--Can a leader like Kennedy or FDR really change the system enough to snatch the keys to the safe from the 0.1% who have scraped off so much money?
Jerome did a diary called "Some Lessons from Bailout Week" that got some good comments, and I tried to address these questions there:
What will it really take?
The evidence for a shadow CIA assasination of Robert Kennedy is quite good also, so your concerns for Obama's safety are good ones, and are mine also.
For those who don't want to read the comment, I think it will take HARD TIMES for change to come, and I think Obama might be able to rise to the occasion--just might. Time will tell....
Hard times- an oral history of the great depression, by Studs Terkel Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
But despite all the above, we still have political processes in place which can create a way forward - but it takes time, and that is in short supply right now. Vote McCain for war without gain
The experience is there.
What Studs Terkle writes about in his many incredible books is the world outside the box--OUR box--the world that is experienced every day by the other 85% of the human race.
That period of prosperity you speak of has been very unevenly distributed. Lots of people know how to live --very, very thin, with little fooptprint and less cash. And the people Terkle interviews had the added experience of going from prosperity to disastrous decline, and their ways of coping are revealing. And their government (as the interview shows) did an incredible job of coping, in some ways, and blew it in others. Look at the interaction, the feedback--the Roosevelt BrainTrust was winging it, learning on the fly.
A near-perfect classroom--which will sadly not be heeded, I fear.
I got this great idea, Harvey-- it's a round thing with a hole in it, and you take this stick-- I call it a "wheel". Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
It seems almost as if (FDR) is considered an unfortunate anomaly in the otherwise almost unbroken line of macho, white, protestant, militaristic, conservative, ruthless, authoritarian, egotistical, hubristic and borderline pathological types...
terkel, btw.
the conscience of america.
charles kuralt, bill moyers, few of that calibre...
'the good war(?)' was fabulous, as was 'working', where he interviews people of all walks about their work.
the happiest at his job was a stonecutter...
cannot say enough good about this man, studs terkel, a truly noble human being, in the highest sense of the word.
thanks geezer a paree! ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
