President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union address on January 11, 1944.
Seventy-five years ago today.
He included what was then called the “Economic Bill of Rights.”
It’s good to remember a time long ago when we had a national leader with a vision of a just and fair society, a vision that we remain very far from achieving. It’s good to remember a time when we had a national leader who was intelligent and articulate, surrounded by others who cared deeply about social and economic progress. It’s good to remember a time long ago when America meant something other than rampant individualism, greed, me-first, me-only, competition, and gun violence. It’s good to remember when America was motivated by ideals of the common good and the just and decent society. That was the America of my childhood. I miss it. I hope it can be recaptured.
FDR said:
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.”[3] 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 all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
It is not the province of government to make our society fair. John F. Kennedy had to issue a call-up, and activate reserve and national guard units. One of his aides asked him, “Is that fair?”. Kennedy replied “Life is not fair”.
Charles,
My husband at that time was called up as an active duty reservist in 1961. I recall that many people complained that they were activated into military service when they signed up only to be reservists. When JFK was asked about that, he said “Life is not fair.” He had seen active duty and he was not sympathetic to whiners.
He did not imply or say that government has no obligation to be fair. He showed during his brief presidency, when he responded to racial upheavals, that he knew the government had an obligation not only to maintain order but to ensure fairness.
Please do not twist JFK’s words to suit your rightwing ideology.
I was there. You were not.
There is nothing in the constitution or legislation mandating government to be fair, nor to make our society more fair. In a free society, there is inherent unfairness.
Government has shown itself to be very unfair. It sounds cynical, but it is nevertheless true.
We will have unfairness in our government forever.
We have a Constitution that begins with these words:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
“Establish Justice” means establish a fair society, where everyone has equal rights. “Promote the general Welfare” means it is the job of Government to make sure that we all have a decent life.
That’s fairness. If you can’t read the opening words of the U.S. Constitution and understand them, shame on you
I was born in 1954. My father was a reservist in 1961. He was not called to active duty in that recall. But, in 1967, LBJ issued a reservist call up. My father was recalled then. I was there both times.
My husband was called to active duty by JFK IN 1961. I voted for JFK in 1960. I was there. I was an adult, not a child. I know what JFK said and whyhe said it. Life is unfair but the government should not be.
“Life is unfair but the government should not be.”
Quotable basic philosophy. So unlibertarian. Their motto is “The government role is to exaggerate Life’s unfairness. “
I’d say the libertarian philosophy cave summed up like this:
I’ll take care of me and mine, you others are on your own.
As Margaret Thatcher once said, “There is no such thing as society.”
Good old Margo was a funny gal, wasn’t she? According to my British colleague, she was the Iron Lady of Privatisation.
The fuller quote of her is a beauty, a very clear confession
“I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”
I wonder what the obligation of a newborn is to earn proper healthcare.
Máté Wierdl: The wealthy are the only ones who need healthcare. Children especially don’t need it if they are immigrants with brown skin. The rest of us should plan to take care of ourselves. What a grand idea. Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps will make everyone feel so much better. Stop giving food to the needy and make them work.
Why do people vote for such worthless politicians? I will never understand those who want only for themselves…and then vote for people who give them nothing.
My aunt didn’t want healthcare for everyone. Her son worked to get through college and he was deserving but “those druggies don’t deserve anything”. She reads the bible daily. George W was her favorite politician because god told him what to do.
“My aunt didn’t want healthcare for everyone.”
You see, I came from Europe 34 years ago, and I have been living in the South for 24, and so I made myself to develop an understanding for many issues, like why people oppose abortions or why they think they have to respect the Constitution or president so much. But not wanting healthcare for all stays beyond my comprehension. I fail to imagine any moral argument that would imply this. So it must be immoral to think, healthcare needs to be deserved. Is there something about this in the Bible? After all, it addresses all possible moral issues, doesn’t it?
Máté Wierdl: What my aunt said makes no sense to me. She reads the bible every day and once when I was visiting [she lives in a different state] she had a small group who met each week to study the bible. As far as I know, Jesus wanted the poor and the needy [druggies included] to receive help. George W was told by god what to do and Evangelicals worship Trump.
Doesn’t make sense to me.
“It is not the province of government to make our society fair.” Huh?!!
