Democracy In Crisis

[CSwriter1]

"Senator Frist, majority leader of the US Senate, is planning to accuse opponents of ultra-right-wing judicial appointments of being "anti-faith." Bush is pushing an ultra-right-wing agenda on the US that will not go away when he does.

The federal government has been consolidating power within the federal level sense the beginning the US democracy. Every war has increased the federally controlled bureaucracies and their power. This is something we might discuss.

Beyond upsurging federal power over state sovereignty, there is this extreme religious agenda that is a threat to religious freedom and human rights.
I am confident the real problem is education for technology for military and industrial purpose and leaving moral training to the church. This is the model of education Germany had. When we mobilized for the first world war, some recommended we adopt the Germany model, but this was not done until 1958, following the second world war, and in response to the USSR successfully orbiting earth and beating the US into space. (This is missile technology and with atomic bomb technology was a serious threat to our national security, or so some thought).

The New World Order was at first a Prussian idea. The Prussians took control of Germany and applied their military bureaucracy to citizens. The centralized German government and education. They distroyed Germany's hero's and priased efficiency. We have done all this, including mixing religion with military might and making a first strike under false pretenses.
Bush brags that we are now the leaders the New World Order, and he is justified in doing so.

It should unnerve everyone that it was not lack of Christianity that lead Germany to be our enemy, but lack of liberty. The New World Order perverts both religion and democracy. Our worst enemy is within.

[sonrisa]

on Franklin Roosevelt--

Subject: [Inland Democrats] How have we traveled from FDR to the retrograde vulgarian criminal?


April 18, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
A Radical in the White House
By BOB HERBERT

Last week - April 12, to be exact - was the 60th anniversary of the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "I have a terrific headache," he said, before collapsing at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Ga. He died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on the 83rd day of his fourth term as president. His hold on the nation was such that most Americans, stunned by the announcement of his death that spring afternoon, reacted as though they had lost a close relative.

That more wasn't made of this anniversary is not just a matter of time; it's a measure of the distance the U.S. has traveled from the egalitarian ideals championed by F.D.R. His goal was "to make a country in which no one is left out." That kind of thinking has long since been consigned to the political dumpster. We're now in the age of Bush, Cheney and DeLay, small men committed to the concentration of big bucks in the hands of the fortunate few.

To get a sense of just how radical Roosevelt was (compared with the politics of today), consider the State of the Union address he delivered from the White House on Jan. 11, 1944. He was already in declining health and, suffering from a cold, he gave the speech over the radio in the form of a fireside chat.

After talking about the war, which was still being fought on two fronts, the President offered what should have been recognized immediately for what it was, nothing less than a blueprint for the future of the United States. It was the clearest statement I've ever seen of the kind of nation the U.S. could have become in the years between the end of World War II and now. Roosevelt referred to his proposals in that speech as "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 rights, he said, 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."

I mentioned this a few days ago to an acquaintance who is 30 years old. She said, "Wow, I can't believe a president would say that."

Roosevelt's vision gave conservatives in both parties apoplexy in 1944 and it would still drive them crazy today. But the truth is that during the 1950's and 60's the nation made substantial progress toward his wonderfully admirable goals, before the momentum of liberal politics slowed with the war in Vietnam and the election in 1968 of Richard Nixon.

It wouldn't be long before Ronald Reagan was, as the historian Robert Dallek put it, attacking Medicare as "the advance wave of socialism" and Dick Cheney, from a seat in Congress, was giving the thumbs down to Head Start. Mr. Cheney says he has since seen the light on Head Start. But his real idea of a head start is to throw government money at people who already have more cash than they know what to do with. He's one of the leaders of the G.O.P. gang (the members should all wear masks) that has executed a wholesale transfer of wealth via tax cuts from working people to the very rich.

Roosevelt was far from a perfect president, but he gave hope and a sense of the possible to a nation in dire need. And he famously warned against giving in to fear. The nation is now in the hands of leaders who are experts at exploiting fear, and indifferent to the needs and hopes, even the suffering, of ordinary people.

"The test of our progress," said Roosevelt, "is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Sixty years after his death we should be raising a toast to F.D.R. and his progressive ideas. And we should take that opportunity to ask: How in the world did we allow ourselves to get from there to here?


E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com



Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[CSwriter1]

Sonrisa,

That was a beautiful post. You bring tears to my eyes.
If this can be discussed as well as religion is discussed, we could save our nation and greatly promote world peace. What has happened to the US, has happened to past civilizations, and this could have been prevented.

