It was January 11, 1944. FDR was giving his State of the Union Address. A Democratic president, but he wasn't talking about bipartisan compromise or "shared sacrifice". He was talking about a "Second Bill of Rights", about the rights of every American to "earn, live and learn", as some have summarized.
Imagine that. FDR envisioned a nation where every American would have the right to decent housing. A decent job that paid a living wage. Health care. The right to a good education, and "The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment".
Read that one again. The right to protection from "economic fears". The RIGHT. Not "entitlement", not "handout". Right. A "Second" bill of rights.
Here's another quote from another well known president:
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
Your right to "earn, live and learn", your right to an existence free from economic fears of sickness, old age, accident, and unemployment, have been attacked by a force no less devastating than those who attacked the US at Pearl Harbor, no less formidable than the Axis powers, and who will rip this nation apart (and are ripping it apart) no less brutally than the shots fired at Fort Sumter.
Yeah, it's a war. And one side has a considerable advantage in terms of weapons.
But our side has something that will always - always - be victorious. There are more of us. And we are pursuing justice, not oppression.
If you are in Chicago, please join us on April 9, 2011, for a forum on "The New New Deal: Defending the Public, Our Families, and Our Communities." We're featuring a keynote by Rep. John Conyers, sponsor of HR870, the Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment Act. We'll have a panel including leading representatives from labor and the peace movement. We have Jesus Garcia, Cook County Commissioner, to give opening remarks. We're going to be discussing a roadmap - war strategies - for implementing that "Second Bill of Rights".
We're not just playing defense. We've been attacked, and there is going to be push back, but we're not stopping there. We have an obligation to those who fought these battles before us. Americans like Samuel Gompers, Clara Lemlich, John L Lewis, all who fought courageously and tirelessly for the rights of workers to a living wage earned in safety and dignity. Americans like my uncle, Stan Luxenberg, who died in World War II, defending the US against someone who once said, "“"We must close union offices, confiscate their money, and put their leaders in prison. we must reduce worker salaries, and take away their right to strike." (A. Hitler) And most compelling, perhaps, we have an obligation to those who come after us, who must live in the ruins the oligarchy is planning for all working people - unless we fight back.
A New New Deal forum
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.
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 all regardless 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 our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
One of the great American industrialists of our day—a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis-recently emphasized the grave dangers of "rightist reaction" in this Nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such reaction should develop—if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called "normalcy" of the 1920's—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.
I ask the Congress to explore the means for implementing this economic bill of rights- for it is definitely the responsibility of the Congress so to do. Many of these problems are already before committees of the Congress in the form of proposed legislation. I shall from time to time communicate with the Congress with respect to these and further proposals. In the event that no adequate program of progress is evolved, I am certain that the Nation will be conscious of the fact.
Our fighting men abroad- and their families at home- expect such a program and have the right to insist upon it. It is to their demands that this Government should pay heed rather than to the whining demands of selfish pressure groups who seek to feather their nests while young Americans are dying.
The foreign policy that we have been following—the policy that guided us at Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran—is based on the common sense principle which was best expressed by Benjamin Franklin on July 4, 1776: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
I have often said that there are no two fronts for America in this war. There is only one front. There is one line of unity which extends from the hearts of the people at home to the men of our attacking forces in our farthest outposts. When we speak of our total effort, we speak of the factory and the field, and the mine as well as of the battleground -- we speak of the soldier and the civilian, the citizen and his Government.
Each and every one of us has a solemn obligation under God to serve this Nation in its most critical hour—to keep this Nation great -- to make this Nation greater in a better world.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/...