I have always found it intriguing that FDR, who by upbringing and socioeconomic background would clearly „belong“ to the Republican party (a „trust fund kid“ if there ever was one), would become the beacon of Social Democracy (which is the political science designation anywhere in the world but the USA).
From reading many biographies, I …
I have always found it intriguing that FDR, who by upbringing and socioeconomic background would clearly „belong“ to the Republican party (a „trust fund kid“ if there ever was one), would become the beacon of Social Democracy (which is the political science designation anywhere in the world but the USA).
From reading many biographies, I see three factors:
1. Social Democracy - the „New Deal“, as he labeled it - was REASON‘s solution for the problems before him
2. Eleanor, his wife, influenced him deeply in this regard. FDR realized there could not be a just society in the spirit of the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution without equal rights for women (I do not know enough about his personal theory for the suppression of non-whites)
3. POLIO, which struck him as a grown-up, was THE major educational influence on him. While he was arrogant and light-headed before, polio made him humble about every facet of his life.
FDR's achievements with his New Deal were admirable, but let's not forget that the reason for the New Deal was not to bring down capitalism but to save it. People were so angry and desperate after the stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression, there was a genuine concern in the Roosevelt administration that without immediate and drastic changes in the way the country was run, there would be a genuine Bolshevik-style revolution in the United States
True, but social democracy is not incompatible with capitalism. Social democracy designates which services are better supplied by the government vs. private enterprise, such as mail delivery, libraries, schools, etc.
Yes Peter, FDR`s 'reasoned solutions' which is why Hunter College at Roosevelt House is "Celebrating Frances Perkins". See, www.roodevelthouse.hunter.cuny.edu. I think New York renamed a stretch of East 65th for FDR's cabinet member near the Public Policy Institute.
FDR catered to white supremacy in the US because he thought it politically necessary to hold support for his New Deal programs from racist whites in Congress. During WWII, FDR refused to bomb train tracks leading to Hitler’s death camps because he thought helping Jews might turn antisemites against US participation in the war.
“Most notoriously, in June 1939, the German ocean liner St. Louis and its 937 passengers, almost all Jewish, were turned away from the port of Miami, forcing the ship to return to Europe; more than a quarter died in the Holocaust.
Government officials from the State Department to the FBI to President Franklin Roosevelt himself argued that refugees posed a serious threat to national security”
My grandparents supposedly were on a boat to Cuba and were turned away. They subsequently died in the gas camp called Chelmno, 1942. My own mother took the USS Cunard from Liverpool to the US in December 1939. What people were kept from was that the atrocities happening to Germany and Poland, started in the 1930’s. America was late to the game because communications here were totally misconstrued by our “intelligence”. Jews who were already here kept pleading with government officials about the devastation. They got letters and telegraphs from their homeland. Tragedy abound!
Please explain, Mike S upstateNY, what you are trying to express:
The vaccine against Polio became available to the public in 1955. The USA has been polio-free since 1979.
Only two countries in the world are still categoized by the WHO as polio-endemic: Pakistan and Afghanistan (there has been a flare-up in Nigeria recently).
One polio vaccine dose costs about 2 USD (the supply chain has to be temperature-controlled, however, and causes more costs). As the vaccination is part of public health plans for small children and as its costs are covery by universal health care insurance in all civilized countries but the USA, neither cost nor economic standing play a role (dark religion still does, however). Rotary International, with its more than 46,000 clubs and more than 1,4 million members, has played an important grass roots level role in countries like Pakistan in fighting the crippling disease.
So what do you mean with your reference to "...make sure all rich people stay Republican"?
I believe Mike is saying that the polio vaccine removed one more potential humbling experience from the upbringing of rich people. (It removed it from the upbringing of poor people as well, of course, but they didn't really need the lesson.) Without that experience, it's unlikely FDR would have grown up to be the person he was, and both global and American history of the mid-20th century would likely have been very different.
