The Lady Or The Tiger?

The Lady or the Tiger?" Most of us know the short story first published in 1882 by Frank Stockton that tells of an unusual punishment imposed by a semi-barbaric king in which the accused must choose between two doors. Behind one door is a maiden and behind the other is a tiger.
While there is no shortage of memes or impassioned bloggers trying to convince people to vote for outlier parties in the presidential election with appeals to emotion primarily or perhaps fair play or even ideology purity. Is there any path for any of these outlier candidates to win?

It is not a coincidence (see the power structure article) that in the many years since this country’s establishment of democracy, no more than two parties have ruled national elections and the senate. Although 43% of Americans today are classified as political independents and despite the present preference of an emergent third party among voters, the Libertarians and Green Party members struggle to find support nationally and could not get enough signatures or forgot to file the paperwork, or couldn't raise the 5,000 dollar filing fee to even be on the ballot in 12 of the states.
That alone prevents them from even having a path to winning a national election.
But that's not the only thing that stops them from possibly winning.

This, as I say is no coincidence,
it's in the mechanics laid out in our constitution.
The rules strongly encourage a two party system.

I do not like this any more than staunch believers in libertarian-ism
or any of the 150 some political parties in the US do.
It isn't "fair", it isn't "good"...but it is so.

I'm betting most people would find policy positions much closer to what they personally would choose somewhere in that array outside of the 2 major parties.
If one votes for policy only with no regard for viability, (the possibility of actually winning)
there are compelling reasons to do just that,
yet most people want to ACTUALLY effect policy
and to do that you have to win elections.

Currently friends, an outlier party can not win.

The closest an outlier party has ever come to the presidency was Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 Progressive party campaign where he won 27.5% of the vote!
That only occurred as conservatives wrangled control of Republican party chasing the Roosevelt progressives away. Which led eventually to the Democratic party becoming their home.(as faulted as it may be, the Democratic party has been the sole source of all progressive legislation since 1930. It's been the source of all legislation that dealt with civil rights, women's rights, infrastructure investment, funding education, the arts, social services, national parks, etc. All these matters were supported by the Democrats and opposed by the Republicans).
The reason outlier parties simply can not win is primarily the structure of the nation’s voting system and the simple concept of Duverger’s law.

The electoral college, created to formally elect presidents, requires an absolute majority of at least 270 votes, and this requirement in itself makes third parties nonviable.

Winner-take-all systems which 48 of the 50 states use for the electoral college make it impossible for a third party to emerge with any chance of gaining considerable electoral votes.

It's that simple.

Wouldn't we all LOVE to do away with the electoral college?

I imagine all but the staunchest conservative who has no faith in democracy , but dreamily longs for the good old days of feudal states would agree.

Getting rid of the electoral college requires rewriting the US constitution.
That my friends is a very big hurtle to any change.

It's not impossible, but it requires a 2/3s YEA vote in both houses (votes from people who benefited from the existing system), AND ratification from 2/3s of the states.

I would love to see plurality myself, but I will not vote for someone who simply can not win and hence not effect any policy at all.
In local and state elections, it may well be another story.
And if enough elections are won at that level by an outlier party
a network can begin to be built to supplant one of the larger parties.
(the possibility of converting the existing system at the federal level to a plurality are slim as we have demonstrated...so supplanting is the more likely scenario).

The populace realizes this statistical improbability of outside party success, and most third party supporters coalesce around the largest party with whom they identify the closer election day comes.

They form an allegiance with this party although they identify more with the smaller party, in order to defeat the largest party of their ideological opponents. Those who go against this process will be blamed for lost elections by splitting votes and guaranteeing success of the major opposing party. This process happens in countries where plurality is the norm more so than the US actually.

(Look at the un-natural alliance of the Liberals & the Tories in England for instance).
Candidates and supporters of outlier parties deny this, but the data just does not support their claims.
Social Scientists studying the matter as it applies in the U.S. agree the net effect of voting for outlier parties only helps whichever of the major parties is least like the outlier one a person votes for.
Could we become more pluralistic like the UK or Canada?
Not without amendment to the constitution.

