FDR and RFK were both rich beyond the dreams of avarice

[WilliamPitt]

They did one or two good things for the people, or so I hear.

[JohnKleeb]

1. ha Pitt so true

:hi: Hows DK doin? I am really happy about tonight.

[WilliamPitt]

2. Doing great

This is the start of some goooooooooood stuff.

[JohnKleeb]

9. Yep, I call it K-mentum

He really is the best guy out there. Name one other candiate who I sorta identify with and agree with on the issues. I hope he does good in the days to come.

[Buba Gar]

3. Also JFK

and Clinton probably.

[coloradodem2005]

11. Actually...

...I've heard that Clinton was poor growing up. He was a hell of a lot poorer than the Kennedys, the Roosevelts or even the Bushes.

[JohnKleeb]

12. yea he was like lower middle class

Quite a humble background. DK I think has the most humble background of any candiate Ive ever heard of honest.

[corporatewhore]

13. it would be nice to have a union card holder in office

[JohnKleeb]

27. Kucinich's workers white house

No doubt you have read about it CW. He is the only union man in the race, I forget what union. DK truly is the best candiate. I am really happy about the results today. Since I cant vote, I asked my parents to vote for him and they are. I think he would make a fabolous president, its a shame that he hasnt won a primary yet but that may change, I hope.

[Hekate]

39. Single mom with problematic husbands, fairly poor...

...but not destitute. Bill's mom left him with relatives (her parents, I think) for awhile so she could go to nursing school and support the two of them. She was not upscale in hair (big), clothes (tight), or makeup (lots), but she was determined to do right by her kids.

Socially, Bill "married up" when he married Hillary. But by the time he met her in college he was already a long way toward proving how far brains and ambition can take you. Bill's stint in England during the Vietnam war was on a Rhodes scholarship, and they don't pass those out like candy. No way was his student deferment based on a "gentleman's C." Unlike the lazy-ass legacy kid Dubya, this kid was smart and hard-working, and he chose to marry an equally smart and hardworking girl.

So much for the great American success story, which happens just often enough to keep the rest of us believing in it.

The Roosevelts were "old money," and the Kennedys were "new money." In the neighborhood I grew up in, phrases like that might as well have been in a foreign language, but those distinctions meant something back east in the first half of the 20th century. However the two families got their money they had a lot, and the influence to go with it. JFK's dad wanted his oldest son to be the first Irish-Catholic president, but he died in WW II, so Jack was pressured to go into politics.

I don't begrudge the wealthy their wealth as long as they are being good citizens and good neighbors to the rest of us -- and as long as they don't labor under the delusion that their good fortune is God's blessing on them for some innate virtue while the less fortunate are ipso facto lesser beings in the sight of God.

The Roosevelts, Teddy and Franklin, are in my estimation among the "good citizens and neighbors," as are the several Kennedys who have chosen to go into public service. They don't have to do that you know. They could decide to live lives as vapid and vacuous as Paris Hilton, but they don't.

The Bushes, on the other hand, seem to be among those who believe they are God's Chosen, and behave with a sense of entitlement bordering on the Tsarist. They don't have to behave the way they do, either--but they have chosen to.

Hekate

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war." ~Donald Rumsfeld

"But why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many,
what day it's going to happen, and how many this or what do you
suppose? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my
beautiful mind on something like that?" ~Barbara Bush

"I guess they live in an alternate universe." ~Hekate

ARLINGTON WEST, SANTA BARBARA CALIF.
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Default.htm
click on the large photo of AW to go here:
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Arlington_west_121003.htm
Scroll down the page for all the photos...

[stepnw1f]

4. Must listen

The Mike Webb Show: LIBERAL TALK/SEATTLE-CALL 1-877-710-5476

don't have the url

[ibegurpard]

5. I didn't know Kucinich was fabulously wealthy.

:shrug:

[Buba Gar]

6. Who says Kucinich is "fabulously wealthy"?

[WilliamPitt]

7. He isn't, of course

This is clearly a thread about John Kerry, in response to a just-locked thread.

One can work for and support one candidate while defending another candidate from brainless attacks. That goes with the territory when you are a Democrat.

Hang together. Hang separately. Your choice.

[JohnKleeb]

10. hes far from it, hes refering to the thread on Kerry

Kucinich actually is the most poor candiate in the race but the richest man in other matters :), yes I mean heart, and yes I am a dork.

[corporatewhore]

8. that is the thing that bothers me domestically some dems are great but....

its the forgeing policy that bothers me
"remember that FDR's America fought the good war against racism with a segregated army. It fought that war to end atrocities by participating in the shooting of surrendering soldiers, the starvation of POWs, the deliberate bombing of civilians, wiping out hospitals, strafing lifeboats, and in the Pacific boiling flesh off enemy skulls to make table ornaments for sweethearts. And Roosevelt, the leader of this anti-racist, anti-atrocity force, signed Executive Order 9066, interning over 100,000 Japanese-Americans without due process...thus, in the name of taking on the architects of German prison camps became the architect of American prison camps. "Then agian this isnt too great domestic policy
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=43&ItemID=4876

[Terwilliger]

14. Did they give a lot of money to charity?

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/17337.htm

In 1993, for instance, living on a senator's salary of about $100,000, Kerry managed to give a total of $135 to charity.

[incapsulated]

15. I wouldn't trust anything coming from that rag

Especially from an op-ed piece, imho.

