Research on Franklin D. Roosevelt

Argh, I'm sick of everyone telling me how wonderful FDR was, so I aim to set this straight once and for all, because he was not. He pulled the nation together, I've been told, got us out of the Great Depression, and stopped Hitler. He was a hero, a visionary, a great man. All these I've been told, and I wonder if anyone remembers or ever knew the real man behind the propaganda that has made him into what his memory is today.

FDR pulled America together to stop Hitler and end our Great Depression, I've been told. He's given credit for these things, but nations often, in fact are almost required to, "pull together" during war times. It's kind of a given. Coming out of tough economic times, of course people are going to pool resources and work towards a common ground, when a reasonable one is given. And as reasons for going to war go, stopping a man like Hitler from conquering all Europe ranks pretty high on my list. To me the credit isn't FDR's so much as the social circumstances of the time he was President.

I won't get into the steps he took to get us out of the Great Depression, because I don't know enough to speak of it. What I do know seems mostly unremarkable, and a large portion of his policies are glorified more than they ought to be. All in all, if this was the only thing he did during his reign as President, I'd probably give it to people that he was an alright leader. But it's quite the opposite. I guess I'm not so much arguing against him as I am making a case for bringing him back down to the level of all our other so-so or worse Presidents.

I've heard people compare Pearl Harbor to 9/11 before, and it makes sense: they were both focal points of their time. However, much like with 9/11, Pearl Harbor's mysteries still lurk, an uncertainty even to this day. What I do know is that FDR provoked Japan. He developed a plan to discourage other nations from trading with Japan and called for a complete embargo on US trade with Japan. Most of the US Navy was also placed at the open, unprotected site of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to entice Japanese aggression further. In the report outlining the call for these actions, it is said, "If by these means Japan could be led to commit an overt act of war, so much the better. At all events we must be fully prepared to accept the threat of war."

Also, much like 9/11, multiple intelligence reports of warning were received as early as 10 months before the attack. These were ignored or waylayed because FDR wanted Japan to strike first. That way the people would get pissed at Japan and allow him more freedom in his action, and also make him look like the good guy. Even though he had violated every law of war by embargoing Japan and also trading munitions with European countries, and even though he purposely placed our navy in a location vulnerable to Japanese attack, he's remembered as a WWII hero. It's a shame in my opinion.

Finally, not regarding FDR's war actions or economic policies, he was a straight-up, legitimate crook. With his Presidential Executive Order 6102 presented to Congress on April 5th, 1933, he effectively made it illegal to own gold. What once was currency was now claimed to be the scourge of our economy. Supposedly, money with real value ruins economies! And people believed it. The proposed reason for this was to prevent a devaluation of gold, which, by the way, can't happen because gold is a limited resource unlike paper which the Federal Reserve Bank can pump out in whatever quantity they desire to control most facets of the economy. Am I suggesting that the Stock Market Crash of 1929 was orchestrated as a means to steal America's precious gold? Not necessarily, but I will say that it was taken as a result, whatever the motivations.

I might add more later, as I find it, but I hope this little I've presented enlightens some to see that FDR was like most other Presidents: fully willing, capable, and active in serving the rich and wealthy and to manipulate, control, and steal from the poor.