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Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt
What FDR had in common with the other charismatic collectivists of the 30s
Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America,
Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933–1939, by Wolfgang
Schivelbusch, New York: Metropolitan Books, 242 pages,
$26
On May 7, 1933, just two months after the inauguration of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, the New York Times reporter Anne O’Hare
McCormick wrote that the atmosphere in Washington was “strangely
reminiscent of Rome in the first weeks after the march of the
Blackshirts, of Moscow at the beginning of the Five-Year
Plan.…America today literally asks for orders.” The Roosevelt
administration, she added, “envisages a federation of industry,
labor and government after the fashion of the corporative State as
it exists in Italy.”
That article isn’t quoted in Three New Deals, a fascinating study by the German cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch. But it underscores his central argument: that there are surprising similarities between the programs of Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler.
With our knowledge of the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II, we find it almost impossible to consider such claims dispassionately. But in the 1930s, when everyone agreed that capitalism had failed, it wasn’t hard to find common themes and mutual admiration in Washington, Berlin, and Rome, not to mention Moscow. (Three New Deals does not focus as much on the latter.) Nor is that a mere historical curiosity, of no great importance in the era following democracy’s triumph over fascism, National Socialism, and communism. Schivelbusch concludes his essay with the liberal journalist John T. Flynn’s warning, in 1944, that state power feeds on crises and enemies. Since then we have been warned about many crises and many enemies, and we have come to accept a more powerful and more intrusive state than existed before the ’30s.
Schivelbusch finds parallels in the ideas, style, and programs of the disparate regimes —even their architecture. “Neoclassical monumentalism,” he writes, is “the architectural style in which the state visually manifests power and authority.” In Berlin, Moscow, and Rome, “the enemy that was to be eradicated was the laissez-faire architectural legacy of nineteenth-century liberalism, an unplanned jumble of styles and structures.” Washington erected plenty of neoclassical monuments in the ’30s, though with less destruction than in the European capitals. Think of the “Man Controlling Trade” sculptures in front of the Federal Trade Commission, with a muscular man restraining an enormous horse. They would have been right at home in Il Duce’s Italy.
“To compare,” Schivelbusch stresses, “is not the same as to equate. America during Roosevelt’s New Deal did not become a one-party state; it had no secret police; the Constitution remained in force, and there were no concentration camps; the New Deal preserved the institutions of the liberal-democratic system that National Socialism abolished.” But throughout the ’30s, intellectuals and journalists noted “areas of convergence among the New Deal, Fascism, and National Socialism.” All three were seen as transcending “classic Anglo-French liberalism”—individualism, free markets, decentralized power.
Since 1776, liberalism had transformed the Western world. As The Nation editorialized in 1900, before it too abandoned the old liberalism, “Freed from the vexatious meddling of governments, men devoted themselves to their natural task, the bettering of their condition, with the wonderful results which surround us”—industry, transportation, telephones and telegraphs, sanitation, abundant food, electricity. But the editor worried that “its material comfort has blinded the eyes of the present generation to the cause which made it possible.” Old liberals died, and younger liberals began to wonder if government couldn’t be a positive force, something to be used rather than constrained.
Others, meanwhile, began to reject liberalism itself. In his 1930s novel The Man Without Qualities, Robert Musil wrote, “Misfortune had decreed that…the mood of the times would shift away from the old guidelines of liberalism that had favored Leo Fischel—the great guiding ideals of tolerance, the dignity of man, and free trade—and reason and progress in the Western world would be displaced by racial theories and street slogans.”
The dream of a planned society infected both right and left. Ernst Jünger, an influential right-wing militarist in Germany, reported his reaction to the Soviet Union: “I told myself: granted, they have no constitution, but they do have a plan. This may be an excellent thing.” As early as 1912, FDR himself praised the Prussian-German model: “They passed beyond the liberty of the individual to do as he pleased with his own property and found it necessary to check this liberty for the benefit of the freedom of the whole people,” he said in an address to the People’s Forum of Troy, New York.
American Progressives studied at German universities, Schivelbusch writes, and “came to appreciate the Hegelian theory of a strong state and Prussian militarism as the most efficient way of organizing modern societies that could no longer be ruled by anarchic liberal principles.” The pragmatist philosopher William James’ influential 1910 essay “The Moral Equivalent of War” stressed the importance of order, discipline, and planning.
Intellectuals worried about inequality, the poverty of the working class, and the commercial culture created by mass production. (They didn’t seem to notice the tension between the last complaint and the first two.) Liberalism seemed inadequate to deal with such problems. When economic crisis hit—in Italy and Germany after World War I, in the United States with the Great Depression—the anti-liberals seized the opportunity, arguing that the market had failed and that the time for bold experimentation had arrived.
In the North American Review in 1934, the progressive writer Roger Shaw described the New Deal as “Fascist means to gain liberal ends.” He wasn’t hallucinating. FDR’s adviser Rexford Tugwell wrote in his diary that Mussolini had done “many of the things which seem to me necessary.” Lorena Hickok, a close confidante of Eleanor Roosevelt who lived in the White House for a spell, wrote approvingly of a local official who had said, “If [President] Roosevelt were actually a dictator, we might get somewhere.” She added that if she were younger, she’d like to lead “the Fascist Movement in the United States.” At the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the cartel-creating agency at the heart of the early New Deal, one report declared forthrightly, “The Fascist Principles are very similar to those we have been evolving here in America.”
