Book Review
Freedom From Fear: The American People In Depression And War; 1929-1945, The Oxford History Of The United States, David M. Kennedy, Oxford University Press, New York, 1999
Over the course of the past several years I have mentioned many things about both my own generation, the Generation of ’68 (read: the beginning of the baby-boomer curve), and that of my parents. Probably more readers today are familiar with the political turmoil churned up by my generation, have seen or read about the 1960s and the “hippie counterculture, or have been thrust into the center of various “culture wars” that have been fought in reaction to those times for the last forty years or so. As my parents’ generation, the generation who lived through the hard times of the Great Depression of the 1930s, a period that has been the subject of many comparisons with today’s economic mess, and who fought a war, a “good” war in their eyes, have begun to pass away in great numbers that story may not be as fresh to today’s reader.
Needless to say as part of a generic Oxford History of The United States this volume , Freedom From Fear, by David Kennedy is heavy on the macro-history of the period in its eight hundred plus pages. While that may not be enough, not nearly enough for those who want to learn the lessons of the history of this period I believe that as a general primer in order to get the flavor of the periods explored that this is an excellent primer, for the general reader and budding specialist. I might add here that Professor Kennedy has aided the reader’s cause by keeping a light hand on the story line and in keeping the sometimes bewildering mass of material in an orderly manner. And always appreciated, especially in eight hundred page tomes, the footnotes are on the same page as they are cited, a practice that a great many scholarly works could benefit from.
No one, historian or lay reader, can speak of the period from 1929-1945 in America without recognizing the central figure of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In my household for my parents’ generation, and their parents’ generation, the name evoked a living god. Although this book bring FDR back to earth a little, especially over some of his more bureaucratic moves, like trying to pack the Supreme Court, he still mainly comes off as the hero of my family household remembrances.
Professor Kennedy takes us through the reasons for that positive image as he starts with the economic and political atmosphere in America in the late 1920s, the great Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the policies of FDR’s predecessor, Herbert Hoover, that were either too little too late or too benign to be effective. After a few years of the Hoover policy FDR (read: non-Hoover) looked pretty good. At least his ideas for putting a massively unemployed nation back to work held out promise. Kennedy also spends much time on the general condition of the country, who was being listened to, who had the ear of the people and who was just spinning wheels, as FDR entered office.
Then we are taken on a long stretch through the various alphabet soups of agencies and programs that FDR and his cohorts tried to implement in order to get things moving and that is the theme that carries the book through most of the 1930s up until the war rumblings from Europe started. The most central proposition that Professor Kennedy (and not he alone) pushes forth, and he is basically correct, is that no amount of tinkering to save the capitalist system by FDR and his programs really broke the back of unemployment and resolved the central problem of economic turmoil in America. That was not resolved until the massive buildup of armaments for World War II put people back to work.
FDR’s domestic program takes up about one half of the book, the other half, and to my mind the less fruitful part takes up the struggle for America’s entry into World War II against the very strong isolationist tendencies here and then, once war was inevitable, the various strategies to win the European and Pacific component of the war. Professor Kennedy does a good job of running through the various controversies, at home and with foreign allies, and the order of battles on each front up to the decisive one of using the atomic bomb against the Japanese.
For the most part reading through this broad history of the period reminded me of my high school readings from this period. But history is a moving target and thus Professor Kennedy, as befits later research and a tip of the hat to the modern trend toward the concerns of micro-history, addresses several issues that never saw the light of day back then. Among them the controversy over the “wisdom” of using the atomic bomb, the placing of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps (along with a legal imprimatur from the Supreme Court) , the segregation of blacks soldiers in the military, the role of women in war production and the governmental bureaucracy and the labor movement’s attitude toward the war. I do wish that Professor Kennedy had spent a little more time on life at the base of society during this whole period (as opposed to reports about what some government official thought was happening at the base). But for that kind of thing you can run over to Studs Terkel’s The Good War or other such compilation. For an outstanding primer on the period though, this is your stop,
Showing posts with label FDR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FDR. Show all posts
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
From The SteveLendmanBlog-Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights
Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 28 Oct 2010
his economic bill of rights
Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights - by Stephen Lendman
Ferdinand Lundberg's "Cracks in the Constitution" deconstructed what framers, in fact, created, men he equated with a Wall Street crowd, given their economic status and prominence as bankers, merchants, lawyers, politicians, judges, and overall wheeler-dealers. In 1787, they convened for their own interests, not the general welfare as most people believe.
As a result, they produced no "masterpiece of political architecture (falling far short of) one great apotheosis (bathed) in quasi-religious light," as Lundberg masterfully explained. His book, if not the Constitution, is an epic work, must reading about America's most important document, the Bill of Rights added belatedly in the first 10 Amendments, again not for reasons commonly believed.
