Last night: “Mamdani repeatedly accuses Israel of genocide in NYC mayoral debate”
Also last night: Mayor Mamdani picks FDR as his “favorite modern-day president”.
This is a curious choice given that FDR was an enthusiastic proponent of killing as many Japanese and German civilians as technology allowed, e.g., 100,000 in just one night in Tokyo in March 1945, in order to force Japan and Germany into unconditional surrender (both nations repeatedly expressed willingness to negotiate mutually acceptable peace treaties, but the U.S. rejected the idea in favor of killing more Japanese and Germans). I can’t think of any American president who has been responsible for killing more civilians than FDR directed to be killed. If the Israelis followed FDR’s example, they would have shelled and bombed the Gazans, without texting/phoning warnings in advance, until the Gazans decided to surrender. Instead of sending food, water, and other supplies to the Gazans, the Israelis would have implemented something like Operation Starvation, the U.S. operation intended to prevent food from reaching Japan via ship (begun under FDR and continued under President Truman).
FDR is also a curious choice because he’s responsible for putting Japanese Americans into concentration camps during WWII (blessed by the Supreme Court) out of mere suspicion that they might try to work against the U.S. government’s program of killing as many Japanese soldiers and civilians as quickly as possible. Zohran Mamdani explicitly says that he wants to fight against the federal government (example below). If Trump followed FDR’s example, Zohran Mamdani would be interned for the duration of the federal effort to arrest and deport undocumented migrants with criminal records (“New Yorkers”, in Mayor Mamdani’s parlance).
(Omar Fateh, the next mayor of Minneapolis, would also be interned because he has also pledged to work against the federal government’s goals.)
Maybe FDR is celebrated by Mamdani because he gave Americans free cash? Ida May Fuller, for example, got paid nearly 1000X what she’d contributed to Social Security. Who wouldn’t love that?
Mayor Mamdani attacked Cuomo for his failure to visit mosques. I wonder what would have happened if Cuomo had talked about visiting Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn where some of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers met. See “Brooklyn Mosque Becomes Terror Icon, but Federal Case Is Unclear” (NYT, 2003):
Al Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, a six-story converted factory trimmed in orange and gold, has been many things to many people during its life: a mystery, a noisy neighbor, a source of suspicion, and, for thousands of Muslims who live or work along Atlantic Avenue, the main street of Arab Brooklyn, a place of worship.
Last week, the mosque became, not for the first time, a symbol of terror. A federal affidavit unsealed on Tuesday describes links between the mosque, several Brooklyn businessmen and a cleric in Yemen who, prosecutors say, claims to have funneled more than $20 million to Al Qaeda. ”They did their fund-raising right here in our own backyard,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said.
But while Al Farooq has been the spiritual home of some infamous men — including, briefly, the blind Egyptian sheik eventually convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the man who killed Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990 — the role of the mosque and its members in supporting more recent terrorist activity remains unclear.
(New Yorkers responded to the 1993 jihad, which killed 6, including a pregnant woman, and injured more than 1,000, by advocating for increased levels of Islamic immigration and then responded to the 2001 jihad against the World Trade Center by advocating for completely open borders to Muslims.)
Who watched the debate? I saw a few snippets on X. I was, of course, happy to see Florida Realtor of the Year 2020/2021 (Andrew Cuomo) and Florida Realtor of the Year 2026 (Ayatollah Mamdani) on stage at the same time. Mostly, however, I’m amazed that these are the three ablest humans among the 8.5 million (or 9 million if we count the uncountable undocumented?) residents of New York City.
Separately, I’m close to 100,000 views on this X reply:
It is unfair to paint Mr. Mamdani as a Hamas supporter. Based on his public statements, he is equally aligned with Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
Earlier this week Mamdani was quoted in the NY Times as saying: “And to me, what democratic socialism means is a belief that it is government’s job to ensure that every person is living a life of dignity. And dignity is not the things that you’d like, it’s not the things that you’d want, it’s the things that you need.”