Roosevelt himself called Mussolini “admirable” and professed that he was “deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.” The admiration was mutual. In a laudatory review of Roosevelt’s 1933 book Looking Forward, Mussolini wrote, “Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices.…Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.” The chief Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, repeatedly praised “Roosevelt’s adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies” and “the development toward an authoritarian state” based on the “demand that collective good be put before individual self-interest.”
In Rome, Berlin, and D.C., there was an affinity for military metaphors and military structures. Fascists, National Socialists, and New Dealers had all been young during World War I, and they looked back with longing at the experiments in wartime planning. In his first inaugural address, Roosevelt summoned the nation: “If we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army.…I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”
That was a new tone for a president of the American republic. Schivelbusch argues that “Hitler and Roosevelt were both charismatic leaders who held the masses in their sway—and without this sort of leadership, neither National Socialism nor the New Deal would have been possible.” This plebiscitary style established a direct connection between the leader and the masses. Schivelbusch argues that the dictators of the 1930s differed from “old-style despots, whose rule was based largely on the coercive force of their praetorian guards.” Mass rallies, fireside radio chats—and in our own time—television can bring the ruler directly to the people in a way that was never possible before.
To that end, all the new regimes of the ’30s undertook unprecedented propaganda efforts. “Propaganda,” Schivelbusch writes “is the means by which charismatic leadership, circumventing intermediary social and political institutions like parliaments, parties, and interest groups, gains direct hold upon the masses.” The NRA’s Blue Eagle campaign, in which businesses that complied with the agency’s code were allowed to display a “Blue Eagle” symbol, was a way to rally the masses and call on everyone to display a visible symbol of support. NRA head Hugh Johnson made its purpose clear: “Those who are not with us are against us.”
|9.28.07 @ 1:30PM|#
"If we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and
loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common
discipline. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives
and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a
leadership which aims at a larger good. I assume unhesitatingly the
leadership of this great army.…
My hero! Fuck your "freedoms".
|9.28.07 @ 1:37PM|#
As if FDR was going to give up his family's freedom .Of course he also thought he could control 'Uncle Joe'.
|9.28.07 @ 1:50PM|#
It's a solid article (and I'm sure not news to many H&R
regulars) but one part jumped out at me.
One American poster of a sledgehammer bore the slogan "Work to
Keep Free," which D'Arcy found "chillingly close to 'Arbeit Macht
Frei,' the sign that greeted prisoners at Auschwitz."
Okay, that's just low. Similar phrasing or not, "work to help keep
your country free" is a bit different from "work or we will kill
you."
Wikinger Elch|9.28.07 @ 1:53PM|#
Nein. Nein. Non. No. Nej.
Zat is a miskonsepshun about sign at Auschwitz. You are rong,
NotZatDavid.
Zee sign said "Arbeit Macht Spass"
|9.28.07 @ 1:55PM|#
I am no fan of either Roosevelt - Franklin or Teddy - &
think they seriously damaged the American Republic.
However, this is over the top. Roosevelt did not have a policy of
mass murder in the way Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin did. He did not
have people shot without trial. And he did not have a program of
world conquest.
Roosevelt may have been bad, but as Heinlein pointed out, the
difference between between "bad" and "worse" is often a lot sharper
than the difference between "good" and "bad".
|9.28.07 @ 1:57PM|#
Essentially, Mussolini, FDR and Hitler were different people
working under a similar authoritarian type system. Had FDR been
more like Hitler or Mussolini, we might ahve seen very different
results. That is the danger of the system. Only after FDR died did
congress even think to try and restrain power after realizing how
far it could be taken.
Eternal vigilence is the price for freedom. If we allow ourselves
to be led down the path of good feelings in exchange for power, we
give up one of the few things seperating us from the dangerous
brink of tyranny.
|9.28.07 @ 2:02PM|#
Aresen,
Nobody is saying FDR was a murderous killer like Mussolini and
Hitler, but he could have been. The system that was allowed to be
put in place could have led us down a very different path had his
administration not been as principled as it was. The safest course
of action is not to fall for the siren's song that politicians sing
about using their power only for good, but to resist all attempts
of them to acquire the power they want, regardless of how
goodhearted their intentions may seem.
|9.28.07 @ 2:07PM|#
To my knowledge, the Democrats of that era didn't force their opponents to drink castor oil. Aside from that, though, pretty much identical.
|9.28.07 @ 2:07PM|#
That such widely disparate ideologies as Communism, fascism, and
democracy all produced similar architecture, organization
strutures, and economic policies during the same period would seem
to indicate that they commonalities transcended ideology during
that period, rather than that the ideologies were so
different.
Let's not forget that architectural monumentalism, charasmatic
leadership brought about through communications technology, and the
centralization of both economic decision-making and operations also
characterized the changes that came out in the functioning of
private industry, too. Think of the Manahatten skyline, the rise of
the media celebrity, and Henry Ford's breakthroughs.
Guy Montag|9.28.07 @ 2:08PM|#
At last! What I have been saying for years has been researched
and bookified!