Differences in voting processes explain why the United Kingdom normally has three or more parties that have a fair chance at elections while the US does not.
With our winner-take-all system , proportionality is tossed aside no matter how close the plurality of the vote actually is.
In the UK, though it may not be direct proportionality, more than three parties get a certain amount of seats in the House of Commons. In the US, anything other than a Democrat or a Republican is rarely seen, (only two independents in the Senate. None at all in the House of Representatives.) Unfortunately, both systems end up being troubled by some form of gerrymandering, but far more so in the US.

There are further restrictions other than absolute majority in the electoral college that put further severe dampers on any third party efforts. The amount of private money and funding in forms of Super PACs and other organizations leaves other parties little to work with in terms of competition.

Parties who do not have significant funding compared to the standard billion dollar benchmark of the large parties are surpassed immensely in efforts of marketing, a requirement to spread the message and even existence of the party. Private funding also means the GOP and Democratic Party receive an easy pass when it comes to the eligibility requirements of raising at least $5,000 in 20 states while third parties struggle to meet it. (Those are state by state rules...again the constitution gives states this power).

You have to remember that the political parties are nothing more than private clubs. They have no official state function, nor any requirements to behave in a democratic fashion...no more so than a yacht club or a golf club. Furthermore, the Democrats and Republicans can even be seen working together to disenfranchise smaller parties. One example of this is the Committee of Presidential Debates that determines who is allowed on the highly-watched general election debate stage. Rules and regulations are often imposed to shut out smaller parties instead of allowing the nominees from the third and fourth largest parties to debate, effectively creating a monopoly on these debates.

Again this problem arises because they are no more than private clubs that are not controlled by government any more so than the process of  selecting Grand Poobahs at the Flintstone's Waterbuffalo Lodge.

These are unfortunate truths but they are truths none the less.
America’s two-party system is a result of its electoral structure.
Its electoral structure is not a result of its two-party system.

Possible solutions

Instant Runoff.

The current political process leaves many Americans longing for more choices of candidates and hoping for election reform. One voting process that may prove to be a more inclusive solution is an instant run-off.
Instant run-off elections constitute candidate ranking by the voter.
The voter would list over three candidates starting with the most preferred.
If a voter’s first pick candidate received the least votes, their vote would then be given to their second pick.
With this process, though it is not flawless, no blame could be placed on a voter of a third party for splitting votes and the winner take all effect at least could be overcome.

Public Financing
Removing the effect of private capital on elections would transform the process entirely.
It would create a level playing field where no candidate could garner advantage.
It would also eliminate the institutionalized graft where politicians owe their financiers favors.

Want to reform the process?
That's how you do it.
Want to vote for someone other than a major party candidate and have your vote actually HELP your cause?
That's how you do it,
Until then, it's casting the first stone...in your own face.

As to The Lady or the Tiger?
Sutton never solved the riddle...he left it up to you.

White Noise, Red Threats, Blue Monday

Static!
Jumbled collages of random frequencies.
Cacophony.
No coherency whatsoever. An incomprehensible splatter on an indecipherable medium.
An inharmonious din.
A stench to the ear.
This is not a discourse.
This is not an exchange of ideas.
The methods and devices we use to communicate ideas may have progressed a bit in the last century, yet the ability to jam the signals has also improved exponentially as well.
And as with most everything, it is all a purchasable commodity.
Own the static, and you can control what messages may be heard in the din.
I'm talking about our experience of life in this pre-modern world we exist in, but particularly about it's politics.
Like all social movements great or small through history, the "tea party" is not homogenized.
According to recent polling it has been stated throughout mainstream media that people who identify with the tea party movement are made up of a quite different cloth than the typical images of these public protests with the misspelled signs and blatant racist undertones.
There are the hard-core libertarians, white supremacists and partisan Republicans that are not interested in any type of discourse. But there are also good people, with whom in reality, common ground can be reached. ( If the cognitive dissonance could be ceased).

