Has the regeneracy arrived?

[David Horn]

(01-21-2017, 07:41 PM)TnT Wrote:

(01-21-2017, 09:28 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-20-2017, 06:35 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Be that as it may, I can tell from many of his comments he is totally in "the bubble." Heck, I could have been there too. It's tempting when one is wrapped constantly in the excitement of tech, start ups, etc. In any case, this is precisely the tone deafness that has so enraged the "not coasts" against the coasts. Globalism and middle class health are mutually incompatible.

I don't think that's true, but it is hard.  Everyone wants the Easy Button, so the globalists push for open borders and free trade, the nativists prefer to slam the door shut.  Neither can succeed, because neither is adequate.  The real solution will take decades to complete, but it starts with future-first infrastructure, education and training, and a restructuring of the economy away from capital friendly tax and subsidy policies to something that involves a transfer from the ownership class to everyone else.  How and to what extent is TBD ... but it will either happen or chaos will make an appearance first.

Do you think any of this is possible without a substantial and sustainable and dramatic decrease in the population of our dreadful species?

It will take something.  I hope it's not that.  Any option leading to mass decline in  population: war, plague, mass hysteria or whatever, will create more problems than it solves ... at least in the short to mid term.  A gradual decline in the world's population may occur, but I won't be around to see it.  I suspect you won't either.

[David Horn]

(01-23-2017, 12:44 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:31 AM)Marypoza Wrote: The regeneracy will have arrived when this happens:

http://www.inquisitr.com/3909161/the-dem...-imminent/

The above also has a pretty good post mortem.

Parties morph and change.  The Dems are unlikely to disappear, but may tack strongly to the left after this disaster.  Moving right hasn't gotten them much of value.  It has also violated Harry Truman's dictum about voters preferring real Republicans over phone Republicans.

[Marypoza]

(01-23-2017, 01:05 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:44 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:31 AM)Marypoza Wrote: The regeneracy will have arrived when this happens:

http://www.inquisitr.com/3909161/the-dem...-imminent/

The above also has a pretty good post mortem.

Parties morph and change.  The Dems are unlikely to disappear, but may tack strongly to the left after this disaster.

-- l wish. lnstead they appear to be even more clueless than before. Pelosi even thinks We the People don't want change 
Otoh they did put Bernie in charge of outreach. If he can pull in enough Berniecrats to breathe life back into the party, then yeah, reports of its death may be premature

David Horn Wrote: Moving right hasn't gotten them much of value.  It has also violated Harry Truman's dictum about voters preferring real Republicans over phone Republicans.

-- not so sure about that. The voters chose the Donald (a Dem until this past election cycle) over an honest to gawd Goldwater Girl, iow a nominal repug over the Real Thing. But if you're talking about the letter behind their last name then yeah, l guess

[Eric the Green]

(01-23-2017, 02:47 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 01:05 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:44 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:31 AM)Marypoza Wrote: The regeneracy will have arrived when this happens:

http://www.inquisitr.com/3909161/the-dem...-imminent/

The above also has a pretty good post mortem.

Parties morph and change.  The Dems are unlikely to disappear, but may tack strongly to the left after this disaster.

-- l wish. lnstead they appear to be even more clueless than before. Pelosi even thinks We the People don't want change 
Otoh they did put Bernie in charge of outreach. If he can pull in enough Berniecrats to breathe life back into the party, then yeah, reports of its death may be premature

David Horn Wrote: Moving right hasn't gotten them much of value.  It has also violated Harry Truman's dictum about voters preferring real Republicans over phone Republicans.

-- not so sure about that. The voters chose the Donald (a Dem until this past election cycle) over an honest to gawd Goldwater Girl, iow a nominal repug over the Real Thing. But if you're talking about the letter behind their last name then yeah, l guess

The voters chose Donald (a con man who had been a Republican candidate already in 2012) over an honest to goodness sixties liberal activist.

Pelosi hasn't said any such thing. But I don't know who was elected yet to head the DNC. They need Ellison, I think.

[Eric the Green]

(01-22-2017, 04:47 PM)TnT Wrote:

(01-22-2017, 11:36 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: That's a good question TnT. I myself think it MAY be possible for our population to co-exist with Nature, if we use energy sources wisely (phase out fossil fuels) and restrain ourselves from using up all the land other species need to survive.

