In keeping with our current preoccupation with taxes, the deficit and spending, I thought I would run an address President Franklin Roosevelt gave while campaigning for re-election in 1936.
Seems the subject of taxes has been with us for a very-very long time. And it also seems the ones doing the most complaining haven't changed very much in the past 200 or so years.
Comforting, I suppose. But you'd think by now it would get a little tired.
In 1936 though, FDR had a few choice words nestled in what has become a timeless address.
President Roosevelt: “In 1776 the fight was for Democracy in Taxation. In 1936 there is still the fight. Mister Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said ‘taxes are the prices we pay for civilized society’. One sure way to determine the social conscience of a government is to examine the way taxes are collected and how they are spent. And one sure way to determine the social conscience of an individual is to get his tax reaction. Taxes, after all are the dues we pay for the privilege of membership in an organized society. And as society becomes more civilized government, national and state and local, is called on to assume more obligations to its citizens. The privileges of membership in a civilized society are vastly increased in modern times. But I am afraid we still have many who still do not recognize their advantages and want to avoid paying their dues.”
Tax breaks for the wealthy were a concept well in place by the time Hoover was President.
FDR: “To divide fairly among the people the obligation to pay for these benefits has been a major part of our struggle to maintain Democracy in America. Ever since 1776, that struggle has been between two forces; on the one hand there has been a vast majority of citizens who believe the benefits of democracy should be extended and who are willing to pay their fair share to extend them. And on the other hand, there has been a small but powerful group which has fought the extension of these benefits because they did not want to pay a fair share of their cost. That was the lineup in seventeen hundred and seventy-six and it’s the lineup today. And I am confident that once more, in nineteen thirty-six democracy in taxation will win. Here is my principle, and I think it’s yours too; Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.”
So hearing this now and knowing it was from the dim-distant past of 1936, it makes the current situation and posturing that much more absurd. Unfortunately if it were only absurd it would be laughed off. But it has become deadly serious business in the ensuing years.
And I keep reminding myself that Fair is a place in Pomona California where people get together once a year and show cows.
Organized society? No thanks, too many people get shot when being "Organized" by those whose only tool is a gun. Civilized Society? Not even close.
It appears that FDR was full of shit.
it's supposed to be a work in progress.
Then he is not the only one with that affliction. Et Tu Brutus
Because I care about you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e5lYUw2Bm0
Anarchism. Yeah, that'll work for a nation of over 300,000,000 people.
projects, right now. As usual, maintenance for it has fallen by the wayside. :(
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Republicans wanted to appease Hitler and stay out of the European conflict- and after Germany declared war on the US (Followimng the Japanese attack of Peal Harbaor), some Republicans thought a peace settlement could and should have been negotiated with Hitler.
Pat Buchanan maintains Hitler was a misunderstood person
Buchanan.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
Jewish interment camps. One of the guards fell out of a tower and died.
.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
going to work,catch ya later......fdr,the greatest.
....the fools do not realize,a population that can ,..... not paticipate .............in the 'economy'...,can not keep it viable!..........."we are listening,.......and we're not blind.,......this is your life....this is your time."
Gotta get some zzzzs and slave in the AM myself. Be good...
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
I've always wondered why the dimbulbs who have frothed at the mouth about Jane Fonda all these years have no clue what the likes of Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford were up to during the years prior to WWII. Getting palsy-walsy with Goering and Hitler and going around the USA tub-thumping for Nazi sympathizers should have landed them both in Alcatraz.
Henry Ford's AntiSemitic Dearborn Press provided Hitler all the propaganda he needed.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Handled his finances, provided propaganda, owned shares in the Silesian American Coal Company located just outside Auschwitz, where concentration camp workers were used as slave labor until they died from exhaustion.
In 1951 Prescott Bush received a $1.5 million [that's $1.5 million 1951 dollars] payout from his share in the Silesian American Coal Company, which he used to launch his political career.
Speculation has it FDR would have prosecuted Prescott Bush for treason had he not died in 1945.
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography
http://tarpley.net/online-books/george-bush-t...
Check out Chapter 2 – The Hitler Project
http://tarpley.net/?page_id=159
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Glenn Beck depises FDR- what are his reasons? Givn that Glenn Beck's understanding of US history is barely at the 3rd grade level, i'm surprised he knows anything about the Roosevelt years.