I was everyone would examine 1950 text books, and especially pay attention of old books teaching civics.
For nearly 200 years we had public education that advanced the goals of Jefferson and Roosvelt. Eisenhower called this "domestic education". Others will know it as liberal education. Note, today the word liberal is equal to socialism and both are equal to communist, they are the enemy of the people. They seem the enemy of individualism, instead of that which gives the most freedom to the most individuals.

In 1958 we passed the National Defense Education, and adopted Germany's education for technology for military and industrial purpose. We stopped transmitting the culture essential to our liberty, and destroyed our national heros and praised efficiency, and finally we left moral training to the church. We replaced training for logic with memorization, and training for independent thinking, with "group think".
The education is amoral and specializes the "products for industry" that are prepared by education to serve the military/industrial complex or that was the New World Order enemy of World War II. Now Bush now boast are we. HELLO, IS ANY AWAKE? No I don't mean awake in the Buddhist sense, which right now is effectively being asleep and in dream land, if anyone cares about this planet we live on and the humanity we share it with.

We could have done this when we mobilized for the first World War. At the 1917 National Education Association Conference in Portland, Oregon, a military recruited argued for the need to prepare our citizens as Germany had prepared its citizens. We rejected this idea, until the military technology of the second world war, and we became of the reality of finite oil. In the 1920's a newspaper article warned, "Given our known oil reserves and rate of consumption, we are headed for economic disaster and possibly war." Technology extended this reality, and Reagon who lied to us about not needing to conserve oil, and slashed our domestic budgets to pour our national resources into military spending for the domination of Mid East oil, extended that reality a little further. IT IS TIME TO WAKE UP NOW. WE ARE THE NEW WORLD ORDER WE DEFENDED OUR DEMOCRACY AGAINST, AND WE WERE SOLD OUT ESPECIALLY BY THE REPUBLICANS WHO EMBRASSED THE NEW WORLD ORDER SINCE EISENHOWER.

[Ronagon]

As warm and fuzzy as sonrisa's post is, there's one major logical error in FDR's policies...

Not all unfortunate people are automatically good and decent. Many are sneaky, rotten, and are in the life position's they're in, because they were sneaky, rotten, and are likely to still be that way.

Of course, they won't come right out and volunteer that information, because they're rotten and they know it. So, they'll just out-and-out lie, which they also know they're doing. They'll craft stories about how they've been unjustifiably screwed in life, and about how corrupt and unjust the system is.

Meanwhile, they're snickering and sneering at all hardworking and honorable people who they consider to be "goody-two-shoes" and "suckers". They will get a kick out of tricking you into breaking your back to save them; in the end, all you will get for your goodhearted labors is that they will spit in your face, laugh, and proclaim that they really did it all themselves.

Inevitably, they end up living in shacks and swilling cheap beer and reading gossip tabloids, and sneering at the rest of the world. And you know what? That's precisely where they really belong; so don't let them fool you with sob stories.

This is the problem with policies like the "New Deal" and the "Great Society"; they assume automatic virtue in ALL unfortunates.

Either that, or the "leaders" who propose them really don't give a shit about doing the right thing, and are just pandering for votes, popularity, and how good they'll sound in the history books.

Helping unfortunate people is a noble calling, but ONLY if the unfortunates that you help are people of character who are only down because of bad circumstances. And figuring out who is who takes time; it certainly can't be accomplished by just indiscriminately throwing money and goodies at just anybody and everybody.

[sonrisa]

Funny, as I'm posting this I'm watching a cable documentary about Franklin Roosevelt. :) Most enlightening.

Ron, there are sneaky rotten bastards at all levels of society. The sneaky rotten bastards that control the White House for instance. That doesn't mean those of us who aren't sneaky rotten bastards shouldn't try to improve- & protect- our society. When Roosevelt launched the New Deal he said he was doing it to help preserve capitalism for the next several decades. The New Deal, in effect, created a Depression proof society. Sure there have been financial ups & downs since then, but nothing on a par with the Depression. As the New Deal is dismantled, piece by piece, to satisfy corporate greed, economists- plural- are warning of an impending depression. Go figure.

CS, my friend had a guest on his diy talk show who also lamented that the schools no longer teach good citizenship. It goes a long way towards explaining why people don't seem to care about our Govt anymore. They say TV has dumbed us down, but your explanation makes more sense. Study after study has shown that the United States continues to fall behind other countries in almost all areas of education. Unfortunately, the powers that be have no interest in improving the education system (the No Child Left Behind joke), becuz that would turn the sheeple, as Vicente calls them, back into real thinking people.

