fuckn prick....


But, Keynes General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money wasn't published until 1936, and had a lot of influence on the economic theory of the "New Deal". Hell, his ilk may of inspired a bit of it.

[Captain Hilts]

70. Not really true. Hoover created the Reconstruction Finance Corp. but it just...

reinforced existing economic power structures.

FDR kept it but empowered Unions and individuals and other govt. agencies to disperse economic decision-making power.

Hoover probably made the right initial decisions, but it wasn't enough. To be frank, Obama's current solutions also reinforce existing power structures and it's probably the right way to start.

[Zynx]

3. The good outweighs the bad. His contribution to reforming this country and to

beating the two greatest threats to world peace in history cancels out an awful lot.

[FrenchieCat]

4. Wow! OK.

[Zynx]

113. I once wrote a much longer paper answering essentially this very question.

I weighed his three bad calls: not pressing for anti-lynching legislation, the Japanese internment, and not recognizing the menace of Stalin against his considerable accomplishments. The accomplishments win out overwhelmingly.

[Captain Hilts]

115. FDR did recognize the trouble that Stalin was. He certainly did. nt

[glowing]

5. Because it was the President that changed the way he spoke about We the People.

AND we have some govt programs still going since then. Should have been refined years ago.. but the pukes kept annhilating programs and the dems were just trying to hold onto them. I'm sure some dumb ass in his admin. thought this would be a good idea. Men are men. Dumb asses at times. Personally, I can't wait for a female head and some more female progressives to sweep into the halls of congress. Our democracy is in some real need of freaking compassion.. and not a bunch of freaking testosterone playing with people's lives and being drunk on power, prestige, and all the rest of their freaking mommy complexes.

[drm604]

8. Wow.

You're really down on us guys aren't you?

[glowing]

31. Not really, its just been a little too lop-sided. Perhaps a different perspective in

a pair of pumps would help even things out. I don't think women have been well represented by men over these many years. Its time to level the playing field with a little bit of estrogen. Not to say women cannot be evil.. they can be. and some men are the best. Don't be so defensive. Y'all have ruled the world for long times.. making war, while women and children get stuck behind to be raped and pillaged.

[drm604]

39. I'm all for giving women an equal chance,

and if, for example, Hillary was the nominee I would have worked just as hard for her as I did for Obama. But you were going on about testosterone and mommy complexes which is a bit much.

[glowing]

46. Thinking of Bush, sorry. Torture Memos and all.

[drm604]

64. But you weren't attacking Bush,

you were attacking all men. You were painting with a very wide brush, which is a very un-progressive thing to do.

[digidigido]

48. You get good and bad with both genders, personally I'd rather have more Russ Feingolds

then Diane Feinsteins, though I would rather have more Barbara Boxers then Mitch McConells

[LostInAnomie]

14. LOL! What a load of shit!

Not only do you stereotype men, but women as well. Compassion has nothing to do with your sexual organs.

[glowing]

33. Generally speaking yes, I'd say women have more compassion and

endurance. men and women are different species. God knows he made an evil joke throwing the lot of us together.

In broader thought, women are poorly represented in this country. I'm sorry, but men don't design laws that often around maternity leave and all the other hundreds of things women get stuck with now that we "get to work" outside the home too. Unfortunately, most women I know have very unfulfilling jobs. They take what they can get that works around an impossible schedule, and ends up taking 1/2 or more of the check to pay for the extra car and the daycare.

Anyway, I'm impatient as all get up. The world wasn't meant to be the rich's playground, with us their slaves.. and I'm damn tired of hearing about war in another country, while another friend loses their home or their job or their mind.

[denem]

59. bzzzt: Margaret Thatcher.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

102. Don't forget "Bloody Mary" (nt)

[Arkana]

131. And Countess Elizabeth Bathory.

Gosh, she's "super cool".

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

103. Oh, and Ann Coulter.

She'd be tremendously compassionate, wouldn't she?

[Captain Hilts]

71. Not once they'be been through the socialization process that you need to attain leadership. Eleanor

Roosevelt would have dropped The Bomb on Japan.

Perhaps she would have done a 'demonstration' first, as Leo Slizard asked her to talk to FDR about, or not dropped the second, but correspondence shows she would have dropped that sucker. Again, people were really angry at the Japanese - for good reason.

[Captain Hilts]

78. Sexist tripe. nt

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

101. If you don't think women can be just as boneheaded, corrupt, and bloodthirsty as men...

I would say that you are likely a bigot.

[drm604]

6. This is a question I've wondered about.

I think the answer is that we can hold up the New Deal as an example of progressive government without lionizing it's creator.

After all, Nixon pulled us out of Vietnam, created the EPA, and opened up China, all worthy things from a very unworthy man.

[FrenchieCat]

7. But FDR has been lionized....

By most who call themselves Liberals.

[glowing]

16. So has Ted Kennedy, and that boy ain't no saint either.

[drm604]

22. But you're talking about his private life, aren't you?

In his political life, has he ever been anything but progressive?

[glowing]

29. They all have been politicians.. they aren't saints.. they write the stories they

want you to see and hear. None of them are all good. None of them are all knowing. During that time period, that shit made sense.. what do you think our children and grandchildren will say to us when they learned for 8yrs we allowed torture in our names.. and didn't prosecute.. didn't face the facts... let ourselves be used and abused... for what political niceness and fear of rich men in suits? Won't make a lot of sense to them, like the internment camps do to us.. or should we count the ways we still fuck over the native inhabitants of these lands? Sometimes this world is like one long bad dream that I really don't belong in.

[drm604]

37. But I don't think our grandchildren will be lionizing Bush.

At least I hope not.

[drm604]

19. Fair enough. The reason is the New Deal.

I'm not saying that's a good reason, just that it's the reason.

Now, if we want to talk about him as a man who pursued some progressive policies and use that part of him as an example without lionizing him, then we can do so. But we shouldn't forget or gloss over the internment camps.

[LostInAnomie]

28. Simply saying "The New Deal" doesn't do justice to the man.

He was a true man of the people. He passed social security to make sure the elderly, poor and sick wouldn't starve. He passed sweeping labor relations policies allowing workers the right to organize unions, do collective bargaining with management, and strike if they had to without fear of losing their jobs or being arrested. He passed the GI bill making sure that the men coming back from war had a chance to better educate themselves. He ended prohibition. He also made a great deal of progress in terms of civil rights.

