Dan Walker’s Reviews > FDR > Status Update

If FDR was so popular... and WWII was so popular... why did Republicans make such large gains on Congress in 1942? Makes one question the holy canon of American history (according to progressives).

The author claims Marshall "firmly opposed any operation not aimed specifically at enemy forces" to justify FDR not ordering bombings of KZ camps. This is a LIE. Bombing German CIVILIANS was conducted extensively and deliberately throughout the war. They could have easily diverted bombers from that highly questionable objective!

FDR's apologists will go to any length to excuse him. The author cites a "study" claiming that no plans to bomb Auschwitz ever reached him. This is contradicted by what I read in "The Escape Artist." For a man who supposedly dreamed up Lend‐Lease all on his own, the idea of bombing KZ camps would certainly have suggested itself. The "study" cited was just a way to blame the military for his failure.

"Labor unrest contributed to the economy's sudden collapse in 1937." But then goes on to argue that the decision to balance the federal budget was the real cause of the "Roosevelt recession." But that makes no sense. If you're using borrowed money to pay people to do "make-work" jobs, the economy had never really recovered in the first place!

Guess who else hated the CCC? The UNIONS. Why on earth would "labor" oppose putting people to work??? Because pay of $1 per day would depress wages for union labor. Yet more evidence that the vast throngs of unemployed were deliberately kept there so that union labor could maintain its high wages and profit margins.

This seems like a very sane proposal: reduce federal pay 15%. After all, the cost of living had been reduced significantly since 1928. So my question is, "Why not extend this to the rest of the economy?" After all, reducing pay to the level that would allow businesses to make money would have eliminated unemployment in short order. If it was good for the federal government, why not for everyone else?

"Hoover's doctrinaire attachment to the free market..." What??? This book isn't history; it's propaganda. They don't call it Hoover Dam because it was built by the free market!!!

The hard part about reading this book: words I recently heard keep echoing in my head: if the British had not decided to enter WWI, Woodrow Wilson would have lost the 2016 election, and no one would have ever heard of the assistant secretary of the Navy in his administration: FDR.