The New Deal physically reshaped the country. To this day, Americans still rely on its works for transportation, electricity, flood control, housing, and community amenities. The output of one agency alone, the Works Progress Administration, represents a magnificent bequest to later generations. The WPA produced, among many other projects, 1,000 miles of new and rebuilt airport runways, 651,000 miles of highway, 124,000 bridges, 8,000 parks, and 18,000 playgrounds and athletic fields; some 84,000 miles of drainage pipes, 69,000 highway light standards, and 125,000 public buildings built, rebuilt, or expanded. Among the latter were 41,300 schools.And just this afternoon I turned on Rush Limbaugh to hear him saying that liberalism is destructive.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Behold, the Horrors of the New Deal
From The New Deal: A Modern History (via Slate)
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2 comments:
The comments on this article (via Antiwar.com this morning) show how alive and well that myth still is in America. My jaw was on the floor the whole time reading comment after comment of military-is-good-by-definition, soldiers-fight-for-our-freedom-and-for-God, Ann-Coulteresque rants against both what's perceived to be liberalism and what's incorrectly perceived to be reality.
represents a magnificent bequest to later generations
Or an insidious mandate. I like what Chris Hedges said a few weeks back, that FDR's greatest achievement was saving capitalism.
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