10 Comments

When you can't get butter you take margarine.

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The money changers bit of the speech sounds very sinister to me. I doubt he or his listeners had any very clear idea exactly which part of the vague group gestured to were responsible for exactly which malign acts that supposedly led to the crash and the depression. And even if they did, I'm pretty sure that the actual causes were structural and/or so distributed that there would be no perpetrators to finger in a just way. So whatever the virtues of attempting not to sugar the pill about the dire situation Americans found themselves in at the time of the speech, the gesturing towards scapegoats introduced real poison into the pill.

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funny, what i read is:

we have the oppressed and the oppressors (money changers); we are from the government and we are here to help you (ignore than man behind the curtains - J. Edgar Hoover); we will now venture into the first serious steps of large federal intervention into your lives; the government is here to save you because big business is the devil; we must pledge ourselves to serving the nation like a disciplined army (a proud moment for Mr Marx, eh); the Constitution is great... errrh, but we may have to depart from it a bit for a while (sorry people of Japanese descent); i will ask congress to extend the powers of the president (so my successors can issue executive orders like the leaves on a tree).

But at least he had a vision... kinda reminds me of when Obama told us he was going to reshape America. They both meant it...

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Let me guess- your middle initial is S?

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Stan, brilliant, and great way to engage in disagreement - attack the person with snarky remarks... your comment makes you seem arrogant and condescending. People like you are the problem in America today, Stan.

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FDR is the sole reason the 25th Amendment to the Constitution was passed. He became a tyrant over four administrations, and he refused to leave the office even when he was no longer up to the task. FDR was corrupted by the DC swamp and the inherent evil in the perception of unlimited power. I'm not a fan of a political speech given by a politician.

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author

You’ve mixed together the 22nd amendment (which was passed in response to FDR’s presidency) and the 25th (which wasn’t.)

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Thanks for the correction. I'd argue that the 25th which defines succession and ability to be removed from office due to incapacity was at least in part inspired by FDR. I understand Einsenhower's heart attacks and Kennedy's assassination prompted the clarification in 1965.

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I hope he's right about the resilience of the American Constitution.

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i think he is right about that. as civilization becomes increasingly complex governing becomes increasingly complex. i'm 68 and haven't lost a right or even part of a right in my lifetime. the scary action for me is the people that suggest changing the SCOTUS, dumping the electoral college, and restricting the rights articulated in the bill of rights (especially the 1A to control social media - be very very skeptical about such actions).

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