So, there was Our Man trying hard (well, OK, not that hard) to think up something witty or oh-so-telling about the current state of play in Japan, and all he could do was listen to Little Feat's silly song on the previous post (by the way, it's good but not a patch on the late Lowell George's singing or slide guitar, check it out here). Anway, Our Man tried but failed to get much beyond the Southern rockers, so this is the post you're gonna get instead:
Confession time. Our Man may like milk in his tea, but he's not completely British. His grandmother was American. She was a politically astute Arkansan who saw out the defining moments of the 20th Century - The First World War, Great Depression, Second World War and Cold War. She single-handedly brought up three children, one of whom was Our Man's mother, and was part of some astounding changes in the South, including Civil Rights and the march of women from behind the sink to behind the desk.
Our Man used to visit her every Wednesday night in the early 1990s, and bring her copies of his latest newspaper opinion columns, and she would feed him dinner (Our Man definitely got the better end of the deal there). Then, together, they would watch a little of the McNeal/Lehrer Newshour on PBS. She would nod wisely when a Democrat was on and scowl when a Republican spoke. Roosevelt's New Deal policies had kept her family in food and, in return, she was a Democrat for the rest of her life. Her proudest possession in her latter days was a Christmas card signed by President Bill Clinton, thanking her for her contributions to the party. The feeling was mutual.
Anyway, forgive Our Man his off-message senior moment, normal service will resume shortly.
5 comments:
without being controversial--but I'm obviously gonna be--what Roosevelts new Deal also did was
a) extend the length of the great depression by hiking public sector debt and squeezing out the productive private sector parts of the economy.
b) kept taxes up for a long time.
c)wasted a great deal of money on pointless public projects
I love to hear these old stories but the way people go dewy eyed over roosevelt makes me feel ill.He has been used to justify some of the most grandiose abuses of govt-such as bailing out banks and 'fiscal stimulus'(aka govt spending on roads to nowhere via companies that donate heavily to party funds)ie taxes for our children,when all he needed to do was let the banks deleverage and not interefere.
I am not saying he didn't get your grandma food,cos he probably did,but he didn't solve the great depression he extended it.
And for what it's worth,i'm not trying to jsutify any of Dubya's years in power.he truly was the worst president at the worst time.
Dunno really. Sure, the war got America working again. If Roosevelt's only achievement was food on grandma's table, that's a good enough legacy for Our Man.
the problem comes when people confuse welfare provision and the new deal,they were/are completely separate issues.
Banks had finished deleveraging from 35 on,thus recovery would have occured anyway.
Happy Easter, Our Man!
Thank you WW. Our Woman has an Easter egg hunt/booze-up planned for all the "hafu" kids and their folks this Sunday. No Cadbury's chocolate eggs available this neck of the woods, sadly.
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