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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe path to victory: Remembering Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Second Bill of Rights
We can be the left edge of the rightist reaction and fail and fail and fail, or we can stand up to the right and we can stop promoting global trade pacts that immiserate workers everywhere and we can end the fascist war on terror and we can bring the banksters to justice and we can stop with the Grand Bargain to undermine Social Security and we can fight for Medicare for all instead of new clients for insurance companies and and we can forthrightly face the challenges of global warming and resource depletion and overpopulation and we can stop with the right-wing education crap and we can fight fight fight to end the scourge of inequality that has made America the increasingly sorry place it is today. It's an easy choice and a winning choice. But it's fail or fight. There's no middle path.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/03/07/remembering-franklin-delano-roosevelt-and-the-second-bill-of-rights/
Remembering Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Second Bill of Rights
March 7, 2014
by Harvey J. Kaye
Seventy years ago, on January 11, 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his 11th Annual Message on the State of the Union. The United States was at war. But the president spoke not only of the struggle and of what Americans had to do to hasten victory over the Axis Powers. He also spoke of what Americans needed to do to win the peace to come. Reaffirming his administrations commitment to the vision he had articulated in his 1941 Annual Message the vision of the Four Freedoms: Freedom of speech, Freedom of worship, Freedom from want, Freedom from fear Roosevelt now called for an Economic Bill of Rights for all Americans.
As President Obama contemplates his second-term legacy, and with midterm elections on the near horizon, he would do well to attend to FDRs 1944 message. Our own challenges are not those of 1944. But in the wake of the tragedies, crises, painful obstructions and compromises of the past 15 years and in the face of continuing right-wing and corporate class war against working people, they are no less daunting and we are no less eager to start addressing them.
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This Republic, he said, had its beginning and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights They were our rights to life and liberty. As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however as our industrial economy expanded these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness. But, he continued: We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. And evoking Jefferson, the Founders and Lincoln, he contended that In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident and We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race or creed. This Second Bill of Rights included:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
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Tragically, FDR was right about the dangers of rightist reaction. Americans hopes and aspirations were stymied by aggressive and well-funded conservative and corporate campaigns. Still, compelled by popular pressure, Congress did enact a GI Bill of Rights, an historic initiative that enabled 12,000,000 veterans nearly 1 in 10 Americans to radically transform themselves and their country for the better. And in years to come their generation would not only make America richer and stronger, but would act anew to progressively realize the vision that Roosevelt had projected.
We need to redeem that vision. President Obama has rightly warned that inequality seriously threatens Americas promise. He may not be able to enact any new grand initiatives before he leaves office. But remembering Franklin Roosevelts 1944 Message and speaking with confidence in and to his fellow citizens, he may not only get Americans to vote Democratic in November and set the agenda for 2016. He may also encourage us to go All Out! in the fight to renew Americas grand experiment in democracy. That would be a great second-term legacy.
silverweb
(16,402 posts)[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]This deserves full, caffeinated attention.
LukeFL
(594 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)FDR got four terms out of progressivism. The democrats held the Legislature for two generations on progressivism.
But the party tells us it doesn't win.
Why do you think that is? For that matter... what will it take, for more people to stop and wonder why that is?
ReRe
(10,597 posts)Whose pockets do each of those groups fill?
Progressives fill The People's pockets.
Third way fills Corporate pockets.
What's it going to take to wake the lemmings up? A few more bail-outs and an unemployment rate of 25% or more.
druidity33
(6,446 posts)Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)Chuck Todd was right, it fucking disqualifies a candidate if you can not even say you voted for your own national party fucking leader.
And making "Potty mouthed kids" videos to make your fucking point about feminism was fucking genius, right?
Alkene
(752 posts)how much better life could have been.
I see none of the rights listed in Roosevelt's vision as existing in my world*, and certainly not arising within my lifetime.
"Necessitous men are not free men." No fucking shit. I'm guessing that's part of the plan.
*on edit: actually not entirely correct because of the ACA and WA State expanded medicaid, I do have medical coverage, and, "The right to adequate medical care..." is a pretty big deal at my age.
Dustlawyer
(10,497 posts)We need to fight to actually fix our broken election system, get all of the GD $$$$ out of these so called, "elections!"
dotymed
(5,610 posts)Until we get money OUT of politics, we will have no real say in our "leaders" that are actually supposed to be our representatives.
I strongly believe that IF the Democratic party would return to it's populist heritage and unanimously endorse the populism and economic policies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, they would be unbeatable (if voting even counts. George Carlin has been proven right on everything else...he said "if voting actually mattered, do you think THEY would let us do it?"
The big money inundated the "airwaves" with a huge last minute push against Democratic candidates here in the South. Every radio station was running the anti-Dem. commercials almost back to back.
It is obvious that both (we need more) parties are too busy enriching themselves rather than representing the people.
I voted and I am sick today.but then, until the Democrats stop being republican lite and start trying to implement FDR's second bill of rights money will reign supreme and the proletariat class will grow exponentially.
This country no longer resembles the place where I want to exist. Most first world countries look at the American empire as a very restrictive place where the people are expendable. I agree.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)EXCERPT...
The record the Democratic Party has made in the last 20 years is the greatest political asset any party ever had in the history of the world. We would be foolish to throw it away. There is nothing our enemies would like better and nothing that would do more to help them win an election.
I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.
But when a Democratic candidate goes out and explains what the New Deal and fair Deal really are--when he stands up like a man and puts the issues before the people--then Democrats can win, even in places where they have never won before. It has been proven time and again.
CONTINUED...
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=1296
dotymed
(5,610 posts)abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)We need a new new deal, a new FDR.
dotymed
(5,610 posts)Bernie Sanders to be that new FDR. His many years of proven people first policies and votes should leave no doubt.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Somebody send this to Obama.
libtodeath
(2,888 posts)and never stop.
dotymed
(5,610 posts)We have very few REAL DEMOCRATS left to choose from. Bernie is (rightfully) an Independent at this point.
We do get a very few gems like Warren and the only way Bernie stands a chance of winning is "turning" Democratic
When the money started flowing, then flooding (thank you SCOTUS) from the corporations to the politicians, we ended up with republican lite, interested in power and wealth. Independent Bernie is actually more of a Democrat than most politicians.
The "party" left us peons a while ago. We must take it back and get some actual Representation.
Turn up the volume and fight for our rights.
Elect Bernie in 2016.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Karmadillo
(9,253 posts)students at the local high school would still find FDR's proposed Second Bill of Rights worth embracing (especially if we added a clause offering up a good college education without having to take out ruinous loans).
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Many of the teachers are disgusted with the RW school board and their common core crap. It is not a set of educational standards it is a private for profit curriculum/testing corporation. A race to the bottom.
I haven't heard yet if she shared the second bill of rights with her class. I would hope her teacher and fellow students would appreciate it much.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)me b zola
(19,053 posts)tokenlib
(4,186 posts)...then again, I dream of millions of Americans converging on the National Mall to stomp out the evil "grand bargain" of entitlement "reform" into the dustbin of history...and then singing together "Happy days are here again!" until the eardrums of the disciples of Reagan and Ayn Rand and the puppets of Wall Street burst and bleed in anguish..
Whoa, seeing Ed Rendell on MSNBC brings that out in me.....