No I'm not insane, and my views have not changed in the least. Here is why I suggest this is the case. The reasonable people in this movement are largely those who like most of us, have seen their personal economic security laid to waste by the economic meltdown. They are worried about being able to pay their tax bills and the economic future of their children. Like many of us, they are disaffected, feel they are not represented and other than this "tea party" no one has engaged them. The community offers a respite from the isolation and ineffectiveness they are experiencing.
Here is that common ground-

The fork in the road, it's time to turn off the noise and find a way forward for all of us.

The middle class IS overtaxed, they are correct. After the last half century of "tax reform" by both political parties, the middle class pays the same percent of income in taxes today as it did in 1960. The very rich (with incomes over $2 million) pay half as much as they did in 1960 and the very richest 400 households pay two-thirds less. Big corporations like ExxonMobil and General Electric have gamed the system so that they pay zero or little taxes.

We are borrowing recklessly from our children's standard of living. In a complete bastardization of Keynes measured and sound economic philosophy of borrowing to invest in a future that returns that investment with interest and improvements when private interests can't or won't, we squander and loot. And I suggest this as someone who firmly believes in a mixed economy, that some things are best accomplished by private concerns while others are best achieved through collective effort.

Instead of using capital to approach full employment or stimulate domestic production, we have borrowed to give the obscenely rich and global corporations (whose only interest in our country is milking it dry and accessing it's resources and wealth for exploitation) tax breaks and fight two wars.

In the last eight years, we borrowed $700 billion to give tax breaks to people with incomes over $250,000. Remarkably the economic burden is dumped on the people who can least afford to bear it.

The standard of living for the middle class has been under attack for generations. For thirty years real wages have been flat and our economic security has declined significantly. This has been disguised by people working more hours and forced to take on unprecedented amounts of personal debt to maintain the appearance of stability. The economic crisis unmasked how our security was built on a bubble of debt. A job is no longer a source of health insurance or retirement security. You are on your own, go ****yourself.

Wall Street squeezes the middle class at every turn. In addition to the government taxes, corporations are also "taxing" us, with fees, charges and monopoly control over markets. The more power they gain over citizens, the more difficult it becomes to constrain them.

Where The Tea Party Is Wrong

President Obama is not the enemy. Both the Republican and Democratic parties have been hijacked by corporate overlords whose priority is to protect Wall Street financiers and greedy multinational corporations. President Obama is pushing back more than President Bush did, and he had an enormous mess to clean up (he inherited two wars, the Wall Street meltdown and a $10 trillion national debt). If we demand a government that protects Main Street and ordinary people against organized greed, he will respond.

Scapegoating vulnerable people is a dead end. Our economic problems were not caused by immigrants or low-income people. They were not caused by educators or firemen being paid decent wages or having decent health insurance. Wall Street greed in high places is what drove the economy over a cliff. The plan of the powerful elites is to divide and conquer by having us fight among ourselves, with racial divides, hate mongering, and bogus scapegoating. The hate mongering and blaming that is oozing from the TV's and radios is to distract from the real villains. Weak government is not the answer. If we shrink government, who will defend us against Wall Street and the corporate looters? The parts of government that should protect us against Wall Street greed, speculation and the assaults on the middle class have been weakened under both political parties. Sarah Palin and David Koch are no leaders and are using your movement to bilk it for personal gain. ignore the likes of them.

OK Then, What is the answer?

A fair accountable tax system. Wealthy people and corporations must pay their fair share and reduce the bite on middle-class taxpayers. Tax dodges that create one tax system for the privileged and another for everyone else must be eliminated. National debt must be addressed though at the same time investments must be made in our future.

Oversight of Wall Street. The financial sector is incapable of policing itself. We need strong public institutions to oversee the financial markets so that the reckless, unregulated financial activities that wrecked our economy never occur again.

Giant corporations must be reined in. We need a constitutional amendment to limit the power of corporations to dominate political processes including elections, campaigns and lobbying. Without this; democracy and liberty will not prevail. This is the root cause of virtually all social ills. And the true source of everyone's frustration with the political process.