They protected property owners, not ordinary people, who wanted:
-- free speech, press, religion, assembly and petition rights for their interests, not "The People;"
-- due process of law and speedy public trials for themselves if charged;
-- quartering troops in their homes or on their land prohibited;
-- protection from unreasonable searches and seizures;
-- the right to have state militias protect them;
-- the right to bear arms, but not the way the 2nd Amendment today is interpreted; and
-- and various other rights for them, privileged elites who, like today, lied, connived, misinterpreted, misrepresented, and pretty much operated as they wished for their own self-interest, law or no law.
Yet, the Constitution is hailed as the "supreme law of the land," including its 27 Amendments, the last one first proposed on September 25, 1789 (no typo), enacted over 200 years later on May 7, 1992, preventing congressional salaries from taking effect until the beginning of the next term.
Franklin Roosevelt's Proposed Economic Bill of Rights
On January 11, 1944, in his last State of the Union Address, Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights, saying the initial one "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." His solution: an "economic bill of rights," guaranteeing:
-- employment with a living wage;
-- freedom from unfair competition and monopolies;
-- housing;
-- medical care;
-- education; and
-- social security, overall what he provided inadequately in his first 11 years, except for measures like the 1935 Wagner Act letting workers, for the first time, bargain collectively on even terms with management, and the landmark Social Security Act, keeping millions of retirees, disabled, and qualified survivors from the ravages of poverty.
These benefits are fast eroding today, Obama administration neoliberal ideologues wanting social benefits slashed, and Social Security and Medicare privatized so Wall Street racketeers can pillage them for profit until nothing's left for the needy.
Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform will recommend austerity measures during Congress' lame duck session. Legislation will likely follow, focusing heavily on Medicare and Social Security, gutting them over time, leaving millions high and dry. What Roosevelt proposed but couldn't implement, the entire Washington establishment plans to take away, cleverly so most people won't notice until it's too late to matter.
With WW II nearly won, Roosevelt stressed focusing the nation's energies and resources on finishing it, suggesting among other measures:
-- "A realistic tax law - which will tax all unreasonable profit," corporate and individual;
-- "A cost of food law" with floor and ceiling limits on prices; and
-- reenactment of the October 1942 stabilization statute, pertaining to prices, wages and salaries affecting the cost of living.
He continued saying:
"We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made."
"In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security can be established for all - regardless of station, race, or creed." He then listed what he meant, covering:
"Opportunity.
The right to a useful and remunerative job.
The right to a good education.
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies.
Security.
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.
The right of every family to a decent home.
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation."
Though partly implemented at best, they were positive recommendations, mirror opposite of policies under both parties since the 1980s, and Obama's proposed austerity at a time stimulus is desperately needed.
For example, the 1944 Servicemen's Readjustment Act (the GI Bill) provided college or vocational education for 7.8 million returning vets plus a year of unemployment compensation. In addition, 2.4 million got VA-backed low-interest, no down payment home loans at a time their average cost was under $5,000, enabling millions of families to afford them, many with government help.
Roosevelt called his proposal "security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these happiness and well-being" measures in the interest of democracy, humanity, fairness, justice, and a nation discharging its responsibilities for all its citizens equitably.
Today, these ideas are lost at a time of an unprecedented wealth gap, and officials ignoring essential needs by growing millions, on their own and out of luck because both major parties spurn them.
Instead they focus on imperial wars, handouts to bankers and other corporate favorites, repressive laws, and eroding freedoms, destroying them one at a time or in bunches, creating banana republic harshness in their place.
FDR's prescription was different, a patrician who gave back to save capitalism with policies mirror opposite of today's that will end up destroying it and America - its political and economic dominance, afterwards its military might when little money's left to fund it, then bankruptcy when it's gone, leaving only a short epitaph saying rest in peace.
Perhaps humanity will then exhale, absent America's belligerence and no shyness unleashing it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 28 Oct 2010
his economic bill of rights
Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights - by Stephen Lendman
Ferdinand Lundberg's "Cracks in the Constitution" deconstructed what framers, in fact, created, men he equated with a Wall Street crowd, given their economic status and prominence as bankers, merchants, lawyers, politicians, judges, and overall wheeler-dealers. In 1787, they convened for their own interests, not the general welfare as most people believe.
As a result, they produced no "masterpiece of political architecture (falling far short of) one great apotheosis (bathed) in quasi-religious light," as Lundberg masterfully explained. His book, if not the Constitution, is an epic work, must reading about America's most important document, the Bill of Rights added belatedly in the first 10 Amendments, again not for reasons commonly believed.
They protected property owners, not ordinary people, who wanted:
-- free speech, press, religion, assembly and petition rights for their interests, not "The People;"
-- due process of law and speedy public trials for themselves if charged;
-- quartering troops in their homes or on their land prohibited;
-- protection from unreasonable searches and seizures;
-- the right to have state militias protect them;
-- the right to bear arms, but not the way the 2nd Amendment today is interpreted; and
-- and various other rights for them, privileged elites who, like today, lied, connived, misinterpreted, misrepresented, and pretty much operated as they wished for their own self-interest, law or no law.
