http://www.wyzant.com/Help/History/HPOL/FDR/Fala/
Audio file of FDR’s ‘Fala’ speech – some things never change – here’s a quote:
The opposition in this year has already imported into this campaign a very interesting thing, because it is foreign. They have imported the propaganda technique invented by the dictators abroad. Remember, a number of years ago, there was a book, Mein Kampf, written by Hitler himself. The technique was all set out in Hitler's book - and it was copied by the aggressors of Italy and Japan. According to that technique, you should never use a small falsehood; always a big one, for its very fantastic nature would make it more credible - if only you keep repeating it over and over and over again.
Well, let us take some simple illustrations that come to mind. For example, although I rubbed my eyes when I read it, we have been told that it was not a Republican depression, but a Democratic depression from which this Nation was saved in 1933 - that this Administration this one today - is responsible for all the suffering and misery that the history books and the American people have always thought had been brought about during the twelve ill-fated years when the Republican party was in power.
The big lie is that the nation had been saved from the Great Depression. Unemployment never fell below 15% until WWII took all those unemployed men and shipped them overseas to die.
ReplyDeleteI do blame Hoover for starting the Great Depression, but Roosevelt prolonged it and made it far, far worse.
And Hoover didn't cause the Great Depression the way Democrats usually say he did it, though laissez-faire.
Ever hear of Smoot-Hawley? Hoover Dam? The Revenue Act of 1932? And that's just the tip of the iceberg.