Smackdown

Apparently, the latest desperate move by Republicans is to try to weaken support for President Obama's stimulus plan by claiming that the success of the New Deal is a bogus distortion of history. Letters have started showing up in the Tribune making that case, but they are clearly cut-and-paste jobs from the Heritage Foundation or some other equally lame conservative source.

It became time for the Hornet to fire off another screed to the local fishwrap...

Much like the deceptive arguments in favor of “intelligent design” and against the realities of global warming, it appears that conservatives are now bound and determined to convince the less-well-informed among us that FDR’s New Deal was a failed policy that -- rather than saving the nation from financial catastrophe -- only made the Great Depression worse. This is willfully ignorant, revisionist history at its worst. To quote historian Matthew Dallek, “…to argue that [the New Deal] harmed the American people…is to twist the historical evidence beyond all reasonable recognition. Such arguments…are misleading, polemical and riddled with distortions of the overwhelming facts at hand about the New Deal’s achievements.”

I suppose, given President Obama’s tremendous popularity, and peoples’ thirst for enlightened leadership and bold action in the face of our nation’s financial ruin, Republicans are reduced to rewriting the historical record in order to advance their backward schemes.

I have a message for those who are bent on distorting settled history and scientific truth: America has turned the page on your lies and fear-mongering. Your worldview has been discredited and repudiated. This nation is grappling with massive problems that require the attention of serious people offering real solutions. I’m not usually one for bumper sticker slogans, but at this critical juncture in our nation’s history, with Republicans at every level of government apparently capable only of saying “No,” let’s try this one on for size: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

Jim Mallon
SLO, CA