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In reply to the discussion: Even country-singers have wised up. [View all]johnlucas
(1,250 posts)4. The concept spoken in the Second Bill of Rights would have been completed
FDR proposed it & died before he could go further with it.
But the Democratic Party he reshaped was committed to live out what he spoke.
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.
America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.
For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
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.
America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.
For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
There's a reason why he was elected 4 times in a row.
FDR changed America forever.
But the Democrats historically were the party of the Southern slaveowners.
Roosevelt came from a Northern branch that evolved from the old Democratic-Republican party split of the 1820s.
The Democratic-Republican party ties back to Southern slaveowner Thomas Jefferson & had become basically the only party in town by this time.
The gigantic party split off into various factions with the most dominant being the Democratic Party of the Southern slaveowners.
After the Civil War especially that region became known as the Solid South because they voted so strong for the Democrats.
In the South, Republican meant the ones who helped the "Negroes" & bombed our towns.
Roosevelt came in & basically rounded up all demoralized demographics in the U.S.A. & put them into one giant coalition.
And that coalition included Blacks.
His wife Eleanor definitely had an ear to Black folks' issues with civil rights.
That doesn't go over too well with the Southern bigots but they had a Depression to contend with.
The Great Depression was just that bad.
Franklin somehow held these widely disparate groups altogether as one political body but when he died & his Vice-President now President Harry S. Truman continued where Roosevelt left off on Civil Rights issues, the coalition's cracks began to show.
Harry S. Truman went further on Roosevelt's plans to desegregate the military (check Executive Order 8802) by signing Executive Order 9981 in 1948 which DIRECTLY ended legal segregation & discrimination in the military.
When he did that, the South got HOT & planned to run against him in the 1948 election through South Carolina's Strom Thurmond.
The party name they came up with was States' Rights Democrats AKA Dixiecrats.
That States' Rights thing goes all the way back to Jefferson & the issue of slavery which was always in dispute until the Civil War ended the argument.
The old name Democratic-Republican translates into People Rule the Matters of the People.
Demos = People (in Greek), Crat = Rule (in Greek)
Res = Matters (in Latin), Public = People (in Latin)
Truman won in 1948 & the progress made by FDR's New Deal coalition would be under attack along with this new Democratic Party.
But the President that came after him, Republican Dwight Eisenhower, also made some moves on Civil Rights by reinforcing Truman's executive order to end discrimination in the military; enforcing intergration in Washington D.C. schools; sending the Arkansas National Guard to Little Rock, Arkansas to protect the Black students integrating their school after the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling; creating Civil Rights watchdogs in the Justice Department; & creating a commission to check on Voting Rights abuses towards Blacks.
Southern bigots didn't know what to do now.
The Democrats are betraying them & the Republicans aren't helping either.
In 1960, John Kennedy comes in & has an ear to the Blacks again.
He prepares to sign a landmark Civil Rights Act destroying the oppressive fiefdom in the South once & for all.
He gets shot & killed for it in Southern state Texas.
His Vice-President Lyndon Johnson carries out his wish & signs that Civil Rights Act in 1964.
He's from Texas, a Southern state. Just like Truman was from Missouri, a Southern state.
Southern bigots lost their minds & said they have no belonging to the Democratic Party anymore.
They were so INCENSED that they virtually all left the Democratic Party overnight.
But this guy named Richard Nixon who lost to Kennedy became the beneficiary of this new Southern Strategy to boost the weakened Republican Party.
A core element of the Republican Party were the rich selfish big money guys & they hated FDR's New Deal from the very beginning.
Eisenhower didn't reverse any of FDR's plans & they don't like paying high taxes among other things.
So they used the energy of these bigots to boost their numbers & thus influence the policies.
That's how the South became Republican (ironically since the Republicans freed the slaves in the first place).
And that's how the selfish rich began rolling back all the progress made from the New Deal & its descendant policies like Medicare.
Nixon kicked it off, Reagan pushed it further & the Bushes carried it down the field.
The bigoted South & its sympathizers have been trying to get back at the 1964 Civil Rights Act & everytime they do it, the selfish rich guys get away with a little bit more.
That's why the Second Bill of Rights has not been completed.
We have been sabotaged by bigots for 50 years & the country will not be able to really move forward until they change or fade out.
We can't get the Second Bill of Rights done until we get a strong unified Progress-seeking base.
The bigots kill our unity.
John Lucas
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