People who are still fighting to make FDR’s unfinished Agenda, the reality of the land, in my mind are doing the good work, that in deed “makes them a Progressive”.
And that unfinished progressive was simply called … our Second Bill of Rights:
The Second Bill of Rights is a list of rights that was proposed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944.[1] In his address Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second "bill of rights". Roosevelt's argument was that the "political rights" guaranteed by the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." Roosevelt's remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" which would guarantee eight specific rights:
It is those who dare to dream, who actually change the world — for the better.
During President Roosevelt's January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union, he said the following:
[… FDR speaking ...]
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 all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
There is no lasting security, personal or otherwise, without the equal opportunity to these basic human rights, for each of us.
It used to be common wisdom, that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link; that a nation is only as prosperous as its poorest citizens. And the statesmen and stateswomen among us would continually fight, to make that reality of a ‘more perfect union’ and its commonplace rights and opportunities, actually achievable and available, to even ‘the least among us’.
Those who dare to continue that good and noble fight, carry with them what it really means to be a progressive — even in today’s modern cynical age.
Progressives dare to dream, dare to be inspired, dare to believe that FDR’s unfinished work — needs to be be completed. Simply because it is the ‘right thing to do’.