We are the outcome of natural evolution (which I think is a creative and spiritual and not merely mechanical process; a growth from the inside out, all together with organisms and environment together). So although our behavior has been dreadful in many cases, I prefer to think we are a species relatively young and going through a learning process.

I certainly think a social and economic system which favors the population in general and not a few rich people is more compatible with Nature than the oligarchy we now have. What benefits the general welfare of the people is more compatible with Nature than allowing a few greedy robber barons to exploit Nature ruthlessly, as Trump seems to prefer.

So, we grow and I hope we learn sustainable behavior without too much destruction along the way. I'm sure there will be some.

As history buffs here on this site, we can look back over the known history of our species, its behavior towards others of its kind, towards other species and toward the earth which gave us all life and conclude that there is precious little of any admirable creative and/or spiritual processes at work that we can take credit for.

I'm reminded of a horrible anecdote I ran across some years ago ... it is said that as sunlight shines through the teardrops of a dead infant whose brains were dashed out by a Nazi concentration camp guard - that the rainbow formed is the same kind as that which we judge to be beautiful in the east after a late afternoon thunderstorm.  

There's a mechanistic thought for you to ponder, Eric.  A bit of a philosophical conundrum?

I don't disagree with the negative evidence, what with all the vicious wars, the tyrannies, the deprivation, the superstitiion and hate, and the abuse of our resources; but I can differ with your conclusion when I think of the tremendous dedication of the stone workers who built the beautiful monuments all over the world, especially in Asia and Europe, the wonderful artists who gave us paintings, music and cathedrals, the spiritual teachers who have blest us with wisdom that many follow and learn from, the movements for social justice and freedom who have brought us forward, the scientists who have allowed us to know so much we used to be in darkness about, tools we have which abuse the Earth but also enhance our abilities, and the peace we experience in so many parts of the world every day now despite what some have to go through, and greater prosperity for many than ever before. And our value is not merely what we have done and been, but the potential we know still lies within us. Not so long ago, all we had to conclude from about ourselves was hunting and gathering tools and maybe some cave paintings, but we surged forth anyway. We have imagination and spiritual connection with inner power, and what we are is eternal truth and not just passing conditions. We owe it to all of the life that has come before us, and made us, to keep on a-comin'

And, I don't know of too many afternoon rainbows that have killed little children. Maybe thunderstorms do, on rare occasions, but in that case, we might not think that is much more beautiful than the Nazi. If not, though, thunderstorms are beautiful too

[linus]

Did you read that TNR piece asking aloud if Trump will be like Carter?

I'm wondering if a better analogy may turn out to be Andrew Johnson.

I wasn't a political science major and this is the first I heard of "the Politics Presidents Make" but there would seem to be no place in Skowronek’s theory for Andrew Johnson, one of most reviled and least successful presidents, who immediately followed (rather than preceded) a (presumably) "reconstructive" presidency. I'm not going to speculate about what happens, but if Obama turns out to be a genuinely transformative president, in the manner of (but to a lesser extant than) Lincoln and FDR, and Jackson and Reagan, on the right, then Trump may be compared in a certain sense to Andrew Johnson, who gave the South wide latitude to do Reconstruction Their Way, and came to be widely opposed in the North, as well as of course impeached. And he was himself succeeded by someone who sought to extend Lincoln's achievements and legacy, rather than forestall or repeal it.

[Eric the Green]

(01-23-2017, 05:53 PM)linus Wrote: Did you read that TNR piece asking aloud if Trump will be like Carter?

I'm wondering if a better analogy may turn out to be Andrew Johnson.

I wasn't a political science major and this is the first I heard of "the Politics Presidents Make" but there would seem to be no place in Skowronek’s theory for Andrew Johnson, one of most reviled and least successful presidents, who immediately followed (rather than preceded) a (presumably) "reconstructive" presidency. I'm not going to speculate about what happens, but if Obama turns out to be a genuinely transformative president, in the manner of (but to a lesser extant than) Lincoln and FDR, and Jackson and Reagan, on the right, then Trump may be compared in a certain sense to Andrew Johnson, who gave the South wide latitude to do Reconstruction Their Way, and came to be widely opposed in the North, as well as of course impeached. And he was himself succeeded by someone who sought to extend Lincoln's achievements and legacy, rather than forestall or repeal it.

The way things are going, your analogy may be quite prescient. What will bigots get away with doing if the government no longer enforces civil rights for Americans?