Add that to the fact that he led us out of the Great Depression, successfully fought a two front war, and helped direct the course of the world for the next century, and you have a man that deserves to be lionized.

[HooptieWagon]

52. Eleanor probably had a lot to do with selling FDR "his" progressive agenda. n/t

[Captain Hilts]

76. Eleanor, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins. But ER had the PR thing goin' on.

These poor guys thought she was there just for a grip and grin photograph and found themselves getting grilled:

[Arkana]

132. She was his conscience.

Eleanor was a great deal more progressive than her husband. It was she, I think, that led him to develop such compassion for the downtrodden during the Depression--she took him to the tenements, the poorhouses, the slums...everywhere FDR had never been exposed to as the sheltered child of aristocrats.

It freaked him out--but it also made him grow a conscience.

(Sorry, I'm currently reading 'FDR', by Jean Edward Smith.)

[Captain Hilts]

69. It's impossible for us to transport our selves back to that time to understand the mentality.

Finding themselves attacked and in a World War scared the shit out of people.

[LostInAnomie]

9. The New Deal, the GI Bill, Social Security, National Labor Relations Act...

... civil rights progresses (as much as could have been made in 1940's America), etc. Pretty much everything except the one thing you listed.

[Captain Hilts]

77. Let's do a shout out to Sen. Robert Wagner, who introduced a lot of FDR Admin legislation. nt

[geek tragedy]

10. Because he's dead. n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Just one small correction, German Americans were also interned

at Ellis Island, just that the numbers were fairly small...

And in case you are wondering, perhaps due to our example, after Mexico entered WW II she in turn interned German and Italians in Mexico, national or not.

(As well as a few Japanese and by mistake Chinese)

Ain't history grand?

WW II saw a lot of that crap all over the place...

http://www.foitimes.com/

[FrenchieCat]

25. I didn't know any of that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. This is what is so great about DU, we can learn new things

every day

PBS had a series some years back on the internment of German Americans

And Mexico, well you think it is kind of a dark secret here... it is even more secret down there.

The camps were in the southern states, near the jungles

Here is some info

http://www.foitimes.com/internment/Gurcke.htm

http://www.discovernikkei.org/wiki/index.php/Internment#Mexico

[Captain Hilts]

73. Roosevelt HATED the Germans, but not the Japanese.

On his honeymoon cruise to Europe FDR spent the bulk of his time hanging out with a bunch of Japanese naval officers and the Corbis website has a photograph of FDR and ER greeting the Japanese delegation to the London Economic Conference of 1933.

FDR wanted to round up Germans, but AG Francis Biddle told him they were too geographically dispersed and too integrated into society to figure our which posed a threat and which did not.

[Thothmes]

66. As were some Italian Americans.

[Arkana]

133. My relatives would have been fucked.

They'd come over on the boat not 20 years before.

[Captain Hilts]

72. Who was the Italian Broadway star that was interned? I can't remember. It wasn't race-based.

[LibDemAlways]

75. I know a woman whose German born father was

interned at a camp in Texas. I think because Germans are of European background, knowledge of their internment (though in smaller numbers than the Japanese)would have been less palatable to Americans than the internment of the Japanese.

The American propaganda machine was in full force with regard to the "Japs" in WWII. It was very effective. They were hated and feared, making it all that much easier to rob them of their possessions and send them off to camps. A shameful part of American history all around.

[dalaigh lllama]

94. Wow. I didn't know that

something to read up on. Thanks.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

13. There were Germans placed in the interment camps

There were also Italians. For some reason they're always forgotten about though.

[ieoeja]

92. And there were still Germans in camps long after all the Japanese had been freed.

Those Germans stayed in the camps longer for the exact same reason a lower percentage of Germans were interred in the first place. The similarities between US and German culture made it possible for the FBI to do a much better job vetting the Germans than the Japanese.

So the Germans the FBI decided to put in the camps were largely German sympathizers. Where the Japanese internees largely turned on anyone seeking support for Japan during the war, the Germans openly celebrated Hitler's birthday and any reports of German victories or Allied defeats.

[Captain Hilts]

99. That's a really interesting point. The Eleanor Roosevelt article I've linked to elsewhere here...

discusses the efforts, albeit fairly lousy, to determine which Japanese were truly United Statesians and which were not.

It's a fascinating article on many levels. I'd like to know more about the politics of her writing it.

Check it out.

[BlooInBloo]

15. As evil as that was, it wasn't the sum total.

[Jim Sagle]

17. What good are you?

[FrenchieCat]

23. What does my op have to do with me?

I learned my history in France. By the time I got to this country, all I got taught about American History was an overview.

I've have wondered about this issue for a long time, but never really gave it as much thought as now.

A poster was stating somewhere that we needed to regain something that Bush made us lose, and I was trying to figure out if we actually ever had it.

The Book gift from Chavez to our President and folks here screaming "Save the constitution" got me to thinking. I will concluded that an imperfect union is the correct term for what the United States represents.....!

[Jim Sagle]

117. An imperfect union is as good as it gets in this world.

The thing about FDR is that without his leadership and his policies the world might have been a MUCH uglier place, then and now. As bad as his internment policies were, they were dwarfed by the public works, the labor laws, the Social Security systme, and so many other things that made a middle class possible here.

[Awsi Dooger]

18. Imagine Obama winning 4 terms

The public associates one party with ultimate control, for well beyond a decade. That has magnificent residue. It's almost hard to imagine the other side in power. My dad always tells me the Republicans thought they would never get in office again, hence the desperate 22nd Amendment.

The young voters who came of voting age during FDR's terms have been reliably Democratic. Pollster.com broke that down with charts a couple of years ago. It's a myth that voting tendencies alter with age. If you align yourself with one side when you begin to vote, the significant majority of the time you remain there. FDR was, and is, a tremendous boost in terms of how the Democratic party was viewed. Hardly a coincidence there were only two Republican terms, and from a war hero, in more than 20 years after he died, until 1968 when the South began to drift as a result of the civil rights act.

