The Second Bill of Rights

Every now and then I mention that the "left's" approach to the situation we face is out of whack when the primary objective seems to be preserving what can be preserved of the status quo in the face of the Rightist Republican onslaught.

Rather than even think of New and Improved policies of their own, the tendency on the "left"* is to argue the demerits of the Rightist proposals, and then lose the argument in Congress and the media, then repeat the process over and over again, and then complain that the debate is always being moved rightward, and it's just not fair.

Well, no. No it isn't. Fair, that is. But I would suggest that the reason why the debate keeps moving rightward is because so many times the "left" never even tries to move it in the other direction. They always fall into an Argument Trap which requires a dutiful reflection and consideration on the Rightist's proposals which always uses the Rightist's premises as the starting point. There may be a routine denunciation or two thrown in, but nine times out of ten, the Argument Trap the "left" finds itself in is inescapable: the Rightists have proposed something which the "left" is then obliged to argue. The "left" rarely proposes anything but is constantly arguing against the Rightist's proposal and in favor of the status quo.

There is no possibility of progress under the circumstances. Reversion is inevitable.

The Rightists seem to know that -- which is one reason they tend to chortle as much as they do at the antics of the "left."

Democratic leaders and online "leftists" never seem to get it, or if they do, they do so on Rightist terms. Which means going along with the Rightists.

It reminds me a little bit of the Civil Liberties struggles that crop up from time to time. The course of events is moving many primary civil liberties backwards at a furious pace. The Bill of Rights is essentially a dead letter, for example. The Constitution itself is under fierce legislative, executive and judicial assault. No matter; the Civil Liberties crowd sees incremental improvements here and there, particularly in gay rights these days, and that's enough to demonstrate "progress." The overall picture of course shows plenty of progress, just in the wrong direction. While valiantly hanging on to what they can of the tattered shreds and remnants of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Civil Liberties crowd is losing the overall and long-term battle for rights and liberties for the masses -- which are being canceled wholesale at home and abroad in the name of "Security" -- aka "Freedom and Democracy." One should be stunned...

That's why The Second Bill of Rights is a necessary way of looking at things; otherwise we will constantly be moving backwards on important economic and political matters without even recognizing there is another way to go.



There are two versions of FDR's Second Bill of Rights speech posted here -- the first is his Fireside Chat from January 11, 1944, in which he details the economic issues the world and the nation will face as the Second World War is brought to a conclusion; in the second film version of the speech, he is focused more on the elements of social/economic justice than the larger picture. It's also pretty plain on film that Roosevelt is showing signs of extraordinary strain and stress.

In his radio speech, FDR mentions the "rightist reaction." Indeed, it is always trying to drive us backwards, and he says that going back to the way things were in the 1920's is a sure recipe for the triumph of Fascism.

Sure enough, here we are.

But unless you are prepared and able to think outside the Reactionary Rightist parameters you are doomed to going backwards -- where they want to take you.

It's not so much the elements of FDR's Second Bill of Rights that I'm focusing on (though they are important basics); it is the way of thinking and looking at problems and issues that's important in these times.

Social and economic justice are not side issues to be dealt with on the margins. They are the primary issues for most people. It's fundamental for opinion leaders in media -- new media included -- and in the ruling class to get that.

But nearly all of them have forgotten -- if they ever knew anything about such icky things in the first place.

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Note: Republicans and Libertarians tend to go into fits of incoherent rage whenever the topic of The Second Bill of Rights is raised, or for that matter whenever economic and social justice threaten to rise from the dead and become paramount concerns once again.

One might want to contemplate why Republicans and Libertarians are so threatened by economic and social justice issues, and who they actually represent.

Morning Constitutional

I usually don't get into Constitutional issues much because I'm convinced the Constitution under which the Government supposedly operates is a gross anachronism that needs to be scrapped and done over. As long as the Constitution and the Founders are revered as models for the present and the future rather than historical consideration and study, things will continue down their path to perdition.

That's as may be.

What got me laughing uproariously this morning (again) was the spectacle of Eric Cantor, Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, blathering at some length about how the House will enact legislation that will stipulate that if the Senate does not act on the Budget Continuing Resolution, the House passed HR 1 budget bill will become law.

OK.

What's wrong with this picture?

Of course. According to the Constitution, the House cannot enact a law unilaterally. Something about checks and balances, I'm not sure. But the point is that no act becomes law without the assent of both the Senate and the President of the United States. This is engraven on the Golden Plates of the Constitution Itself. It is Doctrine. It cannot be overridden or changed by the whim of the Majority Leader -- or anyone else for that matter.

But here is this clown going on about how the House by its own self can -- and according to him, will -- declare and enact measures into law when and how it chooses.

Lawrence O'Donnell had one of his patented aneurysms over it (h/t C & L), but he seems really to have missed the point.