While education is definitely important, I think we need to get the Govt where it lives- & that is to buy as little as possible from its corporate owners (whatever you may think about Karl Marx, he was right about stuff revolving around the bottom line) My friends & I are forming a support group to buy local- from local retailers (no Walmart or Target unless there's no other option) & to buy from local/regional producers, as opposed to the brand name transnationals (a bonus- you can save $ by not buying the name brands) including P&G, even tho they are local here- there are other local/regional companies making the same stuff P&G makes. We exchange info on local retailers & products & recently one of the local papers printed an article about local $ ( click here (http://www.citybeat.com/2005-04-13/news2.shtml)) We also use www.buyblue.org (http://www.buyblue.org) to assist with our purchasing. The main idea, of course, is not to feed the Govt's corporate owners, but I think it will be helpful should a new Depression come. The less involved you are in the system, the less you'll be affected by a Depression. I especially like the idea of local $- the dead presidents can hit the fan, & you'll still have $!!

I guess this is getting off topic- or maybe not. You talk about restoring democracy thru improved education, I talk about restoring it thru judicious purchasing. Otoh, isn't that what democracy is about- being able to express different pov's? :)

[CSwriter1]

Sonrisa, I wish everyone could learn the democratic model for industry. We entered the second world war crying, "democracy and autocracy can not co exist". I don't know why we were in such denial that we modeled our industry after England's autocracy, and obviously this autocratic industry and autocratic religion, co existed with our democracy. This is why the US is so schizophrenic.

When Roosevelt took office he asked Hoover to help design Big Government. Some books at this time warned of the dangers of giving government these new powers, and their warnings have proven valid. Other books priased Big Government. Whatever, both the Republicans and Democrats participated in increasing the powers of the federal government, which means less democracy for all of us. However-

Deming had tried to get our industry to accept the democratic model and our industry refused. He went to Japan after the second world war, when we were Americanizing Japan, and told them not to immitate our autocratic industry. He taught them the democratic model and they proceeded to kick our asses in world markets. Had our industry accepted the democratic model, it would not have been necessary for our government to become autocratic.

We have witnessed a pretty nasty power game, and the common citizens are the loosers. I am glad your community is intelligent enough to take charge of what happens in your community. That is democracy.
I have old text books that explain, education is about preparing citizens to have such power, and therefore, have the ability to control prices. Gosh, I wish more people were capable of discussing democracy.

[sonrisa]

I wouldn't say the whole community is intelligent enough to take charge of what happens here, tho there are certainly indivduals & grassroots groups attempting to do so on a number of fronts. We have our victories- & our frustrations.

Sometimes it is depressing to talk about democracy in light of what's going on with those thugs in Washington. Every week it's something new- this week the repugs want to get rid of the filibuster, what's next? But you are right, we must discuss democracy, keep it alive & nip these wannabe dictators in the bud.

[CSwriter1]

Sonrisa,

Democracy is a completely different issue from the New World Order that has taken over the US, but because the two are confused as the same thing, something must be said of the enemy within. I just don't what to say, because there seems to be so little interest in how the US became what it fought against.

Democracy comes from literacy in Greek and Roman classics and the philosophy and scince of Bacon and Galileo. A huge New World Order problem, is our collective consciousness is no longer conscious of the reasoning of democracy, but Christians have dominated with the idea that Christianity came from them. This is a terribly sad state of affairs, that is the result of bringing our enemy through public education.

Public education is like a genii in a bottle. The defined purpose is the wish. The students are the genii. For 200 years we wished for good citizens and fulfullment of Socrates' and Locke's vision of human potential. In 1958 we replaced this wish of the genii with the New World Order wish. That wish has been fulfilled with a superstitious mass that thinks they are the most scientifically advanced people on earth, and they love the technological benefits, while they hate science and study their bibles not history or science. They are so unprepared to be their own authority about anything but what the bible says, that they are dependent on authority for everything. This seems so because people don't seem to care about education, only what it cost, and that their children has advantages necessary to out compete everyone else. We have not a clue what mass education has to do with the culture that is nothing like the one defended in previous world wars.

Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended. It has not been defended since 1958.

[fu*]

CI>>>I just don't what to say, because there seems to be so little interest in how the US became what it fought against.<<<

What did the US fight against? Who/What is this US you are talking about?

