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I normally don't post too many things like this, out of fear of Godwin's Law, but Mike liked it, so I'll put it up.*Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.
Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests.
When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History
*I'm not going to equate Bush and Hitler just yet, but he's getting frighteningly close.
posted by
Matthew Carroll-Schmidt at 1:43 PM
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