People are going to need to stand up to what appears to be Trump's way. Here's what People for the American Way says:

First, Trump picked arch civil rights foe Jeff Sessions as his nominee for attorney general.
Then, it was reported last week that Trump’s budget blueprint slashes funding for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
Now, Trump has tapped anti-civil rights, right-wing lawyer John Gore, to head the Civil Rights Division!

These headlines tell the story:
Trump's Pick to Enforce Civil Rights Is an Expert at Defending GOP Voting Laws (New York Magazine - Jan 21, 2017)
Donald Trump's Pick to Enforce Civil Rights Is a Civil Rights Disaster (Slate - Jan 20, 2017)
Top Trump Civil Rights Official Is An Expert At Defending Republican Redistricting (BuzzFeed - January 20, 2017)

The good news is that this is a Senate-confirmable position, so we can fight to STOP the confirmation of John Gore!

MILLIONS marched this weekend around the country and around the world to let the Trump administration and its allies know:

• More of us opposed their campaign and oppose their agenda than support them, and WE ARE STILL HERE,
  
• We do not approve of the way they won office,
  
• We will not stand for the continued reckless inflaming of fear and bigotry, and
  
• We will FIGHT BACK attacks on our fundamental rights and attacks on vulnerable and marginalized communities.   
  

Now it’s up to all of us to turn the energy from the marches into sustained action.

We’re still battling some of Trump’s worst cabinet picks and attacks that have already begun from his administration and Republicans in Congress. The nomination of John Gore is one more action that flies in the face of core American values and must be opposed.

The Gore nomination, like the Sessions nomination, is also about Trump and Republicans wanting to pack the Department of Justice with people who will carry out their voter suppression agenda, as a means of tilting the playing field in future elections and holding onto power. We can’t let them do it!
Thanks for continuing to stand up and be part of the resistance!
-- Ben Betz, Online Engagement Director

[pbrower2a]

(01-23-2017, 05:53 PM)linus Wrote: Did you read that TNR piece asking aloud if Trump will be like Carter?

I'm wondering if a better analogy may turn out to be Andrew Johnson.

I wasn't a political science major and this is the first I heard of "the Politics Presidents Make" but there would seem to be no place in Skowronek’s theory for Andrew Johnson, one of most reviled and least successful presidents, who immediately followed (rather than preceded) a (presumably) "reconstructive" presidency. I'm not going to speculate about what happens, but if Obama turns out to be a genuinely transformative president, in the manner of (but to a lesser extant than) Lincoln and FDR, and Jackson and Reagan, on the right, then Trump may be compared in a certain sense to Andrew Johnson, who gave the South wide latitude to do Reconstruction Their Way, and came to be widely opposed in the North, as well as of course impeached. And he was himself succeeded by someone who sought to extend Lincoln's achievements and legacy, rather than forestall or repeal it.

I didn't  -- but I see Donald Trump as a potential disaster as President, someone who bucks the demographic trends and tries to turn the calendar back 90 years or so except for technology. 

Barack Obama became President with the dream of transforming America, but his biggest achievements with respect to the generational cycle are giving Americans a taste of a brighter future and slowing the rush to a Crisis. Donald Trump could well be the sort of President who shows what to do by making every imaginable mistake that a President could do. He will be the President when the fecal material hits the fan. Just imagine how he responds to the end of an eight-year (yes, it will be that long) bull market. Does anyone expect to see him reacting properly to a big natural disaster such as an earthquake or a volcanic eruption? Or one of our bare allies going very bad very fast? Hollow, vindictive, corrupt, and extremist, he will be unable to offer much solace to those for whom he has no solutions other than "take it, and remember to count your blessings".

[Warren Dew]

(01-23-2017, 06:09 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 05:53 PM)linus Wrote: Did you read that TNR piece asking aloud if Trump will be like Carter?

I'm wondering if a better analogy may turn out to be Andrew Johnson.

I wasn't a political science major and this is the first I heard of "the Politics Presidents Make" but there would seem to be no place in Skowronek’s theory for Andrew Johnson, one of most reviled and least successful presidents, who immediately followed (rather than preceded) a (presumably) "reconstructive" presidency. I'm not going to speculate about what happens, but if Obama turns out to be a genuinely transformative president, in the manner of (but to a lesser extant than) Lincoln and FDR, and Jackson and Reagan, on the right, then Trump may be compared in a certain sense to Andrew Johnson, who gave the South wide latitude to do Reconstruction Their Way, and came to be widely opposed in the North, as well as of course impeached. And he was himself succeeded by someone who sought to extend Lincoln's achievements and legacy, rather than forestall or repeal it.