Before 1958, education was teaching this loving democracy?

I would agree with you that public education spawns something.

The "US" used to be something else. Your "public educators" ,pre 1958, seemed to ignore something that was.

You may be on the right track, but you need to follow that track backwards farther than 1958. Try 1858, Try 1758. Try further and further..............

How much of your pre 1958 education discussed what this land of trees and water and mountains and air (nature) was before your intelectual ancetors decided that there should be public education?

Some might say....Thank you brilliant people for comming across the big water to educate us. Sorry for any resistance we might have given during your quest for lumber and gold. I am sorry that I had happened to be living here during your quest for "democracy".

I see that Thomas has seemed to OK this kind of language, so I will say..... **** you! **** your mind. **** your thinking. **** your selfishness that alows you to believe..........you.

If you want to help.........help yourself. And by that I mean, As soon as you find your "self", Then maybe you could help "others".

Love

FU

[CSwriter1]

I don't know what FU had to say, because at quick glance FU is suggestive a very offense attitude, and I will not open myself to an abusive person. My goodness when I read the policy statement for this site, I could swear it said something about not being offensive, and I have found several people offensive.
This degrades the discussions.

Freedom of speech comes from philosophers deciding reason is the controlling of the universe. Our freedom of speech is freedom to reason, not freedom to be rude and crude, which is immoral. Moral, being a Greek word "to know the law and good manners". The law is universal law, it is what Cicero and Spinoza speak of.
Good manners means many things, and for sure it means not being verbally abusive.

I honestly expected to find more educated and refined people in these discussions, and not something that could be standing on a street corner in LA shouting obsenities. I am deeply disappointed.

[sonrisa]

Fu is Fu & s/he is refering to the very undemocratic way whitey stole this continent from the many Indian nations already living here. That be true. The Trail of Tears was not democratic. Forced relocation to reservations was not democratic. Except for the kids, who were taken from their families & put in boarding schools where they were taught how to be white. But democracy? The Indians already had it with their councils & tribunals, headed by a chief. Do you not see- the legislative, judicial, & executive branches. The Constitution is based on this homegrown form of govt, specifically that of the Haudenosaunee, or the Six Nations (click here) (http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/) But whitey did not feel obliged to extend democracy to those from whom our govt came. Tradgically ironic, is it not?

ps I am quite aware of the differences between democracy & this new world order that a good number of people in this country don't seem to mind goose-stepping to. That's why it's depressing.

[sahyo]

FU is suggestive a very offense attitude,
and I will not open myself to an abusive person.



hehehe...FU doesn't try gaming sugarcoating :D

[vicente]

I see that Thomas has seemed to OK this kind of language, so I will say..... **** you! **** your mind. **** your thinking. **** your selfishness that alows you to believe..........you.

If you want to help.........help yourself. And by that I mean, As soon as you find your "self", Then maybe you could help "others".

Excellent! Not a comment of praise,...but simply excellent!

Absolutely, in my opinion,...the greatest gift one can give to humanity is to heal themselves. Heal themselves from the them they think they are. This is sometimes difficult however, because the chief feature of the illness is usually what they like best about themselves.

Vicente

[sahyo]

the chief feature of the illness*



believes is "illness"?

[vicente]

believes is "illness"?

Yes,...there is no illness without belief.

Vicente

[sahyo]

Heal themselves from the them they think they are. This is sometimes difficult however, because the chief feature of the illness is usually what they like best about themselves.


believes "Heal themselves from the them they think they are." as though is an "illness"?

[CSwriter1]

Please folk who do not want to explore democracy and what has gone wrong, please, go to another subject without adding your opinions to this one. Shooting down what people have to say, without increasing knowledge of the subject, is not helpful.

Sonrisa, I came across information about how Wilson lead the dismantling of the military/industrial complex following the first world war. This did not happen following the second world war, because military technology had changed so much. For sure Japan ended our sense of security (believing the oceans were our first line of defense), when it bombed the US. Also the way the Japanese fought, alerted us to a warrior culture more threatening than what we had known.

Another even more important factor was the discovery of the nuclear bomb. Our naplam attacks on Japan, killed more people than the nuclear bombs, so I don't know why it is the nuclear bomb that defines the end of the war, but it is the nuclear bomb that defines the moment in history. One bomb can be more destructive in moments, than several armies fighting for years in the previous war. However, that naplam was pretty nasty , and even more torturous death for thousands. But then, the side effects of nuclear war is also slow death from radiation poisoning. Anyway, the USSR was capable of discovering this technology and using it against us, and communism was aggressive, killing thousands of people as it spread. So the military/industrial structure of the second world war, was not dismantled. Instead we adopted we what had learned through war to more aspects of our lives. We never returned to peacetime thinking or economics.