[Terwilliger]

29. the facts are easily verifiable

all ya have to do is say "Hey, John Kerry...do you spend much of your hard-earned money on charity?"

[dsc]

16. Were the Kennedy's that wealthy

I know they had a ton of money but $755 million per person by Robert's generation? I find that a little hard to believe. Your point is well taken but I honestly don't know how wealthy the Robert Kennedy generation is.

[WilliamPitt]

17. Big Joe was insanely wealthy

Estimated at around $100 million. Revise that up to modern dollars and it comes out somewhere in the same neighborhood.

[dsc]

23. wow

I guess once you get to a certain level it all looks the same. I honestly had no idea. Gee, who would have thunk booze could be so lucrative.

[theboss]

32. Booze was just the starting point

Old Man Joe owned a movie stuido, race tracks (when that meant something), the Merchandise Mart in Chicago(the biggest building in the world at one time), half the Florida Coastline, and real estate everywhere. He got out of the stock market before the '29 Crash so his wealth increased during the 30s. And that's just the stuff we know about. God knows how much he got from the mob, politicians, or his more "fascist" friends in Europe.

[theboss]

31. That's a lowball figure

The New York Times estimated his wealth at $500 Million at his death in '69.

The total family wealth was estimated at $850 Million in 1990. I'm guessin they did all right during the stock boom of the 90s so God knows how much it is now.

[AP]

38. JFK was worth about 10 million when he was president. LBJ about 100 mil

thanks to the TV stations and some other shit.

I think one of the Beschloss LBJ books has this in the footnotes in the first 100 or so pages.

[Democrats unite]

18. Compareing the two is an insult to FDR.

[Duder]

19. Wonder how much stock in Wal Mart...

...FDR would own?

[JanMichael]

20. There are what I call Stupid Plutocrats and Clever Plutocrats.

Obviously Bush is in the first catagory.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

21. Yeah, JFK cut rich people's taxes, just like Bush

What did JFK do exactly that was any good anyway?

The only thing of note that JFK seems to have accomplished is get assasinated. Easiest way to become a hero evidentally.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

24. Yeah, the terrorist actions against Cuba - forgot about that one

The terrorist wars against Indochina - forgot that one. The coups and destabilization of emerging democracies around the world - forgot about that! A warmonger of the highest caliber, forgot that one too. Boy do I feel dumb!

[corporatewhore]

26. opperation mongoose

The Cuba Project (a.k.a. "Operation Mongoose") was initiated under Camelot (the Kennedy administration) in January 1962 with the stated US objective of helping the "Cubans overthrow the Communist regime from within Cuba and institute a new government with which the United States can live in peace."

Noam Chomsky describes Operation Mongoose: "What has happened is a level of international terrorism that as far as I know has no counterpart, apart from direct aggression. It's included attacking civilian installations, bombing hotels, sinking fishing vessels, destroying petrochemical installations, poisoning crops and livestock, on quite a significant scale, assassination attempts, actual murders, bombing airplanes, bombing of Cuban missions abroad, etc. It's a massive terrorist attack."

[Terwilliger]

30. you're not suggesting that rich Dems might institute terrorist policies!

That goes against the general thrust of the overall propaganda, don't ya know.

[incapsulated]

25. Nah

Just the most fucked up thing today. :hi:

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

42. From your link:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/jfk_leg_record1.html#_________%20Cuban%20Resolution

Approved a joint resolution on Cuba stating the United States will use force if necessary to halt the spread of communism in this hemisphere.

...the resolution declared the United States was determined To prevent by whatever means necessary, including use of arms, the Marxist-Leninist regime in Cuba from extending, by force or the threat of force, its aggressive or subversive activities to any part of this hemisphere; To prevent in Cuba the creation or use of an externally supported military capability endangering the security of the United States;

[WarNoMore]

28. I imagine if the Kennedy family

had the choice, they would trade the hero(that he was),for many more years of his life with them.

[Edwards4President]

33. Yes. He cut their taxes when their tax rate was around 90%

Hard to quibble with that.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

43. thus destroying the progressive tax

only the richest people paid that kind of tax - and they were still rich. It was JFK that the Republicans were quoting when they passed their tax cuts for the rich.

JFK was great on television, but if he was never killed, he would have been considered a medicore centrist at best.

Not only that, but personally he was quite an ass too. He treated the female White House staff as his personal bordello.

Why we are supposed to claim this man as a hero, I have no idea.

[Lisa]

34. maybe the old traditional kind of avarice, Will ...

But the neo-avarice that you guys are fighting against now, that's squatting in the White House -- that's a whole different kind. It doesn't believe in giving anything away to charity (that's for other people to do), and scoffs at "noblesse oblige".

[AP]

35. FDR was a product of an era in which the poor were brutalized.

And he was a traitor to his class.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

41. FDR was a traitor to his class?

That's rich!

[AP]

44. That's what they said about him. If you think it's rich, tell the Wall St

bankers who plotted a coup to overthrow his government back in the 30s.

[Zomby Woof]

36. RFK is my favorite Kennedy

I have been tough on them, but fair is fair, and RFK deserves praise for his conscience and compassion.

[AP]

37. LBJ was ten times wealthier than JFK and governed to make TX'ans richer

So does that mean there's a level of wealth beyond JFK and FDR where, oops, you start carring about making your friends rich again?

[AP]

40. by the way, what are "the dreams of avarice"? The problem with avarice is

that we'd all be better off if it were only a dream for most people that rich.