"I do not believe in communism any more than you do,
but there is nothing wrong with the communists in this country.
Several of the best friends I have are Communists."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1882-1945), 32nd US President
Source: The New York Times, May 6th, 1933
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Franklin.Roosevelt.Quote.1C5F

My mother's family thought that FDR was the devil incarnate and would not have been surprised to hear that several of his best friends were communists. I think they would have supported the scheme for a coup to get rid of FDR and seen that coup as a necessary evil, an important protection of the American way of life.

Almost all of them overcame their fear and hatred of FDR and drew the social security (and related Medicare) benefits that the Great Satan FDR established. Things change.

"I never would have agreed to the formulation of the
Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven,
if I had known it would become the American Gestapo."
-- Harry S. Truman
(1884-1972), 33rd US President
1961
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Harry.Truman.Quote.B224

Truman beat my great uncle Roscoe to become senator of Missouri in 1935. Truman was sponsored by the corrupt Pendergast Kansas City democratic machine. Pendergast was prosecuted and convicted as I recall. Lots of folks never had anything more to do with him. He became a political leper. I believe that Truman as president took a day off to attend Pendergast's funeral and shrugged off any criticism of his loyalty and friendship with Pendergast. Truman had integrity and was remarkably gritty.

"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face
with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.''
-- J. Edgar Hoover
Source: speaking of communism (1956)
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/J..Edgar.Hoover.Quote.4FB0

Hoover seems to me to look more and more like a demagogue as time goes by. All the tolerance demonstrated in the FDR quote above is missing in Hoover. The integrity and accountability of Truman (the buck stops here) are missing in Hoover imho. Yet, for all that, I think it could be argued that Hoover was certainly more influential and powerful than Truman and possibly more so than even FDR.

I think the sad truth is that demagoguery is a powerful political tool and it is difficult for folks to avoid wielding that power if they decide that the means justify the ends. For that reason, I think we should always stand up for means that our grandchildren will recognize as honorable. If our end goal is just, then our means must also be just. Demagogues use fear to erode support for just and honorable means. If there is any question about how that works in our world today, look at the discussion regarding torture and waterboarding as a means to make us safe. Our grandchildren will not be proud of this time. It will look like the Japanese internment in retrospect.

wow, what a great group of comments- >where did you get these clips? did you just have this stuff on hand?<

Well, I'm reading this Gore book, and it resonates. Tired of living under this oppressive cloud of "fear, uncertainty, & doubt", always being told to fear "terrorists", and the *insane* focus that the US has on national security.

Although, to be fair, even when the Dems were in, there was little change-

-maybe not outright war, but still little change as far as foreign policy.

to get out the fear vote. Yes indeed, vote for a Democrat and terrorists will attack us:

"...we are a nation at war. And Barack and Hillary have made their intentions clear regarding Iraq and the war on terror. They would retreat and declare defeat. And the consequence of that would be devastating. It would mean attacks on America, launched from safe havens that make Afghanistan under the Taliban look like child’s play. About this, I have no doubt... I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror." --M. Romney.

...exploiting our fears for political gain. And it's only going to get worse between now and November.

...with bin Laden. It has everything to do with control through fear. It was Goering who said it best:

Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

So, another example of Leadership or Demagoguery?

"US Rejects Russian call for new space treaty"

I'm pretty much convinced that the current US admin (esp. the Exec.s) are not leaders.

Yes, this stuff is pretty obvious. Here's the research:

Household wealth in the United States experienced rapid growth during the past decade despite a recession and slow recovery after the stock market crash in 2000. According to Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank, aggregate household net wealth nearly doubled from $25.9 trillion in 1995 to $50.1 trillion in 2004 in real 2004 dollars.1 How much did that rapid growth in wealth during the recent decade affect wealth distribution and has it increased inequality? Furthermore, what was the role of housing throughout this process? Those are the questions that this paper tries to answer.

The typical metaphor used to describe wealth or income growth is a rising tide lifting all the boats, but that image does not catch the true nature of rapid wealth growth. As low-income households have difficulty making ends meet and high-income households have better investment opportunities with reduced risks through more diversified financial holdings and access, wealth growth often means no growth at the lower end but huge growth at the top. Growing inequality in the distribution of household wealth consequently accompanies growing wealth over time. In fact, even if the rich and the poor experienced the same speed of growth, the absolute gap between the rich and poor would keep enlarging due to the difference in the size of the base.

From a longer historic perspective, economic and wealth growth in the United States during the postwar period has already produced growing inequality in this country. As Keister and Moller (2000) point out, while inequality of wealth was consistently more extreme throughout Europe for many decades, by the early 1990s, the United States had surpassed all industrial societies in the extent of inequality of household wealth.2 By 1997, one man, Bill Gates, was worth about as much as the 40 million American households at the bottom of the wealth distribution.3

Read the report (pdf).

Omit needles words:

“America will be safer with a Republican president.”

Fear=political gain.