Echoes

How this election is about an argument between Woody Guthrie and Donald Trump's dad.

4 comments:

Tom said...

It's interesting that the businessman who put the federal government's housing policy into effect in his business is condemned, but not FDR or the FHA who created that policy.

That Fred Trump continued using the same criteria after the policy was repealed is on him, of course.

Where are Guthrie's songs and poems denouncing FDR's racism writ nationwide?

Gringo said...

Tom
Where are Guthrie's songs and poems denouncing FDR's racism writ nationwide?

For example, the WPA was segregated in the South. Gummint programs with Jim Crow is what worked in the South at the time. It would be accurate to have called the George Wallace who cried "Segregation now, segregation forever" a New Deal Democrat. George Wallace later changed his mind, perhaps around the time he realized blacks had the vote. Which is fine- he was realistic enough to adapt to changing times.

Grim said...

From a post on the history of the CCC:

[I]ntegrated CCC camps were disbanded in July, 1935, when CCC Director Robert Fechner issued a directive ordering the "complete segregation of colored and white enrollees." While the law establishing the CCC contained a clause outlawing discrimination based upon race; the CCC held that "segregation is not discrimination."

It's amazing what you can do with the letter of the law when you don't feel any need to honor the spirit in which it was written.

Ymar Sakar said...

The problem was never segregation vs de-segregation. The problem was that whites and blacks were prevented from working out by their problems by 1. The Democrat slave barons, what was left of them after their plantations got fired up. 2. the KKK death squads and 3. Federal interference, later on, as a result of 1 and 2.

Discrimination is not a vice. It is often times a virtue. Being told you have to serve whites or blacks because the gov has a gun to your head, well that's something different. Ask Germans about that, what happens when free choice goes bye bye and you are told to Obey or Else.

Black slaves had a partial vote as well, they were just not deemed human enough to use it. Their owners would get the vote, and thus get more political power the more wealth and slaves they owned. It's almost like having more population because of how many cats and dogs you have bought. It's not a very stable system, even in a democracy that is as pluralistic or as lawful as the US.