General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFDR Thought ALL Americans Entitled to the Economic Bill of Rights
On January 11, 1944, in the midst of World War II, President Roosevelt spoke forcefully and eloquently about the greater meaning and higher purpose of American security in a post-war America. The principles and ideas conveyed by FDR's words matter as much now as they did over sixty years ago, and the Franklin D. Roosevelt American Heritage Center is proud to reprint a selection of FDR's vision for the security and economic liberty of the American people in war and peace.
The Economic Bill of Rights
Excerpt from President Roosevelt's January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union
It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our peoplewhether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenthis ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rightsamong them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, howeveras our industrial economy expandedthese political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
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. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for allregardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
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.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
Americas own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens.
Source: The Public Papers & Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt (Samuel Rosenman, ed.), Vol XIII (NY: Harper, 1950), 40-42
12 How. 152: Necessitous men, says the Lord Chancellor, in Vernon v Bethell, 2 Eden 113 (1762), are not, truly speaking, free men; but, to answer a present emergency, will submit to any terms that the crafty may impose on them.
SOURCE: http://www.fdrheritage.org/bill_of_rights.htm
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)managed to get this through. Well, better late than never. We should strive to get something similar through now.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Absolutely, Live and Learn. The New Frontier and the Great Society stand as the times we as a nation have put peace and the people ahead of big money and war. Then came Dallas followed by the Gulf of Tonkin Big Lie and Vietnam.
We must go back and take the approach that government should apply its powers to making a better nation. We know what needs to be done. We have the money and resources. All we need do is stop funding permanent War Inc.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
Octafish
(55,745 posts)No matter what you say, Conservatives are the problem.
In the case of the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II, it was John McCloy, Mr. Establishment, the forgiver of NAZIs, and member of the Warren Commission, a Republican conservative.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1704560
NYC Liberal
(20,135 posts)That it was proposed by a right-wing conservative makes it worse, not better, that he went along with it.
Jefferson wrote about all men being created equal from his slave plantation. That doesn't mean he was wrong about all men being created equal, though; arguments and ideas should be evaluated independent of the person making them.
Jefferson the man was hypocritical, but his arguments about equality and rights were correct. FDR the man did a terrible thing but his Economic Bill of Rights is right on the money regardless of who proposed it.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)I thought only a President could do that.
My point is that everything FDR did, everything he accomplished, needs to be viewed through the prism of Japanese internment. To take 120,000 Japanese Americans, and put them into camps, is such an enormous violation of civil rights, of human rights, that it must always be considered when discussing FDR's actions.
Sid
DhhD
(4,695 posts)in Iraq. He left the cause of 9-11, for family gain and the gain of fellow war profiteers. Could Americans become so angry as to take up arms after being lied to?
brentspeak
(18,290 posts)"everything that he has accomplished" (in your own words), must be viewed through the prism of the Obama-ordered killing of a 16-year-old American citizen -- a teenaged American citizen who not a terrorist.
Furthermore, Obama's tenure must also be viewed through the prism of the death of over 1,000 troops in Afghanistan since he took office -- a massive escalation of US troop deaths in a widely-acknowledged futile war that has far eclipsed even Bush's ineptitude.
See how the "everything he did must be viewed through the prism of" thing works?
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Keep trying.
Sid
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Had FDR has a few more years to serve out his last term and then have a retirement, I suspect that he'd have thought differently about the interment.
The decision to impose that was driven by presidential politics as anything else...Earl Warren(the future liberal Chief Justice of the Supreme Court)was in the World War II era a rising prospect in California Republican politics(and much further to the right than he would ever be on the Court). Warren was pushing the interment, especially after his election as governor, in the name of giving himself a national political profile...becoming "presidential timber", as the old phrase put it. He decided to foment anti-Japanese racism both to build that profile and to give Anglo farmers in California a chance to seize Japanese-American owned farmland(some of the most valuable in the state at the time). FDR gave in and imposed interment largely as a way to neutralize the Warren threat to Democratic prospects in 1944.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)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;
....
FDR cared about moving the lower class into the middle class, and bringing the upper class down to the middle class
What some forget to realize is, it is NOT to make the middle class the upper class, but the upper class the middle class and the lower class the middle class
in essence one class.
It is just too bad his 3rd VP wasn't his last VP. Then the world truly would have continued to be greater.
PATRICK
(12,228 posts)it was suggested he took to heart the advice he look to Teddy Roosevelt in populist reforming approach. Some clear signs he has, whatever it means in real policy pushing. That FDR and Lincoln had the Civil War and WWII as a major crisis ticket to achieve a legacy was both a drag and enabler on social progress. Our present environmental/economic crisis is arguably even greater but the public consensus has been both suppressed and nowhere as united as it should be. Deference to the real House obstacles has been a bad habit that is not likely to be suddenly reversed without the miserable compromises that would make Dems suffer in 2014.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)Congress in the past seemed to want to run on what they actually DID
whereas today, both sides in Congress appear to want to not offend anyone, so they do nothing and then can't say they did the wrong thing
as opposed to striving to be the very best and being show to do the utmost
Wouldn't it make voters vote for you more if you do things? Congress in 2014 should be based on what got passed, not what they held back doing, afraid they are going to lose.
No wonder congress is at 11% popularity in recent polls.
Yet they are too blind to see it. (It reeks of needing term limits for the house and senate).
President Obama is free from running again, yet Congress isn't.
don't think FDR and Lincoln had those problems.