Tied To The Mast, Sailing On A Ship Of Fools

Over the past fifty years the Republican Party, and some of their key supporters, have been waging a long-term "total assault" not just against the Democratic Party, but the Democrat's main financial backers, the American people, and the U.S. Constitution. The recent SCOTUS decision regarding the wholesale purchase of elections proves this beyond the shadow of a doubt. Sadly most of the American people are unaware of the nature and goals of this war and, as a result, the GOP has been winning. During these past fifty years the Republican's main supporters (giant corporations and a handful of mega wealthy individuals) have gotten much richer and the Democrat's main supporters (labor unions, trial lawyers, and middle class workers) have gotten poorer. This fact is reflected in each party's fundraising totals and in who is giving them money.

Fundraising 1977 -2000

This situation has forced the Democrats to seek funds from many of the same people who support the GOP, and as a result the Democrat's ideology has shifted to the right and has become much more conservative. The Republican Party's ideology has also shifted more to the right and has become so extremely conservative that it can only be described as fascism.

The vast majority of the American people (99%) now have no representation whatsoever, the two political parties are no longer responsive in any sense to the people who live here. The modern sad reality is that the Democrats represent the very rich and now pursues a conservative ideology, and the Republicans represent a few obscenely rich families and they support these family's fascist ideology. As a result of both parties shifting to the ideological right their tax legislation has shifted the tax burden away from the rich and down to the middle class. The social programs and social legislation are being re-designed to benefit corporations more than the people they were intended to benefit, look at the corporate pork filled Medicare prescription drug benefit bill, look at who writes any bill these days...lobbyists. The legislators often don't even read them. They just pass them. The GOP has won their "total war" against the American people. They have forced the Democratic party to become irrelevant. With their victory in hand they wanted to lock-in their concentrations of wealth and they want to eliminate their competition, both in politics and in business. They also want to free themselves from any form of accountability or legal liability. These efforts are clearly visible in all the legislation the Republicans have passed. The legislation they want to pass, the judges they nominate, and the distractions and obstructionism they have been exercising. With the outright corporate purchase of BOTH parties, the sheering of the sheep has become institutional. As FDR said, nothing happens in politics that isn't planned. The financial meltdown was not an accident. And notice that those who caused it have benefited greatly from it. With 2 conservative parties in tow, we are well down the road to the complete fascist takeover of the U.S. Government. These teabag groups are merely a way for the fascists to keep a lid on dissent and control it until they can absorb it into their own fold.


It's beginning to look like we might be entering the final stage in the GOP's all out war strategy and it may be the last chance the American people have to save their government from these ruthless lying fascist criminals. It requires absolute and total removal of ALL corporate influence. (Originally a corporate charter was revoked if they interfered in an election). It requires that elections are publicly funded, eliminating the obvious graft. If we can do this, the march to fascism stops. If not,mass protests in public, and at the private homes of the politicians and the private homes of their key financial and media backers. If they leave follow them. If they run, run after them. And if they fight,then fight back even harder. The key is to make them extremely uncomfortable until they realize that their cause is no longer winnable because their risk/reward ratio sucks.
The corporatists have claimed our only choice is their way (fascism) or anarchy and chaos will prevail...only THEY can save us from this anarchy...I say CHOOSE THE ANARCHY.

Our government is not really broken, it's been purchased illicitly. Remove the ability to purchase it and it actually works pretty damned well.

Top Dogs Of Class War

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” - Warren Buffet

Few would argue that Warren Buffet is a very smart fellow. And his statement is not as condescending as it sounds...he was commenting on the fact that his employees pay around a third of their net income in taxes while he, one of the wealthiest men in America; pays less than 13%. He said he uses no tax planning and makes no efforts to weasel out of paying such as hiding money in tax shelters etc. but this unfair tax situation is simply evidence of class warfare...the war of the outrageously wealthy against everyone else. And They are indeed winning, if they have not already won.


Welcome To The Dog And Pony Show
An American businessman who recently moved his manufacturing operations to Mexico was standing at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The Globalist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

“How long it took you to catch them?” The globalist asked.

“Only a little while.” The Mexican replied.

“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” The globalist then asked.

“I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs.” The Mexican said.

“But,” The American globalist then asked, “What do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, señor.”

The American capitalist scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and I could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you buy a bigger boat, and with the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”

“Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own can factory. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15-20 years.”

