"They hate me and I welcome their hatred" - FDR

[Triana]

I went Googling for that quote because Edwards mentioned it in his speech at Giggling Goat restaurant in Iowa yesterday. I found it on this guy's blog, in an excerpt which I include below.

I think JOHN EDWARDS is THE candidate who is offering to resuscitate and return our party to its Democratic roots. This is ANOTHER reason I support him.

_ _ _ _ _

FROM http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/

During the campaign of 1936, Franklin Roosevelt said of the "Captains of Industry", as they were then called, "They hate me and I welcome their hatred." (Fortunately, he had the good sense not to declare, "Bring 'em on!"). What those words reveal is the undeniable fact that the man really was on the side of the people. Why is it, then, that so many otherwise intelligent human beings would turn their backs on the legacy of FDR and the New Deal? How could they possibly embrace the perverted ideology of a political party which exists only to their detriment? Why would the masses of working and middle class men and women want to return to the conditions that existed at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (an era that Mark Twain dubbed The Gilded Age) when the robber barons controlled most of the wealth of the nation while the overwhelming majority of the American people lived in grinding poverty?

...

The Republican party used to be called the "Party of Lincoln". But that is so obviously no longer the case that even their most blatant propagandists don't even attempt to use that sort of language any longer. Unless today's cowardly, incompetent Democratic Party wakes up and realizes that it is still, in fact, the "Party of FDR", America will only continue in its present, downward spiral.

The New Deal that Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered to the people of the United States of America needs to be resuscitated.

[GreenTea]

1. John Edwards is truly a good man and fighter!

[Nutmegger]

2. R&K!!! [n\t]

[The Magistrate]

3. Choice In Enemies, Ma'am, Is The Mark Of the Master Politician

"Bless your enemies, they show you your path."

[Triana]

4. It takes someone who's gutsy, fearless and who's gonna fight...

...other candidates want to 'work with' them, 'appease' them, or outright get into bed with them.

Not Edwards. He KNOWS he's got a fight on his hands. He KNOWS what the fight is FOR and WHO it is for. We took our country back before and we can do it again WITH THE RIGHT PRESIDENT to work with. He also mentioned that in Iowa yesterday. I know what and when he was referring to. He was very clear about it.

People worry that Edwards will 'alienate' the big business. And I'm sure big business will scream bloody murder, propagandize, send out their talking heads, propaganda and lobbyists in droves, kicking and spewing hatred at Edwards from every direction and even some we haven't imagined yet. The robber barons (the Republicans) will be right beside them.

John Edwards quoted FDR as saying "I welcome their hatred because it means I'm standing up". I for one will stand up with him as long as he's in the race.

I see this NOW on DU as Edwards is moving ahead in Iowa. He stands up and people - even here on DU - start aiming and firing at him - because he's standing up. I've not seen so many attacks on Edwards on DU as I saw yesterday - as he moved (according to polls, anyway) right up beside or beyond the other candidates in Iowa.

So now more than ever -- they want to shoot him down in favor of their appeasers, the 'work-with-them' camp and the outright corporatists or whoever else ISN'T delivering the message of resuscitation and restoration of the party to its roots as (well as) Edwards is.

So there you go.

He may or may not win Iowa or NH or SC or Nevada or the nom. But I at least know Edward's mind, intent, and heart is/was in the right place and he knows of what he speaks and he speaks to the very roots of this party and he would like to take it back -- and he's the ONLY CANDIDATE whom I've heard address this as clearly as he has - and I very much support that.

[Yuugal]

5. "cowardly, incompetent Democratic Party "

I'm shocked, shocked I tellya to hear this kind of thing on DU. How dare you say these people are cowardly!

Pelosi and Reid have climbed the highest mountains for you, to find a safe place for them to hide. They have fought battle after battle and have never wavered in their positions no matter how badly it hurt us. After every strategic retreat do they not bring the Sacred Powder back even drier than before? Yet you dare, not just to call them cowardly, but incompetent?

You just don't understand how well those 1000's of strongly worded letters were written!

Shame on you!



ps- Go Edwards!

[Triana]

10. Heh. Ya forgot the sarsasm icon...

...not that you really need it. I get ya. :)

GO JOHNNY GO!!

[cali]

6. It's just embarassing to see Edwards supporters comparing

JE to FDR. At this point in his career, there's simply nothing to compare, except some rhetoric, and having read all of FDR's major speeches, I can say with ease that JE's rhetoric is in no way on a par with FDR's.

[Froward69]

7. not only "not on par" with FDR...

hey thats a good slogan... FDR used all of his "Wealth" to convert a resort into a Hospital.
NOT on par with FDR!!! NOT on par with FDR!!! NOT on par with FDR!!! NOT on par with FDR!!! NOT on par with FDR!!! NOT on par with FDR!!! NOT on par with FDR!!!

[kenfrequed]

12. Yadda Yadda Yadda

I don't recall many of the other Dems making economic class as big an issue. Well, other than Kucinich that is.

[Triana]

15. Me either. NONE of them...

...seem to have the courage to do it, much less SAY it.

[kenfrequed]

17. Well actually though

Despite Edwards being a distant second choice to me, after Kucinich, I do have to admit that his running around claiming to have 'the first plan of this election cycle to deal with the healthcare crise' bothers me a good deal. Kucinich actually had the first (and in my opinion the best) plan this time around.

