The First Hundred Days or the Last Hundred Days? Obama's Rendezvous With Destiny - and Ours
Tuesday 09 December 2008
by: Ira Chernus, TomDispatch.com
Tuesday 09 December 2008
by: Ira Chernus, TomDispatch.com
'Looking back on Barack Obama's first post-election interview with "60 Minutes," no one should be surprised that he admitted he's reading about Franklin D. Roosevelt's first hundred days in office. In fact, the president-elect - evidently taking no chances - is reportedly reading two books: Jonathan Alter's The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope and Jean Edward Smith's FDR. As he told "Sixty Minutes," his administration will emulate FDR's "willingness to try things and experiment... If something doesn't work, [we're] gonna try something else until [we] find something that does." That's one reason Obama, like FDR, has claimed that he wants advisors who will offer him a wide variety of viewpoints.
Not too wide, however. In his first hundred days, Roosevelt made it clear that he - like Obama - considered himself a reformer, but distinctly not a radical. He certainly didn't intend to use the economic crisis of 1932 to create a society of full economic equality and social justice. He just wanted to make sure that every American had at least a bare minimum of economic security.
FDR's overriding goal was, in reality, to head off movements for fundamental change. As he wrote privately before he became president, it was "time for the country to become fairly radical," but only "for a generation" - because "history shows that where this occurs occasionally, nations are saved from revolution."
"There will be a gain throughout our country of communistic thought," Roosevelt also warned, "unless we can keep democracy up to its old ideals and its original purposes." Years later, he would boast that his greatest achievement was saving the capitalist system.
Obama ended his "Sixty Minutes" interview on a similar note: "Our basic principle that this is a free market system and that that has worked for us, that it creates innovation and risk taking, I think that's a principle that we've gotta hold to." Though he talks about the benefits of "spreading the wealth around," like his famous predecessor, he most certainly doesn't want to spread it too fast or too far, nor does his team of economic advisers.
But the president-elect may be reading the wrong history. Perhaps, instead of reading about Roosevelt's first hundred days, he should read Chapter 16 of Smith's FDR, which describes how growing political pressure kept Roosevelt looking over his left shoulder. By 1934, new labor organizations like the Congress of Industrial Organizations, charismatic leaders like Louisiana's Governor Huey Long, and social innovators like California physician Francis Townsend were offering concrete plans to spread the wealth far faster and wider than Roosevelt's New Deal ever would. Continuing economic catastrophe, fused with the mood of hope and change that he himself had stirred up, gave rise to the threat that the president might be unseated if he did not move leftwards.'
Not too wide, however. In his first hundred days, Roosevelt made it clear that he - like Obama - considered himself a reformer, but distinctly not a radical. He certainly didn't intend to use the economic crisis of 1932 to create a society of full economic equality and social justice. He just wanted to make sure that every American had at least a bare minimum of economic security.
FDR's overriding goal was, in reality, to head off movements for fundamental change. As he wrote privately before he became president, it was "time for the country to become fairly radical," but only "for a generation" - because "history shows that where this occurs occasionally, nations are saved from revolution."
"There will be a gain throughout our country of communistic thought," Roosevelt also warned, "unless we can keep democracy up to its old ideals and its original purposes." Years later, he would boast that his greatest achievement was saving the capitalist system.
Obama ended his "Sixty Minutes" interview on a similar note: "Our basic principle that this is a free market system and that that has worked for us, that it creates innovation and risk taking, I think that's a principle that we've gotta hold to." Though he talks about the benefits of "spreading the wealth around," like his famous predecessor, he most certainly doesn't want to spread it too fast or too far, nor does his team of economic advisers.
But the president-elect may be reading the wrong history. Perhaps, instead of reading about Roosevelt's first hundred days, he should read Chapter 16 of Smith's FDR, which describes how growing political pressure kept Roosevelt looking over his left shoulder. By 1934, new labor organizations like the Congress of Industrial Organizations, charismatic leaders like Louisiana's Governor Huey Long, and social innovators like California physician Francis Townsend were offering concrete plans to spread the wealth far faster and wider than Roosevelt's New Deal ever would. Continuing economic catastrophe, fused with the mood of hope and change that he himself had stirred up, gave rise to the threat that the president might be unseated if he did not move leftwards.'
Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/121008K
2 opmerkingen:
Obama is not the bad guy. In fact, he's helping us by lowering the cost of money for people, increasing grant funds, and more as a bailout package for us.
Our Bailout
Sure dude.
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