[kj] Latest Blog Post from Youth:

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

That's true. A famous statement of FDR's when he would meet with union 
leaders, feminists, etc., was, "I agree with you, now please MAKE me do it!"

In other words, he wanted to enact the programs - he hired the social 
worker Frances Perkins as the first female Sec'y of Labor, also the 
first female in the executive branch at that point - but he knew he 
couldn't do it unless there was a groundswell of support behind him. 
There was more organization along the lines of ending Prohibition (which 
FDR, a Democract, did), ending child labor (which FDR, a Democrat, did), 
starting the minimum wage (which FDR, a Democrat, did), starting 
retirement/penision insurance (which FDR, a Democract, did), 
unemployment pay (which FDR, a Democrat, did), regulating the 40 hr 
workweek (which FDR, a Democrat, did), fighting fascism (which FDR, a 
Democrat, did, and successfully, too), regulating Wall Street a la the 
SEC (which FDR, a Democract, did) - these all had strong grassroots 
organizational backing.

In the US now we have a dispirited left and a "populist" (blegh) tea 
party movement who thinks everything needs to be undone and we should 
live an a 19th century sort of legal system where anything goes as long 
as its "freely agreed upon," totally ignoring power structures that 
exist in the private sector between wealthy and poor. Obama is of the 
Carter/Clinton school that says welath must be appeased because "Hey we 
can all get along."

Wrong. We can't.

-Oliver


GREG SLAWSON wrote:

> Good points as always. I want to add that another reason Obama and the 

> rich can get away w/raping the rest of us is that there's no sizeable 

> left in the US now. Under FDR there was an infuential and solid 

> Communist Party to strike fear into (and GO on strike) the capitalists.

>