[WinkyDink]

8. Whose is? It's enough for me that anyone is speaking to the have-nots (I'd prefer DK, but he

doesn't have a chance).

[rasputin1952]

9. The Roosevelts have always had problems w/corporate

America. TR was not exactly embraced by the Robber Barons and Corp Am. To be honest, he was the last of the "Party of Lincoln" R's there ever was, and the ones preceding him were not exactly Lincolnites. We look at Lincoln from the historical perspective, and our, (arguably), "Greatest President" was as despised as bush is today by a great # of citizens, and certainly former citizens of the South.

Lincoln would be absolutely appalled to see what the GOP has become. I believe he would be outraged to finds his name attached to what the R's have become. And if he looked back over time, from the present, and saw what was done to the American citizen under R control, he would be tearing them a new ass. With very few exceptions, the Republican Party has been little more than a disaster for the country.

[Triana]

11. I agree...the blogger, further down in his entry, addresses TR

and the fact that the Robber Barons didn't accept him - and that the Republicans USED to call themselves the party of Lincoln but have become (an as you say were before Lincoln) so filthy criminal that they dropped that moniker.

Too bad. For THEM.

[rasputin1952]

13. TR was an exceptionally interesting political character...

The machine in NY did everything they could to get rid of him, because he actually did the jobs he was given. He walked the streets of NYC firing cops on the spot for sleeping, or when they went to bars instead of doing their rounds when he was Commissioner...he actually got things rolling after years of neglect as Undersecretary of the Navy. The machine finally got him to the Vice Presidency where they figured he couldn't do any more harm to them, (he despised the job, saying that it was involved, "just making sure the president had a pulse, and go to state funerals of people I really didn't like in the first place".

When McKinley was shot, the beginning of the end was at hand for political machines and changes were to come for corp's that are still felt today, as well as improved worker conditions, safety regulations, the beginnings of an honest workday....a multitude of changes came about....and this from an R! Albeit a very progressive R.

TR had seen the ravages of poverty firsthand when he walked the streets of NYC, he knew the cycle well, even though he was born into privilege. He believed that government should be used to aid the human condition as a stepladder to get out of poverty and misery.

He is also directly responsible for the NYC Museum of Natural History expanding to what it is now, and had a heavy hand in the Public Library System. He was big on education and tried to push through legislation that would protect children from being abused, either at home and certainly in the workplace.

I nearly fell out of my chair when I read a few years back that bush was trying to use TR as a "role model". I only heard that line once, as I figure bush took immense ridicule for that within his own little fortress.

[Triana]

14. Pfffft! Well. If we EVER NEEDED any more proof that bu$hit is a narcissist...

...there it is. (trying to use TR as a role model)

Bwah!

[rasputin1952]

16. TR also went to war, because he felt it was the right thing

to do at the time, (debatable, since this was the Spanish American War), but even though he had lung problems, he started up the Rough Riders, and was in the thick of the fighting, he was not a coward by any measure. But, what is often overlooked is that the 10th Cav, The Buffalo Soldiers, a black cavalry regiment, saved the butts of the Rough Riders; (One Sgt received his second Medal of Honor in the engagement for Kettle Hill).

Because of this, TR invited the first black American, (there had been many blacks to the WH previously, but his particular man was invited to a state dinner), but he received a lot of racist flak and, sadly, backed down from ever doing it again. However, this act was noticed by many across the nation and applauded, and even though it was not seen as such, that invite helped in the future to push Civil Rights a little closer to reality.

bush is the anti-TR...in spades.

[Selatius]

18. Odd thing with Teddy is that he may have removed all the progressives from the Rs by happenstance

When he ran as an Indie on the Bull Moose ticket, he took away so many progressive votes from the Repubs that the party was essentially changed forever. The new alignment put the power of the party into the hands of Wall Street. After Teddy's failed bid, the progressives either became independents or went into the Democratic Party, where they shared an uncomfortable relationship with the Dixiecrats.

The only reason the Dixiecrats didn't leave sooner was because of the Great Depression and the uniting influence of FDR during the war. When the war was over and the Depression a thing of the past, then the relationship between progressive Dems and Dixiecrats really deteriorated culminating in the bloody Civil Rights Struggle. The war in Viet Nam didn't help the situation either.

This, in essence, signaled the death knell of the old New Deal coalition. Without the support of southern voters, the Dems basically lost a chunk of their old base in the population as well as seats in Congress. Not too long after, the Repubs would sweep out the Dems in both chambers of Congress until very recently and likely only because of another war in a far away country.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

19. Interesting perspective. It seems, no matter how hard we try to anticipate consequences,...

,...it's still merely a play on odds. Nevertheless, there do appear to be some fairly consistent human conditions that can be applied.

[rasputin1952]

20. He terrified the status quo...He was remarkably popular around

the country, and the "elite" saw themselves being chopped to pieces.

I agree that he stripped Progressives from the GOP, but w/o him running, we would most likely have been stuck w/Taft again. The thought of Taft as opposed to Wilson is almost unbearable. Wilson kept up many of TR's reforms, but WWI didn't help him, neither did his health. Edith Wilson did a good job of running the country though, so people should realize that women, (or at least capable women, like capable men) can run this nation.

Inept individuals should be avoided at all costs, but even they sneak through the cracks from time to time.

With some 365 million people in this nation, and seeing what has been produced as far as presidents and Congresscritters go, I have to wonder just what is going through our collective minds...:eyes:

Really....this is the best we can do?