HAT TIP TO HARRY TRUMAN

I thought of his remark about the usefulness of history:

• The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.
  • As quoted in Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman (1974) by Merle Miller, p. 26

as I was reading Jeff Sharlet's post about the forerunners of todays Fundie Capitalists:

This is not a Religion Column: Biblical Capitalism
By Jeff Sharlet
October 1, 2008
RELIGION DISPATCHES

In 1932, James A. Farrell, president of US Steel, tried to persuade then Governor Franklin Roosevelt that economic depression was “caused by disobedience to divine law,” and that the only cure was a mix of spiritual revival and unprecedented powers for corporate leaders. In 1936, Frank Buchman, the founder of the Moral Re-Armament movement—a network of upper crust Christian clubs—announced, “Human problems aren’t economic. They’re moral, and they can’t be solved by immoral measures.” He suggested instead “God-controlled democracy, or perhaps I should say a theocracy.”

The most influential of these businessmen for God was a Norwegian immigrant named Abraham Vereide, founder of an annual ritual of piety and politics that survives to this day, the National Prayer Breakfast. In 1935, Vereide created a “fellowship” of Christian businessmen bound together by the idea that God hates government regulation because it interferes with a believer’s ability to choose right or wrong. He found receptive audiences in private meetings with Henry Ford and the president of Chevrolet, Thomas Watson of IBM and representatives from J.C. Penney.