WW II was a war fought between Socialists. One of them happened not
to be a National Socialist (Uncle Joe, the hardest working man in
Socialism), but he is not being talked about other than in the
comments.
|9.28.07 @ 2:09PM|#
I am no fan of either Roosevelt - Franklin or Teddy - &
think they seriously damaged the American Republic.
I tell ya what, America just really has had no success whatsoever
since FDR ruined things.
I mean, sure, we became the most powerful and prosperous society on
Earth, but think about how even more prosperous we'd be without
Social Security!
Coming tomorrow: how Michael Jordan ruined the Chicago Bulls.
|9.28.07 @ 2:10PM|#
BTW, Boaz went through some pains to make the point that similarities should not be overstated, or interpretted as statements of equivalency, and the blog entry totally undermined his efforts to remain reponsible.
Guy Montag|9.28.07 @ 2:10PM|#
Had FDR been more like Hitler or Mussolini, we might ahve
seen very different results.
Yea, we had to wait for Harry Truman. Just ask the railroad and
mine workers.
Craig Ehlo|9.28.07 @ 2:11PM|#
Coming tomorrow: how Michael Jordan ruined the Chicago
Bulls.
hrumph. /kicks pebble
dhex|9.28.07 @ 2:13PM|#
At last! What I have been saying for years has been
researched and bookified!
and to think by someone else who had no contact with you!
what a fucking weird coincidence. it's almost like, you know, the
stars are out there, maaaaan!
|9.28.07 @ 2:13PM|#
I guess when Ronnie said in 1976 that fascism was the basis of
the New Deal he forgot that both his father and his brother worked
for New Deal relief agencies, not to mention the fact that Reagan
himself was a passionate supporter of both the New Deal and
Truman's "Fair Deal." After the 1948 elections, Ronnie exulted that
with both a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President, America
was sure to get a national health insurance program. Ronnie used to
say that he didn't leave the Democratic Party; it left him. Perhaps
it's more accurate to say that the Democratic Party is just now
catching up to Ronnie.
There are intriguing similarities among the New Deal, fascism, and
communism. But FDR, unlike Hitler and Stalin, expanded democracy
instead of crushing it. This is one thing poor libertarians are
determined not to understand. As for Wolfgang Schivelbusch, he
sounds like another of those Germans sore at FDR for being so hard
on the Fatherland.
|9.28.07 @ 2:20PM|#
Alan,
You're going to have to explain how FDR expanded "democracy". He
expanded social welfare, the defense dept/ industry alliance, but
he did not end the poll tax or put his proposals to referendums, so
I cannot see how you think he expanded "democracy"
SIV|9.28.07 @ 2:25PM|#
There are intriguing similarities among the New Deal,
fascism, and communism. But FDR, unlike Hitler and Stalin, expanded
democracy instead of crushing it. This is one thing poor
libertarians are determined not to understand.
Given a choice between Liberty and Democracy, I'll take the former.
Democracy is over-rated.
DannyK|9.28.07 @ 2:26PM|#
[Stephen Colbert]So, who do you think was the bigger mass murderer? FDR or Rachel Carson? [/Stephen Colbert]
buddhist gaius marius|9.28.07 @ 2:33PM|#
BTW, Boaz went through some pains to make the point that
similarities should not be overstated, or interpretted as
statements of equivalency, and the blog entry totally undermined
his efforts to remain reponsible.
Good point.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 2:37PM|#
I don't think this should be surprising to anyone. However, as a defense of FDR's administration I will note that the way in which FDR came to power and generally exercised power were (obviously) far different than Hitler and Mussolini. I will also note that significant interference by the state in the economy was common throughout the major economic powers of the time - so one could rightly compare not only these three leaders but also the leaders of Poland, France, the UK, Japan, etc.
Doctor Duck|9.28.07 @ 2:38PM|#
dammit. Hr Doktor Duck was too quick.
*c'mere ducky. Peking style!
Hey! No peeking at the Duck!
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 2:38PM|#
In other words, it isn't surprising that they had similar policies because those were the sort of policies which the ruling, etc. classes across the "industrialized world" agreed were the right policies.
|9.28.07 @ 2:43PM|#
Oh the horrors of FDR! Of course everybody knows when we had a series of much more laissez-faire administrations prior to FDR that worked out SO well....The people said "Dang, things are so great for me under this wonderful laissez faire system, I think I'll vote for this guy who promises massive change." Actually, they voted for this guy because the laissez-fairer's had run things into the toilet (cue "blame the tariff" revisionism: here).
|9.28.07 @ 2:43PM|#
Maybe it would be appropriate to say that that time period was a dangerously authoritarian period punctuated by high feelings of nationalism and xenophobia, which most nations were subject too. However, that doesn't discount the fact that America took some dangerous steps towards authoritarianism that no one can guarantee couldn't have been to the extreme detriment if a few individuals had acted differently.
|9.28.07 @ 2:47PM|#
Hey Mr. Nice Guy,
I think its hard to say that that the problems of the time were
entirely due to laissez faire system, but very much teething pains
of relatively new capitalism. The solutions tried have also proved
to be fairly painful juding by current trends.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 2:50PM|#
Lost_In_Translation,
Well, there were a number quite, hmm, radical movements which
rolled through the U.S. in the 1930s. Huey Long's "Share The
Wealth" (or Share Of The Wealth?) being one of them. FDR's programs
were quite moderate in comparison.
