Letters to the Editor
-
We've come a long way down since Eleanor Roosevelt
Gary's point about how narrow the field of allowable public discourse is now is right on. I happened to watch a PBS bio of Eleanor Roosevelt only a day or two ago. During FDR's administration, she consorted with known Communists and was unapologetic about it. She went on TV in the 1950s and said that the developing world is suspicious of America because of discrimination against colored peoples at home. Can you imagine Rosalyn Carter saying that?
It sometimes seems to me that the modern conservative movement has been dedicated to reversing the New Deal, a point Paul Krugman made in his book, "The Conscience of a Liberal." At least one feature of the Depression Era was the widening of American politics to a more European spectrum on the left. While FDR and the New Deal were really seeking to combat that, they didn't demonize the left (that I know of) the way that Reagan and his followers have. Obama is really just another victim in a long list of decent people made to look nefarious.
Totally off the point, Eleanor Roosevelt was scheduled to make an appearance at a meeting on racial justice in the Nashville area in the 1950s. The FBI warned her not to go, that the Klan was planning an attack and they couldn't (wouldn't) help her. Undeterred, she went by herself, was picked up at the airport by another elderly woman, and they drove to the meeting with a pistol sitting between them on the front seat. Can you imagine Hillary doing that? Or really, any politician today putting their life on the line like that?