General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Say Hello to the Enemy.... Game On Motherfuckers!! [View all]freshwest
(53,661 posts)The misery inflicted on the world gave us the New Deal. We need the Second New Deal. Or better.
The Second New Deal is the term used by commentators at the time[1] and historians ever since to characterize the second stage of the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his address to Congress in January 1935, Roosevelt called for three major goals: improved use of national resources, security against old age, unemployment and illness, and slum clearance, as well as a national welfare program (the WPA) to replace state relief efforts.
It is usually dated 1935-36, and includes programs to redistribute wealth, income and power in favor of the poor, the old, farmers and labor unions. The most important programs included Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act ("Wagner Act" , the Banking Act, rural electrification, and breaking up utility holding companies.
Programs that were later ended by the Supreme Court or the Conservative Coalition included WPA, NYA, the Resettlement Administration, and programs for retail price control, farm rescues, coal stabilization, and taxes on the rich and the Undistributed profits tax.
Liberals in Congress passed the Bonus Bill of $1.5 billion to 3 million World War veterans over FDR's veto. Liberals strongly supported the new direction, and formed the New Deal Coalition of union members, big city machines, the white South, and ethnic minorities to support it;
and conservativestypified by the American Liberty League were strongly opposed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_New_Deal
We need this or something like it to rise up out of the OFA organization, which has not dissolved yet:
The New Deal Coalition was the alignment of interest groups and voting blocs that supported the New Deal and voted for Democratic presidential candidates from 1932 until the late 1960s. It made the Democratic Party the majority party during that period, losing only to Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. Franklin D. Roosevelt forged a coalition that included the Democratic state party organizations, city machines, labor unions and blue collar workers, minorities (racial, ethnic and religious), farmers, white Southerners, people on relief, and intellectuals.[1]
The coalition fell apart around the bitter factionalism during the 1968 election, but it remains the model that party activists seek to replicate.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal_Coalition
We're dealing with the same opposing philosophies and interests now as then, except the media is in conservative hands. It makes organizing for our ideas through media very difficult. So we must go back to the grass roots to give the liberal majority in Congress. Our work is cut out for us.