Addendum: When they were setting up the SEC there was a lot of
debate over whether private investment in the markets should be
allowed to continue. Of course we still have private investment in
the markets.
|9.28.07 @ 2:53PM|#
I'm sorry, Mr. Nice Guy. You're only allowed to refer to the
American system as "laissez faire" when noting that America won the
Cold War.
In all other contexts, you must acknowledge that we did not have a
True Scotsman economy.
|9.28.07 @ 2:55PM|#
To people then it did not seem like teething pains of relatively new capitalism (what do you mean by that?), they thought the entire system had failed, and there was good reason to think that. The people who had been crying "hands off, let business do it's thing" were the one's who threw up their hands and said "no big deal here, just wait for things to right themselves." People like that were shown the door by the voters.
|9.28.07 @ 2:56PM|#
Syloson,
That we didn't choose the worst option of social welfare is small
comfort..but I guess theres always a chance something could be
worse.
And juat because something is out of the mainstream was rejected
doesn't make the mainstream the best of all options. Its simply the
path followed.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 2:57PM|#
One of the major reasons for the steep decline in economic
performance was the "mercantilist" or "protectionist"* attitudes of
many governments at the time. The tariff barriers thrown up at the
time are pretty good example.
*Not quite sure which is a better way to describe such.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 3:00PM|#
Lost_In_Translation,
"Share Our Wealth":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_Our_Wealth
|9.28.07 @ 3:06PM|#
Mr Nice Guy,
What was the good reason to think that the system had failed?
Because of the depression? Might I remind you that a great deal of
the depression involved environmental problems along with
relatively new thoughts on crop rotation and a world war that left
our greatest export market with little appetite for consuming our
products and continual turmoil in South America. Let's not confuse
some overspeculation of the market as being the ultimate factor in
a economic downturn.
Asharak|9.28.07 @ 3:07PM|#
Good article, thanks for posting it.
I've never understood the admiration that FDR gets from all over
the political spectrum. It's certainly laughable and absurd when
conservatives view him as a great President, but why do liberals
and leftists revere a man who forcibly interned American citizens
because of their racial/ethnic background?
Guy Montag|9.28.07 @ 3:08PM|#
and to think by someone else who had no contact with
you!
Yepper! Double-plus good! Oh wait, someone else's book again.
|9.28.07 @ 3:08PM|#
Syloson,
Exactly, one of the surest ways to hurt the people in your country
is to artificially inflate the price of goods people are
consuming.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 3:09PM|#
Asharak,
Because that is not how popular memory, well, remembers him.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Sinclair Lewis' It
Can't Happen Here.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 3:11PM|#
Which I just discovered can be read here:
http://reactor-core.org/cant-happen.html
Awesome!
|9.28.07 @ 3:23PM|#
but why do liberals and leftists revere a man who forcibly
interned American citizens because of their racial/ethnic
background?
Because our non-Manichean view of the universe allows to recognize
that greatness and great error can exist in the same person.
|9.28.07 @ 3:29PM|#
IMHO FDR was closer to becoming our Perone but he could not get enough power to turn the USA into Argentina.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 3:33PM|#
Floccina,
That's not my imression, but Eleanor Roosevelt as an Evita-like
character would have certainly added an interesting twist to
American history.
|9.28.07 @ 3:34PM|#
IMHO FDR was closer to becoming our Juan Peron but he could not quite get enough power to turn the USA into Argentina.
|9.28.07 @ 3:41PM|#
David Boaz looks from FDR to Mussolini and from Mussolini to
FDR and is unable to tell the difference.
This may very well sum up the problem with many libertarians.
|9.28.07 @ 3:41PM|#
If FDR was that bad, the American people could have voted him
out of office. They had three chances to do so and didn't. The
1930s were not about Hitler and Stalin and FDR, they were about the
world collectively loosing its faith in freedom. This sickness
manifested itself in different ways. Fortunately, the US only got a
mild version of it. Italy, Germany and Russia got a near fatal
strain of it.
As Tolstoy once said "In historic events the so called great men
are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but
the smallest connnection with the event itself."
Bee|9.28.07 @ 3:43PM|#
Wow, yes, it is true that someone can be a dick sometimes, and
be a swell guy at other times. Thanks for that insight.
We are talking about a man who threw innocent American families
into concentration camps. And millions of their fellow citizens let
it happen.
Forget Gitmo - the internment is the American shame of the century.
Do they not teach about the internment in schools any more? We have
a monument in DC for someone whose legacy ought to be vilified like
Nixon's.
|9.28.07 @ 3:43PM|#
The difference between FDR and Mussolini, in terms of their
willingness to become dictators, isn't just in their personalities,
as several commenters above suggest.
LiT with his "a few individuals acted differently," for
example.
Certainly, they had different personalities, but there's an even
more important element: they had different ideologies.
FDR believed in democracy, in individual rights, in private
enterprise, in political pluralism, in freedom of conscience and in
peace as a desireable state in a manner that Mussolini, Hitler, and
Stalin simply did not.
|9.28.07 @ 3:45PM|#
Concentration Camps?