A chip off of the old man, Karl Marx: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
That far, I believe, FDR would not have gone.
Please remember that Mama-dani is “progressive.” Progressing past Marx’s “Workers of the world, unite!” and FDR’s campaign to wipe-out by flooding my self-reliant, independent hillbilly relatives’ homeland in TN and KY for the benefit of government-dependent socialist hillbillies.
Greta T. would be in shock at the environmental destruction caused by FDR’s hydroelectric and urban-ghetto watering programs, exceeding his his A-bomb activities. My car was made in Hiroshima, while my relatives’ shacks are still at the bottom of a reservoir. And FDR would be proud of his legacy if he saw the Glorious Three Gorges Damn project in the People’s Republic of China. [Long essay on destruction by e-waste and plastic, further entrenchment of a tyrannical dictatorship, displacement of human lives, etc., elided.]
A chip off the old block for sure, and you are right, even further: Mama-dani wants NON-workers of the world to unite, and exploit the productive capitalist finbros and others remaining who work. May we not continue to live in interesting times.
As I was out raking leaves again, it occurred to me that WPA, the crown-jewel in FDR’s administration, and the oppressive flooder of my relatives’ old Kentucky homeland, is Works Progress Administration. NRA, Non-working Regressive Agency would be a better term, if not already taken, for the modern form.
“Progress”, ha. It’s weird that progressive modern liberals are so ostensibly anti-colonialism, when the whole lie behind European colonialism was progress. Neo-liberals are just colonialists with a guilt complex. Their leaders live in big houses moated-off from reality, off the labor of others, just like plantation owners. Mystery solved.
Ayallah Mamdani seems to practice tikkiya, shiite way to protect themselves in order to advance their goals or to save their hides. Something that religious shiites need directions for, while this political lying comes natural to Democrat, Communist and aligned politicians. I am not watching because the whole thing is retarding, as is Mamdani candidacy. His popularity is an indication of mass cognitive decline, he is ranking in between Saddam Hussein and Borat. Let’s see if there are enough retired Dems to go for FDR lie, doubt that the Millenials and the Gen-Z ers know much about FDR.
(both nations repeatedly expressed willingness to negotiate mutually acceptable peace treaties, but the U.S. rejected the idea in favor of killing more Japanese and Germans)
Hitler never offered to negotiate with FDR after U.S. was attacked at Pearl Harbor. Neither did Japan. Japanese were debating of maybe thinking of considering of possibly reaching out to Stalin, who wasn’t really interested.
@nolord Negotiate with Stalin what? USSR was not ar war with Japan after 1940 and Japan did not want to help Hitler fight USSR in 1941 because Hitler did not help Japan fight USSR in 1939. USSR attacked Japan in the summer of 1945 per Yalta agreements with allies, per their request.
Japanese leaders did not expect all out war after Pearl Harbor, had no plan attacking US mainland. They hoped for splitting spheres of influence and control of natural resources.
Nazi #2s Hering, Himmler and others tried to deal with allies and were rebuffed. Also, Hitler’s messenger was interned in UK for life and died in jail. His only apparent crime was illegal crossing of English Channel.
@perplexed
Japanese wanted to use Stalin as intermediary, to mediate with U.S. on their behalf.
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945Berlinv01/d586
Stalin had other plans, this was in July 1945, very late in the game and FDR was already dead.
Goering in 1939 (allegedly?) and Hess in 1940 were trying to talk to UK not U.S. U.S. was not at war yet, so this is not on U.S./FDR.
Himmler attempted negotiating in April 1945, couple of weeks before Germany surrendered. Too late in the game, FDR is already dead.
Neither Goering, nor Hess, no Himmler were authorized by Hitler, so they did not matter much anyway.
https://notthebee.com/article/starving-gazans-somehow-have-tons-of-food-gained-back-all-their-body-weight-one-day-after-war-ends