[FrenchieCat]

21. Interesting!

Thanks!

[Drunken Irishman]

27. Roosevelt was the first modern successful national Democrat.

Wilson had success, but only got in because the Republicans split the ticket between Teddy Roosevelt and Taft and even then, he barely won reelection four years later. Prior to Wilson, though, the Democrats were not a national party. They rarely held the White House and while they were a far bigger player at the local level, it generally went: Republican President, Republican Senate, Democratic Congress and Democratic Governor. Then Roosevelt came along and completely altered the Democrat's image nationally.

From 1869 to 1933, Roosevelt's victory -- a span of 64 years -- only two Democrats held the presidency: Cleveland & Wilson. And even Cleveland lost to the Republican Harrison for a second term, only coming back four years later to claim 3-point victory over Harrison.

Think about that for a second, in a span of nearly a lifetime, the Democrats only held the White House for 16 years. That's pathetic.

64 years after Roosevelt's term ended, there have been six Democratic presidents (Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama) and six Republican presidents (Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush and Bush). If you don't count Ford, who didn't win his election, there has been one more elected-Democrat in office than the Republicans over a similar timespan where there were 11 Republican presidents to the 2 Democratic.

So Roosevelt took a party that had been successful at the local level and made it a player on the national scene. Even if you ignore what he accomplished as president, that alone made it possible for the likes of Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama to attain the presidency. Because before he took over, Americans didn't vote for many Democratic presidents. They sure do now.

[Drunken Irishman]

20. If we're to judge a president by his worst deeds rather than his best, we'd have no great leaders.

Roosevelt obviously had his flaws and they should never be ignored, but it's easy to overlook that when you realize if it weren't for his leadership, this country very well could have not only fallen economically, but militarily.

It doesn't justify his actions, but his presidency deserves the entire context of the situation and the good far outweighs the evil.

[LooseWilly]

24. He was a product of his times.

I could argue that the Japanese actually attacked the US, whereas Germany and Italy had seemed content to merely conquer Europe (though, later released documents suggest they were happy to try to convince Mexico to try their hand at an invasion of the US... probably not caring if they succeeded... but just hoping to distract a potential British ally). The argument could be continued that, on its face, that constituted an argument that Japan was more likely to have active saboteurs ready and in position...

We both know the truth is that It was the 40s, and Asians just weren't considered to be equal citizens at the time. Hell, consider the juxtaposition with W who, in a day and age where that sort of racism and religiousism is generally considered to be a sign of ignorance, not only interns people in flagrant violation of the Constitution, but then has them tortured to boot...
If you take the prevailing opinions of the times into consideration, FDR wins. Add in the New Deal which was obviously aimed at alleviating the suffering of the poor (or else rich Republicans wouldn't still be bitching about it to this day), as well as his vigilance with regard to war profiteers (including W's grandfather, if I'm not mistaken)... and FDR comes up pretty liberal.

On the other hand, Andrew Jackson essentially told the Supreme Court to piss up a rope when he ordered the US Army to forcibly march the Cherokee to Oklahoma ("The Trail of Tears"), and now he's on the bank bills we get out of ATMs (ironic, since he also killed the National Bank). John Adams ushered the Alien And Sedition Act through congress back in the 18th Century, which did essentially the same thing as what FDR did with the Japanese, but did it to the French.
If we want to talk about American Presidents wiping their asses with the Constitution... it's gonna be a long night.

[TheKentuckian]

30. Hence, I'm shocked at the upset that simply not going after one (and friends)

Hell, our best Presidents have shit on the Constitution. Not a one has ever gone after a former one for doing so.

Obama hasn't even issued any pardons, that's pretty good for one of ours.

I guess on person's standing still is baby steps to others and quantum leaps to still others.

[LooseWilly]

34. Actually, I was just trying to evaluate why FDR would be so beloved by liberals.

I am not trying to justify the internment of the Japanese. I am not trying to justify the internment of the French. I am not trying to justify ignoring the Supreme Court decision that the Cherokee should be fast tracked toward statehood... and instead marching their asses off to Oklahoma so that Georgia could be founded by "right thinking White Folk". I am not trying to justify Wounded Knee. I am not trying to justify the 3/5 rule of the Constitution. I am not trying to justify Guantanamo. I am not trying to justify Mai Lai, Dresden, Tokyo firebombings, Hiroshima, Nagasaki... or Sherman's March to the Sea (Georgia just had some bad karma left over, I suppose...).

I personally prefer Kennedy as a liberal. His firing of Dulles might well have gotten him killed... but it was the right thing to do. And Kennedy never actually wiped his ass on the Constitution, as far as I know. Then again, he wasn't faced with a war with 2 industrial powers on 2 fronts.
When all is said and done, I think a lot of us recognize that, if we'd been President when FDR was, we'd've probably peed ourselves in the face of that war. A lot of extra slack is given because a non-asymmetric war is a lot more uncertain in outcome than modern US wars.

[FrenchieCat]

42. But most liberals do not hold JFK as liberal......

in fact, I have read here at DU that if he was running today, he'd be a conservative Democrat.

[LooseWilly]

45. Most liberals I know do consider him liberal.

Then again, most also consider Obama liberal... but an objective assessment would also place him as a conservative Democrat.

Most liberals I know consider FDR to have been more populist than liberal... and the Japanese internment fits in nicely with that hypothesis, as acceptance of other ethnicities is a "liberal" characteristic but not necessarily considered a "populist" characteristic. Of course, it is common to conflate "liberal" with "populist" with "socialist" with a whole lot of other things.

I suspect that I would not consider the liberals that do not hold JFK as liberal to be liberals at all. When JFK gave the speech in which he compared Russian children to American children to children everywhere... and suggested that all the parents of said children just want something better for them children... that's a fairly liberal sentiment... compared with putting the unemployed to work building the Hoover Dam, or the Golden Gate Bridge, or what have you...

[Hippo_Tron]

32. FDR did some very bad things with the best of intentions

Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito were genuinely a threat to the existence world as we know it. That doesn't justify what they did, but they did it with good intentions. What Bush and Cheney did was with bad intentions. Al Qaeda is a threat to national security but not nearly one of that magnitude.