“But what then, señor?”

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions, señor? Then what?”

The American said slowly, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your grandkids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos…”

Get the picture?

Most of us see success in life as having enough to be comfortable, have some degree of security, and experience life's joys. Some, and I suggest this is a sociopathic quality, can't get enough. They can't experience happiness. They want it all, yours mine and ours. These sociopaths already own most assets and coins on earth, but it's not enough. It will never ever be enough.

Now allow me to interject at this point that I'm not suggesting that all wealthy people are sociopaths, Warren Buffet for instance has every right in my view to make profit from his smarts, at least he has some grounding that makes him understand he too should be taxed for services at minimum, the same rate as his housekeeper. He, and people like him are not really the issue, (though I also understand the logic of the argument that anyone who has more than a fair share, ultimately takes it from someone else.) But that is not the focus of this article. This is about Global Class War waged, not by the poor, downtrodden, or trampled underfoot; but by sociopaths and their sycophants who can not rest until every drop of blood is wrung from every stone.

"We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all."

Huh? Really?

Those were the words of Lord Brian Griffiths, a former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. And why the hell wouldn't Griffiths feel that way? After all, he's vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. He personally experienced much, much "greater prosperity"thanks to record bonuses the banking giant paid out at the end of this year. So the "recession" is over, it's over for the world's obscenely wealthy. And no one else matters.

Goldman--along with plenty of other financial institutions--is in the midst of a bonus orgy, with end-of-year payouts to financial executives worth billions of dollars--allegedly for a job well done in 2009. Of course Goldman is one of the firms bailed out, allegedly saved from it's own extinction from U.S. taxpayers. Goldman isn't alone. Overall, Wall Street firms have paid out $140 billion in bonuses this year, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of 23 banks, investment firms, hedge funds and other institutions. That's $10 billion more than in 2007, the year before the financial meltdown and the high point of Wall Street's balloon. How on earth is this justifiable? It just isn't, and it doesn't matter, you'll subsidize this and like it! That's right you peasants, take it like a chump. Don't put up a fight, don't even whimper.

How did Wall Street recover so quickly that the banks could be wiping their asses with money again? To hear the banks tell it, their boffo quarterly earnings reports and the coming tidal wave of bonuses are the result of their financial skill--proof that the Wall Street Wizards are a cut above the rest of us. Certainly it's only fair that they should be showered with cash while the rest of us get hosed with layoffs, wage cuts, foreclosures and bankruptcies.

But that picture is a vile and pernicious fraud. The Banking Pirate's profits are being subsidized heavily with your money. Remember, these firms were given this money to make loans so credit didn't freeze up. It was for creating new jobs, restructuring mortgages and "trickling down" to Main Street.

That didn't happen did it?

Trickle Down Economics

So what did Goldman and other firms do with this free money? No, they didn't lend it out. Instead, the last quarter shows that almost all of Goldman's revenue in those months--$10 billion out of $10.8 billion--was from trading. Goldman posted its $3 billion in profits based largely on gains from trades and fees from customers. Goldman, in other words, is a bookie, and a gambler and little else.

The bottom line: Goldman didn't create a single job or stop a single foreclosure.

Responding to public anger at the size of Goldman's bonuses, the firm's Chief Financial Officer, David Vinar scoffed, "I do think it's too big a focus. I would prefer people to be focused on the success of our business, how well we're doing, and how well our people are performing."

Con men like Vinar think you are too stupid to understand the swindle they're operating. But it's obvious. As Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the Wall Street bailout, commented:

"So let me understand this. They can take taxpayer money and go out and make investments--gambles. These are not loans. This is not from lending activity, which is what I thought the banks were in the business of doing. Instead, they can go out and make short-term profits in investing and be rich, and that's the healing of the financial system? I'm sorry, I don't think so."

As for the bonuses, Warren said:

"I not only don't think it's appropriate...I am wordless over this. Speechless. I do not understand how it is that financial institutions can think that they can take taxpayer money, and then turn around and act like it's business as usual...I don't understand how they can't see the world has changed in a fundamental way. It is not business as usual when you take taxpayer dollars. But all I can say right now is that they seem to be winning this argument."