Not that anyone's devolving into shrieking hysteria or
anything.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 3:49PM|#
Bee,
Well, to be fair, FDR wasn't the only party who was behind the
deportation, etc. The American military had its hand in it and a
majority of the SCOTUS went along with.
Do they not teach about the internment in schools any
more?
I suspect that they do. What they likely don't teach about is our
invasions of Haiti (Wilson) or the Phillipines (McKinley).
|9.28.07 @ 3:52PM|#
"FDR believed in democracy, in individual rights, in private
enterprise, in political pluralism, in freedom of conscience and in
peace as a desireable state in a manner that Mussolini, Hitler, and
Stalin simply did not."
I am not sure that FDR was much of a believer in private
enterprise. Granted he wasn't a communist and did believe in
private property but he had little faith in private enterprise.
FDR's fatal flaw was that he just didn't understand that government
intervention in markets makes things worse ussually not better. We
ended up with things like price supports for food when a good
portion of the country couldn't afford to get enough to eat. In his
defense, no one got it in the 1930s. It was a crisis of confidence
in the individual and in freedom. Yeah, Roosevelt wasn't evil like
Hitler and company. But, Roosevelt did not beleive that people if
left without guidance and assistance from government would produce
good results. Like I said the anti-freedom disease of the 1930s was
pretty mild here.
|9.28.07 @ 3:55PM|#
The internment was a wartime policy, and quite frankly winning
the war was a higher priority than respecting everybody's civil
rights.
It's difficult to really judge the internment policy because we
don't know exactly what would have happened had it not been done.
So most liberals are willing to give FDR a pass on it.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 3:58PM|#
Dan T.,
Most folks of Japanese extraction in Hawai'i weren't deported,
interned, etc. as I understand it. One could use the experience of
the U.S. in that area as a means of judgment.
|9.28.07 @ 4:02PM|#
It is pretty hard to defend the internments. But, what are you going to do? They can't be undone. Moreover, while wrong, they were not so wrong as to create any sort of moral equivalence between the US and its enemies. They are just a sad footnote and really of very little historical importance.
|9.28.07 @ 4:11PM|#
Yeah, the internment was a gross violation but calling the internment camps "concentration camps" a la Howard Zinn is going just a little bit too far.
|9.28.07 @ 4:12PM|#
"Yeah, the internment was a gross violation but calling the
internment camps "concentration camps" a la Howard Zinn is going
just a little bit too far."
It is just spitting in the face of those people who really did go
to concentration camps. God Zinn is awful.
|9.28.07 @ 4:13PM|#
The internment was a wartime policy, and quite frankly
winning the war was a higher priority than respecting everybody's
civil rights.
So when Bush and Cheney want to wiretap our phone s and throw
people in prison without trial as a "war time" policy you'll be
right along there with them, right Dan T?
|9.28.07 @ 4:15PM|#
"So when Bush and Cheney want to wiretap our phone s and throw
people in prison without trial as a "war time" policy you'll be
right along there with them, right Dan T?"
No No No you Idiot. Bush and Cheney are Republicans. They can't be
trusted with that kind of power only Democrats can. Now, when
Hillary Clinton does it, that will be okay.
|9.28.07 @ 4:15PM|#
It is just spitting in the face of those people who really
did go to concentration camps. God Zinn is awful.
I managed to get through his book, er, screed in high school and it
was the most boring, dry, turgid work of history I've ever
read.
SIV|9.28.07 @ 4:36PM|#
I've never understood the admiration that FDR gets from all over the political spectrum. It's certainly laughable and absurd when conservatives view him as a great President(only on WWII,otherwise FDR is despised by conservatives for socialism and Yalta), but why do liberals and leftists revere a man who forcibly interned American citizens because of their racial/ethnic background( Affirmative Action)?
|9.28.07 @ 4:38PM|#
Not to defend Zinn, but Justice Roberts's dissent in Korematsu
refers to them as concentration camps, as in this quote:
"On the contrary, it is the case of convicting a citizen as a
punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration
camp, based on his ancestry, and solely because of his ancestry,
without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good
disposition towards the United States."
And this one:
"We further know that, on March 18, 1942, the President had
promulgated Executive Order No. 91027 establishing the War
Relocation Authority under which so-called Relocation Centers, a
euphemism for concentration camps..."
And this one:
"The two conflicting orders, one which commanded him to stay and
the other which commanded him to go, were nothing but a cleverly
devised trap to accomplish the real purpose of the military
authority, which was to lock him up in a concentration camp."
The majority opinion by the great "liberal" Hugo Black rejects the
term (duh):
"It is said that we are dealing here with the case of imprisonment
of a citizen in a concentration camp solely because of his
ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and
good disposition towards the United States. Our task would be
simple, our duty clear, were this a case involving the imprisonment
of a loyal citizen in a concentration camp because of racial
prejudice. Regardless of the true nature of the assembly and
relocation centers-and we deem it unjustifiable to call them
concentration camps with all the ugly connotations that term
implies-we are dealing specifically with nothing but an exclusion
order."
Really, who is being more disingenuous here--Roberts or
Black?