I'm old enough to know people of multiple economic classes who contracted polio as children, before the vaccine was developed. For all of them, it was a defining part of their childhood. We as children learned the lesson that privilege and wealth could not insulate us from the darker turns life could take. I learned that lesson again when a childhood friend died of leukemia at 14, another disease that today can be treated with the application of large amounts of money. Back then we took the March of Dimes seriously because most of us knew people who had had polio. I still think about it when I look at FDR's image on our 10-cent coin.
Another dark turn that was also eliminated, this one man-made, was the military draft. The volunteer army gave young rich folk yet one more way to reduce their risk and live the lives they and their parents had planned for them.
The constant shift of risk from rich to poor over the past 70 years or so has echoed the increase in wealth inequality to give the people who won the genetic lottery less and less reason to identify with those less fortunate than they. It is too bad that FDR got polio, but that twist of fate ultimately made our country a better place. I like to hope that he felt it made him a better person, as well.
Anyway, that's my take on the defeat of polio giving rich people one less reason to empathize with others. Mike, I hope I got your position right, but that's mine, anyway.
In Dr. Richardson's notes she makes the observation that Roosevelt's compassion, likely, emitted from his tough experience with polio. Now, perhaps he would have had compassion without that tough experience which resulted in him being different, disabled.
But, nobody will have that experience, rich nor poor, in America, anymore to build humility and build understanding.
Because the vaccine keeps us all healthy and well and, if we are born rich, as was Roosevelt, then, that opportunity to learn by being bent, is no more.
I have always found it intriguing that FDR, who by upbringing and socioeconomic background would clearly „belong“ to the Republican party (a „trust fund kid“ if there ever was one), would become the beacon of Social Democracy (which is the political science designation anywhere in the world but the USA).
From reading many biographies, I see three factors:
1. Social Democracy - the „New Deal“, as he labeled it - was REASON‘s solution for the problems before him
2. Eleanor, his wife, influenced him deeply in this regard. FDR realized there could not be a just society in the spirit of the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution without equal rights for women (I do not know enough about his personal theory for the suppression of non-whites)
3. POLIO, which struck him as a grown-up, was THE major educational influence on him. While he was arrogant and light-headed before, polio made him humble about every facet of his life.
FDR's achievements with his New Deal were admirable, but let's not forget that the reason for the New Deal was not to bring down capitalism but to save it. People were so angry and desperate after the stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression, there was a genuine concern in the Roosevelt administration that without immediate and drastic changes in the way the country was run, there would be a genuine Bolshevik-style revolution in the United States
True, but social democracy is not incompatible with capitalism. Social democracy designates which services are better supplied by the government vs. private enterprise, such as mail delivery, libraries, schools, etc.
Definitely. Those are the principles espoused by Frances Perkins.
Excellent point. Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Norway are excellent examples of this.
Yes Peter, FDR`s 'reasoned solutions' which is why Hunter College at Roosevelt House is "Celebrating Frances Perkins". See, www.roodevelthouse.hunter.cuny.edu. I think New York renamed a stretch of East 65th for FDR's cabinet member near the Public Policy Institute.
FDR catered to white supremacy in the US because he thought it politically necessary to hold support for his New Deal programs from racist whites in Congress. During WWII, FDR refused to bomb train tracks leading to Hitler’s death camps because he thought helping Jews might turn antisemites against US participation in the war.
And it took President Truman to desegregate the military.
And the ocean liner St. Lewis in 1939
“Most notoriously, in June 1939, the German ocean liner St. Louis and its 937 passengers, almost all Jewish, were turned away from the port of Miami, forcing the ship to return to Europe; more than a quarter died in the Holocaust.
Government officials from the State Department to the FBI to President Franklin Roosevelt himself argued that refugees posed a serious threat to national security”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-government-turned-away-thousands-jewish-refugees-fearing-they-were-nazi-spies-180957324/
We really need an icon for "agree with you and don't like it at all".
Humility in facing our history is recognizing our mistakes and continuing on in an attempt to make this a better democracy.
❤️
And the vilification of "others" persists.
It's the key element in authoritarianism - never mind how badly we treat you, we will protect you from those terrible monster-people over there.
And, of course, it's for your own good....
Or the alternative - no matter how badly we treat you, rest assured we will treat people who don't look like you even worse.
