Small steps

On January 11, 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his annual message to Congress. In that address he proposed a "Second Bill of Rights" designed to preserve and advance the freedom of the American people in the modern age.

Roosevelt had in mind the fascist powers with whom his country was engaged in a great war as his example of the threat to freedom posed by hungry, jobless, and angry people. Roosevelt was resolved not only to defeat these enemies but also to overcome the fundamental issues of economic insecurity that animated them in the first place.

In the President's words,

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, 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 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've said all year that I'm unhappy with the timid way in which Barack Obama and the Democrats have gone about implementing the dim reflection of part of Roosevelt's vision the President has signed into law today. They have bent over backwards to protect the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. They have entertained far too much absurdity from their political opposition and both their reelection prospects and the bill itself have suffered unnecessarily for it. From where I'm sitting, this looks like a bill that passed simply because the voters had given the Democrats too great a majority to fuck up with despite their best efforts. Worst of all, I'm afraid the half-assed nature of these reforms will stunt rather than "open the door for" future progress.

In the meantime, though, there are, in fact, quite a few things to be happy with. But it could have been so much more.