Let's Make a Deal

FDR's "new deal" was made when the Average Joe was grumbling for a change of the political system; teetering on socialism, or at least forming a system that would place more of the country's wealth back into the hands of those who produced capital. As in any good business operation, Joe believed in reinvesting - in himself. In the first 3 decades of the 20th century hundreds of Socialists were elected to local offices but with repression supported by the government and congress, WWI, Hoover's FBI, the idea of socialism was frightened away. Chased into the enemy category of pinko commies, dangerous Blacks and Jews, reefer madness, liberals, Muslims, etc.

Even today the rightwing will claim FDR's new deal was a form of socialism and cite the awful effects of the program. They list the negatives of "welfare to the poor" but never the social consequences of wealthyfare. Roosevelt's "new deal" in part relieved the political volatility of the masses at the time by introducing the SSA, old age pensions, unemployment insurance, Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and labor rights (banning child labor in 1939).

As occasionally happens in history, the "ruling elite" were forced into concessions due to the fallout from geopolitical mongering in WWI and the roaring '20s Wall Street greed. In exchange, they gave Joe the social security tracking number and a promise he would be socially secure. With WWII Joe Average could pay for these new social programs by bleeding again on foreign soil, since the Great War to end all wars didn't end all war. Joe should know by now, any deal he makes with the ruling class, he will pay dearly for the pledge of social security. Any real benefits are soon squeezed to a bony skeleton, clacking and rattling into more taxation to pay for more social security.

Contrary to pro new dealers – little good came of the new deal. (It did return lands to native Americans and set up camps for migrant workers.) But the New Deal was built on deficit spending (those portions not ruled unconstitutional by SCOTUS) and FDR's belief in a balanced budget caused him to back off parts of the "new dole" which resulted in the 1937 Roosevelt Recession.

And then came Pearl Harbor, because … they hated our freedom? WWII appeared just in time with uniforms for the men and jobs for Rosie Riverter, uniting the nation to a degree that future generations would envy, and allowed for the great miracle of wartime production. Remember Eisenhower's military-industrial speech. Ike wasn't warning the ruling class, they knew it and were doing it. Ike warned we the people.

Legacies of the New Deal included the growth of federal, state, and local employees. Overpaid and stuffing their coffers at every opportunity, these people administer the programs and funds in the industry of welfare for everyone. FDR did refuse to crush unions, making a few corporate enemies for himself, but unions would have a brief reign of political power as Reagan would play union buster against corrupt labor bosses, while other bosses looted S&L.

Under the New Deal, special interest groups began to grow, eventually becoming PACs, have you hugged your lobbyist today?

Federal subsidy, AFDC (aid to farmers and dependent corporations) began with Roosevelt's new dole. FDIC was created; Joe Average would pay for future S&L and banking failures and other government/corporate atrocities deemed necessary for the public good and corporate welfare.

The new deal paid farmers to destroy crops, not grow certain other crops. Family farms today are not Ma and Pa Little working forty acres; but Welfare Farm Burden & Sons, Inc. hiring migrant workers for $5 an hour while receiving $100,000+ subsidies. Ma and Pa were plowed under long ago.

The key to having anything even resembling a real democratic republic is education. The reason our public education system has dumbed the masses down more with each generation. Folks might get a clue on how to govern themselves. Most higher education does little better. All designed to reinforce myths of and for a corrupt system of rule. Only the curious mind will unlearn the garbage of State textbook indoctrination. Government paid publishing houses make fortunes on making Joe stupid; he funds his own ignorance and with diploma on the wall brags about it.

Possibly the New Deal, by taking care of us, has led to the sense of government having little relevance in our lives today because more people realize they have no say over the operation of government and their own security.

The government will give as little as necessary to maintain order. Sure, we elect the millionaire (or soon will be) board directors as president and to send to congress. But be honest, the people have no voice in government policy. We pretend elections are our voice rather than admit we've been living under totalitarian rule for a long time, with royal merchants controlling the government and us. If the day comes when the people threaten, whether by force or economics, to control government policy – the people will gaze down a barrel. Getting a good dose of our own biggest export – American democracy at gunpoint. But if we don't take control of policy – half the nation will subsist on government handouts and the other half on administering containment of the first half - through force or economics.

FDR brought the New Deal; Eisenhower the New Look, JFK the New Frontier, LBJ the Great Society, Clinton's the New Covenant, others a Contract With America, The Uniter, all new, for us, and great deals. Political graffiti on the doors of government and historians call it a "legacy." Scholars debate and textbooks teach how great each man's deal was for we the people. Nevermind what the people pay for the deal, it's always called the price of freedom anyway.

Honestly, government is not incompetent – it's intentional.