Yes, I noticed that particular cultural ritual has been dropped. 

Still, to cheer everyone up here is another instance of historical infamy being remebered;

The "infamy" is that fdr got away with using the base as bait, know the Japanese were coming and not warning anyone.

FDR was a traitor in the heinous sense of the word.

In my opinion.

You know I disagree that FDR was a traitor in any sense of the word. 

Yes, I know.  I'll even go so far as to say that by the definition of traitor in this country, he wasn't.  He was also right, the nazi's had to be fought and the European nations weren't up to the job.

But.  I know what he did and why he did it and what it cost.  It was fdr who moved the pacific fleet to Pearl Harbor over the objections of James Richardson, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet.

Pearl Harbor: Hawaii Was Surprised; FDR Was Not - The New American

The Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor ...

He was elected three times, and if he were alive today, he’d still be President. 

And he would still be a dispicable betrayer fascist.

Commanders at Pearl Harbor were idiots. 

Yes, they were... because they trusted the brass and fdr.

Hindsight, it’s a wonder they didn’t take their own lives in view of the destruction their outmatched policies caused.

It wasn't them.  It was all fdr's manipulations.

At least we eventually won the war in the Pacific....and we joined the effort in time to save Europe though not nearly soon enough to their way of thinking. 

We did not join because the general population of the US didn't want to go to Europe... again... and didn't care much about the far east.

Have you seen The Man in the High Castle?  In it, Hitler won. It’s popular but I haven’t watched more than the first episode.

Nope.

 Have you read The Third Reich, still on my shelf to read.  I don’t know what my problem is with it, when I’ll ever be ready.

Nope. 

 I feel it necessary to state plainly that noting FDR was a fiend whose deliberate actions resulted in 3,000 innocent men burning to death does not mean I am sympathetic toward nazi's or emperial japan.  Fdr was a bastard and deserves to be remembered for his crimes... we're still living with them today.

It’s an interesting perspective you’ve always had about FDR.  He was certainly a bastard to Eleanor, and I wouldn’t want to deal with him or be in a position where I needed to trust him.

I'm not the resident iconoclast for nothin.  

However, lest you forget, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, he didn’t.  The Japanese were the actual culprits.

I played chess a lot in my younger days.  Part of the game, if you're good at it, is manipulating your opponent into doing what you want.  Given fdrs actions prior to the attack, he clearly... to me... manipulated the Japanese into attacking.  We can go into what, where and how if you like or you can take my word for it.  Fdr had motivation and the actions he took all but guaranteed Japan would have little or no choice.

Moving forces to Hawaii was a natural move after Japan entered the war on Hitler’s side. 

Not in the way that you think.   

Pearl Harbor wasn't ready to house the Pacific fleet and fdr knew it.  It wasn't defendable and he knew that, too.  The smoking gun, if you will, wasn't the move to Pearl... it was what he moved to Pearl and what he didn't.  What he moved to Pearl was bait. 

Ships Present at Pearl Harbor, 0800 7 December 1941

Notice what's missing?  Carriers and their support ships.

Also, let’s not forget how Japan tested weapons on Chinese villages just to see how far the toxic plumes would go, wiping out entire communities.  Their military were never the good guys.

As I said before, acknowledging and condemning FDR is not the same as supporting the nazi's or the japanese.  Trust me on this, it may be the case that I know more about the atrocities committed by the emporer and his troops than I really want to.  The nazi's got upset.

And, even more unforgivable... absolutely unforgivable... was what macarther did with the butchers.

Unit 731 - Wikipedia

In 1945, why did General Douglas McArthur grant immunity ...

Unka sam did the same with the nazi butchers and to my way of thinking that, above all else, was the point where the US government began to rot.

No matter how right something is, you can always find a report by someone saying how wrong it was. 

True however if they're right about it, then they're right.  I am right.  Fdr was a fascist and a villan.  We're still dying from the infected wounds he inflicted upon the nation with his fascist "new deal".

