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[JuntaJoe]

Tonight I saw a fascinating PBS documentary that was released today.

Documenting The Face of America

http://documentingamerica.org/Home.html


It showed how after FDR's first failure at social engineering he had his newly formed Resettlement Administration hire photographers to fan out across America and take images of any form of poverty they could find in order to pressure congressional opposition and even his own party to pass his socialistic measures.

Why?

First was to clean up a mess. When farmers were reeling from falling farm prices and facing the loss of their farm shares to owners and banks, FDR proposed a big fat farm subsidy. All it did was let the actual land owners balance their books and they tossed the farmers off the land to let it go fallow awaiting recovery of prices. The mass migration of farmers in the Dustbowl era was actually more of a FDR goof and less about a drought than we were led to believe.

Yes, we were led to believe. FDR simply spun that failure into more leverage to throw more effort into New Deal programs. Both sides of Congress protested the propaganda, but were buried under pressure from home due to the citizenry being inundated with graphic poverty images.

Yet until this photo campaign was started there was absolutely no pressure from home states. Why? People were raised then to accept they were responsible for their own welfare. They had to be scared into believing the entire nation was about to implode even though they had already survived the brunt of the Depression and survived.

The documentary also shows how even after his abortive attempts and marginal works in his first 4 years the economy was recovering anyway. The natural cycle was turning around without his New Deal help. So he rails at his 1936 inauguration speech that the recovery was actually a harbinger of doom for a worse fall. It was all so he could get the rest of his pet social engineering tools in place before people quit paying attention to his propaganda images.


So you might think this documentary is a well slanted show of bias.

You would be right!

But it comes from the viewpoint of the glorification of this propaganda farce. Everything is smiles and roses for the work. But you simply cannot miss the obvious abuse of power if you drop the rose colored lenses.


Think about our modern political wars. Individual and religious rights squaring off against socialistic "equality and justice". But not for a deliberate abuse of presidential power to create this social vacuum we wouldn't even be arguing this today! Today's ultra-liberal viewpoint is a construct created from whole cloth to fool us into believe those so-called rights even existed to begin with.

You liberals have been manipulated by your very own king!



Well, the show came out only today. PBS will run it numerous times in the near future. You will need to watch for the listings on your local PBS station. Eventually I'm sure it will get some kind of web release and I'll put those links up here when they exist.


It is a terribly fascinating show, no matter your political convictions. Watch this interesting hour, think on it, and then watch one of the forthcoming presidential debates.

I think you will view American politics a bit differently after that.

[CharlieBrown]

CYOA

[JuntaJoe]

Cover my own ass?

At the darkest point of the Depression, Herbert Hoover was slammed and scapegoated for something he didn't create. He took the fall, but not meekly. Instead he instituted a few harsh reforms in the economy. Economic historians now point to those moves as the beginning of the recovery. FDR was stuck with them and couldn't unplug them. They also took time to work and the results didn't begin to show until after the 1932 election that brought in FDR on a raft of promises.

No, that won't be directly pointed to in the show, but they can't fully hide the inferences if you are watching for them.

They will even openly admit that the 1936 speech about the danger of recovery was really a sham in that show. To do otherwise would have drawn strong criticism from many well known historians on both sides of the fence. The left side simply said the sham had to be done in order to get the "benefits" we have today. A needed lie they call it.

They will also admit in the show that the citizenry didn't call for action until the propaganda went out. They will also readily agree it was propaganda.

All that even when the show clearly tries to glorify the whole effort.

Just see the show. Keep your propaganda receiver turned off and give it an objective look. Then come back here and read what I wrote. The dots will all connect.


At some point you must accept that political agendas are created in a burst of inspiration from a small group. The Whigs. The Bull Moose Party. Ross Perot breathed new life into the Libertarian cause that had been dying. The reformation of the Republicans started with Reagan following the coattails of Barry Goldwater's push for a return to small government and the abolition of much of FDR's socialist work.

