We didn't deserve the Roosevelts (warning: long post, I'm bored)

[Fizzzzle]

This is something I've been thinking about. Basically how hard it is for politicians to advocate for change that is proactive and not reactive. Granted, a lot of what FDR did WAS reactive, it was framed in a way that said "we can't do this again."

 

Teddy saw the blights of the Gilded Age and was like "maybe we shouldn't let that happen, no, US Steel, you can't own everything" (and his legislation has been slowly getting eaten away for the last 100 years, to the point that we're basically in another Gilded Age), despite the fact that he himself was wealthy as shit. He created what would eventually become the FDA so people didn't get fucking cocaine in their colas or dysentery from their meat. As someone who has been previously addicted to cocaine, that's awesome. He created national parks. Where I live, you can go to parks and feel like you're in a medieval forest or something, but then someone will say "actually this is all new growth, they cut ALL this shit down in the 19th century," and then I think of how much cooler our parks would have been if someone thought of that sooner.

 

And on top of that, by all accounts, he wasn't a racist, which is saying something for the standards of 120 years ago. He didn't always stand up for the rights of the POC, but he encouraged not actively persecuting them, and for the time that was actually fairly progressive.

 

And then you get FDR. What needs to be said? The minimum wage. The New Deal. People calling him a war hawk when he was basically already seeing like "this war involves us whether we want it to or not, nut up or shut up." Oh, and don't get me started on the Glass-Steagall act, which has also slowly been eaten away over the last 90 years, basically it separated commercial and investment banking so banks couldn't gamble with your money. That's kind of what caused the Great Depression. He also got the ball rolling on what would eventually become FEMA. He prevented racial discrimination by government contractors (this was like 8 years into his presidency, but it still counts). He created the OSS, which was the predecessor to the CIA. Given that it's never (yet) turned into a secret police, that's awesome. Oh, and part of the New Deal was banning minors from working in mines or factories.

 

And now we come to Eleanor. First off: anti-semite. Acknowledged. No one's perfect. Especially when we're talking about people that lived a hundred years ago that would have convulsed at the idea of gender fluidity. You kind of have to grade on a curve on this shit, I'm assuming that if Eleanor was an anti-semite then FDR probably was, too, he just never got caught saying it. Moving on. When the New Deal projects started rolling out, of course in the south  they were like "this doesn't extend to black people," Eleanor was the one who came in and said "yes, motherfucker, it does." And when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, she was the loudest voice saying "hey, not all Japanese people are bad, the ones who have lived here their whole lives are totally fine." Given that she was a woman and served int he 1930-'s-1940's, there's only so much she could have done. I'm convinced if she managed to become president, she would have been one of the greatest.

 

Now we get to some other Roosevelts. Actually, only one, because I'm tired of writing about this. One of Teddy Roosevelt's sons, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., was one of the highest ranking officers to get killed during WW2. He was a brigadier general that led troops onto the beaches of Normandy, then died of a heart attack like a month later. He had to specifically request the duty because they didn't expect him to return alive. He was 56 years old. He had served as Governor of the Philippines, Governor of Puerto Rico, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He even received a Croix de Guerre, this is what it cites:

Quote

As commander of a Franco-American detachment on the Ousseltia plain in the region of Pichon, in the face of a very aggressive enemy, he showed the finest qualities of decision and determination in the defense of his sector. Showing complete contempt for personal danger, he never ceased during the period of Jan 28 – Feb 21, visiting troops in the front lines, making vital decisions on the spot, winning the esteem and admiration of the units under his command and developing throughout his detachment the finest fraternity of arms

THAT, my friends, is a man. Brigadier General Teddy Roosevelt Jr. was one of the FIRST men off his landing craft at Utah Beach. HE HAD TO USE A CANE TO WALK, and he was like "nah, put me up front, coach." HE LED TROOPS INTO ONE OF THE BLOODIEST DAYS OF THE WAR WITH A FUCKING CANE. LED. LIKE, HE WASN'T SITTING BACK GIVING ORDERS, HE WAS ONE OF THE FIRST OFF THE BOAT

 

 

OH! OH! 2 of Teddy Jr's sons (the one who died in the fucking war) served in very, very dangerous positions.  Teddy III served as a fighter pilot in the Pacific, Quentin served in Europe and earned a Silver Star, a Croix de Guerre, and a Purple Heart (means he got hit), and also was one of the first to land at Normandy.