[Peace_Sells]

35. The Left's Reagan.

People don't like to let facts get in the way of their dreams. FDR has become a mythical character much the same way as reagan has for the right. There was alot of good in his administration but this incident cannot be overlooked. It was a horrible crime and completly immoral. But many liberals want a hero to cling to and they have made fdr that hero concentration camps and all.

[FrenchieCat]

41. And the Supreme Court going along with it

perhaps is another incident where justice according to the constitution wasn't upheld.

[Enthusiast]

60. Reagan couldn't carry FDR's

jockstrap. There were plenty of reasons to be suspicious of Japanese Americans in 1941. Foremost was the possibility of espionage. Then there was sabotage to consider. We didn't kill them, execute them, they were detained, for the most part, for the duration of the war. I think FDR's actions were entirely reasonable considering the circumstances.

[Captain Hilts]

74. That Japanese were so geographically concentrated made it a tempting policy. nt

[WinkyDink]

63. OMG, how ignorant! To compare a man who cared about this nation's poor with a President whose AG

said the poor just want free cheese?

To compare FDR, who fought the Nazis, to Reagan, who paid HOMAGE to the S.S. at BITBURG?!

To compare FDR, who started Social Security, to a man who wanted nothing more than to destroy it and other social programs?!

FDR is nothing remotely like a "counterpart" to the incompetent, greedy, and TREASONOUS Reagan (ILLEGALLY selling arms to IRAN!).

And bad as internment was---and it was---don't EVEN begin to use the term "concentration camps", to imply a Dachau or an Auschwitz.

[Enthusiast]

104. Very well said, WinkyDink!

Sometimes people forget history. We must be vigilant and remind them at every opportunity.

[Lasher]

43. George Washington owned slaves.

So did others considered to be among our greatest presidents: Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and James Polk. Of our first 15 presidents, 10 owned slaves.

We are living in a relatively enlightened age in the US. For example, Native Americans did not have any citizenship rights until the Dawes Act of 1887 and the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. Women couldn't vote until passage of the 19th Amendment in 1924. And the KKK was lynching African Americans and their white Democratic supporters until the middle of the 20th century.

Your FDR glass is half empty; maybe it should be half full.

[FrenchieCat]

44. No, my FDR glass is good.....

Just that there is a certain irony in this discussion and current events.....I feel,
based on some things I have read....

[Lasher]

47. I do admire an inquiring mind.

It might be useful to reflect on the philosophy of moral relativism.

[FrenchieCat]

49. I've bookmarked it. Kind of heavy for this evening.....

As I am running some payrolls as I post here at the same time!

But thank you.

[Enthusiast]

105. It should be full to the top!

Considering the problems FDR faced he should be judged to be close to the best president, if not the very best president.

[Lasher]

110. He is consistently ranked #1 2 or 3 in scholar surveys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_United_States_Presidents#Scholar_survey_results

[cali]

50. this is a sadly stupid post and what you're doing is both obvious

and lame- not to mention silly. And it palatable, not palpable. you'll go to any lengths.

[FrenchieCat]

51. Thanks! But I learned some things through this thread,

and no, I'm not perfect either.

But anyhow, I'm fine with it.

You learned something too!

palpable
Main Entry: pal·pa·ble
Pronunciation: \ˈpal-pə-bəl\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin palpabilis, from Latin palpare to stroke, caress — more at feel
Date: 14th century
1 : capable of being touched or felt : tangible
2 : easily perceptible : noticeable <a palpable difference>
3 : easily perceptible by the mind : manifest
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/palpable

:hi:

[girl_interrupted]

53. Frenchie if you can pick up a copy of "Warm Springs"

FDR by far is my favorite president, and not just by being elected four times, incredible as that is alone, but for pulling this country out of the Great Depression with some many social programs that helped so many people such as the New Deal which provided relief for the unemployed, recovery of the economy, and reform of the economic and banking systems, through various agencies, such as the Works Project Administration (WPA), National Recovery Administration (NRA), and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). Although recovery of the economy was incomplete until World War II, several programs he initiated, such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), continue to have instrumental roles in the nation's commerce. Some of his other legacies include the Social Security system ( I'd love to see the "Teabaggers" give that up!) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Then of course there was World War 2, and yes, it was very unfortunate what happened to Japanese & German people, but after Pearl Harbor, I guess no one knew who they could trust. I think that through that error we learned not to do the same after 9/11. And with your French background I'm sure you are aware US & British troops liberated France & Italy from Nazi Occupation.


I admire so many things FDR did, Republicans just hate him, anytime you try to help the less fortunate, you are a "Socialist", the more things change , the more they remain the same. I believe FDR was truly a Liberal. And he really did more for the Democratic party then anyone. Not to mention for the people of this country. People of my grandparents generation had great trust and love for this man. They saw improvements in their lives & their living conditions. And nothing beats that.

As far as Democrats being "weak" on defense, I Think President Obama said it best..."We are the Party of FDR" and in that I see a similarity between FDR and Obama....Obama will be willing to talk to anyone, use all diplomatic relations at hand, just dont play him for a fool or get in his face. FDR wouldn't tolerate it and neither will Obama.

But what I admire the most about FDR, is that this was a man who had everything, name, position , riches and that meant nothing, when he contracted polio. No amount of money or position can give you back the use of your legs. His struggle against paralysis , is beautifully portrayed in the movie "Warm Springs" The courage he displayed against insurmountable odds is nothing short of amazing. What a truly brave individual, he never gave up. Even went on to win the presidency. I have even more respect for him now, after seeing it. If you can, they still show it on HBO or maybe you can get a copy of it, but it is so worth seeing to truly understand the man. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423510/

It has always struck me odd, that Democrats don't mention FDR more often, they really should. God Knows the republicans never miss a chance to tout Reagan and he didnt accomplish a quarter of what FDR did.

