The Fundamental Difference Between Obama & The New Deal & Great Society Predecessors

[kpete]

The more fundamental difference between the Obama era and its New Deal and Great Society predecessors is this: Back then, progressives did not define the left end of the political spectrum. In the 1930s and 1960s, America featured honest-to-goodness alternatives to capitalism, home-grown radical movements that scared the crap out of the American establishment and sent some of its denizens scurrying into arms of reformers like FDR and LBJ. Because our entire ideological spectrum has shifted right since communism’s collapse, reforms that once looked like centrist compromises now look like the brainchild of Chairman Mao.

In the 1930s, some of America’s most prominent intellectuals saw communism as a serious alternative to Depression-era capitalism. (One reason so many writers and artists got in trouble during the McCarthyite scare of the early 1950s was that so many had flirted with pro-communist groups during FDR’s presidency). And while American communism never became a mass movement, the Depression years birthed home-spun assaults on capitalism that were almost as frightening.

more:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-12/peter-beinart-on-why-liberals-are-down-on-obama/?cid=hp:mainpromo6

[FBI_Un_Sub]

1. True statement of history

[burnsei sensei]

2. Obama, along with Herbert Hoover,

believes in two things:
volunteerism and
corporatism.

FDR used the force of law and his own sense of direction.
Obama uses the force of nothing.

[bobbolink]

3. There is absolutely nothing in your post that can be argued.

Its to cry. :cry:

We need us some Mother Jones!

[roguevalley]

5. FDR did the right thing because he didn't want people to die

in the streets. Now its all about triangulation and re-election. Read Traitor to his Class. Great book.

RV, a FDR democrat to the bone.

[MisterP]

4. most of the New Dealers were purged: by 1948 Truman had so heated up the Cold War that

Henry Wallace warmed up the Progressive Party, but Strum Thurmond's run chased many back to Truman, who lifted the Progs' platform

in the 50s, the "center" was defined as what was American, and "extremists" were thus anti-American, tarring Reds and Klansmen as brothers under the skin

things moved further right with the late 70s: the rise of the neocons, Raygun's Cold Warriors, the Volcker Memo, rightist think-tanks and propaganda mills (now we have JunkScience and the El Mozote deniers at Accuracy in Media, joined by scores of media heads from Penn and Teller to Michelle Malkin

the DLC was the cherry on the dog-poo sundae, moving the Dems to the right after Gingrich moved the GOP, all the while citing Dems' (shrinking) accomplishments

in 2000, if someone told the average center-conservative that we'd be entusiastically torturing and assassinating, they'd have screamed that they hated America; when such atrocities were conducted, they then cheered them on

in 2008, if someone told the average non-lefty non-Palinoid that they were enthusiastically supporting an opponent of healthcare, clean power, peace, and Social Security, they'd have screamed that they were a Rovian stooge; when such policies were enacted, they cheered them on