 

Basically, these fuckers were some of the bluest bloodest rich assholes to ever grace American shores, but they always led by example and did the right thing, and always managed to be on the right side of history. Relatively speaking, no one's perfect. As far as I'm concerned if you rank top presidents, it's 1-2-3 Washington, Teddy, FDR, then it's a drop off of a cliff before you get to anyone else. Lincoln maybe could have been there, but like I talked about proactivity vs. reactivity, the country was already in civil war when he took office, so he never got a chance to do anything in the former category. And then he got shot.

[SilentWorld]

Good post, how do I subscribe to your newsletter?

[Fizzzzle]

5 minutes ago, SilentWorld said:

Good post, how do I subscribe to your newsletter?

Whenever I can develop a schedule of when my insomnia drives me to spend 5 hours down an internet rabbit hole and then write a 6 paragraph post about something that doesn't matter because I literally can't sleep and this is how my brain keeps me from killing myself, I'll let you know.

 

I can do one about Romanian troop movements during fall blau if you want (that's the German offensive that led to the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, if you're curious). Got a lot of that in my head right now for some reason.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

ER is my personal hero. 

[Fizzzzle]

Ooh, I can revive a classic about trying to pinpoint the exact timing of the setting of Pirates of the Caribbean. That was a fun one. IIRC there's a discrepancy between the falls of Port Royal, Singapore, and Tortuga that makes it incongruous. Port Royal was destroyed in an Earthquake, Singapore was raided by the Portuguese, and Tortuga died out after the end of the pirate golden age. They were never all active at the same time. I made a large post about it once. And that was BEFORE I had insomnia, dear lord knows what I would do now.

[marioandsonic]

 

[Fizzzzle]

I have been up for about 26 hours and I have to go to work in 3 hours, so my next chance of sleeping is in another 13 hours or so. And I promise I'm not doing drugs. It's just pure old anxiety.

 

Someone ask me about Romanian troop movements during WW2 or the chord structure of Korn's music. Or Teddy Roosevelt's grandchildren. Or the history of Portland's racial structure, that was a deep dive, for sure. We're talking about a state that fought for the Americans during the Civil War but it was also illegal to be black in Oregon until 1926. There's a sign on an arch close to my old house where you can see where it said "no n****ers allowed" so that's a fun deep dive. I mean, not for the black people that were killed. Fun in the context of the duality of being both anti-slavery and anti-black, which was a common position among Republicans in the mid 19th Century, Lincoln included. Like, they thought slavery was wrong, but also thought that we should just ship all the blacks off to Africa. It's a viewpoint that doesn't get interrogated enough.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

3 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

He created the OSS, which was the predecessor to the CIA. Given that it's never (yet) turned into a secret police, that's awesome.

CIA bad tho

[Fizzzzle]

1 minute ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

CIA bad tho

I mean, yeah. The history of the CIA is worth its own deep dive. The development of the OSS was something that very much made sense at the time, and still does, it's just the way it's been weaponized throughout since the start of the Cold War is, uh... yikes. Like, let's not mention bananas.

 

Still, not gonna fault FDR for that.

 

Actually, no, I will mention bananas. If there's one black mark on the Rosies, beyond Japanese internment (that's something I forgot to get into, but happened), there were a lot of instances of bananas. As in propagating dictatorial and/or exploitative governments in countries for the benefit of specifically rich American business tycoons, not the people of said countries. However, I will also contend that every single one of the US presidents has exhibited exactly the same behavior. So saying "the Roosevelts were bad because they propped up corrupt governments in Central America," I would say "yeah, so did everyone else, even St. Jimmy Carter." That's just something we have to own. And hopefully not do again.

 

(it'll happen again)

 

The sins of the past are not our own unless we refuse to acknowledge them.

[Signifyin(g)Monkey]

As deft as they were at politics, The Roosevelts had the fortune of wielding power in a democracy where the working class had not yet been fractured and set against itself by social issues and in which heavy unionization plus the collectivizing effects of fighting in a world war allowed for an unusually broad degree of working class solidarity and support.  Most importantly they governed at a time when the parties were not split primarily along the lines of social issues.

 

They successfully saved American capitalism, but I don’t think they could have possibly accomplished everything they accomplished if they had to deal with our current electoral environment.  Basically once Nixon figured out you could break up the working class coalition by reorganizing the parties around divisive social issues, there was no going back.  The age of doing ‘big things’ was pretty much over.  Doubly so once Volcker and Reagan neoliberalism destroyed what was left of the unions.