A nostalgic look at the Old Democratic Party.

[bvar22]

Franklin D. Roosevelt
“The Economic Bill of Rights”
Excerpt from 11 January 1944 message to Congress on the State of the Union

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.” 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.

I REALLY miss THAT Democratic Party.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

[mdmc]

1. yesyesyes

[Overseas]

2. Yes Please !! /nt

[lpbk2713]

3. Not to derail the thread...

... but has anyone cautioned Grayson about flying in small private aircraft?

[NYC_SKP]

4. Rec'd, especially as it refers to opposing monopolies. We gave up that battle since the 80's.

Telcoms, NAFTA, globalism embraced by both party leaderships.

Sold us out.

Bullshit.

[Tippy]

5. This ol' Yellow Dog ..K&R..my daddy would be so proud today....n/t

[Davis_X_Machina]

6. Another look at the old Democratic Party:

.

It wasn't perfect then, and it isn't perfect now, and it's never going to be that way.

[anonymous171]

7. I like this one better:

Huey Long's "Share the Wealth" plan
* Cap personal fortunes at $50 million each (equivalent to about $750 million today)
* Limit annual income to one million dollars each (about $12 million today)
* Limit inheritances to five million dollars each (about $60 million today)
* Guarantee every family an annual income of $2,000 (or one-third the national average)
* Free college education and vocational training
* Old-age pensions for all persons over 60
* Veterans benefits and healthcare
* A 30 hour work week
* A four week vacation for every worker

http://www.hueylong.com/programs/share-our-wealth.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_Our_Wealth

[Libertas1776]

10. Hey, now why didn't Huey ever get around

to passing thats stuff...oh...yeah, right. Hmm.

[anonymous171]

13. The Democratic Party could learn a lot from Huey Long

He was a badass who mercilessly steamrolled his opponents, unlike today's wimpy liberals who like to imagine themselves as silent martyrs for the American worker.

[geek tragedy]

19. He was a fascist corrupt white supremacist.

real progressive

[anonymous171]

27. A Fascist? No, despite his authoritarian tendencies he was still democratically elected

And he was absolutely not a white supremacist.

[HamdenRice]

34. Democracy is more than deciding things by 51%

There are 2 parts of democracy. Rule by the majority; and limits on what the majority can do in terms of the rights of individuals. "Rights" mean that the majority, even if they control government by 51% or 61% or 91%, can't do certain things to an individual or groups -- like "round up the Jews" or "lynch the blacks" or (unfortunately) take away all the wealth of the rich.

Long abandoned the second half of what democracy is, and was roundly criticized and hated by much of the left -- especially civil libertarians, intellectuals, artists and writers -- who saw where he was going. By that measure he was indeed trying to set up a populist fascist regime.

Not saying that the majority can't tax the rich or expropriate the rich in accordance with due process.

Long set up a populist dictatorship and it was the democratic left that set out to crush him as even more dangerous than the corporatist right.

[Greyhound]

36. What non-white supremacist could hold any office in Louisiana in that time?

He was also very open about his political corruption but always pointed out how much more of it he shared than the other guys.

[anonymous171]

39. Huey Long could. That's what made him unique. nt

[Greyhound]

35. It did. The Kingfisher scared the crap out of the parasites.

In a way he was responsible for the success of FDR. Roosevelt adopted/adapted enough of Long's plans and verbiage to mollify the angry workers, while preserving the system of indenture for the parasites to come back later.

[bertman]

50. Yeah, Huey was good at hobnobbin' with the Mob too.

[HamdenRice]

16. "Progressives" longing for the rule of segregationist Huey Long! I've seen it all, now

Huey Long:

"Once in office as governor Long moved quickly to consolidate his power, firing hundreds of opponents in the state bureaucracy, at all ranks from cabinet-level heads of departments and board members to rank-and-file civil servants and state road workers. Like previous governors, he filled the vacancies with patronage appointments from his own network of political supporters. Every state employee who depended on Long for a job was expected to pay a portion of his or her salary directly into Long’s political war-chest. These funds were kept in a famous locked “deduct box” to be used at Long's discretion for political purposes."

" Following his election as Governor in 1928, Long built one of the most formidable political machines ever seen in the United States. Indeed, he amassed so much power that contemporary observers routinely called his regime the first dictatorship in our history. For instance, Long abolished minority rights in the legislature, curtailed judicial review, took over the vote counting system, established a State Board of Censors to regulate political speech, and declared martial law against his opponents. Moving rapidly on to the national stage with his election to the Senate - he was Senator and Governor at the same time - Long established a national Share Our Wealth movement with the goal of challenging Franklin D. Roosevelt for the Democratic nomination in 1936."

"The abuses in Louisiana triggered a broad national debate about whether the State still had a republican form of government as required by the Guarantee Clause of Article Four. "

<end quotes>

So as long as a pol does what you think should be done, no matter the procedure or damage to the democratic political process, that's OK?

Isn't that what Bush did?

And if you support a left version of Bush/Long, then why should you be surprised or angry if the right does the same thing when it's in power?

Dag teh stoopit it hurt brane some tyme.

[anonymous171]

20. Conservatives don't play nice, neither should we.

He might have gone a little overboard, but it was appropriate considering the amount of opposition and power the upper classes had back then. And just so you know, Long was not a racist. He abolished poll tax and was generally loathed by the KKK.

http://www.hueylong.com/perspectives/politics-racism.ph...