[CSwriter1]

This about those "unfortunate people" who Ronagon
mentioned.

When I was a child learning our social rules, women did women's work for lower pay. Not just the servants and most the people who put food on our table work for low pay, but also teachers and nurses were paid pourly. My grandmother devoted her whole life to being a first through third grade teacher, and when she was forced to retire at age 65 she became a volunteer teacher until alzhiemers disease forced to quit at 80 years of age. Then I cared for her until she had a stroke and I was forced to put her in a nursing home. To my horror, my grandmother who began teaching at a very early age, and taught her whole adult life, was put in the charity level of nursing home care, because after a life of work and doing all the right things, she did not have the dignity of an income required to have nursing home care with dignity. I thank God she probably didn't know this.

The majority of our less fortunate people are not substance abusers or disabled people, but the millions of people who support the upper economic levels by providing cheap labor. When Wall Street got nerveous because some areas were experiencing a labor shortage, we started hearing about our jobs going overseas. Right now we have a huge and growing gap between the upper and lower classes that is all about class power, and is not about the character of individuals.

Those men who came of age during the depression and war years, were actually the most fortunate citizens our nation ever had or will have. Never again will a generation be so fortunate, and these men are blind to the unusual advantages they had, and no other generation will have, unless there is a technology break though in energy. They had so many blessings, such as our nation was rich being the world's supply of oil and we were nation making loans to other nations, not the nation needing loans. This generation also had the blessing of the GI bill and being on the ground floor of new technologies. For them, the GI bill that meant college education, and that meant upward economic mobility with almost no competition because there were few to fill all the new jobs. Because employers had to compete for these college educated GI's they got benefits on top of benefits, that low income workers never got. On top of that came low cost housing loans and owning a home was a tax break, and protection against inflation. And this came when we still had more land to develop than people to house, so housing was relatively cheap. These very advantage people ususnally know life only from their own privileged point of view and their political party and church propaganda. Because of this, they are a voting block that is a serious problem.

We have a major education problem. I am not speaking of what children learn in school at the moment, but the failure of one economic class to know the reality of the other. I became very aware of this difference, when I went from my mother's home to my fathers home. After walking out of my life when I was 4 years old, my mother found him and was able to get him to walk back into my life when I was 18. He took me to live with his second family who had been protected in exclusive neighborhoods, from the people in the neighborhoods where I grew up.

I have seen life from poverty and from exclusive neighborhoods where people have absolutely no understanding of what is like to be poor. The ignorance of the masses in understanding these economic realities is very sad, and so is their lack of economic and political knowledge sad.

[sonrisa]

I think that the false stereotypes against the poor & working classes are perpetuated by the upper calsses so they can maintain their status quo. They also play the poor & working classes against each other to keep them from realizing better lives. When the poor & working classes understand this & start working with each other to improve their situations, then there can be change.

[CSwriter1]

Sonrisa, I so appreciate your comment, because ideally we are educated to understand such matters and to make good laws for ourselves. The world war years were good years in many ways. First off everyone was needed when we entered the war, and some workers litterally worked without pay, because we were all pulling together for the same victory. Our laborers were honored as hard working people, whom the country owed a debt of regratitude. We called these people, "the back bone of America". We recognized we needed them and we needed them to work for low wages. That was Christian and at times of war, patriotic.

Coming out of that war, 1950 text books, stressed the importance of family and being a good person, and being cooperative. Common grade school text books made of point of money not being everything. I remember a story about poor little rich girl. She appeared to have everything, but her life was not so happy. The point of the story being how much better it is to have a happy family than to be rich.

Throughout our public history, text books have honored the virtue of poor people. Our society was not as materialistic as it is today. Often the church has been used to promote the rightousness of a hard worker looking forward to little but the reward in heaven.

Our consumer society is so materialistic and false. Some of us are expecting the shit to hit the fan any day now, and we sincerely believe the time to prepare for that day is now. This is to a large degree, why I am doing my best to increase awareness of what democracy is really about. If we do not come to understand the democratic principles now, and relearn how to organize ourselves to help each other, the near future may get pretty ugly.

[sonrisa]

ah well, looks like that bastard Frist won't get his nuclear option. At least not today, that is. :)