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If, as seems to be the case, Cantor et al in the House believe they can enact legislation on the House's say-so alone, then it's not the ignorance and stupidity of the Republicans we should be fretting over. It is the fact that they are quite consciously precipitating a coup d'état, rather like the one Newt Gingrich tried to precipitate back in the '90's -- wasn't able to pull it off completely, though -- his inspiration being the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688 in which the House of Commons effectively deposed a King and put new monarchs on the throne, as well as essentially re-writing the "unwritten" British Constitution to assert the priority of Parliament in all things.

They didn't call a messy convention or bother with silly amendments. They just did it.

And that seems to be what the Republicans are up to these days. Not solely in DC, either. We're seeing it all over the place, most prominently in the MidWestern states, but not limited to them by any means.

Republicans in authority -- primarily governors, but as we see in this example, pretty much anyone -- simply declare their authority and act on it, and then they dare anyone to do anything about it.

They have calculated that nine times out of ten, no one will, or if they try, no one will do anything the Rs in authority must to pay attention to.

It's how the Busheviks operated; it is now ingrained in the Republican Party as if it had always been this way. It is the New Normal.

I was arguing years ago that the Constitution had been, for all intents and purposes, discarded by the Government (regardless of Party in nominal charge) and that trying to get it back in force was a fool's game. The era of Constitutional Self-Government in this country was over. We were descending into an Autocracy.

True enough. But we see that the descent is chaotic. Discarding the Constitution is one thing. Putting nothing in its place besides the exercise of raw power -- as we're seeing all over the country -- is a highly disruptive, and of course dangerous, exercise.

Cantor isn't ignorant. My bet is he knows exactly what he's doing. You push something radical -- such as unilateral House enactment of legislation -- and... you get your way. Soon enough. Radicalism becomes the New Normal, and after a while nobody gives it a second thought.

That's what happened during the Bush years, and that's what's happening now.

All the "push" is and has been coming from the Rightists, though.

The so-called "Left" is only able to hang on to scraps -- if that -- of What Used To Be.

As I tried to say in Thursday's post (which I must re-write for coherence at least!), the Left needs to stop reacting to the Rightists and get out front of issues. Boldly "push" in the other direction by calling forth A Better Future.
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Let's say that the entire political system is captive of the Rightists -- that seems obvious, but too often we act as if it weren't so.

Then the necessity is to act outside the political system for A Better Future, and indeed if need be, the necessity is to create an entire alternative System -- effectively a parallel Government.

Assuming that only the only Possible System is the current one means that the Rightists who control it all now and who are making a radical putsch as we speak have been handed Ultimate Victory without a fight at all. So long as there is no alternative even imaginable, the Rightists win by default. When you're playing on their turf by their rules, they win.

So the trick is to imagine -- and then do -- Something Else Again. It's both easier and much harder than it looks. It's not something for the faint of heart to engage in. Nor is it something that necessarily leads to any short term gain at all. In fact, there may be enormous short-term losses.

But ultimately, if the quest for A Better Future is sincere and sustained, it will become the New Normal -- in place of the monstrous "vision" of the Rightists for a permanent Corporatist Autocracy.

This is how these things work.

A starting place for envisioning A Better Future might be FDR's Second Bill of Rights. Just as a way of looking at things you understand. It's not the answer; it's an approach.

"What He Shoulda Did Was..."

So. As far as we know, His Serenity has devoted the remainder of his regime to dealing with obstructionist Republicans, bringing them along as it were, and to making his owners happy. The rest of us figure not so much in national affairs. No, to be more accurate, the rest of us figure not at all.

At best we are annoyances. At worst, our man Rahm comes up with outbursts like, "Fucking retards." Well. The feeling, I'm sure, is mutual, as the White House's plunging polls indicate.

It didn't have to be this way. There was so much Hope for Change.

If there had been an honest effort to deal with the household debt problem in the United States, for example, instead of devoting almost all the economic efforts to serving the interests of those at the top of the economic pyramid, then some of the animosity that's built up over the Health Care issue might have dissipated or not emerged at all.

The Obama economic policies have been eerie mirrors of Hoover's at the beginning of the Great Depression, with -- not surprisingly -- similar results. Gee, how does that work? Household debt problem is enormously greater for many Americans because the costs for all the top-loaded bailouts and whatnot are falling on the middle classes and the poor, and they're breaking under the strain with record numbers of bankruptcies and foreclosures, none of which does a damned thing to raise the country out of the recession but simply digs the hole deeper.

And no matter what, the Economic Brain Trust around Obama will not even consider doing anything about it. It goes against their ideology, and they can't conceive of doing anything to directly help the lower orders beyond what is being done: extending unemployment insurance somewhat. If you can qualify to begin with and continue to qualify for extensions. Good luck.