Oh, I see, the government should have allowed slavery to continue unabated. The government should have allowed segregation, lynchings and the ethnic cleansing of the native peoples to continue. Why do we have laws? Laws and the judicial system are the creation of government and they do try to further fairness and justice. They are not perfect and some laws were patently unfair and unjust but we evolved and those unjust laws were repealed or fine tuned to become fair. We still have a long way to go but I think we are a more just society than in the 1800s or even 1940s or 1950s.
The federal constitution of 1789 guaranteed that slavery would continue to exist. The international slave trade could continue until 1808. 3/5 of slaves would be counted in the census for representation and taxation.
The federal government passed the Indian removal acts, to relocate Indians west of the Mississippi river. The federal government rounded up and relocated 110,000 American citizens of Japanese descent, and placed them in camps during WW2. Racial segregation was enshrined in law in 1895, and virtually no effort was made to end it, until 1954.
Governments are not fair.
Charles, you probably have not noticed that slavery does not exist anymore in the U.S. Indians are no longer forcibly removed. The internment of Japanese-Americans is roundly condemned and appears in every high school textbook as an atrocity. Racial segregation was outlawed in 1954 and persists today because of prejudice, not law.
We are doing many things today that are not fair, like allowing billionaires to get away with minimal taxes.
Life is unfair, but we have to fight to demand that our government act fairly. That there is one man, one vote. Fair treatment before the law.
Thank God for the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the NAACP, and others who fight for the rights of ordinary folks.
We must never tolerate unfairness by government. We must fight it.
Of course, having an idiot as president who is the beneficiary of unfair taxation makes it hard to make change, but fight we must.
That “of, by, and for the People” stuff is so overrated.
Government does not have to be fair. But it also should not show partiality to big business over individuals. As corporations gain more power, laws keep restricting the rights of individuals. Of course, “corporations are people” according to the Supreme Court. Corporations are buying and suppressing our democratic rights.
Article I, Section 8
Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Providing for the general welfare sounds like the government wants to be fair.
Q you probably have not noticed that slavery does not exist anymore in the U.S END Q
It is time for you to be fair. I am well-aware that chattel slavery ended over a century ago. A comment like this insults my intelligence.
I want my government at all levels to promote fairness, of course. Like it says on the Supreme Court building “Equal Justice Under Law”.
Sadly, slavery has not disappeared from the USA. There is forced prostitution, and human trafficking, going on now.
@Joe: Read the preamble. The constitution reference is: To promote the general welfare” NOT to provide the general welfare. It is more than a semantic difference, the government was not set up to provide welfare.
I don’t think you can read. You certainly do not understand the preamble to the Constitution. It creates a government for the specific purpose of “promoting the general welfare.” Not to stand by and watch, but to do it.
“the government was not set up to provide welfare.”
If that is the case, it’s time to change it, instead of engaging in Constitutional theology. We know for a fact that the Constitution was not written by God, even though some people try to make us believe, it was.
As a minimum, the language needs to be updated (not in a separate amendment) every 10 years or so to reflect current language.
It’s pretty ridiculous to read new bills that are introduced; most sound like they were written two hundred years ago to make sure, only the chosen ones understand it: “Whereas …, whereas …, be it declared …hereby revoking all … thereto heretofore ….
Máté Wierdl: I’d really get worried if Trump and the GOP had the ability to rewrite the Constitution. It gets a whole lot creepy when that bunch, or similar types, have that sort of power.
In theory, rewriting to update the language, is a good idea. In actual practice horrible things would happen.
Trump would definitely be working to rewrite the Constitution so that it would be legal to pardon himself and he would create a national disaster to get ALL of his worthless wall funded. This type of abuse has to be fought.
I’m sure Trump would come up with other thoughts on how to make him a dictator whom all of us would have to worship. Journalists could be put in jail for writing criticism of our Great Leader who is all-knowing and extremely talented in every area. [His hero Kim Jong Un could shoot a target accurately when he was three years old.]
It goes without saying that the Constitution cannot be rewritten by just anybody, certainly not by politicians and some appointed officials. Any adjustment needs to be proposed by a good number (say 100?) experts and vetted by the public.
I think this “We are in power, we are now making bills” is a bad recipe, and its practice needs to stop completely. Bills need to be made to satisfy the objective needs of the population, not to satisfy some special interests who happen to be in power today.