And if you go back to the origins of the device (the Brits in the
Boer War)--creating a camp to concentrate your perceived internal
enemies--you CAN arguably use the term for the experience of
Americans of Japanese ancestory. The fact that the Nazis were
exceptionally brutal in their concentration camps, and later
created extermination camps (some of which were converted
concentration camps), may put a very ugly gloss on the term that
has tainted it in out minds, but a rose is a rose is a rose....
|9.28.07 @ 4:38PM|#
but why do liberals and leftists revere a man who forcibly
interned American citizens because of their racial/ethnic
background( Affirmative Action)?
The more radical ones (Zinn was mentioned) can't stand him because
of that, and because they think he "Saved capitalism". They would
have preferred to have a socialist revolution here.
|9.28.07 @ 4:39PM|#
Not to defend Zinn, but Justice Roberts's dissent in
Korematsu refers to them as concentration camps, as in this
quote:
The pre and post-war meaning of "Concentration camps" was very,
very different. Since 1945 its synonymous for "death camp". Before
then it just meant camps housing large numbers of people in one
place. Zinn knows this, and he wanted shock value--thats why he
uses the term.
SIV|9.28.07 @ 4:39PM|#
Yeah, the internment was a gross violation but calling the
internment camps "concentration camps" a la Howard Zinn is going
just a little bit too far.
Concentration camps is the appropriate term.
Didn't the British have concentration camps for Boers?
Guy Montag|9.28.07 @ 4:41PM|#
Odd that FDR did not bother building concentration camps for Italians and Germans, especially when German-Americans had all of those "Hitler Youth" type sumer camps for their kids.
|9.28.07 @ 4:43PM|#
Odd that FDR did not bother building concentration camps for
Italians and Germans, especially when German-Americans had all of
those "Hitler Youth" type sumer camps for their kids.
He actually did. But in far smaller numbers, and only those Germans
or Italians that were very recent immigrants and were suspected of
having fascist sympathies. All of Little Italy and Milwaukee
weren't rounded up.
SIV|9.28.07 @ 4:45PM|#
Cesar,
The comments flew up in minutes.
I don't think I need to say anything about Zinn.
They didn't inter the Japs in the Hawaiian Islands and that is
where the spys and saboteurs actually were.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 4:46PM|#
Cesar,
Before then it just meant camps housing large numbers of people
in one place.
That they were not there as a result of legal proceedings is also
significant. It wasn't a prison in other words.
|9.28.07 @ 4:48PM|#
They didn't inter the Japs in the Hawaiian Islands and that
is where the spys and saboteurs actually were.
Of course not, beacuse they were needed for farm labor there and
the big pineapple and rice plantation owners would have protested
being deprived of a labor force.
In California, the white farmers used internment as an excuse to
take over the interned Japanese farms, many of which were very
productive. Kind of a racial eminent domain.
That they were not there as a result of legal proceedings is also
significant. It wasn't a prison in other words.
Yes, that also.
|9.28.07 @ 4:56PM|#
From To Be Or Not To Be (1942):
Josef Tura: [disguised as Colonel Ehrhardt] I can't tell you how
delighted we are to have you here.
Professor Alexander Siletsky: May I say, my dear Colonel, that it's
good to breathe the air of the Gestapo again. You know, you're
quite famous in London, Colonel. They call you Concentration Camp
Ehrhardt.
Josef Tura: Ha ha. Yes, yes... we do the concentrating and the
Poles do the camping.
|9.28.07 @ 5:07PM|#
Odd that FDR did not bother building concentration camps for Italians and Germans, especially when German-Americans had all of those "Hitler Youth" type sumer camps for their kids.
As was pointed out above Germans and Italians, as well nationals of
other enemy nations, were, in fact, interned. It is generally
customary to do this and it is recognized under international
law.
What distinguished the treatment of the japanese was the fact that
American citizens of Japanese ancestry were interned as well.
Amricans of other enemy nations ancestry were only bothered if they
had known Nazi, or other enemy, sympathies. And those were rarely,
if ever, locked up. They were, however, subjected to close FBI
scrutiny. This certainly would have applied to members of the
German-American Bund (the ones who had Hitler-youth-like summer
camps for kids).
One thing that I've always found interesting was that J Edgar
Hoover opposed the Japanese internment. He believed that the FBI
was quite capable of finding any saboteurs or spies among them.
Syloson of Samos|9.28.07 @ 5:09PM|#
henry,
Gable, Lombard's husband, was one of the Hollywood actors who
actually fought in WWII.
Asharak|9.28.07 @ 5:10PM|#
I've never understood the admiration that FDR gets from all
over the political spectrum. It's certainly laughable and absurd
when conservatives view him as a great President(only on
WWII,otherwise FDR is despised by conservatives for socialism and
Yalta)
This is true, but you also have guys like David Frum who label any
criticism of FDR as anti-American and anti-Semitic just because FDR
was commander-in-chief during World War II. It's no use explaining
things like the MS St. Louis to them.
Kyle Schwartz|9.28.07 @ 5:10PM|#
Is anyone else having problems concentrating on this? I just can't seem to concentrate.
Asharak|9.28.07 @ 5:24PM|#
They didn't inter the Japs in the Hawaiian Islands and that
is where the spys and saboteurs actually were.
