Historical Similarities btn FDR & Bernie - The students are teaching US

[RiverLover]

*Students For Bernie Sanders*

When Franklin Roosevelt ran for President in 1932, the economy was in a deep depression following the greatest economic downturn in United States history. Unemployment was rampant, inequality was at an all-time high, and labor unions had been crippled by big business. Roosevelt ran on a populist campaign platform; promising to rebuild the economy in a way that represented the interests of the working class, not just the wealthiest among us.

Opponents of Roosevelt’s populist message smeared him every opportunity they got. Notable individuals like William Randolph Hearst called him a radical socialist. Russian newspapers labeled Roosevelt the first communist President of the United States.

Furthermore, the Democratic Party was split, with Roosevelt’s toughest competition being John Garner, an establishment candidate who had been in the House of Representatives for 30 years, rising to the ranks of Speaker of the House.


If all of this sounds eerily familiar, you’ve probably been paying attention to the Democratic primary. The economy is in turmoil following the 2008 recession, income inequality has peaked once again, and the rich continue to dominate decision making in Washington.

(See: Bernie Sanders is no Barack Obama, but 2008 is no 2016: How the Politicians are Playing the Same Game by Different Rules )

In 1932 voters decided it was time to end politics as usual, and many are feeling the exact same way today, as Bernie Sanders continues to climb in the polls against Hillary Clinton, a candidate who could not be more representative of the Washington establishment.

Franklin Roosevelt became one of the most beloved Presidents in our nation’s history with his famous New Deal program, an economic plan that returned fiscal power back to the Middle Class and lifted the poor out of poverty. He put in place initiatives like the Glass Steagal Act to limit the power of the banks and Wall Street, an initiative Bernie Sanders wants to revive.


He put Americans back to work by rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, one of the key tenants of Sanders’ campaign. He established the nation’s first minimum wage, which Sanders’ proposes raising so that all Americans who work full time don’t have to live in poverty.

He signed the Social Security Act, which Sanders is campaigning to expand, while candidates and their big donors on the right try to cut social security all together.


Americans are hungry for a leader who represents their interests, not the interests of wealthy campaign donors. They know that in order for our country to rebuild its economy, it needs to invest in the middle class. In order to grow and sustain our middle class we have to regulate Wall Street, strengthen our labor unions, and create strong trade policies that don’t ship our jobs overseas.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt accomplished this in 1932, and Bernie Sanders can accomplish it today.

Trickle-down economics has been tried and failed in this country. Tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts in social safety nets, and the deregulation of Wall Street that took place under the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations have resulted in massive income inequality which led to the recession of 2008.

Today, Americans work longer hours with increased productivity for lower wages, as 99 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent of the population.

Politicians from both sides of the isle try to delegitimize Bernie’s candidacy by labeling him a radical socialist; the same things that were said about FDR when he ran for President.

Americans were able to see past the propaganda and elect Roosevelt in 1932, and he subsequently became one of the most beloved Presidents in all of American history.

Bernie Sanders is looking to carry on that torch today, restoring ownership of our democracy to the people, not millionaires and billionaires who socialize their losses and privatize their gains.

http://studentsforberniesanders.com/FDRAndBernieSanders

It warms my heart to know these young activists are out there fighting the good fight for US!!

Maybe there's hope for the future of the US after all. As long as Moneyed Interests don't crush them like they have the Democratic Party, we might just be able to get out from under their thumb.

******ETA

We need to remember. These students do.

.....After the past decade and a half that witnessed not only the tragedy of 9/11 and the nightmare of Hurricane Katrina, but also prolonged wars in Central Asia and the Middle East, the restriction of civil liberties, spying on American citizens, the abuse of human rights, the breaching of the wall separating church and state, massive tax cuts for the rich, the further disabling of labor unions, the targeting of Social Security for privatization, a disastrous financial crisis and economic downturn that we will forever refer to as the Great Recession, massive bank bailouts, the continued widening of wealth inequality, the loss of jobs and homes and an exasperating politics of obstruction and deference, it becomes all the more critical that we recall the progressive lives and labors of the men and women of the 1930s and 1940s and the president who led them.

We need to remember. We need to remember what we have been trying so hard to remember. But doing so is not easy. We have been led to forget. As powers-that-be have been ever wont to do, our own have regularly sought to shape the telling of the past in favor of controlling the present and future. And sometimes even those who seem most eager to remember the nation’s democratic history have contributed to a kind of amnesia. Nevertheless, we Americans cannot afford to forget our democratic history, for as Wilson Carey McWilliams once observed, “a people’s memory sets the measure of its political freedom.”

Only when we remember what made the Greatest Generation and its greatest leader truly great, only when we restore to our parents and grandparents their democratic lives and labors, only when we redeem the progressive vision and promise of the Four Freedoms, will we really appreciate why we turn to them as we do and begin to honor them as we should.

Only then will we understand the democratic imperative that they passed on to us. Only then will we, too, save the nation by making it freer, more equal and more democratic.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/04/10/we-need-to-remember-the-fight-for-the-four-freedoms/

[RiverLover]

1. Wall Street Democrats fought against FDR. They lost. We can learn from this.

The Democratic Party, with the New Deal, became a liberal party, supported by big city political machines, labor unions and blue collar workers, ethnic minorities, farmers, White Southerners, the impoverished, and intellectuals.

This coalition was so powerful that the Democrats won the White House seven out of nine elections from 1932 to 1968, as well as control of both houses of Congress during all but 4 years between the years 1932-1980 (Republicans won small majorities in 1946 and 1952).

Starting in the 1930s, the term “liberal” was used in U.S. politics to indicate supporters of the coalition, while "conservative" denoted its opponents (including conservative Democrats).

Republicans and Democrats were both split on the New Deal.

Conservative Democrats & Republican opposed it as an enemy of business and economic growth, but more moderate Republicans supported some of it (while promising to improve it).

In the 1934 midterm elections, Democrats gained an additional 9 seats in the Senate, and 9 seats in the House. Republicans also lost seats to the Progressive Party, a liberal party allied with the Democrats.

http://www.authentichistory.com/1930-1939/2-fdr/2-reception/index.html