We definitely have to rethink what power a president should have. If it was up to me, I’d start by taking away his (her) ability to appoint the entire cabinet. If you ask”Then why to have a president”, then I’d say “That’s exactly the question to be answered first”. I think leadership is overrated, and the higher we go, the more oversized the halo we place around the leaders’ heads.
Charles
You are right about slavery still existing in the US, in the form of forced prostitution and human trafficking.
Not only does it still exist, but it is actually increasing and sometimes protected by powerful, well connected people.
Witness the case of Jeffrey Epstein.
Please do not insult my intelligence. I read four (4) languages. I can certainly understand the meaning of my own constitution. Living in a communist dictatorship, and then in an Islamic Kingdom, where the King rules by “divine right”, has a way of focusing the mind.
The federal government is enjoined to “promote” the general welfare, no doubt.
“I can certainly understand the meaning of my own constitution. ”
It’s not clear why we need Supreme Court judges if the Constitution is so easy to understand and comprehend.
Charles: a cursory look at enduring governments of all types in history suggests that fairness has been the province of all successful, long-lasting governments, be they tyrannical attempts like the Pharoahs of Egypt or our own feeble attempt in more recent times are very concerned with fairness. It tends to tamp down violent behavior. Why else would absolute monarchs like Sullyman the Lawgiver become known that way?
The reason classical liberalism usurped Monarchy Was that the latter failed to prove its fairness to a populace with growing monetary power but no political power.
Just because the word “fair” doesn’t appear in the Constitution, doesn’t mean, the ideas it represents is not there.
It is the right time to make sure the contradictions between equality and freedom are resolved and both are provided for all citizens—as it has been provided for in the rest of the Western World.
Máté Wierdl: Unfortunately when I think of freedom, some rather awful political thoughts come to mind.
We are free to choose to have no healthcare. [Right given by the Repubs.]
— to choose virtual schooling that teaches nothing. [Right to choose…DeVos]
— to breath polluted air. [One of Trump’s goals.]
— to drive on roads with potholes. [My state loves these. I broke an axel driving down a major road near my house a few years ago.]
— to vote, unless we are black, brown, old or college students.
— to be killed by gun lovers with no gun restrictions since it is a god-given right to possess a gun.
— to starve since SNAP will soon run out of funds. [Another Trump goal.]
— to spend billions on a worthless wall to keep rapists, drug dealers and criminals from crossing our southern border. [Trump “needs’ this.]
–to have a military that is involved in wars that never end [There is ALWAYS money for war.]
How proud I am to have so many freedoms. [Sarcasm] I’m sure this is not the meaning that freedom really means. It is what has evolved under political powers that are evil.
Yes, carolm, and this is why we need rules to make sure, the freedoms of individuals don’t interfere with other people’s freedoms. I (naively) think the way to accomplish this is to have a Constitution which has two main parts. The first part declares the basic freedoms everybody should have, and the second part has the rules to make sure the ideas in the first part really work out.
It’s not enough to say “everybody has the right to quality education” but it also has to be stated that “education at all levels, from daycare to doctoral level, needs to be available for free, and hence the appropriate level of funding from taxes needs to be available for this at all times”.
I think for legal experts, coming up with such a system is not too difficult. The problem is that as soon as a system is proposed, people start considering various interests. So somewhere it needs to be declared “in designing the public education system, only one interest can be considered, the children’s.”
FDR and Eleanor CARED. So different from those in the wh now.
What a shame that FDR died before he could implement these grand plans. Will someone this good ever come again? He was a great man who thought about the needs of the many.
I look at our overpasses and grand highways and think, “I’m glad they were already built. There isn’t enough consensus to ever put that much money into it again.” We can’t even get money to fix what already has been built.
But FDR DID implement those grand plans! We really did have a government FOR the people until Bill Clinton ignored (or maybe he didn’t ignore and it was on purpose?) his job and allowed big business to start to take control (GREED). It was all downhill from there. Loop hole on top of loop hole was added to law in favor of big business over people. It was great growing up in the sixties and seventies (even though we had a recession and a gas crisis) because we always had family and neighbors who cared. People cared for each other even if their political beliefs didn’t match. Heck, even big business cared enough for the common man when the economy wasn’t so great back then.