That's because a majority of Hawaii's residents were of Japanese
descent (and still are), so it would have been difficult to intern
them all.
Bee|9.28.07 @ 6:10PM|#
Never heard of Zinn - sounds like I haven't missed much - but
they most certainly were concentration camps. Not death
camps.
Unless, you know, you died of grief or stress while being kept
under armed guard behind barbed wire in the middle of the desert,
while you lost your home and business.
The internment was a wartime policy, and quite frankly winning
the war was a higher priority than respecting everybody's civil
rights.
I don't think even *you* really believe this false dichotomy.
How were the Axis POW's housed while they were in the States, btw?
I don't believe there were very many of them here.
|9.28.07 @ 6:23PM|#
All of Little Italy and Milwaukee weren't rounded
up.
Well, I could understand locking up Milwaukee.
Paul|9.28.07 @ 6:37PM|#
However, this is over the top. Roosevelt did not have a
policy of mass murder in the way Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin did.
He did not have people shot without trial. And he did not have a
program of world conquest.
Aresen,
You're absolutely right, but you've allowed the core of the issue
to cloud your judgement.
It's been iterated many ways, by many people here on H&R--
basically, when you create all kinds of levers to power for
government to wield, then you create a nation of men, not a nation
of laws. What it assumes is that the men you elect to government
must be good, egalitarian and full of smiles and sunshine. Always
remember, your man won't always be in government. When you give
government more power, and release a bit of your freedom, you're
not bending over for the current officeholder, you're bending over
for every officeholder to be in power-- ever.
Would you give me a blank check to do good things, especially if I
could transfer that blank check to all of my descendants? I somehow
doubt it.
Bee|9.28.07 @ 6:38PM|#
How were the Axis POW's housed while they were in the
States, btw? I don't believe there were very many of them
here
Whoops, I would be wrong.
In the United States, at the end of WWII there were 175 Branch
Camps serving 511 Area Camps containing over 425,000 prisoners of
war.
I had no idea there were that many POWs here! Off-topic, but
interesting.
Paul|9.28.07 @ 6:38PM|#
sorry, it's friday, I meant "allowed the core of the issue to
become clouded..."
My bad. Where are my keys?
|9.28.07 @ 6:42PM|#
How were the Axis POW's housed while they were in the
States, btw? I don't believe there were very many of them
here.
Around 500,000. When I was a youngster, I played near a former
camp. Still have some German money I found.
Paul|9.28.07 @ 6:43PM|#
I had no idea there were that many POWs here! Off-topic, but
interesting.
Yeah, I believe Arizona had quite a few camps. Desert, remote.
Probably freaked out all the german sub crews they had there. In
fact, I believe there was a famous escape by a German submarine
crew. They wandered around in the desert for a few days and finally
gave up. Like most Europeans, they probably had little concept as
to just how f*cking big this country is, and how easy it is to not
come across a rail line, road or town after days of walking.
Bob|9.29.07 @ 12:21AM|#
This article is absolutely idiotic. Was Roosevelt a statist of
the variety unparalled in American history? Yes. Is Roosevelt even
remotely comparable to an autocratic thug and murderer who enabled
one of the most brutal and evil mass-murderers in the annals of
human history? I think the answer is obvious; that the morons on
this site even find a valid comparison is an indictment of the
stupidity that is modern American libertarianism. Explain to me
again why people who run under the Libertarian banner get 1% of the
vote on a good day.
An American president favors government work programs so obviously
he must be the same as a man who was party to genocide. And for
good measure why not throw in jokes about his disability as well;
kudos to the classiness contained on these message boards. On top
of that we get ignorant pontification of the variety that claims
creating the Social Security Administration leads a nation down the
slippery slope to racial extermination. I would have laughed out
loud if this nonsense wasn't so contemptible. Talk about belittling
the horror that was European fascism during WWII. Furthermore to
claim the programs put in the place during the Great Depression
were of the same piece as Auschwitz is so stupid it defies all
logic; that people on this site actually defend such nonsense
speaks volumes about some of the people that post here. Thank
goodness you idiots and your "philosophy" were long ago consigned
to the dustbin of history, although you have yet to catch on to
this fact.
Mark Bahner|9.29.07 @ 1:08AM|#
I mean, sure, we became the most powerful and prosperous society on Earth, but think about how even more prosperous we'd be without Social Security!
Yeah, all Ponzi schemes look good to the first "investors."
|9.29.07 @ 1:12AM|#
That such widely disparate ideologies as Communism,
fascism, and democracy communist-style socialism, National
Socialism, and New Deal socialism all produced similar
architecture, organization strutures, and economic policies during
the same period would seem to indicate that they
commonalities transcended ideology during that period, rather than
that the ideologies were so different socialism,
regardless of which flavor you choose, produces similar
authoritarian outcomes, with the degree of misery varied primarily
by the degree to which the bastard who seizes power is a
sociopath.
Fixed that for you, joe.
|9.29.07 @ 1:25AM|#
It's difficult to really judge the internment policy because
we don't know exactly what would have happened had it not been
done. So most liberals are willing to give FDR a pass on
it.