Yet, the Constitution is hailed as the "supreme law of the land," including its 27 Amendments, the last one first proposed on September 25, 1789 (no typo), enacted over 200 years later on May 7, 1992, preventing congressional salaries from taking effect until the beginning of the next term.
Franklin Roosevelt's Proposed Economic Bill of Rights
On January 11, 1944, in his last State of the Union Address, Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights, saying the initial one "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." His solution: an "economic bill of rights," guaranteeing:
-- employment with a living wage;
-- freedom from unfair competition and monopolies;
-- housing;
-- medical care;
-- education; and
-- social security, overall what he provided inadequately in his first 11 years, except for measures like the 1935 Wagner Act letting workers, for the first time, bargain collectively on even terms with management, and the landmark Social Security Act, keeping millions of retirees, disabled, and qualified survivors from the ravages of poverty.
These benefits are fast eroding today, Obama administration neoliberal ideologues wanting social benefits slashed, and Social Security and Medicare privatized so Wall Street racketeers can pillage them for profit until nothing's left for the needy.
Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform will recommend austerity measures during Congress' lame duck session. Legislation will likely follow, focusing heavily on Medicare and Social Security, gutting them over time, leaving millions high and dry. What Roosevelt proposed but couldn't implement, the entire Washington establishment plans to take away, cleverly so most people won't notice until it's too late to matter.
With WW II nearly won, Roosevelt stressed focusing the nation's energies and resources on finishing it, suggesting among other measures:
-- "A realistic tax law - which will tax all unreasonable profit," corporate and individual;
-- "A cost of food law" with floor and ceiling limits on prices; and
-- reenactment of the October 1942 stabilization statute, pertaining to prices, wages and salaries affecting the cost of living.
He continued saying:
"We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made."
"In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security can be established for all - regardless of station, race, or creed." He then listed what he meant, covering:
"Opportunity.
The right to a useful and remunerative job.
The right to a good education.
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies.
Security.
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.
The right of every family to a decent home.
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation."
Though partly implemented at best, they were positive recommendations, mirror opposite of policies under both parties since the 1980s, and Obama's proposed austerity at a time stimulus is desperately needed.
For example, the 1944 Servicemen's Readjustment Act (the GI Bill) provided college or vocational education for 7.8 million returning vets plus a year of unemployment compensation. In addition, 2.4 million got VA-backed low-interest, no down payment home loans at a time their average cost was under $5,000, enabling millions of families to afford them, many with government help.
Roosevelt called his proposal "security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these happiness and well-being" measures in the interest of democracy, humanity, fairness, justice, and a nation discharging its responsibilities for all its citizens equitably.
Today, these ideas are lost at a time of an unprecedented wealth gap, and officials ignoring essential needs by growing millions, on their own and out of luck because both major parties spurn them.
Instead they focus on imperial wars, handouts to bankers and other corporate favorites, repressive laws, and eroding freedoms, destroying them one at a time or in bunches, creating banana republic harshness in their place.
FDR's prescription was different, a patrician who gave back to save capitalism with policies mirror opposite of today's that will end up destroying it and America - its political and economic dominance, afterwards its military might when little money's left to fund it, then bankruptcy when it's gone, leaving only a short epitaph saying rest in peace.
Perhaps humanity will then exhale, absent America's belligerence and no shyness unleashing it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com
This work is in the public domain
Friday, February 20, 2009
Roosevelt and the New Deal: The Last Gasp The Last Time
DVD REVIEW
FDR: American Experience, four part series, PBS, 1994
The economic news of the past several months has created a virtual cottage industry of commentators whose comparative references to the Great Depression of the 1930’s has made it almost a commonplace. Also common are comparisons of the tasks that confronted the subject of this documentary, the 32nd President of The Unites States Franklin Delano Roosevelt (hereafter FDR), and those that confront the 2008 election victor the President-elect Barack Obama, who seemingly has that same kind of broad mandate,. Thus, as is my habit, I went scurrying to find a suitable documentary that would refresh my memory about the decisive role that FDR played back then as the last gasp “savior” of the American capitalist economic system.
An added impetus to do that search was the recent passing of the legendary oral historian, Studs Terkel, whose bread and butter was to capture the memories of the generation that was most influenced by FDR’s policies has been the subject of many reviews of late by this writer. Apparently then a biographic refresher on FDR seemed to be written in the stars. I found, for a quick overview of this subject, the perfect place to start is this American Experience four- part production on the life, loves, trials, tribulations and influence of this seminal American bourgeois politician.
That said, if one is looking for an in-depth analysis of the role that FDR played in saving the capitalist system in America in the 1930’s, or the concurrent rise of the imperial presidency under his guidance, or the increased role of the federal government through its various executive agencies or the role of his “brain trust” (Rexford Tugwell, Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickles, etc.) in formulating policy then one should, and eventually must, look elsewhere. However, if one wants to capture visually the sense of the times and FDR’s (and his wife Eleanor’s, who is worthy of separate series in her own right) influence on them then this is the right address.