I think pushback against a government as economic referee preceded the Clinton years. Pushback began under the direction of Robert Taft back in the fifties. The Reagan years saw the flowering of the idea that all economic problems could be laid at the door of government interference, giving rise to the Gingrich-led revolt against an active Federal Government during the Clinton years, in part as a reaction against the attempt to institute health care reform. The New millennium brought more conviction that ending government economic controls brought plenty for all, Nonwithstanding the protests of a strong minority who pointed out the growing disparity between rich and poor. So we arrive where we are now.
Yes, during the Reagan years there were those “flowering” ideas, but there were also older and experienced politicians that kept those ideas in check for a more fair and democratic society for all. The Clinton years let those checks and balances go to pot. HOW it got that way, I don’t know because there were more backroom deals going on than anyone could ever imagine or understand. I believe that last really “moral” President we had in this country was Jimmy Carter (I liked Obama’s personality, but he was in cahoots with big business). Carter’s presidency may have been lackluster, but he was morally responsible to the American people. Maybe it’s just my skewed view of the world of young adulthood in the Clinton years, but everything seemed to be sliding out of control with a central theme of ME ME ME instead of WE. I’m not a historian or a poli-sci wonk, but my gut and my instincts always had me questioning the morality issues of the politicians starting then.
Sadly, the USA of 2019 is drenched in the hideous far right wing/libertarian/Ayn Rand garbage philosophy of freedom (to pillage), liberty (to be in abject poverty), personal freedom (no social safety net), lower taxes (ditto), limited government (no regulations or regulators) and free markets (crony predatory capitalism). People like Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, Diane R. and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez do give us hope that things can change for the better.
It’s not just, as you so accurately write, “the hideous far right”, it’s also so-called Democrats. I think of the leadership of the Democratic National Committee (and arguably its most pathetic state entity in Ohio). It includes embarrassments like Rahm, Joe Lieberman, and Donna Brazile, all of whom see politics as a tactical game, not as a means to realize principles. It includes wolves in sheeps’ clothing like Booker, Schumer, and Manchin.
Any Democrat who has not internalized Rooseveltian principle and made them the foundation of their world view does not deserve to be taken seriously.
What’s is a name? There’s a lot particularly with regard to messaging .The right wing has been much better at messaging than the left. Conservatives are already trying to spread propaganda that the left are all “socialists.” Democrats need to stay on the message of the radical right wing to counter the assertions of conservatives. The radical right wing is alliterative and has a better ring to it. Let’s repeat it in the media. That’s what the conservatives do, and they often win elections.
I think the primary blame for this rests with the Democratic National Committee for its criminally inept ability to define its identity. Roosevelt welcomed the hatred of his opponents because he could articulate what he stood for in a way that everyone could understand and rally behind. Truman and JFK learned that lesson. The DNC and it’s state affiliates have to wait for poll results before deciding what their principles are.
Paul Krugman today: The shutdown has drastically curtailed work at the Food and Drug Administration, which among other things tries to prevent food contamination: Routine inspections of seafood, vegetables, fruits and other foods have stopped. But there’s a long conservative tradition, going back to Milton Friedman, that condemns the F.D.A.’s existence as an unwarranted interference in the free market. end quote
And it’s halted the drug approval process.
It’s good to remember a time long ago when we had a national leader with a vision of a just and fair society, a vision that we remain very far from achieving
The vision thing (as GHW Bush called it) just ain’t what it once was. Not even close.
The Republicans still hate the legacy of FDR’s social welfare programs. The emergence of the propoganda machine against much of the FDR legacy is traced in this book among others. Stuart Ewen PR! – A Social History of Spin 1996
Ewen includes some of the “People for the American Way” bill boards of the day, all intended to position economic prowess as the highest value and the “essence” of being American. MAGA was there before Trump’s version. I was ten when FDR died. Our local schools closed for several days.
The Republicans are doing their best to undo the entire New Deal and return us to the 1920s.
Trump is their tool.
Diane,
Thanks so much for sharing this. So timely and right.
Mark
Sent from my iPhone
>
The one problem I have with portraying FDR as wanting a just society is his treatment of the Japanese Americans in World War II, which FDR was responsible for.
I agree with his economic ideas, but let’s not forget that he wasn’t exactly for “justice” in certain circumstances.
