Reply #47: the battle lines

[Two Americas]

Our adversaries know precisely where the battle lines are drawn in this battle which they started. They recognize who their enemies are - all of us who are supporting Edwards. They know what is at stake, and they are not mired down in debate and niceties, but are free to go right for the jugular. They are very well-financed, determined and motivated, and they are very clear about their goals.

It is important to recognize that this is not merely one bad apple that is spoiling the bunch. This man is doing us a favor by revealing the agenda of our adversaries. I much prefer this to the usual nicey-nice platitudes and PR that is used to disguise and hide this agenda from us by more polished and suave spokespeople for the interests of those few who have such disproportionate control over our government and our lives.

The problem is systemic and pervasive, not isolated and discrete. Do not take this revealing and telling example that is so perfectly representative of a broad and omnipresent problem and crunch it down into a very small matter of one evil guy, or one bad organization, or one convoluted conspiracy of a handful of “elites.” It is the system that allows people such as this and organizations such as this to rise to power and prominence that is the problem—that rewards and protects the most anti-social and anti-democratic behavior imaginable.

Rather, take this example and broaden it into a universal and powerful statement of exactly what has gone wrong in this country, as a clear and coherent prelude to promoting the time-honored traditional principles and ideals of the Democratic party, and the program that has always brought the party its greatest electoral success.

Our adversaries know what the battle is about and where the battle lines are drawn. So must we if we are to survive.

We can stand firmly on the shoulders of the giants who have gone before us, and we can use them as a model and as a guide.

FDR said:

“ Liberty requires opportunity to make a living — a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

“For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor — other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

"The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.

"Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.

"But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them."