I have to go to alternate history for any analogy.

What if the America Firsters won the 1936 or 1940 election?

If they'd won the 1940 election, it wouldn't have changed much.  Pearl Harbor would still have forced us into the war.  There might have been less lend-lease before the war, but not enough for Germany to have successfully invaded the UK.

[Warren Dew]

I don't know enough about their economic policy to say for sure. Probably still little would have changed with regard to the war, but I suppose we might possibly have avoided the second dip of the Great Depression if their economic policies had been right.

[Marypoza]

(01-23-2017, 06:21 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 06:09 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 05:53 PM)linus Wrote: Did you read that TNR piece asking aloud if Trump will be like Carter?

I'm wondering if a better analogy may turn out to be Andrew Johnson.

I wasn't a political science major and this is the first I heard of "the Politics Presidents Make" but there would seem to be no place in Skowronek’s theory for Andrew Johnson, one of most reviled and least successful presidents, who immediately followed (rather than preceded) a (presumably) "reconstructive" presidency. I'm not going to speculate about what happens, but if Obama turns out to be a genuinely transformative president, in the manner of (but to a lesser extant than) Lincoln and FDR, and Jackson and Reagan, on the right, then Trump may be compared in a certain sense to Andrew Johnson, who gave the South wide latitude to do Reconstruction Their Way, and came to be widely opposed in the North, as well as of course impeached. And he was himself succeeded by someone who sought to extend Lincoln's achievements and legacy, rather than forestall or repeal it.

I have to go to alternate history for any analogy.

What if the America Firsters won the 1936 or 1940 election?

If they'd won the 1940 election, it wouldn't have changed much.  Pearl Harbor would still have forced us into the war.  There might have been less lend-lease before the war, but not enough for Germany to have successfully invaded the UK.

-- wasn't America 1st Lindberg's group? He was pretty tight with Hitler, my guess is we would of stayed out if WW2, like Spain (Hitler's buddy Franco) or entered it on Hitler's side

[SomeGuy]

(01-23-2017, 07:56 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 06:21 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 06:09 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 05:53 PM)linus Wrote: Did you read that TNR piece asking aloud if Trump will be like Carter?

I'm wondering if a better analogy may turn out to be Andrew Johnson.

I wasn't a political science major and this is the first I heard of "the Politics Presidents Make" but there would seem to be no place in Skowronek’s theory for Andrew Johnson, one of most reviled and least successful presidents, who immediately followed (rather than preceded) a (presumably) "reconstructive" presidency. I'm not going to speculate about what happens, but if Obama turns out to be a genuinely transformative president, in the manner of (but to a lesser extant than) Lincoln and FDR, and Jackson and Reagan, on the right, then Trump may be compared in a certain sense to Andrew Johnson, who gave the South wide latitude to do Reconstruction Their Way, and came to be widely opposed in the North, as well as of course impeached. And he was himself succeeded by someone who sought to extend Lincoln's achievements and legacy, rather than forestall or repeal it.

I have to go to alternate history for any analogy.

What if the America Firsters won the 1936 or 1940 election?

If they'd won the 1940 election, it wouldn't have changed much.  Pearl Harbor would still have forced us into the war.  There might have been less lend-lease before the war, but not enough for Germany to have successfully invaded the UK.

-- wasn't America 1st Lindberg's group? He was pretty tight with Hitler, my guess is we would of stayed out if WW2, like Spain (Hitler's buddy Franco) or entered it on Hitler's side

Nah, it was definitely more of an isolationist thing than an actual fascist one:

Quote:The AFC was established on September 4, 1940, by Yale Law School student R. Douglas Stuart, Jr. (son of R. Douglas Stuart, co-founder of Quaker Oats), along with other students, including future President Gerald Ford, future Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver, and future U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart.[3] Future President John F. Kennedy contributed $100, along with a note saying "What you all are doing is vital."[4][5] At its peak, America First claimed 800,000 dues-paying members in 450 chapters, located mostly in a 300-mile radius of Chicago.[1]
The AFC gained much of its early strength by merging with the more left-wing Keep America Out of War Committee, whose leaders included Norman Thomas and John T. Flynn.
It claimed 135,000 members in 60 chapters in Illinois, its strongest state.[6] Fundraising drives produced about $370,000 from some 25,000 contributors. Nearly half came from a few millionaires such as William H. Regnery, H. Smith Richardson of the Vick Chemical Company, General Robert E. Wood of Sears-Roebuck, Sterling Morton of Morton Salt Company,[citation needed] publisher Joseph M. Patterson (New York Daily News) and his cousin, publisher Robert R. McCormick (Chicago Tribune).
The AFC was never able to get funding for its own public opinion poll. The New York chapter received slightly more than $190,000, most of it from its 47,000 contributors. Since it never had a national membership form or national dues, and local chapters were quite autonomous, historians suggest that the organization's leaders had no idea how many "members" it had.[7]
Serious organizing of the America First Committee took place in Chicago not long after the September 1940 establishment. Chicago was to remain the national headquarters of the committee. To preside over their committee, America First chose General Robert E. Wood, the 61-year-old chairman of Sears, Roebuck and Co.. Wood remained at the head of the committee until it was disbanded in the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The America First Committee had its share of prominent businessmen as well as the sympathies of political figures including Democratic Senators Burton K. Wheeler of Montana and David I. Walsh of Massachusetts, Republican Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, and Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas, with its most prominent spokesman being aviator Charles A. Lindbergh. Other celebrities supporting America First were novelist Sinclair Lewis, poet E. E. Cummings, Washington socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth, film producer Walt Disney, actress Lillian Gish and architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The many student chapters included future celebrities, such as author Gore Vidal (as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy), and the future President Gerald Ford, at Yale Law School.[8]

A lot of that "Lindbergh was a Nazi!" stuff was retconning after we got into the war and won.  America First actually dissolved right after Pearl Harbor and Lindbergh flew in the Pacific theater as a civilian.

It also would have been difficult for America First to have won the 1936 election since the group didn't form until 1940.

So, if you're looking for an actual fascist candidate in 1936 or 1940, you're left with... Pelley?

I dunno, not really seeing the parallel with Trump.  Kinda missing the paramilitary organizations, the antisemitism, etc.  A lot of this "OMG! TRUMP EQUALZ FASHISM!" stuff is just lazy sloganeering.

Not really seeing the Andrew Johnson parallel, either.  No victory in a Civil War, no history of campaigning on the same ticket, etc. I think you're just reaching out of a desire to cast Obama as a coalition realigning, transformational president, in a way that he really wasn't.  Politically talented?  Reasonably prudent (except where he let people like Powers and Clinton drag him into Libya)?  Sure.  The inaugurator of a new party system?  Don't see the evidence for it.  Even if we assume that Trump's presidency will be a failure, I think a better comparison would be with Carter, with Obama playing the Nixon (minus the Watergate bit leading to a President Ford/Biden) to some future liberal's Reagan, a man whose undeniable talents weren't enough to decisively shift the Overton window to a new stable configuration.

Of course, this scenario presupposes that Trump and the Republican Congress will fall out and the country continues to drift, paving the way for the left to make a big comeback in 2020, at the Congressional as well as Presidential level.  I don't think that's a foregone conclusion.

[Marypoza]

(01-23-2017, 05:20 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 02:47 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 01:05 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 12:44 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: [quote='Marypoza' pid='18661' dateline='1485149488']
The regeneracy will have arrived when this happens:

http://www.inquisitr.com/3909161/the-dem...-imminent/

The above also has a pretty good post mortem.

Parties morph and change.  The Dems are unlikely to disappear, but may tack strongly to the left after this disaster.

-- l wish. lnstead they appear to be even more clueless than before. Pelosi even thinks We the People don't want change 
Otoh they did put Bernie in charge of outreach. If he can pull in enough Berniecrats to breathe life back into the party, then yeah, reports of its death may be premature

David Horn Wrote: Moving right hasn't gotten them much of value.  It has also violated Harry Truman's dictum about voters preferring real Republicans over phone Republicans.

-- not so sure about that. The voters chose the Donald (a Dem until this past election cycle) over an honest to gawd Goldwater Girl, iow a nominal repug over the Real Thing. But if you're talking about the letter behind their last name then yeah, l guess

Eric Wrote:The voters chose Donald (a con man who had been a Republican candidate already in 2012)

-- the Donald didn't actually run in 2012:

http://mashable.com/2015/06/16/donald-tr...Lw.can8aqn

Eric Wrote:over an honest to goodness sixties liberal activist.