If I may pretentiously offer a short history lesson. Gov. Earl Warren also let this policy stand and it was an important factor that contributed to him being made Chief Justice of the Supreme Court—something Ike considered to be his greatest mistake as president. Warren never discussed this episode in public until he was interviewed after he left the Court. During that interview, he broke down crying when recollecting his inaction and advocacy for internment. It was THE shame of his life and he arguably used his position as chief justice to atone for his sin. Brown vs. Board of Education is inextricably linked to the mistake he made on internment of Americans of Japanese descent. The biography written by Ed Cray is a brilliant portrayal that puts these facts into context. Cray also wrote the seminal biography of George Marshall—in my view one of the most significant figures of the 20th century—and another one about Woody Guthrie. Imagine that. The same author wrote biographies of Marshall, Warren, and Guthrie…arguably the three most important and influential Americans of the 20th century who were not presidents.
“…of the most…” apologies to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
Thanks , Greg. Interesting history.
“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.”
There are some fascinating presuppositions and intentions in this statement.
FDR, child of progressivism, envisioned a systematic method for maintaining peace. Like Wilson, who fought for the League of Nations for that purpose, Roosevelt saw the necessity of an institution that had the purpose of peaceful settlement of differences as vital for the preservation of peace.
Like other American proponents of the Open Door policy in China, he saw freedom to associate, trade, think, and worship as one basic idea. In this way he sounded a lot like modern neoliberals. Unlike them, however, he saw the social safety net provided by an active Federal government as a way to stave off extreme solutions to economic problems. In this he certainly saw the allure of socialism, both National and Marxist, and sought to mitigate the harsh nature of our economic system to prevent the spread of human misery that produced European Fascism and the war he was almost winning at the time.
It is interesting to wonder if he saw the potential for the economic boom after the war that produced modern Europe and America. His reference to standard of living makes you wonder if he did not have an idea of the economic explosion that would occur after he died and the war ended.
Considering the “Four Freedoms” speech (1941?), this selection gives us a window into what he perceived as “freedom from want” and anticipates the Great Society declaration of old New Dealer Lyndon Johnson that “the great society rest on abundance for all”, a phrase no doubt penned by a speech writer steeped in the New Deal philosophy of an even distribution of wealth being central to a peaceful society.
So corporations bargain for a huge tax break for a number of years, pay rotten part-time salaries and then move when its time to start paying taxes. What else is new in the ‘screw people’ agenda? Cities need to stop giving tax breaks and other types of goodies to corporations. It is the cities that loose. This is what happens when we have weak politicians who bow to corporations.
…………………………
Elwood, Illinois (Pop. 2,200), Has Become a Vital Hub of America’s Consumer Economy. And It’s Hell.
..All Elwood’s problems—the choking traffic, the precarious work conditions, the crumbling infrastructure—have been compounded by an original sin: the decision to forego tax collection. With little money coming in, the village issued bonds to finance the town hall, the gleaming new sidewalks, and the stop signs that are observed only voluntarily. “At the end of the day, it turns out they cut a very bad deal,” Greuling told me. “They issued bonds for a water and sewer system that was too large. They built all of this capacity and now they have this huge debt. That’s the next chapter: How are they going to find a way to retire this debt?”
Elwood, down $30 million and counting, isn’t the only town in a hole. Neighboring towns wanted a piece of the fast-burgeoning industry, and cut their own tax incentive deals with warehouse developers. Nearby Bolingbrook, where Weathertech, Ulta, and Goya Beans moved in, is now $200 million in debt. Romeoville, home to Sony and one of the county’s five Amazon facilities, is $89 million in the red. “The area grew so rapidly that we lost the ability to regulate,” said Jerry Heinrich, who continues to advocate for the region’s prairie as head of the Midewin Tallgrass Prairie Alliance, a local environmental group. “There are a lot of hard feelings,” Delilah Legrett told me. Elwood “was a small village and they were taken advantage of by a big corporation.”
The numbers are extreme, but they’re far from unusual. Despite research indicating that tax incentives rarely motivate corporate relocation, such deals are being doled out at record rates, tripling since 1990. This year, the town of Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin (population 26,000), famously borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars to help bankroll a $760 million incentive package to Foxconn, from which they wouldn’t break even for some 30 years. Smaller, but no less ridiculous, deals pervade—in 2016, a town in Maryland offered Marriott $62 million to move its headquarters just five miles down the road….
