10 historical “facts” only a wingnut could believe

[Snarkoleptic]

This piece caught my eye as I told my dad I'd enjoyed watching Ken Burns' "The Roosevelts" and he, without pause, said "Roosevelt was a monster". This seemingly random utterance left me gobsmacked for a litany of reasons (all based on facts).

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/08/10_historical_facts_only_a_wingnut_could_believe_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

The Robber Barons weren’t robbers — they were capitalist heroes.

The overarching task of the conservative historian is to rehabilitate the image of capitalism, even at its most red-toothed and -clawed. Not a hard job, as both our history and culture ceaselessly celebrate the innovative dynamism of American business.

--snip--

FDR: History’s greatest monster.

If you have aged grandparents still living who remember the New Deal, or are among America’s prominent historians, you will hear nothing but good from them about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the president who shepherded America through the Great Depression and the Second World War.

Conservatives have never felt that way, of course — back in the day they went to the Trans-Lux to hiss Roosevelt, and FDR welcomed their hatred. For some years they were obliged to keep their anger at FDR on the down-low — after all, wasn’t Reagan a Roosevelt fan? Plus there were many more people then than now who actually remembered that presidency, and it didn’t play well to contradict their memories.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. "... back in the day they went to the Trans-Lux to hiss Roosevelt...."

Here's the cartoon that made that phrase famous:



Cartoon America - Punch Lines: Gag & Single Panel Cartoons

“Let's go to the Trans-Lux and hiss Roosevelt!”
Peter Arno

Peter Arno (1904-1968) lampoons a group of middle-aged socialites hissing at President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Trans-Lux, a popular New York theater. In this drawing, unlike the published version, the group appears scantily dressed, perhaps for a costume party. Though highly popular with most Americans, Roosevelt was strongly disliked by many members of the conservative, social elite. The Trans-Lux often screened newsreels that featured the president. Arno's first published drawings appeared in 1925 in the New Yorker and remained a popular feature during his forty-year cartooning career.

[lunasun]

6. Yes the OP sez if you talk to aged they will have nothing but praise but it really depends on who

You are speaking with that is aged. I know someone when very young had to stay with their grandfTher , a business man with many employees . While working in his office he would hear his grandfather repeatedly curse about that God damn cripple all the time. When he was older he realized it was FDR and it probably had to do with SS payments for employees !

[Central Scruitinizer]

13. Hissing Obama

Is now the national sport.

[StevePaulson]

2. I Bet Grandpa

Was a big Hoover fan!

[Thespian2]

3. My father

who disliked the programs made popular by FDR often ridiculed the "alphabet" government. His part-time job was being a "hard-shelled" Baptist preacher. His real job, during WWII, was helping Bell build the B-29 Bomber. Oh, yes. He liked Reagan.

[TNNurse]

4. My mother

Raised me to understand that FDR and his programs saved many of our family members (by giving them jobs) and his programs helped the whole country.

[mountain grammy]

5. My father in law was a Fox watching hater..

but we would often talk about the Depression and how he and his sisters survived. He was born in 1922, so was a child when the bottom fell out and 20 when he joined the Marines. When we talked about that time, he remembered FDR like most of Americans who were alive then remember him, as a savior, the only hope they had.
I asked him once, how he could have voted for FDR since he was a Democrat. He said it didn't matter, everyone voted for Roosevelt. Well, everyone he knew, and he wasn't eligible to vote until the 1944 election.

He always spoke of how the Roosevelt sons were enlisted in the military. My FIL was in with the Marines in the South Pacific and saw James Roosevelt there. He admired the fact that the President and his family had a "dog in the fight." I always liked to remind him that no Rmoney in history ever wore the uniform in any capacity.

[packman]

7. Roosevelt touched every member of my family and relatives

An uncle who left high school and went into a CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) camp. Another who got a job somewhere out west digging ditches and clearing forest roads. My dad who lost money in a bank collapse then was able to get some of it back when Roosevelt reopened the bank in our small town. My uncle and aunt whose farm was saved when it was on the verge of being foreclosed. Roosevelt was a God to our family and the only negatives I ever heard from them (Please forgive me for saying this) was his and Eleanor's fairness in dealing with the Blacks. They were particularly upset that so many blacks were then flooding into the Democratic party due to the Roosevelt's reaching out to them. I loved my family, but the racism was there now that I look back at it.

[lunasun]

8. As I suspected wing 'nut 'is an appropriate name for these folks . You would have to be nuts

To reason and agree with all this BS. With the poor history education now days it should be easy to persuade a generation regardless of their mental health or learning capability to accept all the BS wing nut as history fact

[Major Nikon]

9. Joe McCarthy was really a swell guy who was right about everything

I'm surprised that one didn't make the list.

[niyad]

10. my head hurts just reading that list.

[world wide wally]

11. My parents, both gone now, revered FDR. They knew that he saved the country from both war

and the great depression and worked for the welfare of the nation as a whole. When these conservative radicals talk about how America used to be, this should be their standard because overcoming this was our greatest accomplishment and FDR was the one who lead us through the Republican, Hoover's, quagmire that he created.

Does any of this sound familiar? (names changed to protect the Bushes).

[Central Scruitinizer]

12. 'It isn't so much that conservatives are ignorant.

It's just that they know so many things that aren't so'

So said St Ronnie the ray gun.

[blackspade]

14. A painfully true read.

Conservative mis-readings of the Victorian Era are especially painful to me.
My Masters degree is centered in that time period and it's social ramifications echo into the present but are either mis-understood by people ignorant of history or deliberately twisted by conservative assholes like those cited in the article.

[freshwest]

15. K&R