-- except the DNC refused to run Bernie. lnfact they went out of their way to ensure they didn't have to 

Eric Wrote:Pelosi hasn't said any such thing. But I don't know who was elected yet to head the DNC. They need Ellison, I think.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/11329/pelo...es-barrett

[Marypoza]

(01-23-2017, 08:58 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 07:56 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 06:21 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-23-2017, 06:09 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: [quote='linus' pid='18759' dateline='1485212027']
Did you read that TNR piece asking aloud if Trump will be like Carter?

I'm wondering if a better analogy may turn out to be Andrew Johnson.

I wasn't a political science major and this is the first I heard of "the Politics Presidents Make" but there would seem to be no place in Skowronek’s theory for Andrew Johnson, one of most reviled and least successful presidents, who immediately followed (rather than preceded) a (presumably) "reconstructive" presidency. I'm not going to speculate about what happens, but if Obama turns out to be a genuinely transformative president, in the manner of (but to a lesser extant than) Lincoln and FDR, and Jackson and Reagan, on the right, then Trump may be compared in a certain sense to Andrew Johnson, who gave the South wide latitude to do Reconstruction Their Way, and came to be widely opposed in the North, as well as of course impeached. And he was himself succeeded by someone who sought to extend Lincoln's achievements and legacy, rather than forestall or repeal it.

I have to go to alternate history for any analogy.

What if the America Firsters won the 1936 or 1940 election?

If they'd won the 1940 election, it wouldn't have changed much.  Pearl Harbor would still have forced us into the war.  There might have been less lend-lease before the war, but not enough for Germany to have successfully invaded the UK.

-- wasn't America 1st Lindberg's group? He was pretty tight with Hitler, my guess is we would of stayed out if WW2, like Spain (Hitler's buddy Franco) or entered it on Hitler's side

Nah, it was definitely more of an isolationist thing than an actual fascist one:

Quote:The AFC was established on September 4, 1940, by Yale Law School student R. Douglas Stuart, Jr. (son of R. Douglas Stuart, co-founder of Quaker Oats), along with other students, including future President Gerald Ford, future Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver, and future U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart.[3] Future President John F. Kennedy contributed $100, along with a note saying "What you all are doing is vital."[4][5] At its peak, America First claimed 800,000 dues-paying members in 450 chapters, located mostly in a 300-mile radius of Chicago.[1]
The AFC gained much of its early strength by merging with the more left-wing Keep America Out of War Committee, whose leaders included Norman Thomas and John T. Flynn.
It claimed 135,000 members in 60 chapters in Illinois, its strongest state.[6] Fundraising drives produced about $370,000 from some 25,000 contributors. Nearly half came from a few millionaires such as William H. Regnery, H. Smith Richardson of the Vick Chemical Company, General Robert E. Wood of Sears-Roebuck, Sterling Morton of Morton Salt Company,[citation needed] publisher Joseph M. Patterson (New York Daily News) and his cousin, publisher Robert R. McCormick (Chicago Tribune).
The AFC was never able to get funding for its own public opinion poll. The New York chapter received slightly more than $190,000, most of it from its 47,000 contributors. Since it never had a national membership form or national dues, and local chapters were quite autonomous, historians suggest that the organization's leaders had no idea how many "members" it had.[7]
Serious organizing of the America First Committee took place in Chicago not long after the September 1940 establishment. Chicago was to remain the national headquarters of the committee. To preside over their committee, America First chose General Robert E. Wood, the 61-year-old chairman of Sears, Roebuck and Co.. Wood remained at the head of the committee until it was disbanded in the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The America First Committee had its share of prominent businessmen as well as the sympathies of political figures including Democratic Senators Burton K. Wheeler of Montana and David I. Walsh of Massachusetts, Republican Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, and Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas, with its most prominent spokesman being aviator Charles A. Lindbergh. Other celebrities supporting America First were novelist Sinclair Lewis, poet E. E. Cummings, Washington socialite Alice Roosevelt Longworth, film producer Walt Disney, actress Lillian Gish and architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The many student chapters included future celebrities, such as author Gore Vidal (as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy), and the future President Gerald Ford, at Yale Law School.[8]

-- thanx for the info. l was thinking more along the lines of staying out of WW2, & after reading the above list if names they definitely wouldn't of aligned with Hitler

SomeGuy Wrote:A lot of that "Lindbergh was a Nazi!" stuff was retconning after we got into the war and won.  America First actually dissolved right after Pearl Harbor and Lindbergh flew in the Pacific theater as a civilian.