I really wish Pres Obama had Roosevelt's courage. FDR was not afraid to earn the hatred of Republicans. Pres. Obama seems desperate for the Republicans to like him..
of being one of 4 presidents who defaulted on the national debt.
Trivia time! ...can you name the other three?
p.s. I have no idea why Beck hates FDR
but thats why I hate him. (and I hate FDR too!)
FDR defaulted on we the people and stole everyone's gold coin in 1933 and then raised the price of gold by 50% the very next year in the midst of the great depression. (pretty scumbuggish if you ask me)
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
How about the whole story.
The Supreme court ruled that what the US gov did in the first year of FDR's first term was legal.
The "hoarding" of gold was being blamed for the deflation the economy was experiencing at the time. We were going down.
You obsessive gold standard rubes are delusional.
Lew
Fighting the Christian American Taliban daily.
So yes, either delusion or sociopathy spring as possible candidates for their mental affliction.
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
Because he spoke with an authentic voice directly to the people regarding economic populism, and he often attempted to back up his talk with consistent action. If you listen to FDR or LBJ's speeches, you are hearing the president of the United States in the 1930s (or 1960s) saying things that you will never hear today, not from any politician.
The reason that FDR is such a threat is because movement conservatism's media propaganda machine is dead set on making sure that such talk is denied access in the public square. The words led to dangerous thoughts. And things happened sometimes that benefited people. They have worked hard to move the rhetorical goal posts of possible thought and action in the belt way media.
The demagogic conservatives know well how dangerous an FDR persona could be. The people would have elected him king. They voted for him for a fourth time while he was literally dying. Any mention or understanding of FDR by the people of today could lead to dangerous thoughts and expectations.
"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred." FDR
... you'll get kicked out of the tea bag party the minute they find out.
http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/149721/ayn_r...
You gotta love it when someone takes advantage of your kindness to further themselves and then turns around and slaps you in the face for your kindness.
How many billionaire ceos is Somalia creating these days? The main reason is because the government in Somalia hasn't created a civilized society that respects life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They haven't used tax dollars to create a safe haven in which their industry can prosper like America did for generations of Americans who became rich because of it.
Sure you can argue that our corrupt government, through ill-advised trade and economic policies, have made this safe haven nearly irrelevant these days, when they continue to use tax dollars and our military to ensure these corporations are not run over by the rest of the world, but these corporations are allowed to exist offshore while pretending they are still American corporations.
Multi-nationals are like the dude that divorced the wife that put him through medical school. Who cares if you wouldn't be making your comfortable salary these days if your ex-wife hadn't worked 2 jobs to allow you to get that degree. The question in your mind is what is she doing for me now?
In my view this makes the multinationals and the rich that refuse to pay taxes the parasites of this nation. Though they have sucked nearly the last drop of blood out of it, and they still want the last drop. Now our corrupt government has opened the door for them to do it to other nations through anti-American trade policy. The same corrupt government has allowed the rich to avoid their duty via crony, investment-class friendly tax law.
If legislation is for sale, it always goes to the highest bidder.
...Deja-vue.
seems vaguely familiar.
recycling is good!
audit-prosecute-incarcerate
Another FDR speech from October 31, 1936 - Madison Square Gardens:
here
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
01/04/2011
Fearing (Another) U.S. Debt Default
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
The first time was in 1790, the only episode Professor Reinhart unearthed in which the United States defaulted on its external debt obligations. It also defaulted on its domestic debt obligations then, too.
Then in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, the United States had another domestic debt default related to the repayment of gold-based obligations. Additionally, there were two episodes when a spate of American states defaulted on their debts, in 1841-42 (nine states) and 1873-84 (10 states). The havoc wreaked by these state-level defaults is part of the reason that so many states now have constitutional balanced-budget requirements.
Unless working class white men in particular give up their sense of entitlement over other races...in other words give up their racism, America is doomed. How else does it make any sense that poor whites; making $30K to $50K a year go out and vote Republican....consistently against their own interests?!!. This racism brought us Reagan, Bush 1 & 2 and very soon one of the Gallery of venal, anti-intellectual Republican candidates will be President.
lexy
FDR made the argument on taxes, and so many other things, that todays gutless Democrats won't.
Litening to FDR makes you realize that today we have a Hoover-lite in the White House instead of a successor to FDR.
He gave the poor and middle-class their dignity back. The GOP has never forgiven him for transforming American back from a robber-baron serfdom to a democracy in which the non-rich have dignity, jobs and a voice.
Comments are closed on this entry