I guess you could say all Presidents make mistakes...but I think FDR did so much more good than bad. Look at Lincoln...As the Civil War started, in the very beginning of Lincoln's presidential term, a group of "Peace Democrats" proposed a peaceful resolution to the developing Civil War by offering a truce with the South, and forming a constitutional convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to protect States' rights. The proposal was ignored by the Unionists of the North and not taken seriously by the South. However, the Peace Democrats, also called copperheads by their enemies, publicly criticized Lincoln's belief that violating the U.S. Constitution was required to save it as a whole. With Congress not in session until July, Lincoln assumed all powers not delegated in the Constitution, including the power to suspend habeas corpus. In 1861, Lincoln had already suspended civil law in territories where resistance to the North's military power would be dangerous. In 1862, when copperhead democrats began criticizing Lincoln's violation of the Constitution, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus throughout the nation and had many copperhead democrats arrested under military authority because he felt that the State Courts in the north west would not convict war protesters such as the copperheads. He proclaimed that all persons who discouraged enlistments or engaged in disloyal practices would come under Martial Law. Remember too, Lincoln clearly asserts, it was not his intention to get rid of slavery in the Southern states. Lincoln conceded that the American founders had agreed to tolerate slavery in the Southern states, and he confessed that he had no wish and no power to interfere with it there. The only issue was whether the federal government could restrict slavery in the new territories. It really wasnt until 1964 with the passage of the Civil & Voting Rights act, that we could say people were truly "free".

[Captain Hilts]

81. FDR realized that if he'd been poor when he got polio, he'd be S.O.L....

but he does show progressive signs before then:

1) Supporting the Boers in the Boer War while at Harvard
2) Volunteering and helping poor kids learn to read while at Harvard
3) Marrying Eleanor.

In many ways, I've found that the more I read about him, the more I admire him, but the less I like him. He was supremely selfish, but in just the right way to be president.

[Captain Hilts]

80. Thanks, Cali.

ER: Thanks Cali.

[rasputin1952]

54. This is an example of what unbridled fear can do to a population

of normally rational human beings.

In the context of the time, what the Japanese had done in China and other parts of the Southeast Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, there was little reason to believe other than that the Japanese were essentially a vicious conquering nation. This was reinforced when the Japanese attacked the US Fleet at Pearl Harbor. There was panic across the nation, and the idea was perpetrated that the Japanese would find dedication to the Emperor the guiding principle the Japanese Americans would follow.

When Corregidor, the Dutch East Indies and other areas were conquered, there was little reason to believe that Japanese in general were to be trusted. War crimes were rampant, and just about everything the Americans were learning about the Japanese made them look like savages.

The vast majority of Japanese Americans were loyal to the US, some were not. Fear brought about Executive Order 9066. As the war dragged on, it became apparent that the Japanese leadership were fanatical in their pressing of the war. This rippled down to the American public and those in uniform. Fear, and then the knowledge that the Japanese would essentially die proudly for their Emperor rather than succumb to defeat made many decisions inevitable.

Was EO 9066 "wrong", in my opinion yes, but in the context of the time, it was used to assuage the fear Americans had at the time. Just as Lincoln's denial of habeas corpus was during the Civil War, (which, under the Constitution was validated).

The same fear brought us the "Patriot Act", something far more ominous, as we live under that miserable thing today and, it is far more reaching than EO 9066. While we don't have Detention Camps under the "Patriot Act", if something happens, far more Americans will be "rounded up" than Japanese Americans during WWII.

[wyldwolf]

55. FrenchieCat, because over time, we only remember the good and not the bad

I mean seriously - there are folks today who claim, for example, 60s music was the best ever but having worked in oldies radio I can testify there was some horrid tunes then!

If today's "progessives" really knew FDR, they'd trash him like they do Clinton. For example, when progressives lost house seats in the 1930s, FDR was happy about it.

[Dr.Phool]

56. I agree. Some people still think Reagan was a great president.

As for me, I can't think of anything good to remember him for.

[WinkyDink]

62. And he's getting a statue in DC on June 30, to boot.

[booley]

58. And Jefferson owned Slaves and Eisenhower was Republican

Who didn't really stand in the way of Mcarthyism.

Ok we get it. Presidents are human and not every action of theirs was laudable.

But really, I am getting sick of this stupid false dichotomy where some yahoo makes a rant saying we either have to ignore any bad stuff our "heroes" did or ignore any good they did because of the bad.

Why? Why cant' Roosevelt have been a great President and ALSO have done other stuff that Progressives abhor?

Maybe he both helped and hurt progressivism. I can give him credit for the new deal and still say that Japanese internment was wrong. That is in no way contradictory.

[WinkyDink]

61. You have focused on the one element that is negative. I suggest you visit Hyde Park, NY, and read

all the letters from poor Americans thanking FDR for helping their families.

[Jennicut]

65. The point is no President is perfect. They all have their faults. Humans have feet of clay.

"Gods" are perfect, people are not. FDR did amazingly good things for the poor of this country. But the 1930's and 40's were a time of great fear and prejudice toward the Japanese just like toward Muslims today. FDR was caught up in a nation's fear and did the wrong thing. My own Grandmother whom I love dearly and who actually voted for Obama hates the Japanese to this day.

[Captain Hilts]

67. He wanted to round up Germans also and Italians were rounded up. But they also backed...

off the policy.

Read this:

http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/documents/articles/challengetoamerican.cfm

A Challenge to American Sportsmanship. Eleanor Roosevelt

Colliers16 October 1943.

I can well understand the bitterness of people who have lost loved ones at the hands of the Japanese military authorities, and we know that the totalitarian philosophy, whether it is in Nazi Germany or in Japan, is one of cruelty and brutality. It is not hard to understand why people living here in hourly anxiety for those they love have difficulty in viewing our Japanese problem objectively, but for the honor of our country, the rest of us must do so.

...

We have in all 127,000 Japanese or Japanese-Americans in the United States. Of these, 112,000 lived on the West Coast. Originally, they were much needed on ranches and on large truck and fruit farms, but, as they came in greater numbers, people began to discover that they were competitors in the labor field.

The people of California began to be afraid of Japanese importation, so the Exclusion Act was passed in 1924. No people of the Oriental race could become citizens of the United States by naturalization, and no quota was given to the Oriental nations in the Pacific.

This happened because, in one part of our country, they were feared as competitors, and the rest of our country knew them so little and cared so little about them that they did not even think about the principle that we in this country believe in: that of equal rights for all human beings.