-- no but he was into eugenics. That's what he admired Hitler for. Until he saw the death camps, that is

SomeGuy Wrote:It also would have been difficult for America First to have won the 1936 election since the group didn't form until 1940.

So, if you're looking for an actual fascist candidate in 1936 or 1940, you're left with... Pelley?

-- in addition to Silver Legion there was also the Bundt. lnfact one of the largest Nazi rallies ever was held in.... Madison Square Gardens. By the Bundt.

SomeGuy Wrote:I dunno, not really seeing the parallel with Trump.  Kinda missing the paramilitary organizations, the antisemitism, etc.  A lot of this "OMG! TRUMP EQUALZ FASHISM!" stuff is just lazy sloganeering.

-- agreed. l think it cheapens the Nazis & what they did. Their horror show should not be made mundane. As for the fascism, we already live in a fascist state. But then l go by the Mussolini school of fascism, which is govt of the corporations, by the corporations, & for the corporations (ok, l'm paraphrasing him but that's basically what he said) Under this definition, fascism has nothing to do with killing Jews or beating up gypsies & gays. That would be racism & bigotry

SomeGuy Wrote:Not really seeing the Andrew Johnson parallel, either.  No victory in a Civil War, no history of campaigning on the same ticket, etc. I think you're just reaching out of a desire to cast Obama as a coalition realigning, transformational president, in a way that he really wasn't.  Politically talented?  Reasonably prudent (except where he let people like Powers and Clinton drag him into Libya)?  Sure.  The inaugurator of a new party system?  Don't see the evidence for it.  Even if we assume that Trump's presidency will be a failure, I think a better comparison would be with Carter, with Obama playing the Nixon (minus the Watergate bit leading to a President Ford/Biden) to some future liberal's Reagan, a man whose undeniable talents weren't enough to decisively shift the Overton window to a new stable configuration.

Of course, this scenario presupposes that Trump and the Republican Congress will fall out and the country continues to drift, paving the way for the left to make a big comeback in 2020, at the Congressional as well as Presidential level.  I don't think that's a foregone conclusion.

-- me neither. The Dems really screwed the pooch this last time round

[gabrielle]

(01-23-2017, 06:19 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I didn't  -- but I see Donald Trump as a potential disaster as President, someone who bucks the demographic trends and tries to turn the calendar back 90 years or so except for technology.  

Yep, Donald knows all about technology.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:thanx for the info. l was thinking more along the lines of staying out of WW2, & after reading the above list if names they definitely wouldn't of aligned with Hitler

No problem.  Always happy to be of service. 
Yeah, it was pretty bipartisan.  Roosevelt had been trying to back the US into WWII for a while, but he didn't have a real opportunity until Pearl Harbor.  American public opinion was strongly pro-neutrality up until that point.

Quote:no but he was into eugenics. That's what he admired Hitler for. Until he saw the death camps, that is

Eugenics was pretty popular among the Progressive set up until WWII.  And he was in Europe before the war to avoid the press, and largely visited the German military at the request of the American one.  The death camps came in the '40s, and weren't really known about except as horrible rumors until after the war.

Quote:in addition to Silver Legion there was also the Bundt. lnfact one of the largest Nazi rallies ever was held in.... Madison Square Gardens. By the Bundt.

*cough* Bund *cough*
Bundt is a type of cake, named after the brand name of the pan it was cooked in.  "Bund" is basically the German word for "band", as in an association, a league, or a waistband, for that matter.
The German American Bund never had more than a few thousand members, was restricted to people of German descent, and their big rally in Madison Square Garden was both their high-water mark and their doom.  The intemperate rhetoric, the violence, and the resulting attention from the government wiped it out.
No, the only real possibility for a fascist US at that time was if the second wave of the KKK hadn't started to fall apart in the mid-1920s, particularly after D.C. Stephenson was convicted for kidnapping, raping, and torturing a white woman in 1925, AND if the Great Depression hadn't been addressed.
 

Quote:-- agreed. l think it cheapens the Nazis & what they did. Their horror show should not be made mundane.

Yup, we are in complete agreement.  As George Orwell pointed out decades ago, "fascist" has long since devolved into a snarl word, devoid of real semantic content, other than that the label is applied to people or things the user doesn't like.