As is almost universally the case with American Experience productions one gets a technically very competent piece of work that moreover gets a boost here from the always welcome grave narrative skills of David McCullough, who as a historian in his own right has a grasp of the sense of such things. Of course, as always with PBS you get more than the necessary share of “talking heads” commentators who give their take on the meaning of each signpost in the long FDR trail to the presidency and beyond. Of note here is the commentary of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin whose recent book on the Lincoln presidency “Team Of Rivals” has received much notice in the lead up to the Obamiad.
And what are those signposts of FDR’s life that might have given an inkling that he was up to the task of the times? Other than the question of class (in his case upper class, old New York money) FDR’s appetite to be president is not an unfamiliar one, if somewhat unusual from someone of that set at the turn of the 20th century. Except for this little twist in FDR’s case, when one’s relative, if a distant one, was an idolized Teddy Roosevelt who was President as he entered into manhood. That, at least as presented in this film, is a key source of FDR’s presidential “fire in the belly” drive.
The unfolding of the saga of FDR’s “fire in the belly” ambitions takes up the first two parts of the series. Here we find out the early family history, the various schoolboy pursuits, the private schools, the obligatory Ivy League education, the courtship of the sublime distant cousin (and Teddy favorite) Eleanor, his first stab at elective office in New York, his apprenticeship in Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, his little extramarital love affairs, his selection as Vice Presidential candidate in 1920, the seemingly political career-ending bout with polio and the fight against its physical restrictions, the successful efforts to hide this from the public, thereafter the successful return to politics as Governor of New York and, finally, the nomination and election as the 32nd President of The United States. Plenty of material for thought here.
But that is only prelude. FDR faced a capitalist system that had lost like today, although for different specific reasons, its moorings and was in need of deep repair (or overthrow). It is not unfair, I do not believe, to say as I have said in the headline of this entry that FDR’s effort was the last gasp effort of capitalism to survive (although his fellow capitalists and their intellectual, political and media hangers-on shortsightedly called him a “traitor to his class”). The most glaring contrast in the whole documentary is that between an overwhelmed President Hoover’s abject defeatism and FDR’s strident confidence (a like comparison could be made, at least of the defeated presidential part, with the current Bush today).
Although we now know that the ultimate way out of that Great Depression was World War II in 1933 FDR applied, piecemeal and as triage, a whole series of economic programs to jump start the system, most famously the National Recovery Act (NRA, later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court). FDR’s first two terms were basically a fight to find ways, virtually any ways to keep the economy moving and get people back to work. He was running out of time and the public’s patience when the rumblings of WWII came on to the horizon in Europe.
The hard-bitten fight by FDR to get America into the European War against a public opinion that was essentially isolationist, mainly as a result of the WWI experience, takes up the last part of the series. The various efforts to aid England are highlighted here, including the various visits by and with British war time leader Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the fight to get America militarily mobilized including imposition of a military draft, the various conferences of the Big Three (the Soviet Union being the third) to carve up the post war world and FDR’s final illness round out the story. In our house when I was a kid the mere mention of the name FDR was said, by one and all, with some reverence for his efforts to pull America out of the Great Depression and for guiding it to victory in war. For a long time this writer has not had that youthful reverence but if you want to see why my parents and why I as a youth whispered that name with reverence watch here.
FDR: American Experience, four part series, PBS, 1994
The economic news of the past several months has created a virtual cottage industry of commentators whose comparative references to the Great Depression of the 1930’s has made it almost a commonplace. Also common are comparisons of the tasks that confronted the subject of this documentary, the 32nd President of The Unites States Franklin Delano Roosevelt (hereafter FDR), and those that confront the 2008 election victor the President-elect Barack Obama, who seemingly has that same kind of broad mandate,. Thus, as is my habit, I went scurrying to find a suitable documentary that would refresh my memory about the decisive role that FDR played back then as the last gasp “savior” of the American capitalist economic system.
An added impetus to do that search was the recent passing of the legendary oral historian, Studs Terkel, whose bread and butter was to capture the memories of the generation that was most influenced by FDR’s policies has been the subject of many reviews of late by this writer. Apparently then a biographic refresher on FDR seemed to be written in the stars. I found, for a quick overview of this subject, the perfect place to start is this American Experience four- part production on the life, loves, trials, tribulations and influence of this seminal American bourgeois politician.
That said, if one is looking for an in-depth analysis of the role that FDR played in saving the capitalist system in America in the 1930’s, or the concurrent rise of the imperial presidency under his guidance, or the increased role of the federal government through its various executive agencies or the role of his “brain trust” (Rexford Tugwell, Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickles, etc.) in formulating policy then one should, and eventually must, look elsewhere. However, if one wants to capture visually the sense of the times and FDR’s (and his wife Eleanor’s, who is worthy of separate series in her own right) influence on them then this is the right address.