Usually, debate is argued from both sides.  “Yes” men surround every President....must be Hell to know that and have to make decisions from a wheelchair with failing health.  But damn!  He knew his audience and spoke to their better natures. I enjoy the music though the composer was absolutely despicable to all around him.

Hitler, Mao, Lenin, Mussolini... they all knew their audiences and how to "speak to their better natures".

Fdr deserves no accolades, he deserves to be known for what he did and why he did it.  I would say the ends were necessary... hitler and the emporer had to be put down.  I would not say how fdr got the US into the war was justified nor was it honorable... it was evil.

We’re a stubborn lot and evil may have been required to motivate us out of our isolationist tendencies.  Isolationists virtually disappeared after Pearl Harbor.

I think most today understand WWII was the continuation of WWI after a brief holiday.  The punishment imposed upon Germany guaranteed their destruction or rebellion... without any hope of lasting peace. 

There was planty of evil in Europe and Asia being done by the Germans and Japanese.  There were also Americans volunteering... by going to England and China and taking up arms.

My point here is FDR was a fascist and a villian.  He should not be remembered otherwise.  It should go without saying that even a fascist villian may be correct, as FDR was about it being necessary to oppose hitler.  FDR didn't give a fuck about what the Japanese were doing other than the fact that there was a treaty between them and the Germans that meant if he could get them to attack the US, we would automatically be at war with Germany.

Why can’t the rest of the world just leave us alone?

Because we have money and industrial might.

Japan was running on empty, the mistake was not bombing Pearl Harbor but their failure to pursue and secure the resources they needed on our mainland.

Funny enought, FDR blockaided the Japanese islands thereby ensuring that Japan would be 'running on empty' and have to respond by attacking the US.  They were reluctant to do so, knowing they couldn't take on us and occupy China, Korea and the Phillippines.  That reluctance is why FDR moved the Pacific fleet to Pearl Harbor... irresistable bait.  Knowing the Japanese would have no choice but to take the bait, he also made sure our aircraft carriers were disbursed across the Pacific on made up 'mild runs' that would ordinarily have been done by barges and freightors.

It was now or never for them, so the evil that you perceive in FDR wasn’t even necessary at Pearl, but his new deal was a psych boost for the country and had Congress not tinkered with it so much it would have been better.

Facism is not an optimal economic model.  It can work but the unseen consequences and damage are severe, lasting and profound.  We are now 21 trillion dollars in debt with a liability load of over 100 trillion as a direct result of the damage fdr did with his 'new deal'.

His immense flaw was trying to alter the Supreme Court, and for that he lost the pedestal.

And why did he emasculate supreme court?  Because they were doing their jobs and opposing his fascist ideological corruption of the federal government.

Funny how our Chinese guide said that Mao would have been a God, had he died sooner.

He's still regarded as something of a diety in China though slowly the word is getting out that his policies caused the deaths of 10's of millions and set the nation back decades.

FDR might have had more fans but for a similar abuse of power. Term limits for the President came out of it.  Even though every election provides term limits, the encumbent advantage especially in times of war, and public misinformation is an advantage.  So a little revolution every 8 years in the President has been a good change, so far.  I haven’t missed a single former President. In recent decades I’ve been glad they’re gone...at last!

Every dark cloud has a silver lining.  It remains to be seen whether fdr's villiany was a mortal wound to the US.  It certainly appears to have been.  I do not see how the nation can survive what he did.

21 trillion....just a few decades ago the debt was 4 trillion and people were screaming about it....FDR is not responsible.

When you set into motion a chain of events, you are responsible for the outcome.  It matters little that others contributed along the way. 

By remaking the federal government in the fascist model, by the creation of social security, by direct withholding of taxes by the nations employers, by the domination of the supreme court, fdr set into motion a chain of events that led directly to what we have today.  Of a certainty, lyndon johnson contributed mightily as did richard nixon but neither could do what they did had fdr poisened the nation.