We granted no citizenship to Orientals, so now we have a group of people (some of whom have been here as long as fifty years) who have not been able to become citizens under our laws. Long before the war, an old Japanese man told me that he had great-grandchildren born in this country and that he had never been back to Japan; all that he cared about was here on the soil of the United States, and yet he could not become a citizen.

...

Understandable bitterness against the Japanese is aggravated by the old-time economic fear on the West Coast and the unreasoning racial feeling which certain people, through ignorance, have always had wherever they came in contact with people who were different from themselves.

[Froward69]

68. The short answer is

FDR was a traitor to his "class".
(in a supposed classless society)
the depression redistributed wealth. FDR did not stop that, instead he worked for all Americans to succeed financially. Not just the wealthy.

[salguine]

79. It might be worth noting that as far as "he trashed the constitution and used the excuse...

...that it was WarTime...That so sounds like George Bush's rationale", FDR didn't START his war.

[Fire1]

89. Damned straight.

[YOY]

82. In a pond of honey we only see the turd floating in the corner.

And the Japanese imprisonment was a turd...better to remember the honey though.

[progressoid]

83. Gee wiz, is this a not too overt way to get Obama off the hook for one of his recent decisions?

:eyes:

[Captain Hilts]

84. Funny, I know.

Sad, because it's a subject that would make an interesting conversation.

But too often it's just about personality here. That goes for FDR supporters and Obama supporters. It's a lot like the Reagan cult.

[TBF]

86. Exactly what I was thinking. FDR wasn't progressive & he was forced

by the citizens to enact the New Deal. We will need to do the same to Obama if we want to see results.

[Captain Hilts]

87. FDR certainly was a progressive, his track record shows that, but he sometimes...

permitted electoral politics to prevail.

For example, there is NO reason on earth why he shouldn't have come out in favor of the anti-lynching bill.

But he truly was a progressive, but also a politician.

[TBF]

91. I still have trouble with calling him a progressive, but I guess it depends

upon how you define the word. Locking up Japanese, German, and Italian Americans wasn't the most progressive thing done in our history.

[Captain Hilts]

96. No, it wasn't progressive. It was reactive. But...

he did understand that our country - and the world - screwed the Little Guy.

As a Harvard undergraduate he sided with the Boers against the British in the Boer War. NOT a popular stance in Cambridge.

He worked with under-privileged kids.

He married Eleanor. Remember, TR said that Eleanor was more like himself than any of his own kids and that's why he gave her a chunk of the change he won with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Getting polio underlined the difference between the advantages and opportunities of the rich and poor to him. Seeing the rural poverty of Georgia was a real shock as well, hence the Rural Electrification Administration because rural people paid FAR higher electricity rates than urban folks.

He was, throughout his life and presidency, adamantly against colonialism and used to stick it to Churchill on that issue frequently.

Reading about his time as Governor shows how some of the New Deal programs were given a trial run. Things like the CCC, etc.

He didn't surround himself with folks like Eleanor, Harold Ickes, Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins by accident. He worked with Sen. Robert Wagner to get things like the Wagner act passed - as another means to stick it to wealthy industrialists.

FDR also had actually started integrating the military before his death. There's an interesting letter from the Sec. of the Navy to FDR about the surprising success of using black personnel as replacements on white crews, for example.

But FDR does disappoint at times: the anti-lynching bill, the tight money policy of 1937 that created another recession, not supporting the anti-Fascists in the Spanish Civil War, the internment of ALL Japanese no matter what.

[wyldwolf]

98. he wasn't a progressive as it's defined today

Progressives of that time were at political odds with FDR.

[Captain Hilts]

100. He was no Norman Thomas, but he still remains our most progressive president.

Pushing the Wagner Act to empower unions.

Social Security.

De-segregation of govt. buildings and programs.

The GI Bill

Being a fervent anti-colonialist and pushing for the creation of the UN over an Anglo-American post-war alliance.

[progressoid]

88. Yep - Bad decisions are bad decisions regardless of the party or the leader.

I like to think that we on the left are a little better at seeing beyond the party or the person, but clearly that ain't always true.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

85. people excuse things given the time period.

the new deal helped him cement his place in history

when it comes to civil rights of minority groups we seem to be a rather lenient people and excuse politicians for being as bigoted as other people at the time. we dont expect them to risk things (like the idea of safety) to uphold civil rights.

[Undercurrent]

90. .

This is a good post that generated an informative conversation with some honest efforts to be objective. It is possible to have a discussion abut a Democratic President, past or present, without "fuck the President" invectives often tossed around.

[dalaigh lllama]

93. No excuses, but it was a completely different mindset back then.

The ideas of "race purity" were popular everywhere, not just with Hitler. There were examples here in the states of sterilizing folks who had limited mental capacities, for example. And actually, I think we have Eisenhower to thank for the powerful backlash against this. When he entered Hitler's death camps, he made sure that what he found was documented on film and reported widely because he knew it was so awful no one would believe it. Eugenics was quite popular before WWII, but was dropped like a hot potato afterwards once people saw how far it had been taken by Hitler.

My mother used to talk a lot about WWII. She was not a bigoted person for the most part, but she still had a hatred for the Japanese that I could never fathom. When I would ask her why not a hatred for the Germans, she would cite the attack on Pearl Harbor as the "reasoning." Now, the interesting thing about the WWII hatred of the Japanese over and above what folks felt about the Germans, there are and were by then millions of people of German descent here in the states, including my dad's family. There was a stigma at the time if you had a Germanic name, but not the fear and hatred like folks had of the Japanese. My dad's family described themselves as descendants of the "Pennsylvania Dutch;" my elderly aunt told me she had no idea they were actually German until much later. But Japanese? Not quite so many, so it was a lot easier to single them out as the hated enemy and isolate them. German Americans just looked too much like "real" (aka, Caucasian) Americans to single out, and there were way, way too many of them.

Given the mindset of the time, it's not surprising that FDR did what he did; we've progressed to the point in our moral consciousness where the internment of all American Muslims after 9/11 would not have been condoned by the public, but what happened was worse: random Muslims were rounded up around the world and imprisoned with no transparency and therefore no accountability for their treatment. We Americans are a lot like the Germans during WWII -- if we don't actually see the atrocities occurring, we can ignore them in our day-to-day lives. I think the videos, the torture memos, everything not only needs to come out, but Americans should be forced to really LOOK at what we've done, as Eisenhower forced the German citizens to do at the death camps. Only then will we as a nation begin truly regretting and atoning for what has been done in our name.