As is almost universally the case with American Experience productions one gets a technically very competent piece of work that moreover gets a boost here from the always welcome grave narrative skills of David McCullough, who as a historian in his own right has a grasp of the sense of such things. Of course, as always with PBS you get more than the necessary share of “talking heads” commentators who give their take on the meaning of each signpost in the long FDR trail to the presidency and beyond. Of note here is the commentary of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin whose recent book on the Lincoln presidency “Team Of Rivals” has received much notice in the lead up to the Obamiad.
And what are those signposts of FDR’s life that might have given an inkling that he was up to the task of the times? Other than the question of class (in his case upper class, old New York money) FDR’s appetite to be president is not an unfamiliar one, if somewhat unusual from someone of that set at the turn of the 20th century. Except for this little twist in FDR’s case, when one’s relative, if a distant one, was an idolized Teddy Roosevelt who was President as he entered into manhood. That, at least as presented in this film, is a key source of FDR’s presidential “fire in the belly” drive.
The unfolding of the saga of FDR’s “fire in the belly” ambitions takes up the first two parts of the series. Here we find out the early family history, the various schoolboy pursuits, the private schools, the obligatory Ivy League education, the courtship of the sublime distant cousin (and Teddy favorite) Eleanor, his first stab at elective office in New York, his apprenticeship in Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, his little extramarital love affairs, his selection as Vice Presidential candidate in 1920, the seemingly political career-ending bout with polio and the fight against its physical restrictions, the successful efforts to hide this from the public, thereafter the successful return to politics as Governor of New York and, finally, the nomination and election as the 32nd President of The United States. Plenty of material for thought here.
But that is only prelude. FDR faced a capitalist system that had lost like today, although for different specific reasons, its moorings and was in need of deep repair (or overthrow). It is not unfair, I do not believe, to say as I have said in the headline of this entry that FDR’s effort was the last gasp effort of capitalism to survive (although his fellow capitalists and their intellectual, political and media hangers-on shortsightedly called him a “traitor to his class”). The most glaring contrast in the whole documentary is that between an overwhelmed President Hoover’s abject defeatism and FDR’s strident confidence (a like comparison could be made, at least of the defeated presidential part, with the current Bush today).
Although we now know that the ultimate way out of that Great Depression was World War II in 1933 FDR applied, piecemeal and as triage, a whole series of economic programs to jump start the system, most famously the National Recovery Act (NRA, later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court). FDR’s first two terms were basically a fight to find ways, virtually any ways to keep the economy moving and get people back to work. He was running out of time and the public’s patience when the rumblings of WWII came on to the horizon in Europe.
The hard-bitten fight by FDR to get America into the European War against a public opinion that was essentially isolationist, mainly as a result of the WWI experience, takes up the last part of the series. The various efforts to aid England are highlighted here, including the various visits by and with British war time leader Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the fight to get America militarily mobilized including imposition of a military draft, the various conferences of the Big Three (the Soviet Union being the third) to carve up the post war world and FDR’s final illness round out the story. In our house when I was a kid the mere mention of the name FDR was said, by one and all, with some reverence for his efforts to pull America out of the Great Depression and for guiding it to victory in war. For a long time this writer has not had that youthful reverence but if you want to see why my parents and why I as a youth whispered that name with reverence watch here.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
FDR And The New Deal- The Last Gasp The Last Time
DVD REVIEW
FDR: American Experience, four part series, PBS, 1994
The economic news of the past several months has created a virtual cottage industry of commentators whose comparative references to the Great Depression of the 1930’s has made it almost a commonplace. Also common are comparisons of the tasks that confronted the subject of this documentary, the 32nd President of The United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt (hereafter FDR), and those that confront the 2008 election victor the President-elect Barack Obama, who seemingly has that same kind of broad mandate as FDR did to make major economic moves. Thus, as is my habit, I went scurrying to find a suitable documentary that would refresh my memory about the decisive role that FDR played back then as the last gasp “savior” of the American capitalist economic system.
An added impetus to do that search was the recent passing of the legendary oral historian, Studs Terkel, whose bread and butter was to capture the memories of the generation that was most influenced by FDR’s policies and whose oral histories have been the subject of many reviews of late by this writer. A biographic refresher on FDR thus seemed to be written in the stars. I found, for a quick overview of this subject, the perfect place to start is this American Experience four- part production on the life, loves, trials, tribulations and influence of this seminal American bourgeois politician.
That said, if one is looking for an in-depth analysis of the role that FDR played in saving the capitalist system in America in the 1930’s, or the concurrent rise of the imperial presidency under his guidance, or the increased role of the federal government through its various executive agencies or the role of his “brain trust” (Rexford Tugwell, Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickles, etc.) in formulating policy then one should, and eventually must, look elsewhere. However, if one wants to capture visually the sense of the times and FDR’s (and of his wife Eleanor’s, who is worthy of separate series in her own right) influence on them then this is the right address.