In a not unrelated note: 

(CNSNews.com) - The Internal Revenue Service had in its weapons inventory 4,487 guns and 5,062,006 rounds of ammunition as of late 2017, according to a report published this month by the Government Accountability Office.

Included in this arsenal, according to the GAO, were 15 “fully automatic firearms” and 56,000 rounds of ammunition for those fully automatic firearms.

The same report--"Federal Law Enforcement: Purchases and Inventory Controls of Firearms, Ammuntion, and Tactical Equipment"--says that the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services had 194 fully automatic firearms and 386,952 rounds of ammunition for those fully automatic firearms.

“The term ‘fully automatic’ used in this report,” says a footnote in the report, “encompasses a range of firearms classified as machine guns, including submachine guns, three round burst guns, and guns with a selector switch that can enable continuous fire.”

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/gao-irs-had-4487-guns-5062006-rounds-ammunition

That's the US federal government.  5,500 firearms including 15 machineguns for the IRS.  Health and human services;  194 machineguns.  That's the legacy of FDR.

Hogwash. While it’s true a wheel set in motion goes where it must, each pothole, bump, and curve of Congress changes its course.

And yet the wheel was created and aimed.  Like a bullet, the person who fired it is responsible for what it does.  If you've ever attempted to change the speed and/or direction of a misguided massive object, you will know that it was better to never have created it at all.

Social security was a brilliant economic stroke for communities all across the country, and the people pay for it themselves! 

Most people I have this conversation with react as though I am attacking them personally or stomping on kittens or just making stuff up.  I wish I were making stuff up.  I'm not.

And I've had the conversation so many times, to so little effect that I wonder why bother?  Few listen, fewer understand

Some never even collect it, dying before eligible.  Of course the cap for the wealthy makes it difficult to finance.  Congress couldn’t keep its hands off it, and now would like to wiggle out of the debt to it, but nonetheless it is a great thing for the general welfare and is part of how we continue to own the country instead of foreign loans and higher interest rates.

Since we've drifted off fdr baiting the japanese into attacking peal harbor, I'll take the topic of ss to another thread.

Baiting the Japanese to get into the war in Europe.  Losing all that military power to trick Americans into the fight.  Talking peace to isolationists and making war inevitable.  Maybe. 

I think, absolutely.  He didn't loose much in terms of 'military power'.  Battleships were obsolete, all but defenseless against aircraft and submarines.  Our aircraft carriers and their support groups were not there, sent on 'milk runs' that ordinarily would have been handled by cargo ships.

Churchill was that kind of thinker.  Protecting Enigma when bombs would fall on his citizens.

Yup.

There were enough farmers then who would mind their own business until the Germans were at their gates.  Americans are hard headed without a crisis.  The best way to rally us as one is an attack of such magnitude.

WWII is, rightly, now concidered a continuation of WWI after a brief pause.  I think the horror of WWI has faded too much over time because even our government approved history books admit Americans, in general, had no desire to go back to Europe, again and for very, very good reason.

Encouraging the enemy to make a mistake and not interfering when he does.  They probably teach that at military academies.

And in chess.

 What should the President, fully aware, do? I’m still thinking he knew what had to be done, ugly as it seems.  The shallow torpedoes may have had much greater impact than was anticipated and some dumb errors in judgement increased the devastation.  He probably only needed an attack not the indefensible errors that occurred which dramatically increased losses.

I've said before, both the nazi's and the emporer had to be put down.  My issue is with the deification of fdr.  He is rightly called a fascist and a traitor, the damage he did to the United States is still unfolding this very day.  Second guessing is a terrible thing to do yet I cannot help but believe there were other ways to rouse the wrath of America than manipulating the burning alive of 3,000 innocent men.

Even if all you claim is true......the Japanese attacked.  They misjudged us.  That’s on them, not Roosevelt.

They did misjudge.  That does not absolve fdr of what he did.