Motus Mentis

10 Comments

1. JK says

   Why just stop at one?

   http://annaraccoon.com/2014/03/06/uk-raine-terrain/

   Posted March 7, 2014 at 5:20 pm | Permalink
2. JK says

   Page three, line 17.

   http://star.worldbank.org/corruption-cases/sites/corruption-cases/files/documents/arw/Lazarenko_US_NDCAL_Indictment_May_18_2000.pdf

   Posted March 7, 2014 at 6:12 pm | Permalink
3. the one eyed man says

   Interesting piece. It reminded me of those groups which sprang up in the 1930’s — the American Liberty League, the America First Group, the Christian Front — whose leaders had the same blind hatred and loathing of FDR as conservatives have today for President Obama, and who showed the same admiration for Hitler as a decisive leader with “a deep understanding of his country’s history and people” who “wants his country to be number one” as contemporary conservatives have for Putin. (Not that the admiration for Hitler has entirely vanished from conservatism — witness Pat Buchanan’s praise for him as an “individual of great courage” who got a bum rap from historians — but Putin envy is much more socially acceptable, because … Obama.) I am sure that if you were to use the wayback machine, you could dig up the same piece substituting “FDR” for “Obama” and “Hitler” for “Putin.” Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

   Watching the CPAC comedy show provided the spectacle of conservatives plumbing the outer reaches of derangement, willing to believe anything they are told about Obama as long as he is portrayed as malign and evil. Doubtless DiploMad would have been a big hit there, with his diatribe about a President who is not a patriot, has no understanding of the country he leads, “could not care less” about the dominance of the country he leads, blah blah blah.

   Outside the right wing pseudo-news bubble, you have a President who won two crushing victories, because he is widely regarded as a thoughtful, inspiring, eloquent leader who has been largely successful in fixing the greatest set of problems inherited by any President since at least FDR, as well as being a great role model for the nation. Perhaps this is why conservatives’ hatred of Obama matches the fever pitch they once had for Roosevelt: few things are as humiliating as seeing others succeed where you have failed, and derangement is as good a response as any to seeing a President you loathe clean up the mess left by Hoover and Bush.

   But hey: why get swallowed up by the perpetual aggrievement and unceasing obloquy of conservative indignation? After all, it won’t last forever. Here’s something to cheer everybody up:

   http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/new-report-shows-young-liberals-own-the-future.html

   Posted March 8, 2014 at 1:15 pm | Permalink
4. Malcolm says

   Your comment drips with unintended irony. Whom do you suppose were the biggest admirers of the Communist, Fascist, and national-socialist movements of the 1920s and 1930s? Why, it was the Progressives of the American and British Left. FDR himself referred to Mussolini as “that admirable Italian gentleman”, and said that he was “much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.” The man in charge of administering the New Deal, Hugh “Iron Pants” Johnson (Time‘s Man of the Year, 1933), distributed Italian Fascist literature through the National Recovery Administration — and the effectiveness of Fascist and National Socialist propaganda certainly was not lost on Roosevelt.

   The feeling was mutual; both Hitler and Mussolini went out of their way to praise FDR as a like-minded leader. Harold Ickes at one point warned FDR that the public tended more and more “to unconsciously group four names: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and Roosevelt.”

   Outside the right wing pseudo-news bubble, you have a President who won two crushing victories, because he is widely regarded as a thoughtful, inspiring, eloquent leader who has been largely successful in fixing the greatest set of problems inherited by any President since at least FDR, as well as being a great role model for the nation.

   The irony is particularly rich here. Can you think of another charismatic, eloquent and inspiring leader, elected with broad popular support at a time of deep economic difficulty and national malaise, on a platform of equality, universal education, public health, wealth redistribution, and care for the elderly, who also committed himself to restoring his nation’s sense of justice and self-esteem, and to fixing the awful mess left behind by earlier administrations?

   Posted March 8, 2014 at 3:47 pm | Permalink
5. the one eyed man says

   Sure: FDR and LBJ.

   Both men were “charismatic, eloquent, inspiring leaders, elected with broad popular support” by record-setting landslide elections. America in 1932 suffered from national malaise due to the Depression, and America in 1964 suffered from national malaise following the Kennedy assassination. More than any other Presidents, FDR and LBJ are known for equality (WPA, the Public Works Administration, the TVA, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965) helping the elderly (Social Security, Medicare), public health (Medicare, Medicaid), and wealth redistribution (all of the above). FDR was committed to “restoring the nation’s sense of justice and self-esteem” from a land filled with Hoovervilles, and LBJ was committed to the same for a grieving nation still traumatized from seeing John-John salute the coffin. FDR was committed to “fixing the awful mess left behind by earlier administrations,” although obviously this doesn’t apply to LBJ because of the circumstances which brought him to the Presidency.

   I’m guessing that is not the answer you were looking for. However, as someone once said: if the glove fits, you have to acquit.

   As for FDR: I think you need to go back to your history books and see how his foreign policy changed after events like Kristallnacht and Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. There was a fearsome isolationist group led by staunch conservatives like J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, the Rockefellers, the DuPonts, and so forth. And, of course there is that little matter about FDR supplying aid to China and Britain and declaring war against the Axis powers. It’s hard to square your notion of FDR as one who sympathizes with Mussolini and Hitler with the fact that he led a nation to war against them.

   Posted March 8, 2014 at 5:16 pm | Permalink
6. Malcolm says

   Oh, I’ve read my history, believe me — and I’m well aware of the extent to which the Left hurried to distance itself from its former darlings in Germany and Italy (though, curiously, not Stalin and other Communists, although they’ve been responsible for even more death and suffering than Hitler; quite a bit more, in fact). The stifling P.C. that suffocates present-day society is largely a horrified over-reaction to what statist, Progressive ideology ultimately led to in the 1930s and 1940s.

   So: isolationism is suddenly “fearsome”? It didn’t seem to be so “fearsome” with your crowd back in 2003, when we confronted a ruthless, warmongering dictator — head of a socialist political party explicitly modeled on the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei — who aspired, among other things, to racial unity, regional domination, and extermination of the Jews.

   I guess times change.

   Posted March 8, 2014 at 6:04 pm | Permalink
7. Kevin Kim says

   While you gents are busy spewing caustic Teutonic syllables at each other, I think it’s time to take a break and bask in some French-language pedantry:

   “Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.”

   should be

   Plus Á§a change, plus c’est la mÁªme chose.

   Just a note from your friendly neighborhood francophone.

   Posted March 8, 2014 at 7:49 pm | Permalink
8. TheBigHenry says

   “… blind hatred and loathing … as conservatives have today for President Obama, …”

   More grotesque irony from the half-blind idolator of everything Obama, that blindingly obvious awful man.

   Posted March 8, 2014 at 8:32 pm | Permalink
9. Malcolm says

   Yes, Kevin, I didn’t want to pile on. Didn’t seem sporting.

   Glad you did, though.

   Posted March 8, 2014 at 10:52 pm | Permalink
10. Bill says

    Malcolm, with respect to “…the extent to which the Left hurried to distance itself from its former darlings in Germany and Italy (though, curiously, not Stalin and other Communists, although they’ve been responsible for even more death and suffering than Hitler…” I strongly suggest reading “American Betrayal” by Diana West. Thoroughly researched (despite all the neocons bluster to the contrary) and stomach-churning in places. I don’t recommend it for One-eye, it will be completely denied.

    Posted March 9, 2014 at 1:39 pm | Permalink