It's happened on all sides of the fence. Several fences as well. The roots of liberal wealth reallocation come directly from FDR. They didn't come from a need to fix something as it had already been fixed. Instead it came from a personal agenda of one man. Without FDR there would only have remained the shunned Communist factions. FDR gave popularity to democratic socialism where it had never existed before.

This documentary shows how he created the popularity with a blatant propaganda push. Trust me, they won't even both to deny it. They will glorify it instead.

[CharlieBrown]

I wasn't refering to your ass but FDRs and I think he did it very well. And on another note, Liberalism and socialistic "equality and justice" were around long before FDR took the stage. But I will keep an eye out for the program and get back to you.

[JuntaJoe]

I see what you mean now. Hey, I'll admit just about every president does it.

But the photography blitz was a really new thing. Sure, photography had been around awhile, but it never found that "critical app" in politics until then.

Compare it to the internet and this very recent rise in political power there compared to the last 20 years before that.

I certainly will offer props for coming up with the photo idea to FDR. I can respect its efficacy. That's completely aside from the politics.

FDR was certainly a master controller. Hell, he got elected 4 times. No slouch there. No matter the failings that history attributed to him he held the moment completely in his hand. As insane and counter culture his ideas were he still sold them all with flourish.


As for liberalism and socialism I'd call you right and wrong.

You could go back to Roman times and call bread and circuses a form of liberalism. Moving forward you can many instances of states reallocating to placate. You move forward to the conception of communism and you see them calling themselves socialists. Let's not forget the National Socialists either. It's redistribution through populism to retain central control.

But it was FDR that made it democratic socialism. Sure there was central control, but the people retained the right of mandate. The people could vote it out without retribution or official repercussions.

It took guns to shake off most so-called socialist societies elsewhere.

While elites and philosophers around the world may have pressed for it before that, it was now populace driven with FDR.

He certainly changed the methodology of the philosophy.


Just like Goldwater changed conservatism. That concept had been around for centuries already. But his was a different breed of it. A "true conservative" today wouldn't agree much with a century past counterpart.

[CharlieBrown]

Now when you say he changed the methodology and philosophy do you mean he changed everything or only certain aspects of it? Because Wilson was one of the first to crack down on huge corporations to help the smaller man. And during the Progressive Era many people pushed for socialistic ideals and laws.

[JuntaJoe]

Wilson had ideals that led left. He just tried to get them through the old fashioned way with backroom influence and standard public speaking.

But FDR decided just hammering away old style wasn't enough. He needed popular support at the grass roots level. Wilson was all about influencing the leadership. FDR went with populism that went beyond mere appeal. He wanted to turn populism into an active political force. He needed to create a new voting bloc.

Any populist can get the people saying yes. But it is harder to get those same voters to apply pressure in a peaceful manner. Someone like Chavez today uses populism pressure, but he uses it militantly to oppress the opposition. That just won't fly here in the US. The activism must be peaceful, but yet forceful. That takes a bit of work to pull off. These people must be willing to do more than merely installing the leader with the popular vote, like what happened to Wilson. They had to go out and convince their neighbors to vote whole tickets a certain way to get the Congress backing the president's play.

Remember that I said, along with the documentary people too, that the average voter did not conceive of forcing representatives to enact social programs. Most people took for granted that the political machines of the day would present them with a small set of choices and they would pick the offering that best appealed to them. No one believed you could tell the party bosses to select a candidate that reflected voter desires.

FDR changed the dynamic. Party bosses were blocked and cornered into offering up the candidates that FDR told the people he wanted to get his "reforms" passed.


Wilson simply wanted certain things.

FDR figured out how to get what he wanted.

Anything short of violent civil unrest was an option to him.

Propaganda and hamstringing any political opposition were certainly on the table.

Wilson talked and hoped* while FDR made it happen by building a whole new voting bloc.

Wilson was leftist. FDR created whole new waves of leftists.


*= Let's also not forget that Wilson didn't do much in half of his presidency. He was incapacitated, but no one knew. In reality, America has already had a female president. Mrs. Wilson really ran the show quietly for quite a while. Wilson's staff simply worked with her and they all just slapped Wilson signature on their work.