Rendezvous with destiny: Newt Gingrich's long war against FDR and the New Deal enters its final...

[DonViejo]

Rendezvous with destiny: Newt Gingrich’s long war against FDR and the New Deal enters its final stage

Don't take Newt lightly: He sees Donald Trump as the final stage of his long campaign to undo the New Deal

HARVEY J. KAYE

Seventy-five years ago this past January, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt went before Congress and the American people to declare that a generation’s “rendezvous with destiny” had come, that the Nazis, fascists and imperialists would strike without warning and Americans had to not only ready themselves for that possibility, but also turn the nation into the “Arsenal of Democracy.”

The president did not speak from fear or seek to incite it. He had faith in Americans. He knew what they had accomplished in fighting the Great Depression. He knew they had not only rejected authoritarianism, but also redeemed the nation’s historic promise by initiating revolutionary changes in American government and public life. He knew they had subjected big business to public account, empowered the federal government to address the needs of working people, organized unions, fought for their rights, broadened and leveled the “We” in “We the People,” established a social security system, expanded the nation’s public infrastructure, improved the environment, built schools and municipal buildings, cultivated the arts and refashioned popular culture and imbued themselves with fresh democratic convictions, hopes and aspirations. Indeed, he knew that while there was much still to be done, they had made the United States both stronger and richer and freer, more equal and more democratic.

Knowing all that, Roosevelt projected a vision of a nation and a world characterized by four fundamental freedoms — freedom of speech and worship, freedom from want and fear — a vision that would guide not only the ensuing war effort, but also the postwar labors that were to make America ever stronger, richer and more democratic. Those labors included enacting the Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Economic Opportunity and Fair Housing acts; expanding Social Security to encompass Medicare and Medicaid; passing immigration reform; instituting environmental, workplace and consumer protections; creating new universities and establishing public endowments for the arts and humanities; and establishing a public broadcasting system.

All that our parents and grandparents achieved, however, is now in jeopardy.

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http://www.salon.com/2016/12/26/rendezvous-with-destiny-newt-gingrichs-long-war-against-fdr-and-the-new-deal-enters-its-final-stage/