Quote:As for the fascism, we already live in a fascist state. But then l go by the Mussolini school of fascism, which is govt of the corporations, by the corporations, & for the corporations (ok, l'm paraphrasing him but that's basically what he said) Under this definition, fascism has nothing to do with killing Jews or beating up gypsies & gays. That would be racism & bigotry

*Sigh*
You are engaging in equivocation.  That is not what the word "corporatism" means, particularly not at the time that it was used.  It meant the organization of society into constituent groups (or bodies, which in latin is the root of the term) with common interests (farmers, businesses, labor unions) under the overall coordination of the state, as opposed to as a collection individuals.  Neither Mussolini nor Hitler took orders from big business leaders, just the reverse.  Hjalmar Schacht probably would have been much happier if the Nazis had been taking orders from big business leaders rather than the other way round.  Of course, they weren't, which is why he was ousted.

Quote:me neither. The Dems really screwed the pooch this last time round

It really depends on what the Republicans do, how that interacts with whatever external events will take place over the next 4 years, and how long it takes for the Democrats to coalesce around a new, politically effective agenda that can win them elections at more than just the national level.
We'll see how that all pans out.

[pbrower2a]

If you are thinking of a real fascist to rule America, I would have picked Indiana Grand Dragon David Curtiss Stephenson. Pelley would have been a good choice for his VP... grist for a novel in which the Axis Powers win because Germany remains a democracy and Japan becomes democratic during the 1930s. I'm giving Vichy figures control of France and the British Union of Fascists control of Britain at the start of the war... and Josef Stalin is a true bad guy who gets mauled badly in India, where the British royal family has gone with the invitation of Mohandas Gandhi.

Britain and France change sides early in the wake of the catastrophic defeat at Dunkirk, where German U-boats prevent any escape. Stalin finds himself in a hopeless position after the smashing defeat at Stalingrad. He and some top generals try to flea to America across the Arctic Ocean, only to disappear without a trace until much later.

One reason for the Axis victory: the Germans and their allies get the good Jewish scientists instead of killing them or compelling them to flee.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:If you are thinking of a real fascist to rule America, I would have picked Indiana Grand Dragon David Curtiss Stephenson.

Aha! Beat you to him. Pwned! 

[Eric the Green]

(01-23-2017, 09:42 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

Eric Wrote:The voters chose Donald (a con man who had been a Republican candidate already in 2012)

-- the Donald didn't actually run in 2012:

http://mashable.com/2015/06/16/donald-tr...Lw.can8aqn

Eric Wrote:over an honest to goodness sixties liberal activist.

-- except the DNC refused to run Bernie. lnfact they went out of their way to ensure they didn't have to 

Eric Wrote:Pelosi hasn't said any such thing. But I don't know who was elected yet to head the DNC. They need Ellison, I think.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/11329/pelo...es-barrett

This issue you raised was that Donald wasn't a Republican until this election. He WAS; he almost ran as a Republican in 2012, and was already testing out his demagoguery with his birther nonsense.

The DNC doesn't "run" candidates. The voters choose in primaries and caucuses. If Bernie had won, the DNC would have "run" him. Pelosi didn't say she was against change in the country. She said the Democrats did not need to change their position on issues to please the right-wing blogger you quoted. They need to get out their message better, she said. The Democrats are already about change, and the Republicans are about the status quo. Pelosi made a lot of change in 2009-2010. It was blocked by the Republicans, and by a few Democrats In Name Only (DINOs) in the Senate, and by the deceived voters in Nov 2010 on Black Tuesday, which allowed Republicans to gerrymander themselves into power. 

The "new direction" which that right-wing blog you quoted wants, is to go backward toward regressive Republican policies just because they won an election. NO, that's wrong, and the Democrats' policies are still right. Let the Republicans push the policies that THEIR voters want. That's NOT Pelosi's job, Marypoza. The Democrats answer to a different constituency: the people who know their real interests, and aren't deceived by economic libertarian slogans, race and gender baiting, religious-right nonsense, and so on.

Wow, that reactionary blogger you quoted actually said Pelosi's message sounded like Trump's. Gee whiz, so Pelosi sounds like the promises Trump made to workers, which he is now completely and utterly ignoring. All that says, is that American voters are easily deceived by the "changes" promised them by demagogues and deceivers (spelled Republican). Trump just "got his message out better." So, the Democrats need to make the people understand that Trump is the phony, and they are the real deal (at least a lot of them are, like Sanders and Warren and Kamila Harris).

[linus]

Thank you several nice people to your replies to my recent post. People on facebook aren't necessarily interested in theories of history (at least in my experience) but I got an account, eventually. Please feel free to be a friend, or something.