The unmitigated audacity of Wall Street was so over the top as to make even the Economist magazine blush. "Worst of all, bonuses are being paid in part from subsidies: this is not a free market, but a perversion of it." The magazine further wrote that banks "enjoy laxer accounting, loose collateral rules at central banks, explicit debt guarantees and asset-purchasing schemes. And critically, they can borrow cheaply because they are deemed too big to fail. All of them--from comparatively healthy Goldman to the nationalized weaklings--are being subsidized by the rest of us."

Warren Buffet has said he paid 13% of his income in taxes, this is without efforts to shelter or weasel out of paying through lobbying, cooking books, or offshore tax dodges like we have seen so many do . His housekeeper has to give 33% of her income. And yet the call from conservatives is to cut the tax rate for the wealthy even further.

Mention to conservatives or Republicans that we should consider some mode of equity in the tax system, that maybe these "Wizards" should contribute to their own subsidization, that the wealthiest men, as Warren Buffet says, should at least pay their fair share... and free marketeers and conservatives will purvey several arguments. The first argument is that this mere suggestion constitutes class warfare. I think Mr. Buffett already answered that one. Resistance is futile. The mere concept of resistance is taboo.

The other argument is that raising taxes actually lowers tax revenues. "Huh"? That's right, total revenues will increase if they aren't paid, so only cutting taxes stimulates federal revenue. They claim this is proved by the history of tax receipts during the George W. Bush presidency. But, in fact, the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton’s merry presidency and actually after the tech boom bubble burst (we won't use figures during the tech boom because that might be unfair and assailable by believers in the miracle of trickle down economics). It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush’s tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say). Of course I like to say the economy completely derailed under Bush economics, which were of course good old fashioned Voodoo, Trojan horse, Trickle Down, Bullshit. It wasn't until 2006 that revenues broke the trillion dollar mark again. By this time, Republicans had added a $2.7 trillion to the national debt.

So much for tax cuts adding to revenue.

Your Ad Here

FDR- Greatest Modern President

“Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”

Franklin D. Roosevelt had campaigned against Herbert Hoover in the 1932 presidential election saying little about what he might do if he were elected. It seems the president-elect’s most intimate associates did not feel they knew him well, with the exception perhaps of his wife, Eleanor. His enemies absolutely detested him. Colorful stories about his detractors include radio manufacturer Atwater Kent who retired because he would not do business while "That Man" was there. J. P. Morgan's family was ordered to keep newspapers with pictures of Roosevelt out of his sight, and in one Connecticut country club...mention of his name was "forbidden as a health measure against apoplexy." In Kansas a man went down into his cyclone cellar and announced he would not emerge until Roosevelt was out of office. (While he was there, his wife ran off with a traveling salesman...really!)

Yet look around you, this is not Stalin's world. His view of the world came to a monolithic collapse. It is not Churchill's world either. Empire (with perhaps a brief attempt by the "Neoconservative" movement to try their hand at it) is a thing of the past, a dodo bird, a tyrannosaurus. No, the world we see today is Roosevelt's world. His vision and courage have, frankly; dwarfed all those who have followed. (Of course he was re-elected 3 times, so he had more time in office than any other president.)

Roosevelt was an affable man. Known for his wit, he used his personal charm to keep most people at a distance. In his campaign speeches, he was often buoyant and optimistic. He spoke with a somewhat calm gentle tone spiced with humor. But his first inaugural address took on an unusually solemn quality. Not without reason—by 1933 the depression had reached its unfathomable dreadful depth. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address outlined how he hoped to proceed and insisted that that the nation’s “common difficulties” concerned “only material things.”

History...are we condemned to repeat it? the 1930s shattered blind faith in capitalism ("the free market'') as an engine of social progress. Over time American leaders sold us the same failed theories that proved so disastrous in 1929. These same miscreants have tried to revise history to make Hoover's inactive "hands off" approach more palatable. Those who lived through those times, and those of us lucky enough to have talked at length with these people simply know better. It is ridiculous to claim Hoover's policy would have worked eventually. That is plainly unknowable. It is equally ridiculous to claim FDR's programs "lengthened" the depression. It is mere hyperbola.
Only a fool would deny the dynamics that led to the great depression were not repeated in the current fiasco. The FDR inaugural address is of more than just historical interest because in so many ways we stand at very similar crossroads today.