As is almost universally the case with American Experience productions one gets a technically very competent piece of work that moreover gets a boost here from the always welcome grave narrative skills of David McCullough, who as a historian in his own right has a grasp of the sense of such things. Of course, as always with PBS you get more than the necessary share of “talking heads” commentators who give their take on the meaning of each signpost in the long FDR trail to the presidency and beyond. Of note here is the commentary of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin whose recent book on the Lincoln presidency “Team Of Rivals” has received much notice in the lead-up to the Obamiad.
And what are those signposts of FDR’s life that might have given an inkling that he was up to the task of the times? Other than the question of class (in his case upper class, old New York money) FDR’s appetite to be president is not an unfamiliar one, if somewhat unusual from someone of that New York set at the turn of the 20th century. Except for this little twist in FDR’s case- when one’s relative, if a distant one, was an idolized Teddy Roosevelt who was President as he entered into manhood. That, at least as presented in this film, is a key source of FDR’s presidential “fire in the belly” drive.
The unfolding of the saga of FDR’s “fire in the belly” ambitions takes up the first two parts of the series. Here we find out the early family history, the various schoolboy pursuits, the private schools, the obligatory Ivy League education (Harvard), the courtship of the sublime distant cousin (and Teddy favorite) Eleanor, his first stab at elective office in New York, his apprenticeship in Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the Wilson presidency, his little extramarital love affairs, his selection as Vice Presidential candidate in 1920, the seemingly political career-ending bout with polio and the fight against its physical restrictions, the successful efforts to hide this from the public, thereafter the successful return to politics as Governor of New York and, finally, the nomination and election as the 32nd President of The United States. Plenty of material for thought here.
But that is only prelude. FDR faced a capitalist system that had like today 'lost', although for different specific reasons, its moorings and was in need of deep repair (or overthrow). It is not unfair, I do not believe, to say as I have said in the headline of this entry that FDR’s effort was the last gasp effort of capitalism to survive (although his fellow capitalists and their intellectual, political and media hangers-on shortsightedly called him a “traitor to his class”). The most glaring contrast in the whole documentary is that between an overwhelmed President Hoover’s abject defeatism and FDR’s strident confidence (a like comparison could be made, at least of the defeated presidential part, with the current Bush).
Although we now know that the ultimate way out of that Great Depression was World War II in 1933 FDR applied, piecemeal and as triage, a whole series of economic programs to jump start the system, most famously the National Recovery Act (NRA, later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court). FDR’s first two terms were basically a fight to find ways, virtually any ways to keep the economy moving and get people back to work. He was running out of time and the public’s patience when the rumblings of WWII came on to the horizon in Europe.
The hard-bitten fight by FDR to get America into the European War against a public opinion that was essentially isolationist, mainly as a result of the WWI experience, takes up the last part of the series. The various efforts to surreptitiously aid England are highlighted here, including the various visits by and with British war time leader Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the fight to get America militarily mobilized including imposition of a military draft, the various conferences of the Big Three (the Soviet Union being the third) to carve up the post-war world and FDR’s final illness round out the story. In our house when I was a kid the mere mention of the name FDR was said, by one and all, with some reverence for his efforts to pull America out of the Great Depression and for guiding it to victory in war. For a long time this writer has not had that youthful reverence but if you want to see why my parents and why I as a youth whispered that name with reverence watch here.
FDR: American Experience, four part series, PBS, 1994
The economic news of the past several months has created a virtual cottage industry of commentators whose comparative references to the Great Depression of the 1930’s has made it almost a commonplace. Also common are comparisons of the tasks that confronted the subject of this documentary, the 32nd President of The United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt (hereafter FDR), and those that confront the 2008 election victor the President-elect Barack Obama, who seemingly has that same kind of broad mandate as FDR did to make major economic moves. Thus, as is my habit, I went scurrying to find a suitable documentary that would refresh my memory about the decisive role that FDR played back then as the last gasp “savior” of the American capitalist economic system.
An added impetus to do that search was the recent passing of the legendary oral historian, Studs Terkel, whose bread and butter was to capture the memories of the generation that was most influenced by FDR’s policies and whose oral histories have been the subject of many reviews of late by this writer. A biographic refresher on FDR thus seemed to be written in the stars. I found, for a quick overview of this subject, the perfect place to start is this American Experience four- part production on the life, loves, trials, tribulations and influence of this seminal American bourgeois politician.
That said, if one is looking for an in-depth analysis of the role that FDR played in saving the capitalist system in America in the 1930’s, or the concurrent rise of the imperial presidency under his guidance, or the increased role of the federal government through its various executive agencies or the role of his “brain trust” (Rexford Tugwell, Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickles, etc.) in formulating policy then one should, and eventually must, look elsewhere. However, if one wants to capture visually the sense of the times and FDR’s (and of his wife Eleanor’s, who is worthy of separate series in her own right) influence on them then this is the right address.