Maybe you don't know, Danno. I bet if you had any Japanese-American
friends, they could give you an earful. Perhaps you could write to
Senator Dan Inouye (or any other combat veteran of the 442nd/100th)
and ask his opinion about the alleged dubious loyalty of JALs, and
about how the internment camps were maybe a good thing after
all?
|9.29.07 @ 10:49AM|#
There were other similarities between the Roosevelt, Hitler,
Mussolini & Stalin regimes. All used telephones. All drove
motorcars. All raised and supported large armies.
The point is that a good deal of the similarities between
Roosevelt's America and these totalitarian regimes had less to do
with ideological convergence than "what was in the air" at the
time, and the natural consequences of what was in that air. A fair
percentage of the sorts of things the author cites as quasi-Fascist
-- monumental sculpture, public works programs, social security
schemes, etc. -- were as common to Western democracies such as
Britain and France as they were to Roosevelt's America. What really
distinguished true Fascist regimes from Western democracies was
state worship. Roosevelt may have done many problematical things,
but he was hardly a proponent of "America uber alles."
|9.29.07 @ 10:30PM|#
It may be true that FDR's policies reflected the spirit of the era. I think that's kind of the point, though. It's hardly a good thing to champion the trends of an era that saw the rise of Fascism. It doesn't really matter how many other democrats (small d) were doing the same thing.
MJ|9.30.07 @ 8:22PM|#
FDR was also the first president who had enough megalomania to believe he was indispensable in the course of events and to make it stick with the voters. No president before had made a serious attempt to serve more than two full consecutive terms as president, almost all the previous occupants had followed Washington's example and retired after two terms (the couple of abberations either did not mount serious campaigns, or had some extenuating circumstances).
|10.1.07 @ 8:49AM|#
I am tsting the article for its ability to send
pseudo-progressives over the edge in yahoo discussion groups.
So far it has no displaced Tyler Cowen's article in "The Freeman"
at www.fee.org on "The Socialist Roots of Anti-Semitism" but I
think it may be in the running.
|10.1.07 @ 9:46AM|#
John,
Franklin Roosevelt was a big friend of Wall Street as governor, who
set out to "save capitalism" when he put together the New Deal. He
didn't nationalize anything, and he ditched the central economic
planning of the Early New Deal pretty quickly. The face that he
doesn't pass the libertarian purity does not mean he did not
support private enterprise.
prolefeed,
As substantive as ever, I see.
Bee,
Don't you remember, Enzo the Baker's Helper in the Godfather was an
Italian POW who wanted to stay here and become a citizen?
Mark Bahner|10.1.07 @ 12:45PM|#
Explain to me again why people who run under the Libertarian banner get 1% of the vote on a good day.
I dunno. Could it have something to do with the fact that 99+% of
all teachers and prominent members of the media (newspaper, TV,
movies, etc.) are not Libertarians?
Or how about the fact that both major parties deliberately write
laws to make ballot access difficult?
RSDavis|10.1.07 @ 3:04PM|#
This article is absolutely idiotic. Was Roosevelt a statist
of the variety unparalled in American history? Yes. Is Roosevelt
even remotely comparable to an autocratic thug and murderer who
enabled one of the most brutal and evil mass-murderers in the
annals of human history? I think the answer is obvious; that the
morons on this site even find a valid comparison is an indictment
of the stupidity that is modern American libertarianism. Explain to
me again why people who run under the Libertarian banner get 1% of
the vote on a good day.
An American president favors government work programs so obviously
he must be the same as a man who was party to genocide. And for
good measure why not throw in jokes about his disability as well;
kudos to the classiness contained on these message boards. On top
of that we get ignorant pontification of the variety that claims
creating the Social Security Administration leads a nation down the
slippery slope to racial extermination. I would have laughed out
loud if this nonsense wasn't so contemptible. Talk about belittling
the horror that was European fascism during WWII. Furthermore to
claim the programs put in the place during the Great Depression
were of the same piece as Auschwitz is so stupid it defies all
logic; that people on this site actually defend such nonsense
speaks volumes about some of the people that post here.
Someone clearly didn't read the article before he responded.
- Rick
|10.2.07 @ 12:47AM|#
"BTW, Boaz went through some pains to make the point that
similarities should not be overstated, or interpretted as
statements of equivalency, and the blog entry totally undermined
his efforts to remain reponsible."
One of the most important remarks of the discussion. He doesn't say
that they were morally equivalent, but that there were similarities
in their rejection of constitutional liberalism. And really, the
police state that Roosevelt was so eager to build, with internment
in camps for people of Japanese ancestry, vicious anti-Japanese
racism, confiscations of property, censorship and the like....it
sure did have striking similarities with the other forms of
collectivism. That it wasn't as horrible doesn't mean that it
wasn't in any similar. Boaz's analysis is very insightful.
|10.7.07 @ 9:06AM|#
The usa had a history of freedom in 1933 that germany and italy and russia could only dream of. So it took the usa exactly another 68 years to catch up with the fascists and the nazis and the bolsheviks. But we are there today in spades. I anxiously await the coming of the concentration camps and the mass murders. Only china can save us now. How sad but how well deserved.
Leave a Comment
More Articles by David Boaz
- Ginsburg in the "Balance", David Boaz, January 19, 2006
- The Bridges are Back, David Boaz, December 23, 2005
- Base Closing Blues, David Boaz, May 20, 2005
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