[berni_mccoy]

95. Frenchie Hits It Outta the Park. I see MANY Obama-bashers apologizing for FDR in this thread

the same ones criticizing Obama for not prosecuting agents or former admin officials for torture.

Yes, I am very disappointed with Obama's decision, but to see the hypocrites lining up in this thread is very entertaining.

[Captain Hilts]

97. You need to read my threads criticizing some of FDR's stands.

Obama, like FDR, is a politician.

It's that simple.

[Two Americas]

106. you have got to be kidding

Good thing you were not around back then, or you would have been very angry with yourself for posting something like this about our leader.


...

[CTLawGuy]

107. deleted

unfair on my part.

I appreciate the point that there are negatives about every president, even ones we like.

[Vidar]

108. The New Deal & Eleanor.

[Captain Hilts]

112. Two good reasons.

http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/documents/articles/challengetoamerican.cfm

I can well understand the bitterness of people who have lost loved ones at the hands of the Japanese military authorities, and we know that the totalitarian philosophy, whether it is in Nazi Germany or in Japan, is one of cruelty and brutality. It is not hard to understand why people living here in hourly anxiety for those they love have difficulty in viewing our Japanese problem objectively, but for the honor of our country, the rest of us must do so...

[bunkerbuster1]

109. I sure am glad you're just now thinking about this.

Yours is a bright and original mind.

[ZombieHorde]

120. Are you threatened by people pointing out FDR's race camps?

[newspeak]

111. just memories from a college history class

I actually did a paper on the Japanese-American internment camps. Before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, there was a lot of yellow journalism coming from the Hearst paper in Calfifornia. Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, I believe it's the Nissei, who collect names of Japanese-Americans who may have ties or allegiance to Japan. FDR sent an agent to California to investigate possible Japense-American groups that may be aligning with Japan. What he reported to FDR was that most of the Japanese-American community were loyal Americans and he had caught one man (a German Nazi) attempting to recruit Japanese-Americans. But the media at that time, as well as today, continued with the "scary" stories about the Japanese-Americans. FDR's decision for the internment camps was actually influenced by an anthropology professor who told him that even though these are American citizens, maybe born in America, that their very culture influenced their loyalty to the emperor (another words, pure bullshit racism).

My boss once told me his father loved Hitler, would go down to the park in L.A. where they had a podium, and his father would espouse the virtues of Hitler and fascism. Remember Madison Square Gardens in NY, the huge "Nazi" rally? There were Americans in this country, industrialists in this country who very much supported fascism (nazism). Hitler actually thought he could garner enough support in the US to sway the country to Germany's side. Well, that was before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the pact between Germany and Japan was initiated. I mean, we had enough bigots in this country that would have loved the concept of aryan supremacy.

I wanted to do a research paper on the possibility of the US aligning with Germany because of the Nazi sympathizers in this country, and the various corporations feeding monetary aid to Germany and Italy. Also, I would have included the business plot. If the coup had succeeded, would those who were controlling behind the scenes align themselves with Germany?

[WinkyDink]

116. Well, Prescott Bush's son and grandson DID become Presidents, so what coup failed, exactly?

[Norrin Radd]

114. Jonathan Alter's recent book:

The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, covers this subject, of the reality versus the legend. Alter is currently working on a similar book on President Obama's first hundred days, if I'm not mistaken.

[ZombieHorde]

118. How many movies made in the U.S. have a male romanatic lead

who is both Japanese and doesn't know how to fight?

[muryan]

119. We aren't making perfect the enemy of good

FDR made mistakes, but he did more to create class in this country than any other president. Unions thrived and so did our country

[boomerbust]

121. Maybe he did it

For the protection of Japanese Americans?

[Thothmes]

122. I would doubt that it was done with the idea of protecting

Japanese Americans. However, I think that it did. After photos of dead Americans started showing up in the news papers in 1943, I could easily see mobs of Americans looking for people of Japanese heritage to reek revenge on.

[Captain Hilts]

123. That is how it was explained to the US people and had a teensie bit of veracity as there...

was a lot of hostility against the Japanese.

[aceofspades]

124. He brought Social Security and Welfare assistance to the poor and elders

As for the intrernment camps, they can be compared to the denial of Habeas Corpus to Bagram detainees in Afghanistan.

[county worker]

125. You judge a president by the results of his administration not one decision.

He was also against Marion Anderson's singing and did not support desegregation.

But compared to the result of many administrations he did great things for the working class people.

On another note:

When are we going to get around to completing the DU liberal manifesto so that we can all have a yardstick to judge each other's liberalism as to it's purity and so that we all know how to think and how to stay in line with the liberal ideology? Shouldn't we catch up the the right wing who live by their conservative manifesto and ideology? Isn't that why they were so successful in the last election?

[FrenchieCat]

128. I'm not sure what this thread has to do with your "note".....as

it appears that there are many diverse opinions here about a President from years ago. Why don't you tell us about what your idea of a "Liberal Ideology" is in a thread, and I'll be happy to weigh in as to my opinion. After all, you are the one that you have been waiting for! :)

[county worker]

129. I just think that if we want to base Roosevelt's liberalism on the internment of the Japanese

perhaps we need a yardstick to measure all of our actions then we can be sure who is liberal enough and who isn't.

Or in other words I think you OP sucks!

[FrenchieCat]

134. Then you should have just said what you thought.....

Instead of the criptic double talk!

Far as I'm concerned, my point is that no President has been perfect, including one that
has been held up as a model of progressivism by purists. My point was aimed at those who
do judge presidencies based on one issue that they felt was handled differently than how
they personally feel it ought to be handled.

So yeah....FDR was not perfect, and neither will Obama be perfect.

As far as to what you are talking about, I'm still not sure.

[county worker]

135. I like to use cryptic. I get a little pissed at Duers who need to determine

who is liberal and who isn't. The one that comes to mind is who ever drives a SUV can't be liberal.

There are a ton of other ones here.

That's what the wing nuts on the right do to each other. We don't need to do that to ourselves.