Yes, I only read about this recently. Dark days those were. Almost nobody stood up for the Jewish population.
My grandparents supposedly were on a boat to Cuba and were turned away. They subsequently died in the gas camp called Chelmno, 1942. My own mother took the USS Cunard from Liverpool to the US in December 1939. What people were kept from was that the atrocities happening to Germany and Poland, started in the 1930’s. America was late to the game because communications here were totally misconstrued by our “intelligence”. Jews who were already here kept pleading with government officials about the devastation. They got letters and telegraphs from their homeland. Tragedy abound!
I’m so sorry about your grand parents. I can’t even imagine such horror.
Thank you, Theresa. Yes, we all were robbed.
Requisitioned by the Government, RMS “Mauretania” was armed with two 150 mm guns and some smaller weapons & was painted in battle grey.
Sailed to NYC on 10th Dec 1939 with 166 passengers and 2,000 tons of cargo. Arrived on the 16th, and was docked at Cunard's Pier 90.
And now we have the polio vaccine to make sure all rich people stay Republican. Who knew?!
Please explain, Mike S upstateNY, what you are trying to express:
The vaccine against Polio became available to the public in 1955. The USA has been polio-free since 1979.
Only two countries in the world are still categoized by the WHO as polio-endemic: Pakistan and Afghanistan (there has been a flare-up in Nigeria recently).
One polio vaccine dose costs about 2 USD (the supply chain has to be temperature-controlled, however, and causes more costs). As the vaccination is part of public health plans for small children and as its costs are covery by universal health care insurance in all civilized countries but the USA, neither cost nor economic standing play a role (dark religion still does, however). Rotary International, with its more than 46,000 clubs and more than 1,4 million members, has played an important grass roots level role in countries like Pakistan in fighting the crippling disease.
So what do you mean with your reference to "...make sure all rich people stay Republican"?
Please, dear Mike, let me know. Thank you!
-Peter-
Mike S, this is why the /s tag is so necessary.
I believe Mike is saying that the polio vaccine removed one more potential humbling experience from the upbringing of rich people. (It removed it from the upbringing of poor people as well, of course, but they didn't really need the lesson.) Without that experience, it's unlikely FDR would have grown up to be the person he was, and both global and American history of the mid-20th century would likely have been very different.
I'm old enough to know people of multiple economic classes who contracted polio as children, before the vaccine was developed. For all of them, it was a defining part of their childhood. We as children learned the lesson that privilege and wealth could not insulate us from the darker turns life could take. I learned that lesson again when a childhood friend died of leukemia at 14, another disease that today can be treated with the application of large amounts of money. Back then we took the March of Dimes seriously because most of us knew people who had had polio. I still think about it when I look at FDR's image on our 10-cent coin.
Another dark turn that was also eliminated, this one man-made, was the military draft. The volunteer army gave young rich folk yet one more way to reduce their risk and live the lives they and their parents had planned for them.
The constant shift of risk from rich to poor over the past 70 years or so has echoed the increase in wealth inequality to give the people who won the genetic lottery less and less reason to identify with those less fortunate than they. It is too bad that FDR got polio, but that twist of fate ultimately made our country a better place. I like to hope that he felt it made him a better person, as well.
Anyway, that's my take on the defeat of polio giving rich people one less reason to empathize with others. Mike, I hope I got your position right, but that's mine, anyway.
Exactly correct. Many thanks. I just got back in from working.
Can’t ❤️ this!
❤️
Thank you, Peter. Dr. Albert Bruce Sabin did some excellent vaccine creation work as well. As a kid, I got the Sabin Vax in a pink sugar cube.
Thank you, Peter.
Hi Peter,
In Dr. Richardson's notes she makes the observation that Roosevelt's compassion, likely, emitted from his tough experience with polio. Now, perhaps he would have had compassion without that tough experience which resulted in him being different, disabled.
But, nobody will have that experience, rich nor poor, in America, anymore to build humility and build understanding.
Because the vaccine keeps us all healthy and well and, if we are born rich, as was Roosevelt, then, that opportunity to learn by being bent, is no more.