FDR warned us of Hitler-like propaganda tactics

[DaveSZ]

They've been calling progressives "unpatriotic" and using Orwellian propaganda tactics even since then!

I love FDR. :toast:

http://www.hpol.org/transcript.php?id=6

"The whole purpose of Republican oratory these days seems to be to switch labels. The object is to persuade the American people that the Democratic Party was responsible for the 1929 crash and the depression, and that the Republican Party was responsible for all social progress under the New Deal.

Now, imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery - but I am afraid that in this case it is the most obvious common or garden variety of fraud.

-snip-

The opposition in this year has already imported into this campaign a very interesting thing, because it is foreign. They have imported the propaganda technique invented by the dictators abroad. Remember, a number of years ago, there was a book, Mein Kampf, written by Hitler himself. The technique was all set out in Hitler's book - and it was copied by the aggressors of Italy and Japan. According to that technique, you should never use a small falsehood; always a big one, for its very fantastic nature would make it more credible - if only you keep repeating it over and over and over again.


Well, let us take some simple illustrations that come to mind. For example, although I rubbed my eyes when I read it, we have been told that it was not a Republican depression, but a Democratic depression from which this Nation was saved in 1933 - that this Administration this one today - is responsible for all the suffering and misery that the history books and the American people have always thought had been brought about during the twelve ill-fated years when the Republican party was in power."


-more

[DaveSZ]

1. BTW,

Ronald Reagan ended the cold war

Reagan was the most popular president ever

Saddam was behind 9/11

The sky may look blue, but it's really pink

I read it in the Times, so it all must be true!

[Donkeyboy75]

8. We hate Oceania. We have always been at war with Oceania.

[2Design]

2. YEs George keeps repeating the same incredulous bs over and over

always a big one, for its very fantastic nature would make it more credible - if only you keep repeating it over and over and over again. <snip>

No matter what the truth, he just says the same thing over and over. And that is what the bush supporters hear only.....they can not hear the truth....

[PROGRESSIVE1]

3. FDR will ALWAYS be the GREATEST President we've ever had!

[DaveSZ]

4. kick for FDR

"These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family doesn't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him - at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars- his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself - such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog."

[disinfo_guy]

5. that FDR guy sure had a way with words

FDR used the best propaganda device of the time - the radio - so much better than the wingnuts did that he probably saved America from overt fascism. Any politician today speaking as frankly and bluntly as FDR would be labeled as "irresponsible" and "gaffe-prone". No wonder America elected him FOUR times! :)

[Fenris]

6. The thing is, FDR was labeled those sorts of things.

We Democrats tend to forget that FDR was not universally loved. In fact, a sizable portion of the population disliked him intensely, and we have a difficult time remembering that FDR did have to fight for reelection three times - although with limited opposition. The further one is from the event, I suppose, the more simplistic the situation seems. Just as we overlook the unpopularity of Lincoln (in the North!) we overlook the fact that, even though he was elected president four times, FDR still had to battle the same criticisms any president or presidential candidate faces today.

[Eric J in MN]

7. No,, Al Gore was called insane/crazy by Sean Hannity

No,, Al Gore was called insane/crazy by Sean Hannity and John Podheretz and Charles Krauthammer.

They don't use nice words like "irresponsible."

http://mediamatters.org/items/200405280001

If it were up to me, when these slimy pundit want to promote their books, other shows would say "NO" to having them on.