Is our New Depression a time to toast the heartening words of FDR?
I am overwhelmed by the day-to-day. The practicalities of whether or not we’re going to make enough money in the next eight months to keep a roof over our heads, and whether or not I’ve condemned myself because of living so close to the edge up til now. Staring down the canyon between Personal Ideals and Reality.
So yeah, thank you Star-Tribune, for the pep talk on NYE. It’s nice to get links to a bunch of fireside chats and all, and a lovely quote from our long-ago presidential papa:
“In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunk to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; and the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone. More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.”
But I don’t know if I have it in me to listen to Fireside Chats from 70 years ago in hopes that it will make me feel all warm and fuzzy.
And here’s the thing–neither you at the Star-Trib nor any politician in Washington is really looking down the barrel of taking a third or fourth job. (And neither was FDR.) It’s hard to know how to take it when people who do not suffer in the slightest—or even profit from your troubles—tell you to “hang in there” or “don’t give up.” It gives me a creeping urge to bake pies and throw them.
David Sirota, thanks for the crack on the knuckles to the Right. However, I’m not so sure that what the government’s been doing right now (like, say, facilitating the theft of what’s left of our treasury down to the draperies) can be something to make me feel all plucky and optimistic.
Happiness 