A story about American human right back in Roosevelt time from film Capitalism: A Love Story.
It’s a fight we knew all too well in Flint, Michigan.
For it was here that my uncle and his fellow workers first brought down the mighty corporate interests that dominates their lives.
It was the day before new year’s eve in 1936.
Hundreds of men and women took over the GM factories in Flint and occupied them for 44 days.
They were the first union that beat an industrial corporation.
And their actions eventually resulted in the creation of a middle class.
But back in these days of the Flint sit-down strike, the police and the company thugs were not going to just stand by.
After a bloody battle one evening, the governor of Michigan, with the support of the president of the united states Frankin Roosevelt, sent in the national guard.
But the guns of the soldiers weren’t used on the workers.
They were pointed at the police and the hired goons, worning them to leave these workers alone.
For Mr. Roosevelt believed that the men inside had a right a redress of their grievances.
7 years later, President Roosevelt was to sick to go up to the capital and give his annual state of the union address.
“Ladies and gentlemen,
The president of the United States.
It has been my custom to deliver these annual messages in person.”
So he gave it from the White House over the radio.
When it was over he asked the newsreel cameras to step into his room, because he wanted the American people to see one particular part of his speech.
The president of the United States then took the radical step of proposing a second bill of rights to the constitution.
“In our days certain economic truths have become accepted as self-evident.
A second bill of rights, under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all, regardless of station or race or creed.
Among these are the right to a useful and remunerative job; 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 of small to trade in an atmosphere of freedom, freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopplies 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, accidents and unemployment; the right to a good education
All of these rights spell security.
And after this war is over, we must be prepared to move forward in the implementation of these rights to new goals of human happiness and wellbeing.
For unless there is security here at home, there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”
Roosevelt would be dead in little over a year.
He would not live to see the end of the war.
Nor would there be any enactment of his new bill of rights
Had he lived and succeeded, every American, regardless of race, would have had a right to a decent job…a livable wage…universal health care…a good education…an affordable home…a paid vacation…and an adequate pension.
None of this would come to pass.
No Amrican would be guaranteed any of this.
But the people of Europe and Japan got every one of these rights.
How did that happen?
After the war the people of Roosevelt’s administration went overseas to help rebuild Europe
During this time new consitutions were written for the defeated nations of Germany, Italy and Japan.
The Italian constution guaranteed all women equal rights.
And this was 1947.
The German constitution said that the state has the right to take over property and the means of production for the common good.
And here’s what we wrote up for the Japanese.
All workers have a right to organize into a union.
And academic freedom is guaranteed.
For the next 65 years, we would not become the country that Roosevelt wanted us to be.
Instead, we become this…
[The film here shows a lot of scenes during the Katrina flood. Poor American poor people.__vivi]
I remember thinking during the Katrina flood, “why is it always the poor who have to suffer the misery? why isn’t ever Bernie Madoff up on the roof screaming for help, or the head of Citibank, or the hedge fund guys at Goldaman Sachs, or the CEO at AIG? It never is these gus is it? It’s always those who never got a slice of the pie, because these men have took it all and left them with nothing, left them to die.”
I refuse to live in a country like this.
And I’m not leaving.