These same people will not do anything substantive to reduce unemployment. They will not put into place any kind of public sector jobs program that addresses the absence of employment in the private sector; they will not do anything to prop up wages or benefits.

Well, Hoover wouldn't either. It was against his ideology, and he couldn't do it.

I'm reminded of the contrast between the current administration's point of view and that of the Roosevelt administration in the midst of World War II, when during Roosevelt's last election campaign -- when he was physically ill, and when he surely didn't need any more accolades on his legacy -- he offered a startling proposal, almost inconceivable to the modern Ruling Class:

He called it The Second Bill of Rights and it grew out of his famous Four Freedoms framework enunciated on January 6, 1941.

To review the Four Freedoms:



The Second Bill of Rights built on the notion that the political rights guaranteed in the Constitution "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness," particularly with regard to economic freedom, and freedom from want.

What he proposed was a means toward a political solution to the question of want.

The Economic Bill of Rights would guarantee to Americans:

A job at a living wage

Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies for farmers and businessmen

A home

Medical Care and good health

Social Security and protection from economic uncertainty

Education


Obviously, the man was a Damned Dirty Communist.

In fact, the proposition he was making in 1944 was relatively mainstream, growing out of ideals that had been developing in the United States since the latter 19th Century. At the time, what he was proposing was not radical at all, especially given the fact that the nation was at -- or actually exceeding -- "full employment" with most of the men off at war and the women hard at work in industry or services; most everybody was housed -- however inadequately, and there was a severe housing shortage that caused a lot of households to double up; free public education through up to high school was universal, and in some areas, college education was also tuition free.

Yet looking at these propositions today, they seem almost impossible to imagine, even as the nation's people spiral ever farther into destitution while the handful of UberWealthy dance their jigs and have their hirelings count their bags of money.

Joblessness in this country is at levels we haven't seen in this country since the Great Depression, so the first "right" of Roosevelt's five Economic Rights, if implemented today, would have an immediate impact on the public's perception of well-being. Remember, Roosevelt was making his proposal at a time of full employment. Imagine if he had made it in 1933 instead of 1944.

Strict regulation on business, monopolies, and war profiteering were in place in 1944, something almost unheard of now, and these regulations were enforced, a strange concept to us moderns. So the exploitation of farmers and small business people for the benefit of a few was far more difficult then than now, and Roosevelt's proposal to protect farmers and small business people was merely common sense.

Absence of adequate housing in America had long been a crisis, solutions explored every conceivable way from the end of the 19th Century until well after World War II. During the War, the housing crisis became acute. Having a decent home -- or just the promise of a home -- was seen as a major advance for Americans. The post-World War II building boom would start to deal with the pent up demand, but there would continue to be terrible rural housing conditions (as there still are for many farm workers) and many urban dwellers as well. The massive numbers of foreclosures experienced for the last several years have forced millions of Americans out of their own homes, and there has been no adequate follow up to determine what has happened to them. Americans need a decent housing policy once again.

We're still wrestling with the notion that Americans have a right to medical care and good health, a cage match which seems to be unresolvable, but which is swiftly draining the United States of whatever public wealth that hasn't already been stolen by the Oligarchs and Plutocrats.

Social Security is under direct threat by every one of the Powers That Be. We may well see it extinguished in our lifetimes.

Access to public education in the United States was still not fully available in 1944, though in most regions it was theoretically guaranteed/required through 9th or 10th grade. The major problem, of course, was segregation, which was practiced almost as widely outside the South as it was in the South. It would be another decade before segregated schools were outlawed, and more than another decade after that before public schools were actually desegregated -- which was countered by an expansion of private (and essentially segregated) schools for whites, and the defunding and deterioration of public education in general.

Higher education is becoming more and more difficult for average Americans to obtain, and K-12 public education has been deteriorating for years, so much so that the United States has one of the lowest functional literacy rates in the developed world. How did this reversal come about? It was, in my estimation, deliberate policy implemented during and after the Reagan administration to ensure that Americans would never again be educated sufficiently in public schools to attempt the kind of student revolts that characterized the 1960's, and to ensure that those educated in private schools were conditioned to acceed to the needs and interest of the Ruling Class. It is astonishing to review the issues that drove so much of the student revolts of the '60's and realize that at root, it was anti-corporate, rejecting and resisting the notion that university students were being "manufactured" as "products" to be "sold" to corporate interests. Today, university students more or less celebrate their future as corporate tools.

We need a new public education policy.


Finally, Roosevelt's proposal of an Economic Bill of Rights was a matter of security -- something that today is limited to "Homeland" Security, ie: the perception of being "secure" from attack by terrorists.

How far we have fallen.

And how very much farther we still have to go.

FDR Fireside Chat, January 11, 1944: