Notes from the Fourth Turning : Howe and Strauss, FDR, Obama

by smkovalinsky | September 27, 2009 at 11:40 pm

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"What's happened is that whenever a president tries to bring about significant changes, particularly during times of economic unease, then there is a certain segment of the population that gets very riled up," Obama said. "FDR was called a socialist and a communist."

~ President Barack Obama, September 21, 2009

Some notes from the Fourth Turning: The Prescient Howe and Strauss

(Jumbled musings at 4 a.m., New York time)

How much we owe to the prescient Howe and Strauss ! "The Fourth Turning" (Broadway Books, 1997) used the saeculum model of historical analysis. This reveals that the future is not a straight line out, but a circle of four repeating social eras, like the seasons of nature. It is an acutely accurate analytical tool, stunning in its pinpointing of times and changes.

When speaking of the Millennial generation ( born circa 1985 and after) Howe asked openly, "Did we raise a generation of Socialists?". This, from being left in daycare centers while their Boomer parents worked. One lays the seeds of one's own demise, as the old adage goes.

The authors comprehended that false dawns would precede the true crisis, aping the catalyst before the times had ripened ; putting on a dumbshow of false fire: W Bush and the War on Terror. This, our false dawn which preceded Barack Obama.

These crises - which on the saeculum schedule come every 80 years - are cleansing, they rejuvenate society, uproot old prejudices, and allow for the return of the repressed and the resurgence of the disenfranchised. As in nature's own seasons, summer to autumn and on ; so it is with the seasons of Man: We are Microcosm of the larger cosmos.

And so we have arrived at this juncture; this historical hour with its traits which are at once its own and a reverberation of prior times:

People versus Corporate power: The ideal arising from, and leading to, a constellation of factors: the credit and mortgage and banking crises; the resurgence of labor unions; the return of a male culture after decades of feminism; the blending of the generations after the splintering of the '90s; the passing of the torch of political power from the GI and Boomer generations to Generation X and the Millennials: All of it inevitable; all of it on time; all of it coincident with the ascendancy of Barack Obama.

Take a look at this bit that Howe and Strauss wrote in 1996, during the glitz and greed of the Clinton era:

1773 - 1794: American Revolution

1860 - 1865: American Civil War

1929 - 1946: Great Depression leading to WWII

2007 - ??? : Credit Crisis, leading to recession, leading to?

In 1997 they had pinpointed the time and the election year which would come on the heels of this crisis.
Now to the FDR Marxist socialist charges:They interest me not because I care for socialism nor FDR nor the aping of FDR by Obama, but because the parallel name calling indicates the rhythm of the saeculum: It is the echo, the seconding, which interests me because it shows as FDR was a fourth turning President, likewise is Barack Obama:

• "Roosevelt is a socialist, not a Democrat," declared Republican Rep. Robert Rich of Pennsylvania during a debate on the House floor on July 23, 1935. That remark came after Republicans hinted they were considering a move to impeach Roosevelt, according to The New York Times.
• "The New Deal is now undisguised state socialism, declared Senator Simeon D. Fess (R-Ohio) today as he pictured President Roosevelt as the New Deal's leading socialist," reported The Chicago Daily Tribune on Aug. 7, 1934. "The president's recent statements," Fess said, "remove any doubt of his policy of state socialism, which necessitates increased activities of the government in either ownership or operation of industry, or both."

• "The Russian newspapers during the last election [1932] published the photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt over the caption, 'The first communistic President of the United States,'" said Sen. Thomas Schall, a Republican from Minnesota. "Evidently the Russian newspapers had knowledge concerning the ultimate intent of the President, which had been carefully withheld from the voters in this country. In fact, the voters of the United States were meticulously misled as to such intentions." We found Schall's comments in the book, All But the People: Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Critics, 1933-1939.

And then there's FDR being called a socialist by William Randolph Hearst.

Hearst, a newspaper mogul, initially supported Roosevelt. But he gradually became disillusioned with the new president's policies. He especially hated Roosevelt's plan to increase taxes on the wealthy, and his papers routinely referred to the New Deal as the Raw Deal.

By 1936, when Roosevelt was running for re-election, Hearst decided to support Republican Alf Landon and oppose Roosevelt with all the power of the press he could muster.

Historian Ben Procter summarized this moment in history in his book William Randolph Hearst: The Later Years, 1911-1951:

"On September 6, Hearst newspapers began a prolonged assault on the administration. TheNew York American published a front-page editorial titled, 'The Radical Brand on the New Deal.' It charged that radical and communist leaders had already given their approval to support Roosevelt against Landon. During the next two weeks Hearst editors trumpeted these recurring themes: that communists had infiltrated the New Deal; that communism was un-American and undemocratic; that 'America can only judge Mr. Roosevelt and his administration by the strange silence that has prevailed in official quarters.'"

That was as much as Roosevelt was willing to take. The White House issued a statement that mentioned "a certain notorious newspaper owner," and rebutted the accusations. The statement concluded, "The American people will not permit their attention to be diverted from real issues to fake issues which no patriotic, honorable, decent citizen would purposefully inject into American affairs."

Hearst shot back in a front-page editorial, which he signed personally. "Let me say that I have not stated at any time whether the President willingly or unwillingly received the support of the Karl Marx Socialists, the Frankfurter radicals, communists and anarchists, the Tugwell bolsheviks, and the Richberg revolutionists which constitute the bulk of his following," Hearst wrote. "I have simply said and shown that he does receive the support of these enemies of the American system of government, and that he has done his best to deserve the support of all such disturbing and destructive elements."

Hearst's efforts were for naught. Roosevelt won the 1936 election in a landslide victory, while the Hearst newspaper chain slid into bankruptcy.