If only LBJ were the senate majority leader like he used to be to ram home anything he wanted to and strongarm the other side.
PATRICK
(12,228 posts)means doing nothing IS a good alternate cover. I don't think they have been so starved since the Depression and the Dems started chickening out on doing stuff before the War broke out. As far as being miserable for the nation in the grand scheme Congress has been notoriously backward and obstinate throughout our history.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)as Bush said, it would indeed be easier if the president were a dictator with powers to do whatever he wanted in spite of a do nothing congress
but being that they have to fund most everything under our rules, that is impossible
(though his fans would love it).
Remember both Lincoln and LBJ needed help on the very biggest stuff from the other side.
It is possible that compromising now might in the long term be better in the new congress to moving fastly forward in 2013 before 2014 comes into play
and doing something will make Obama more powerful and higher approvals, which in term will mean his 100% support of all candidates in 2014 who strongly backed his wants, will have a major advantage over the others whos support will be tepid.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)RobMe taken over this thread?
How 'bout THEY compromise for the next few decades?
It's not about Obama, and it's not about Democrats and it's not about Republicans. It's about greedy assholes stealing opportunity vs. hungry kids and millions of people who got to work every day and can't make enough to feed their families without food stamps, and millions more in poverty.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)He has my support. Let's see him see these ALL through.
Regarding FDR: IMO, he didn't bring "the upper class down to the middle class" so much as make it possible for the upper classes to avoid the fate of the French aristocracy. If he had wanted that, he would have made Gen. Smedley Butler a household world for all time.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)Although you are far more charitable than I regarding the President's accomplishments.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Really?
Obama achieved the right to adequate medical care? I seriously disagree with that assertion!
Do you realize that insurance does not equal care?
Even if we ignore that false equivalence, how many are left without insurance? How many more are left without adequate insurance?
Until it is utterly impossible to legally profit from others misery, we will be living in a predatory society.
Oh, and the notion that FDR wanted to make the upper class fall to middle class is laughable.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)btw-2014 is when the vast majority of the plan takes effect
NYC Liberal
(20,135 posts)limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)Overseas
(12,121 posts)luv_mykatz
(441 posts)I always love your posts, Octafish.
We need this, and we need to find a way to make it sustainable, both environmentally and economically.
MissNostalgia
(159 posts)The right to earn nothing, so NO you may not have a car, microwave, cell phone or any other STUFF you people don't deserve.
The right of every farmer to refer to the following video and learn the described counterfeit food techniques for America ;
Businesses are people my friend
The right of every STRAIGHT TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE REAL AMERICAN family to a decent home
The right to a voucher for a privatized medical care clinic in the back of a corporate Store. Also in cases of severe medical emergency needing immediate assistance got to an ER or die quickly.
The right to pray only to a Christian god for the best outcome when facing economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment
The right to stay dumb,and obey.
Rose Siding
(32,623 posts)The Economic Bill of Right defines the concept; I am an FDR Democrat. Proudly so.
WiffenPoof
(2,404 posts)I wish more people were FDR Democrats.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)great white snark
(2,646 posts)What a horrible job of overtaking!
Octafish
(55,745 posts)What William K. Black writes about Social Security and the Third Way:
Let me attempt again to make the basic facts clear. Third Way is not a "liberal think tank." It does not take "a centrist approach." It is not run by "fellow progressives." It is not concerned with "protecting entitlements." It is not even a "think tank." Third Way is a creature of Wall Street. It's version of "protecting" the safety net was made infamous during the Tet offensive in Vietnam when the American officer explained that "it became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."
great white snark
(2,646 posts)If Third Way, again, it's been a horrible takeover. SS still isn't privatized and Elizabeth Warren won her election (thank gawd).
Octafish
(55,745 posts)I know he endorsed her a few weeks before the election.
Either way, I'm going to do all I can to help her and him -- including letting them know when they're off on the wrong track or supporting the wrong cause or person.
For instance, Cass Sunstein, the guy who led the effort to forgive Bush, Cheney and the rest of the warmongers who lied America into two illegal, immoral, unnecessary and disastrous wars.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)to make any significant difference to the rich, but it will piss off the upper middle class, since they are the ones making the targeted incomes, which will push even more of them over to the republican side.
The rich make their money clipping coupons. Triple the unearned/capital gains tax if you want the rich to pay a slightly fairer share. Better yet, remove all distinction of income. But no, that can't be done because that will cause an avalanche of stories of grand-mama's not being able to pay the rent and having to apply for food stamps, etc.
If there was any will at all for a real solution, the proposed plans would be things like doubling the minimum wage and tying it to a cost of living index. Ever heard that plan proposed?
Directing the Dept. of Labor to vigorously investigate and prosecute age and sex discrimination. Crickets there as well.
Eliminating the cap on SS contributions while establishing one on benefits. Anybody, anybody?
Establishing tariffs on imported goods and giving tax credits for employer training programs.
Repealing Taft-Hartley.
Eliminating deductions for shipping businesses off shore, enacting penalties for out-sourcing to foreign entities, restricting exportation of raw materials, excluding farm subsidies for any but sole proprietor farms, enacting confiscatory inheritance taxes for everything above $3,000,000 - $5,000,000, etc., etc.
These are just a few of the options available to begin turning this nation away from the suicide course it is on. So where are the Party Leaders proposing them? Oh yeah, there are none.
Except Bernie Sanders, who is not a Democrat.