But when it comes to the long-term prospects for the region, optimism is scarce. Paul Buss’s son, who works as a building inspector in Joliet, told his dad there’s concern “these companies are gonna come in, they’re gonna build these buildings, and they’re gonna use them for however long they can get a tax break on them, and then they’ll move someplace else.” The threat of empty warehouses looms large.
So, too, does the threat of automation. In 2017, it was estimated that 20 percent of the work in any given Amazon warehouse is automated, a figure that is expected to rise. This fall, IKEA opened up a new warehouse, 1.5 million square feet in total. “Fully automated,” John Greuling told me, it will have about 200 employees. Incredulous, I counted all the spots in the parking lot: 226.
Brandin McDonald told me he was concerned that they’d be left with a bunch of warehouses empty of people, terrible jobs having given way to no jobs at all. Legrett said she was worried about it, too. “What are all these buildings going to look like in 10 years?” she asked.
https://newrepublic.com/article/152836/elwood-illinois-pop-2200-become-vital-hub-americas-consumer-economy-its-hell
I think about it this way. Rights are free. Free speech, to vote, defend myself, life, liberty. No one has to give me money for these. Economic rights, they cost money and have to be provided, they are entitlements, very dangerous…..
maryjanelong1981: Are you saying that entitlements are economically dangerous OR is the fact that the GOP wants to get rid of them what is dangerous?
Social Security payments should be increased so that those who depend upon it have an easier time surviving. Medicare of All should be the law of the land since healthcare is a right and not a privilege for only the wealthy. Teachers’ and all workers’ pensions should be protected.
The money is there but it is being gobbled up by the wealthy who never get enough. It is being gobbled up by the military who can never fight in enough lands. The NSA is gobbling up money that we never hear about. It gets expensive to listen in and track every citizen of the world, every phone call, iPhone or computer.
Entitlements cost money which tax payers have to pay for, it’s dangerous.
maryjanelong1981: Must be nice to have enough money to not need health insurance or Social Security or a pension. What is your background that you don’t need anything. Do you really believe in Ayn Rand? She collected Social Security.
I have a small teacher’s pension and a very small Social Security payment that goes towards Medicare. There is nothing dangerous to use this to survive. Some people need SNAP and Medicaid. Others need help with paying heating bills in the winter or help with making rent payments. Guess you’d prefer people freeze and starve on the streets in the winter. The United Nations researchers say the US treats its poor badly. Is that something you are proud of?
Where did you get all of your money and please explain why entitlements are dangerous. What is dangerous is the wealthy and corporations taking all the money and leaving the rest of us with nothing. We do not want to become slaves to our wealthy masters. I lived in a third world country for two years and it isn’t pretty.
Maryjane,
Be sure not to accept Social Security or Medicare. You should not be a burden to the rest of us.
There will not be anything left by the time I get there in my life. I loved your book rein of error, but I think I am done with this blog. Error comes in many shapes and forms and has happened all throughout history in all areas education, health care and more. We as Americans need to look at all problems and find better solutions than have been found in the past. I hope that I am preparing myself to take care of myself as I age, and if I haven’t. It will be my fault, not the fault of my government. It will be my burden, not my governments, not my children. Many things for me to think about as a prepare for my future. Thank you.
maryjanelong1981:”I hope that I am preparing myself to take care of myself as I age, and if I haven’t. It will be my fault, not the fault of my government.”
So now we are supposed to blame everyone who gets sick on their ‘not taking care of themselves’? If you are really good at taking care of yourself try staying away from heavily polluted air. [Trump loves to pollute the air. Plan to stop breathing. COPD is the third leading cause of death in the United States, ] If you eat healthy you’ll never get sick. [GMO’s and pesticides are wrecking our food supply, as is the killing off of bees. You’ll have to stop eating more and more as our food quality continues to deteriorate.] Don’t drive a car because if you get in an accident you might not come out perfectly fine. Stay away from any event in which a lone gunman may come and kill. One woman attending the concert in Las Vegas is paralyzed. [Don’t ever go to concerts, church gatherings or the movies.]