Presented in it's entirety here is FDR's Inaugural Address.

ROOSEVELT'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS

(listen to it in real audio)

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.

Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.

The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.

With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.

Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, as published in Samuel Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of Crisis, 1933 (New York: Random House, 1938), 11–16.

By the time Roosevelt was sworn in, national income had been cut in half. More than fifteen million Americans were unemployed. Every state had closed its banks or severely restricted their operations. The New York Stock Exchange had shut down. For many, hope was a distant memory. "Now is the winter of our discontent the chilliest," wrote the editor of Nation's Business. "Fear bordering on panic, loss of faith in everything, our fellowman, our institutions, private and government. Worst of all no faith in ourselves or the future. Almost everyone ready to scuttle the ship, and not even women and children first."

My Favorite photo of FDR, clowning with his cousin.

The following is an account from The FDR Years -On Roosevelt and His Legacy
By William E. Leuchtenburg:

After Roosevelt took office, the nation seemed markedly changed. Gone was the torpor of the Hoover years; gone, too, the political division and paralysis. "The people aren't sure...just where they are going," noted one business journal, "but anywhere seems better than where they have been. In the homes on the streets, in the offices there is a feeling of hope reborn." Again and again, observers resorted to the imagery of darkness and light to characterize the transformation from the Stygian gloom of Hoover's final winter to the bright springtime of the First Hundred Days. Overnight, one eyewitness later remembered, Washington seemed like Cambridge on the morning of the Harvard-Yale game: "All the shops were on display, everyone was joyous, crowds moved excitedly. There was something in the air that had not been there before, and in the New Deal that continued throughout. It was not just for the day as it was in Cambridge." On the New York Curb Exchange, where trading resumed on March 15, the stock ticker ended the day with the merry message: "Goodnite. ...Happy days are here again."

It was altogether fitting to choose the words of FDR's theme song, for people of every political persuasion gave full credit for the revival of confidence to one man: the new president. FDR's "conspicuous courage, cheerfulness, energy and resource," noted the British ambassador at Washington, Sir Ronald Lindsay, contrasted so markedly with the "fearful, furtive fumbling of the Great White Feather," Herbert Hoover, that "the starved loyalties and repressed hero-worship of the country have found in him an outlet and a symbol." In March a Hoover appointee from the Oyster Bay branch of the Roosevelt family wrote his mother, "I have followed with much interest and enthusiasm Franklin's start. I think he has done amazingly well, and I am really very pleased. One feels that he has what poor Hoover lacked, and what the country so much needs - leadership." A month later the Republican Senator from California, Hiram Johnson, acknowledged:

The admirable trait in Roosevelt is that he has the guts to try. ...He does it all with the rarest good nature. ...We have exchanged for a frown in the White House a smile. Where there were hesitation and vacillation, weighing always the personal political consequences, feebleness, timidity, and duplicity, there are now courage and boldness and real action.

On the editorial page of Forum, Henry Goddard Leach summed up the nation's nearly unanimous verdict: "We have a leader."

The Conservation Corps and WPA put unemployed Americans to work building public works projects, teaching various skills, farming, bricklaying, and electrifying rural areas.

According to Leo Rosten, FDR's manner at his first press conference as president, on March 8, 1933, became "something of a legend in newspaper circles"

Mr. Roosevelt was introduced to each correspondent. Many of them he already knew and greeted by name - first name. For each he had a handshake and the Roosevelt smile. When the questioning began, the full virtuosity of the new Chief Executive was demonstrated. Cigarette-holder in mouth at a jaunty angle, he met the reporters on their own grounds. His answers were swift, positive, illuminating. He had exact information at his fingertips. He showed an impressive understanding of public problems and administrative methods. He was lavish in his confidences and "background information." He was informal, communicate, gay. When he evaded a question it was done frankly. He was thoroughly at case. He made no effort to conceal his pleasure in the give and take of the situation.