As is almost universally the case with American Experience productions one gets a technically very competent piece of work that moreover gets a boost here from the always welcome grave narrative skills of David McCullough, who as a historian in his own right has a grasp of the sense of such things. Of course, as always with PBS you get more than the necessary share of “talking heads” commentators who give their take on the meaning of each signpost in the long FDR trail to the presidency and beyond. Of note here is the commentary of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin whose recent book on the Lincoln presidency “Team Of Rivals” has received much notice in the lead-up to the Obamiad.
And what are those signposts of FDR’s life that might have given an inkling that he was up to the task of the times? Other than the question of class (in his case upper class, old New York money) FDR’s appetite to be president is not an unfamiliar one, if somewhat unusual from someone of that New York set at the turn of the 20th century. Except for this little twist in FDR’s case- when one’s relative, if a distant one, was an idolized Teddy Roosevelt who was President as he entered into manhood. That, at least as presented in this film, is a key source of FDR’s presidential “fire in the belly” drive.
The unfolding of the saga of FDR’s “fire in the belly” ambitions takes up the first two parts of the series. Here we find out the early family history, the various schoolboy pursuits, the private schools, the obligatory Ivy League education (Harvard), the courtship of the sublime distant cousin (and Teddy favorite) Eleanor, his first stab at elective office in New York, his apprenticeship in Washington as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the Wilson presidency, his little extramarital love affairs, his selection as Vice Presidential candidate in 1920, the seemingly political career-ending bout with polio and the fight against its physical restrictions, the successful efforts to hide this from the public, thereafter the successful return to politics as Governor of New York and, finally, the nomination and election as the 32nd President of The United States. Plenty of material for thought here.
But that is only prelude. FDR faced a capitalist system that had like today 'lost', although for different specific reasons, its moorings and was in need of deep repair (or overthrow). It is not unfair, I do not believe, to say as I have said in the headline of this entry that FDR’s effort was the last gasp effort of capitalism to survive (although his fellow capitalists and their intellectual, political and media hangers-on shortsightedly called him a “traitor to his class”). The most glaring contrast in the whole documentary is that between an overwhelmed President Hoover’s abject defeatism and FDR’s strident confidence (a like comparison could be made, at least of the defeated presidential part, with the current Bush).
Although we now know that the ultimate way out of that Great Depression was World War II in 1933 FDR applied, piecemeal and as triage, a whole series of economic programs to jump start the system, most famously the National Recovery Act (NRA, later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court). FDR’s first two terms were basically a fight to find ways, virtually any ways to keep the economy moving and get people back to work. He was running out of time and the public’s patience when the rumblings of WWII came on to the horizon in Europe.
The hard-bitten fight by FDR to get America into the European War against a public opinion that was essentially isolationist, mainly as a result of the WWI experience, takes up the last part of the series. The various efforts to surreptitiously aid England are highlighted here, including the various visits by and with British war time leader Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the fight to get America militarily mobilized including imposition of a military draft, the various conferences of the Big Three (the Soviet Union being the third) to carve up the post-war world and FDR’s final illness round out the story. In our house when I was a kid the mere mention of the name FDR was said, by one and all, with some reverence for his efforts to pull America out of the Great Depression and for guiding it to victory in war. For a long time this writer has not had that youthful reverence but if you want to see why my parents and why I as a youth whispered that name with reverence watch here.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
*The Great Divide-The Class Struggle in America, Part I- The Studs Terkel Interview Series
Click On Title To Link To Studs Terkel’s Web Page.
Book Review
The Great Divide: Second Thoughts On The American Dream, Studs Terkel, Pantheon Books, New York, 1988
As I have done on other occasions when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his "The Good War": an Oral History of World War II.
Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of The Great Divide serves a dual purpose because not only is the book a rather remarkable work of oral history but also serves as political prognosis about the emergence of a trend in the American working class in the late 1980's toward downward mobility and the abandonment of the "American Dream" as a harbinger of things that have come to pass today, twenty years on. In short, with the exception of the then already decimated family farmer who is, sadly, not a factor today and the then rampant deindustrialization of Middle America that continues unabated, many of the interviews could have been done today, twenty years later.
Once again Studs Terkel is the master interviewer but I am still put off by the fact, as I was in "The Good War", of his rather bland and inadequate old New Deal political perspective, as much as a working class partisan as he might have been. Notwithstanding that shortcoming his reportage is, as usual, centered on ordinary working people, or those who came from that milieu. These are my kind of people. This is where I come from. These are people I want to know about, especially the Midwesterners and Chicagoans who dominate this book. Being from the East, although some of their life stories, to use the current favored term, "resonate" with me other values like ardent heartland-derived patriotism, admiration for the late President Ronald Reagan, strong religious values and inordinate respect for law and order do not. Terkel, to his credit, heard the particular musical cadence of their lives and wrote with some verve on the subject, especially that old Chicago melody he has embraced that I also noticed from my reading of "The Good War" (Musically, Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home, Chicago" fits the bill here, right?).
One thing that became apparent to me immediately after reading this book, and as is also true of the majority of Terkel's interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else's story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn't to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. But, so be it.
