It’s Not Going to Work

November 19, 2011

It’s Not Going to Work

Doesn’t anybody in a position of authority remember the 1960s?

Maybe the folks in power need to talk to history professors more often than they talk to police chiefs. I know I’ve written about it before (but I can’t find it) -- during the last Depression, President Hoover sent in Dugout Doug and the Army to break up the Bonus Army camps. A year later -- when the protesters regrouped and reformed their camp -- FDR sent in his wife. (Non-original, I read it in a book. “Hoover sent in the Army. Roosevelt sent in Eleanor.)

I knew when the NYPD maced the women penned on the sidewalk that this movement was going to grow. The-powers-that-be need to be careful. There are a lot of war veterans coming home to unemployment. They’re going to be a little tougher to intimidate than late-teen college students.

Evidently, 84-year-old grandmothers aren’t push overs either.

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President Obama has a decision to make. Does he want to be Hoover or Roosevelt?

On another level, these images become iconic. Here are a couple of other images that come to mind. You might want to think about how the larger events turned out from an historical perspective.