Sometimes people do all that is right and horrible things happen. You must be very wealthy to not need Social Security or Medicare when you get older. Congratulations on doing so well. Most of us aren’t that lucky.
Carolm, libertarians believe everybody should take care of herself, and everybody is selfmade. So whatever money the Kochs have, it’s all theirs, because they earned it without the help from others, and it shouldn’t be shared with losers in the form of taxes. For them, the 99% is trying to take away the money of the 1% minority; it’s discrimination in their view.
They don’t want to talk about roads, internet, airspace, etc which are all maintained from the 99%’s tax dollars and which all help the billionaires the most. Of course, the labor of the 99% which directly produces the profit for these guys is also theirs for the taking.
Sick.
And of course, they’d like to privatize everything including the air we breathe. They want everything to be a competition but of course, they first want to eliminate the other competitors first.
The military is way overblown to provide protection to billionaires’, such as the Koch brothers’, adventures overseas and home. This entitlement, paid for by the 99%, is much more obviously dangerous.
Apparently Trump has the ability under a state of national emergency to benefit himself at the expense of our democracy and the rule of law. He is narcissistic and becoming more and more unstable. He admires dictators and now has only loyal people surrounding and advising him. Congress has to put a limit on Trump before he abuses his power. Where is the GOP?
…………………………………..
Video: Trump’s Emergency Powers Are ‘Ripe for Abuse’
The Atlantic
Published on Dec 5, 2018
Unbeknownst to many Americans, there is one legal scenario in which the president’s power substantially increases. This is the moment he declares a national emergency.
Although Congress has passed more than 100 provisions that outline the power that the president gains in this circumstance—such as the ability to shut down media channels or take them over, and the deployment of military troops inside the United States—there is no legal definition of a national emergency. There is no requirement that Congress ratify the decision. There is no judicial review.
In other words, the decision to invoke emergency powers is left entirely to the president’s discretion.
“The legal powers available to the president during a national emergency are ripe for abuse,” argues Elizabeth Goitein, an Atlantic contributor and a co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, in a new Atlantic Argument.
“In practice, we’ve been relying on presidents to exercise self-restraint, and hoping the courts will step in if they don’t,” she says. “That’s a gamble we can no longer take.”
In the video, Goitein goes on to explain how authoritarian leaders across the globe have sought to consolidate power in this way. She also explains the ways in which Congress may be able to step in and provide better protections against abuse, lest the president decide to threaten our democracy.
For more, read Goitein’s article, “What the President Could Do If He Declares a State of Emergency,” in the January/February 2019 issue of The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/…
““In practice, we’ve been relying on presidents to exercise self-restraint, and hoping the courts will step in if they don’t,” she says. “That’s a gamble we can no longer take.””
In general, our laws have to stop relying on people’s restraint, especially near power.
Trump didn’t say, “No”, when asked about his involvement with Putin. This is getting scary. Of course, his unethical behavior is being reported on ‘fake news central CNN’ and came from ‘fake news NYT and WaPo’. We should all be listening to Fox to get the ‘real news’. Fox is a danger to this country. The country needs to know that Trump is hiding information on what occurred between him and Putin.
………………………………………
Video: Trump to Fox host: Most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked
Speaking to Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro, President Donald Trump responds to two separate reports containing accusations against his involvement with Russia and President Vladimir Putin.
Source: CNN
Check out this story on CNN: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/01/13/trump-reacts-russia-putin-stories-fox-news-sots-vanier-vpx.cnn
I’m not sure that people understand that this government shutdown is having a horrible effect on the Native Americans.
…..
Native American Communities Bear Brunt of Shutdown with Medicine Shortages & Suspended Food Programs
JANUARY 17, 2019
We look at the widespread impact of the government shutdown on Native American communities, as the Indian Health Service goes understaffed and a federally funded food delivery program to Indian reservations has halted. Democratic members of Congress held a hearing Tuesday on the effects of the shutdown on health, education and employment in Native communities. We speak with Mark Trahant, editor of Indian Country Today and member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes…
MARK TRAHANT: It’s hard to understate how important the role of the federal government is in a tribal community—and you’re already dealing with a very poor community, in many cases—and to have that money stripped out of a community, that circulates, even not just the payroll, but so many other ways, to have that taken away so suddenly…
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/17/native_american_communities_bear_brunt_of