Skip to main content

  • FDR Madison Square Garden Speech 1936

    This is a recording and transcript of Franklin Roosevelt's1936 campaign speech where he says of the rich and powerful "They are unanimous in their hatred of me and I welcome their hatred." The difference between an Obama and a Roosevelt can be seen clearly. Obama wants to be liked by everyone, even the rulers and the rich. Roosevelt knew the rich would hate him if he tried to do anything to change the rules of the game. Roosevelt saved capitalism in spite of the capitalists who opposed him. But he knew the ruling class from the inside and knew that to do something decent he would provoke the hated of the rich, even if his actions were ultimately to the benefit of the system from which the rich benefit. It takes a person who knew the ruling class intimately to oppose them in this way. Obama on the other hand is needful of the respect of the rulers and will never welcome the hatred of the rich, even though this is exactly what a reformer needs to do in order to win reforms.

    history.sandiego.edu/...fdr1936.html - Preview

    FDR New Deal Madison Square Garden speech political speech history Roosevelt class struggle ruling class hatred on 2009-04-22 and saved by 2 people

    • For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.



      For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.



      We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace‹business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.



      They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.



      Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me‹and I welcome their hatred.



      I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.
    • 8 more annotations...

  • Johann Hari: You Are Being Lied to About Pirates

    • In his book Villains of All nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence to find out. If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry - you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off for a second, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked consistently, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.
    • They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century." They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy." This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.
    • 4 more annotations...

  • Discourse.net: Yoo, Unrepentant

    • Actually, this statement is dangerously false. The Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists on our shores–but the Bill of Rights does. As regards foreign nationals in foreign countries where we are conducting military operations, the Geneva Conventions clearly contemplate a dichotomous world: there are foreign uniformed troops, who get POW status if caught, and there are foreign civilians, who do not, but instead benefit from certain limited protections for civilians. Irregulars who take up arms can be treated as criminals, can be tried, can be shot if there is a death penalty. POWs can’t be tried, and are entitled to a set standard of treatment that in many countries exceeds what civilian prisoners would get. Furthermore the Geneva convention system provides for a system by which military captors must hold a hearing to determine the status of a captured combatant before determining that they are not entitled to POW status. We’ve failed to do this in Afghanistan and Iraq, although we did manage somehow to do it in the first Iraq war.

  • Latest News - Leaked Torture Memo: Full Text

    • In order to respect the President's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign, 18 U.S.C. § 2340A (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority. Congress lacks authority under Article I to set the terms and conditions under which the President may exercise his authority as Commander-in-Chief to control the conduct of operations during a war. The President's power to detain and interrogate enemy combatants arises out of his constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief. A construction of Section 2340A that applied the provision to regulate the President's authority as Commander-in-Chief to determine the interrogation and treatment of enemy combatants would raise serious constitutional questions. Congress may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield. Accordingly, we would construe Section 2340A to avoid this constitutional difficulty, and conclude it does not apply to the President's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority.

  • monacojerry: The Policy of Torture III: What are the Legal Ideologists of Torture Creating? - The New Civil Deat

    • The paradigms of power and the paradoxes of Sovereignty, the matrix of the "rule of law" and the application of legally violence finds its logical grounds in definitions of who is considered "inside the law" and who is considered "outside the law." If a President can act as absolute sovereign by defining who is inside the law and who is outside the law, if an uncheckable administrative process can be established to define who is inside the law and who is outside the law, then the protections fought for from the period of the Protestant Reformation through the Enlightenment and ending with the abolition of slavery can be partially reversed. If a handful of administrators in the counsel of the President can decided who can be denied the protection of U.S. and international law, then all who are too weak to hold the opinion of the President and his 'court' will be vulnerable to 'civil death.' That is the answer to my latest question: What are the Bush legal ideologists creating from their theories? A new absolute sovereignty, only limited by quadrennial referendums, the anger of public opinion and the threat of impeachment. What is the necessary 'legalism' that allows for the application of torture? The 'new civil death', the creation of the category of a person who has no protection of law.
1 - 20 of 496 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page
List Comments (0)

Sponsored Links

Ads by Google