Reporters were simply jubilant. Transformation in the White House was astounding. Relations were hostile with Roosevelt's predecessor, Hoover. (he was accused of actually using the Secret Service to stop leaks and of launching a campaign of "terrorism" to get publishers to fire newspapermen who wrote about him in a poor light. Hoover finally discontinued press conferences altogether. And Hoover, like Harding and Coolidge who held the office before him, had insisted on written questions submitted in advance.

Roosevelt, to the delight of the Washington press corps, immediately abolished that requirement and said that questions could be fired at him without warning. At the end of the first conference, reporters did something they had never done before - gave the man they were covering a spontaneous round of applause.

According to "The FDR Years" By William Edward Leuchtenburg, the good relations with the press continued even though Roosevelt was sometimes testy. ( he told one reporter to go off to a corner and put on a dunce cap) "but, for the most part, especially in the New Deal years, he was jovial and even chummy, in no small part because he regarded himself as a longtime newspaperman, having been "president" - that is, editor-in-chief - of the Harvard Crimson. He also saw to it that every nervous newcomer on his first White House assignment was introduced to him with a handshake, and he made clear that members of the Fourth Estate were socially respectable by throwing a spring garden party for them at the White House."

Yes, musicians suffered from rampant unemployment like everyone else in the Great Depression. And yes, there were jobs for them as well in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Roosevelt made plenty of enemies, both while in office and in posthumously. In fact he asked to be judged by his the enemies he made. But the overwhelming majority of historians rate his presidency as 1st, 2nd or 3rd greatest. (The other 2 most often cited are Lincoln and Jefferson). So the claim that he is our greatest modern president has the backing of historians.
The courage to take bold steps, to also admit if they didn't succeed and try something else, the challenges met, the polio.
All too much for this one article.
But here are a few parting thoughts...
We sometimes hear those who would vandalize FDR's accomplishments claim he was a socialist.
The truth is that most socialists of the day opposed him for saving capitalism from the Depression; which they (correctly) believed was the inevitable result of unconstrained oligarchy.

Roosevelt went to great lengths to downplay his struggle with polio.
This photo was taken 2 years after his legs became paralyzed.
I can't help but notice how thin his legs are. He combated the disease's progress by swimming.

While we are talking about presidents, which president said this?
"In some countries, this notable president stated, "a few families are fabulously wealthy, contribute far less than they should in taxes, and are indifferent to the poverty of the great masses of the people. A country in this situation, is fraught with continual instability."
So who spoke this "spread the wealth around" statement over 50 years ago?
Had to be some commie like Fidel Castro, or some leftist anti-American pinko anti-war peacenik, right?
...Well it was Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
(How far has the Republican party de-evolved since then?...well McCarthy was doing his thing around the same time... he might be the Father of the modern GOP. )

A dust storm in Kansas during the Great Depression

To those who speculate that the Great Depression would have been shorter without the New Deal, (a somewhat popular, purely unprovable bit of woolgathering among certain New Orleans-abandoning, torture-sanctioning, 9/11-Tourette's sufferers) I offer this bit of nostalgia.
In the summer of 1932 John Maynard Keynes, the brilliant economist credited with saving capitalism from eating itself the last time it tried to, was asked by a journalist, whether there had ever been anything before like the Great Depression. The unflappable Keynes said: "Yes, it was called the Dark Ages, and it lasted four hundred years."

If Keynes saw the Great Depression as something that would have lasted a long time without intervention, I question whether these armchair quarterbacks (watching the game 70 years later from their cozy abodes on their 60 inch flatscreens with a snifter of cognac in hand, after driving home on a road the Conservation Corps built) have anywhere near the insight of Keynes.
And if you really believe you could have done better, go directly to Washington D.C. right now and tell your senator YOU know how to fix the economy quickly. I know you will!

"The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit." ...Indeed!

The Funeral Train Carries Franklin's Body back to his beloved Hyde Park.
FDR died of a cerebral hemorrhage while serving his 4th
term as President in 1945.