A Fair Day's Pay for a Fair Day's Work

[NNN0LHI]

http://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/faculty-research/new-deal/roosevelt-speeches/fr052437.htm

Franklin D. Roosevelt

May 24, 1937

The time has arrived for us to take further action to extend the frontiers of social progress. Such further action initiated by the legislative branch of the government, administered by the executive, and sustained by the judicial, is within the common sense framework and purpose of our Constitution and receives beyond doubt the approval of our electorate.

The overwhelming majority of our population earns its daily bread either in agriculture or in industry. One third of our population, the overwhelming majority of which is in agriculture or industry, is ill-nourished, ill-clad, and ill-housed. snip

Our problem is to workout in practice those labor standards which will permit the maximum but prudent employment of our human resources to bring within the reach of the average man and woman a maximum of goods and of services conducive to the fulfillment of the promise of American life.

Legislation can, I hope, be passed at this session of the Congress further to help those who toil in factory and on farm. We have promised it. We cannot stand still.

[FreakinDJ]

1. And then came "Free Trade"

Bye bye American Dream

[Zalatix]

2. Some people don't mind destroying the American Dream. They think we should actually be impoverished.

Take this jaw-dropper which was posted right here on the DU, for instance.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/100250872

"Well I recall the statistic that Americans as %5 of the population were using 30% of the world's reso

resources. Environmentalists thought that a bad thing - something Americans should feel guilty about. So it is not that simply as issue. Maybe as a nation we should lower our standards so the third world can do better - what is it about third world people that they must live in squalor so we can live in relative luxury (people are often desperate to migrate here, remember that).

Of course a specific person will say "my job is lost for it" but the Chinese guy could say "why should I remain in third world poverty so that some American can keep a nice job?"

Maybe some of it should come at our expense. We are like the 1% in world terms."

[FreakinDJ]

3. Maybe some countries should change their government

I've always had a problem with Illegal Immigration from Mexico for the simple reason it serves as the "Relief Valve" from oppression and corruption the Wealthy Elite impose on people of that country.

Mexico by every standard is a country rich in Natural Resourses and by any measure should have abundent oppertunity for it's Working Class Citizens.

The average Citizen was only allowed by Mexico's Constitution to own property within the last 2 decades