[SemiCharmedQuark]

47. I can't believe some of this bullshit today.

And even when you point out that said leader wasn't as great for some people as for others, you get a dismissive reponse.

Oh pshaw. Internment camps weren't even one of the top worst things the US has ever done.*

*this point was actually made by a DUer.

[Nikki Stone1]

8. Me too

[geek tragedy]

21. I hope you're not black or Japanese.

Because it would be to the back of the bus, or to the concentration camp, with you if today's party was like the 1932 version,

[upi402]

25. or you could go back to when Republicans were anti slavery

if one were determined to ignore the thrust of this thread...
:roll eyes:

[geek tragedy]

29. The point of the thread is that the Democratic party/coalition

of 1932 had much more progressive values.

[upi402]

31. So... throw out the baby with the bathwater?

Because your car has a headlight out and a flat tire do you call the scarp yard?
Your point is a given, there was progress to be made - and it was made in the areas you cite.
This kind of argumentation isn't valid for me. Fault in another area of debate doesn't invalidate the soundness in the subject being discussed.


But the OP laments areas where corporate rule, vis-a-vis BOTH parties are corporatist, has prevented progress when it concrens big profit vs people. And where social justice is concerned, money matters.

[HamdenRice]

9. You mean the one with Dixiecrats that prevented civil rights bills for 30 years?

You mean the one with the Dixiecrats whose asses FDR had to kiss, and who was represented by LBJ during the 50s to kill or water down civil rights bills?

Yeah, sigh, those were the good old days!!!

[anonymous171]

11. Back then the democratic party was more worker oriented.

For some reason, when the democrats started supporting Civil Rights, they also became much more corporate friendly. Social Liberalism all but eliminated economic liberalism.

[geek tragedy]

14. Working class whites fled to the Republican party.

The problem with populism is that the population includes a lot of racists and bigots.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[anonymous171]

23. Fuck no. I just wish we could find a way to regain those votes without having to resort to racism.

That's all I was trying to say. Racism is bad, Civil Rights are good.

[HamdenRice]

30. Yeah, blame it all on "civil rights"

Civil rights = corporate takeover.

That's exactly what they said in South Africa. The mines wanted to allow blacks and whites to work more equally after the Boer War, so the whites had a mini-revolution, and almost established the Johannesburg Soviet.

The slogan was "workers of the world unite for a white South Africa."

The government got scared, and enacted legislation like "Reservation of Jobs Act" which Huey Long I'm sure would have approved of.

Not all working class white movements are peachy keanareano, as the histories of South Africa, Louisiana and Alabama show.

[anonymous171]

33. Oh shit

I do not think that the Civil Rights movement was a corporate takeover. Sorry if it sounded that way. It was actually more of a question than anything else. Perhaps the corporate takeover was happening in both political parties regardless of their demographic shifts.


BTW thanks for the historical context. It was very enlightening.

[geek tragedy]

12. You must have loved the concentration camps and Jim Crow. nt

[anonymous171]

15. I don't think the OP said any of that. nt

[geek tragedy]

18. He wants the Democratic party to be like it was in 1932.

The Democratic party in 1932 was thoroughly racist and had borderline fascist tendencies.

[anonymous171]

28. Fascism is a right wing movement. Left wingers cannot be fascist. nt

[upi402]

22. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Me too. I want my party back. Then our country can return to the people

I agree. It seems we are labeled 'radical left' now even by Democrats. And by all media except some at MSNBC, and on Air America.

k/r

[Brigid]

24. I miss that Democratic Party too.

[cornermouse]

26. That's relevant today.

I wish they would but don't have any hopes of it happening.

[Starry Messenger]

32. kick

[Bluenorthwest]

37. I miss that Party

and don't really like the craven mediocrity and neediness of the current leadership, not to mention their prejudice and religionism. What happened to people?

[anonymous171]

40. "Prejudice and religionism" What?

The current democratic party is much less religious than the old Party. It is also much less prejudiced.

[BrklynLiberal]

38. Guess we will have to start a Progressive party to maintain what used to be Democratic principles.

[C_Lawyer09]

41. Third parties are trying

Corporations and corporate friendly state governments are concocting ways to ensure there is no viable third party by keeping them off the state primary ballots. This used to not be the case, pre-1980. Now for an independent to have a chance he'd have to be a billionaire and commit millions to his campaign to even begin to compete.

[BrklynLiberal]

43. It is very disconcerting to wake up and find we live in a corporatocracy...

[bvar22]

44. I'd settle for a 2nd Party.

Anti-WAR/Pro Working Class Party.

America could sure use a 2nd Party like that.



"I don’t represent the big oil companies. I don’t represent the big pharmaceutical companies.
I don’t represent the Enrons of this world. But you know what?
They already have great representation in Washington.
It’s the rest of the people that need it.”
---Paul Wellstone’s Last Commercial

[Libertas1776]

48. +1000

[glitch]

42. Back by popular demand. I would love to see it! Thanks for posting. K & R nt

[dmr]

45. This is the party that I was raised to believe in

[waiting for hope]

46. That was the party I believed in -

One that over 20 years ago I joined. I don't know what this party is - it certainly is not what I had come to believe.

[Lugnut]

49. K&R n/t

[leftstreet]

51. K&R

[BeHereNow]

52. K&R!!!!!

Thank you.
BHN