posted
I liked that speech. I'd have liked to hear it delivered. I don't know if I agreed with everything he said, but I do think that there is a growing disconnect between the government and the people.
I especially liked this paragraph:
quote:What will it take to get back in the fight? Understanding the real interests and deep opinions of the American people is the first thing. And what are those? That a Social Security card is not a private portfolio statement but a membership ticket in a society where we all contribute to a common treasury so that none need face the indignities of poverty in old age without that help. That tax evasion is not a form of conserving investment capital but a brazen abandonment of responsibility to the country. That income inequality is not a sign of freedom-of-opportunity at work, because if it persists and grows, then unless you believe that some people are naturally born to ride and some to wear saddles, it's a sign that opportunity is less than equal. That self-interest is a great motivator for production and progress, but is amoral unless contained within the framework of community. That the rich have the right to buy more cars than anyone else, more homes, vacations, gadgets and gizmos, but they do not have the right to buy more democracy than anyone else. That public services, when privatized, serve only those who can afford them and weaken the sense that we all rise and fall together as "one nation, indivisible." That concentration in the production of goods may sometimes be useful and efficient, but monopoly over the dissemination of ideas is evil. That prosperity requires good wages and benefits for workers. And that our nation can no more survive as half democracy and half oligarchy than it could survive "half slave and half free" – and that keeping it from becoming all oligarchy is steady work – our work.
Unfortunately, I don't think that the Democratic party is particularly well-aligned to these ideals anymore. Politics, to me anyway, seems a lot more geared toward the politicians than the people.
I don't know that I have the same scathing opinion of modern conservatism as Moyers does, but I do think that a lot of good came out of the progressive movement.
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quote: Meet a couple of muckraking journalists. Jacob Riis lugged his heavy camera up and down the staircases of New York's disease-ridden, firetrap tenements to photograph the unspeakable crowding, the inadequate toilets, the starved and hollow-eyed children and the filth on the walls so thick that his crude flash equipment sometimes set it afire.
Well this pretty well seems to sum it up. Were the people of the tenement that caught on fire better off? No, but it was necessary to bring about change. It doesn't indicate anyone was killed, or I wouldn't find it ironically amusing.
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posted
Saxon, I really liked how the speech was fairly bipartisan. He had things to say about both the Democrats and the Republicans, praise and criticism for both.
Pooka, your insights are always interesting. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Yeah, I kind of feel like we do need new parties. I guess his thought that progressivism is ebbing out reflects waning confifdence that it has an advocate today.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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In the short run, I agree with him that progressivism helps America and its citizens. And I should--I come from a family that, at best, is working class. If we had lived during the Gilded Age, my family would be dirt poor and I would be long dead (uncorrected birth defect).
But in the long run.... It seems to me that every benefit given to people like me drains the pool. Social Security inevitably runs out. Someone stuffs the money in a lock box, but then lack of funds for other things requires it to be raided or something else will go. Health insurance is extended to everyone, but then the cost skyrockets because unhealthy people like me are being covered--or if the government freezes costs it has to freeze care, too. And so it goes. Progressives decry conservatives for building up national deficits and debts, but where does anyone expect progressives to get the money for all their programs? FDR, for all the good the man did, was the architect of deficit spending on the federal level. He, not the Republicans, created the massive national debt, and he did it with his social programs. Bless the man, I'm glad he did it, but sooner or later you have to pay the bill.
If we can't pay for a benefit ourselves, the only way we can have it is to raid the pockets of the rich. And while that may sound just to some people--while it may even be just, inevitably the pockets of the rich empty too, if they're asked to pay for a whole country's benefits. Then the fun evaporates and the hard times begin again. Is anyone really the better for it?
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posted
Of course, Macc, is it fair that 100% of my wages are applicable for the Social Security tax, while only the first ~85k of a rich person's wages are?
And FDR was the first to have rampant deficit spending, the Reagan administration is the #1 source of our CURRENT problem.
Check out the % change/year of the more recent presidents (scroll halfway down):
(This next one has the debt rate out to FDR, but isn't all that helpful because I am not clear that the have adjusted the values for a common currency, though it might be:)
--- And if we are wise, the pockets of the rich won't be emptied. I think it's a rather unsubstantiated assertion on your part. Historically, it's the poor that get the screws turned on them.
posted
I love seeing the rolling eyes. It brings back memories of having discussions with my 13 year old ex-step-sisters.
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