No, I Won't Shut Up!...... "Time To Buck Up, Progressives!"

This opinion piece is the start of a new series in which I'll attempt to state a case in support or in opposition to a topic or personality in the news. And neither The Left, The Right, nor The Center will be immune.

Sometimes a political satirist can make the point better than any long winded politician could.

On this week's Real Time on HBO, Bill Maher asked this question regarding the progressive and independent voters who cast their ballots for Barack Obama in 2008, and who vow to stay home and not participate in this November's midterm elections because of dissatisfaction with the President's performance.

I'll paraphrase what Bill asked.

"Who do you support- your disappointing friend or your sworn enemy?"

What is frightening, discouraging, and baffling to me (at the same time) is the logic some of those one time Obama supporters have for not voting in these Congressional races. Often it has to do with single issues that have not been resolved, like unemployment, funding for education, ending the wars in the Middle East, and the slow recovery from the Great Recession. Republicans and their allies in the Tea Party have an enthusiasm and are energized, and if the pundits are correct they will gain control of the House next month, and possibly the Senate as well.

And on the left there still is a sense of apathy and fatalism, and too many who are willing to let 2010 take us back to 1994 and it's aftermath- a Republican takeover of Congress, and nearly six years of investigation of the White House, plus government shutdowns, and a three ring circus involving the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government.

I didn't even mention the divisive and costly impeachment of a President of the United States over a matter that never should have been brought to trial, and was 100% about politics and had nothing to do about justice.

President Obama and Vice President Biden have chided The Left to "buck up" and stop whining. And many on The Left bristled and whined about being called whiners.

Please put me in the foxhole with Barack and Joe......and progressives, liberals, whatever you choose to call yourself- stop whining, goddammit!

A great analogy of what happened to this country during the Great Recession came today on Morning Joe from former "car czar" Steve Rattner about 13 minutes into this 15 minute segment.



Indeed, this country's economy did experience a "quadruple bypass" in attempt to save it from obliteration. No one likes the fact that we have unemployment at 9.6%, but imagine if there were no stimulus package to save job or there was no rescue of the auto industry- and thus saved it's hundreds of related suppliers and parts manufactures- we could be talking about unemployment in the double digits, just like the early 1930's.

This President and this administration deserves more credit than what they're getting. And this is not a sermon to convert those on the Right in a "Road to Damascus' moment; we know were you stand. I am preaching to the choir- but in every choir there is at least a couple of members who have nodded off, and need a poke in the ribs.

We have to return to being a nation that manufactures things people buy instead of manufacturing more wealth for the richest 2%. We can't allow Wall Street to dictate the fate of Main Street and return to the acceleration of exporting of American jobs overseas to support corporate America's bottomline. But in the worst case scenario for the progressive movement, this is exactly what could happen with a Republican takeover of the House and possibly the Senate.

If you're searching for a ideal candidate and perfect President, go check out the West Wing reruns on BRAVO. President Bartlett saved the nation every week in about 50 minutes for seven years....and he was a Democrat, albeit a fictional one. And maybe that's where we, in general, as a people don't "get it"; this is real life. There are no quick fixes. Recovery takes time, and there has never been a perfect man in the White House, no matter how much we want to deify our Presidents.

For instance.....

Harry S. Truman routinely referred to African Americans with the "N word". Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court with "friendly" appointees by expanding it to 12 justices. Woodrow Wilson said of the the film The Birth of a Nation in which the Ku Klux Klan were portrayed as heroes and African Americans as inferior, "It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true".

Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory but failed to tell Congress he was doing so. He also imposed a trade embargo during the Napoleonic War, which caused economic ruin in the young United States- New Englanders threatened to secede.

John Adams signed off on the Alien and Sedition Acts, and and dissidents were arrested and imprisoned. George Washington sent "Light Horse Harry" Lee into Western Pennsylvania to crush The Whiskey Rebellion- tax protesters two centuries before The Tea Party (Mark II)....they were an armed militia ready to take on the forces of the young republic.

And Abraham Lincoln? He suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War. While civil war was fought in the South and in the East, the upper Midwest erupted in the Great Sioux Uprising. Lincoln signed off on the execution of 38 Dakota Indians for war crimes, murder, and rape. On the average each warrior had a trial that lasted five minutes. They were hanged en mass in Mankato, Minnesota.

And Barack Obama? He didn't take out his magic wand and end the recession fast enough. And then he told his onetime supporters to stop whining.

For crying out loud.

Franklin Roosevelt's "Second Bill of Rights"; The Job Remains Unfinished

Yesterday I woke up bright and near the crack of dawn, so early there was nothing but infomercials and bad movies on the tube, so I decided to check out the ON DEMAND movies. I had about two hours until it would be time for breakfast so I checked out Michael Moore's Capitalism;A Love Story. I highly recommend it to all. If you're a Moore fan (like me), you'll be laughing and crying at the same time at the mess we find ourselves in because of the shell game played with people's lives by Wall Street, the banks, insurance companies, Big Oil, and the Fortune 500....not to mention by those elected officials who are supposed to be looking out for us on the local, state, and national levels.

And before any of you on The Right say, "Yeah, just some additional Democrat propaganda".....not so fast. More than a few Dems are taken to the woodshed, members of the Senate, House, and members of President Obama's economic team.

The bottomline is the September 2008 collapse was a joint effort by many components; there's plenty of blame to go around.

One of the topics covered in the film was one that I have heard mentioned before, but never looked into. Rare film footage was shown of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's State of the Union address from January 11, 1944. FDR gave the address from the White House instead before the joint houses of Congress; his health was starting to fail, and he had the flu. The first part of the address was given to a radio audience, but second portion of the speech was recorded on film, though it was assumed lost for years.

In the filmed part of the address, FDR proposed the establishment of a Second Bill of Rights, one that would guarantee economic opportunity for all and thus insure the growth and sustenance of our democracy. This would not be a change to the Constitution, only a bill that would level the playing field and free all in our pursuit of happiness.



Below, an excerpt from the address.

"It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

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.”[2] 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.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world."

FDR was a true visionary. He saw the Constitution not as a static document, but one that was expansive, and one that was subject to change as fitting the times.

In today's political atmosphere...and the growth of the Tea Party movement and New Libertarianism, some would think Roosevelt's idea anathema and a blow to the true intent of the Founding Fathers in the adoption of the Constitution and The (first) Bill of Rights.

But would that really be the case?

As long ago as the birth of The Republic, the more progressive Founding Fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, saw that economic inequality was the enemy of a free state, and that to allow poverty to exist was an abomination.

A quote from Thomas Jefferson.

"Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on."

FDR never lived to see the any application and adoption of this New Bill of Rights in the United States. It is a great irony that the defeated fascist nations of Germany, Italy, and Japan adopted most of these same principles after their destruction by the United States and her allies. And The United Kingdom and France, and other Western European nations that were occupied by the Nazis, rebuilt from the rubble using the outline given by FDR on that January night in 1944.

But America lagged behind in adoption of the Second Bill of Rights; the world's most successful democracy went ahead into an era of prosperity for many in the 1950'and 1960's, and on to the present day, but left many behind economically in the wake of this Great Abundance.

The great question remains....why?

For further reading and some possible answers, please check out FDR's Second Bill of Rights- and Why We Need It Now from Democraticunderground,com.