What were Stud's preoccupations in this book? He clearly wanted to contrast the old Midwestern industrial blue collar values with the then emergence Yuppie values that were eroding that old sense of neighborly social solidarity. Moreover, he wanted to contrast various approaches to, let us call it, the need for spirituality as various religious experiments started to flourish (mainly, but not exclusively, varieties of Protestant fundamentalism) from the mega-mall churches to the lonely vigils of the Central American Sanctuary movement. Terkel gives full expression to the ambiguities of the Reagan years from the lassiz faire governmental deregulation (that we are now forced to cope with) to the various foreign policy initiatives, especially in Central America and against the Soviet Union. Also full expression to the failures of the 1960's to bring about dramatic progressive social change (a problem we still have to live down) leaving many participants bewitched and bewildered.
And what stories are being told here? Well, certainly this book is filled with interviews of the lives, struggles and fate of the rank and file blue collar workers displaced by "globalization" and the deindustrialization of America. A few stories of conflict between pro-union and anti-union forces (most dramatically in a husband and wife interview where they were on opposite sides of the class line in a long labor dispute, the husband being a "scab"). Several stories concern the quest for religious fulfillment in a world that has left more than its fair share of people isolated and bewildered by the rapid advances of technology without a commensurate sense of ownership. Many stories tell of the hard, hard life of the city, especially in "the projects", black and white. A few of the same kind of problems in the countryside, especially concerning the fate of the 'hillbillies', the people that I come from (on my father's side). All in all most stories will not seem alien to those who are struggling today to make sense of a world that they, after a quick look at their assets, surely do not own. Once again kudos to Studs for hitting the mother lode. Thanks, Brother Terkel.
Book Review
The Great Divide: Second Thoughts On The American Dream, Studs Terkel, Pantheon Books, New York, 1988
As I have done on other occasions when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, here as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his "The Good War": an Oral History of World War II.
Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of The Great Divide serves a dual purpose because not only is the book a rather remarkable work of oral history but also serves as political prognosis about the emergence of a trend in the American working class in the late 1980's toward downward mobility and the abandonment of the "American Dream" as a harbinger of things that have come to pass today, twenty years on. In short, with the exception of the then already decimated family farmer who is, sadly, not a factor today and the then rampant deindustrialization of Middle America that continues unabated, many of the interviews could have been done today, twenty years later.
Once again Studs Terkel is the master interviewer but I am still put off by the fact, as I was in "The Good War", of his rather bland and inadequate old New Deal political perspective, as much as a working class partisan as he might have been. Notwithstanding that shortcoming his reportage is, as usual, centered on ordinary working people, or those who came from that milieu. These are my kind of people. This is where I come from. These are people I want to know about, especially the Midwesterners and Chicagoans who dominate this book. Being from the East, although some of their life stories, to use the current favored term, "resonate" with me other values like ardent heartland-derived patriotism, admiration for the late President Ronald Reagan, strong religious values and inordinate respect for law and order do not. Terkel, to his credit, heard the particular musical cadence of their lives and wrote with some verve on the subject, especially that old Chicago melody he has embraced that I also noticed from my reading of "The Good War" (Musically, Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home, Chicago" fits the bill here, right?).
One thing that became apparent to me immediately after reading this book, and as is also true of the majority of Terkel's interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else's story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn't to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. But, so be it.
What were Stud's preoccupations in this book? He clearly wanted to contrast the old Midwestern industrial blue collar values with the then emergence Yuppie values that were eroding that old sense of neighborly social solidarity. Moreover, he wanted to contrast various approaches to, let us call it, the need for spirituality as various religious experiments started to flourish (mainly, but not exclusively, varieties of Protestant fundamentalism) from the mega-mall churches to the lonely vigils of the Central American Sanctuary movement. Terkel gives full expression to the ambiguities of the Reagan years from the lassiz faire governmental deregulation (that we are now forced to cope with) to the various foreign policy initiatives, especially in Central America and against the Soviet Union. Also full expression to the failures of the 1960's to bring about dramatic progressive social change (a problem we still have to live down) leaving many participants bewitched and bewildered.
And what stories are being told here? Well, certainly this book is filled with interviews of the lives, struggles and fate of the rank and file blue collar workers displaced by "globalization" and the deindustrialization of America. A few stories of conflict between pro-union and anti-union forces (most dramatically in a husband and wife interview where they were on opposite sides of the class line in a long labor dispute, the husband being a "scab"). Several stories concern the quest for religious fulfillment in a world that has left more than its fair share of people isolated and bewildered by the rapid advances of technology without a commensurate sense of ownership. Many stories tell of the hard, hard life of the city, especially in "the projects", black and white. A few of the same kind of problems in the countryside, especially concerning the fate of the 'hillbillies', the people that I come from (on my father's side). All in all most stories will not seem alien to those who are struggling today to make sense of a world that they, after a quick look at their assets, surely do not own. Once again kudos to Studs for hitting the mother lode. Thanks, Brother Terkel.
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