I just hate that kind of thinking.


We needn't judge Obama by some liberal yard stick either. Let's look at the total result of his being President. Of course that is my existential view point coming out.

Criticize him all you want but don't measure him by some vague liberal standard.

[Thothmes]

136. He also authorized the assassination

of foreign leaders

[Hekate]

126. FDR was a great president, not a perfect saint. The US should learn from his & other's mistakes...

... but he was still a great president.

Frenchie, I've known about the American Japanese internment camps since I could talk. When my parents were newlyweds (1946) they lived in a transitional trailer park -- a place where Japanese Americans were living courtesy of Uncle Sam while they tried to get their old lives back. As they moved on, white people with no money (like my newlywed parents) moved in. It was still mostly Japanese American at that time though. I don't know what part of the LA Basin it was in; my dad worked at Lockheed Burbank though.

I was born the next year. Since I was a fat little baby my eyes appeared to have an epicanthic fold; the fairly short-lived family joke was it was because of where I was conceived. A short-lived joke with a very serious point: in the same breath that she relayed it, my mother told me how those other people came to live in that trailer park and how unjust she thought it was. When some group started a petition drive to allow the displaced Japanese Americans to keep their trailers rather than having to move on with nothing, my mom carried that petition. I don't know the results.

Yes, FDR perpetrated a grave injustice, or allowed it to be done, and it's not the only thing he did wrong in his life. I'm no apologist for his wrong actions.

Yes, despite that FDR was a great president.

No, I don't think our concentration camps should ever be conflated with those of the Nazis. I know Holocaust survivors and am related to some by marriage. The US did not sink to that level of barbarity.

The US Congress made a paltry monetary restitution in 1988, but the biggest point of the bill was that a branch of the federal government formally acknowledged the wrongs of a previous generation. Americans need to remember such things.

For some other perspective here's a Salon article about the current efforts of the right-wing smear machine to take down yet another Democratic president -- because we now have in office another president who could carry forward a humane social and economic agenda, and that threatens the right-wing.

Hekate

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/02/02/the_new_deal_worked/print.html


The right-wing New Deal conniption fit
Revisionist historians and economists keep trying to stomp on FDR's legacy. But declaring that WPA workers were unemployed is just silly.
Andrew Leonard
Feb. 02, 2009 |
For the editors of the Wall Street Journal, the spectacle of a major government spending program aimed at combating a severe recession is evidently a nightmare beyond belief, complete with a popular interventionist-leaning president, Democratic majorities in both the Senate and the House, and, scariest of all, a legion of zombie back-from-the-dead Keynesian economist holy warriors. How else to explain the paper's increasingly shrill declarations that the New Deal absolutely, positively did not work?
The latest salvo came Monday morning in a piece by two economists, Harold L. Cole and Lee. E. Ohanian: "How Government Prolonged the Depression."
>snip<

[FrenchieCat]

127. Thank you!

Actually, I am very happy to see this thread receive this many intelligent and informative responses. I love these kinds of discussions and debates!

[Arkana]

130. FDR, one could argue, is the father of the modern Democratic Party

a lot more than Andrew Jackson, the ACTUAL founder.

It was he who really solidified the identity of the party as it exists today--between the two Roosevelt presidencies, both parties kinda had identity crises.

[IndianaGreen]

137. Without FDR, America would have become an ally of Nazi Germany

There was strong support for Hitler and fascism in America before Pearl Harbor. Industrialists such as Henry Ford, media magnates such as William Hearst, entertainers such as Walt Disney, politicians such as Prescott Bush and Joseph Kennedy Sr., and national heroes such as Charles Lindbergh were among thousands of America that admired how Hitler had dealt with the "Reds" in Germany and wanted America to remain isolationist.

The GOP would have impeached FDR at the drop of a hat had they known of FDR's circumvention of Neutrality Act to help England against Hitler at the hour of her greatest need.

FDR saved this nation from suffering the fate of Europe at the hands of Hitler. The Holocaust would have remained a secret, except to the countless millions of additional victims from the Americas.

[MellowDem]

138. Nah...

too much of a stretch. Support was strongly for the Allies, FDR or not.

[IndianaGreen]

139. According to Gallup, over 62% of Americans opposed war with Germany prior to Pearl Harbor

Before Pearl Harbor, U.S. public opinion opposed a declaration of war on Germany by a margin that fluctuated approximately between 70 and 80 percent, as Wayne Cole, an authority on isolationism, has repeatedly noted. This number never dipped below 63 percent, according to the Gallup poll, but as Time magazine reported, during the weeks before Pearl Harbor interventionist sentiment was actually on the decline.

After December 7, and for the first time, the number of Americans in favor of a declaration of war against Germany outweighted those opposed.

http://books.google.com/books?id=61WMf6XRVT8C&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=german+support+in+US+before+Pearl+Harbor&source=bl&ots=N5YLwAGQhG&sig=-eSpxJkCEW3biZnUUruaanGDFEE&hl=en&ei=JLHvSYOSLMGEtweLtNzDDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5

[MellowDem]

140. That's true...

Americans didn't want to join in the war. Doesn't mean they weren't supporting the Allies. They were isolationist, not Fascist.

[IndianaGreen]

141. And England would have fallen to Germany

and we would have been forced to make peace with Hitler to avoid a similar fate, and I would have never been born, my parents being killed in a concentration camp.

[ShadowLiberal]

142. FDR was the fiscal/economic poster boy of a lot of things liberal, but he wasn't on social issues

Another big thing to keep in mind, in FDR's time the democratic party's biggest base of support was the south, it was a different party then.

I don't think there's really any president who liberals would say was a poster boy of social liberalism with their policies and what they accomplished.

You could argue Lyndon Johnson was the big social liberalism hero more then any other president given the significance of the civil rights act he signed into law, knowing full well that it could cost his party it's southern base. That shows he was fighting for the moral purpose of equality for all even knowing the political costs of it.

I suppose you could also make a case for Lincoln being a person who accomplished big social liberal goals with ending slavery, but then since he was a war president he did stuff like the draft, and stuffing southern POW in over crowded jails for holding enemy soldiers, that kind of puts a dent on his socially liberal accomplishments.