A Message From Howard Zinn

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:56:53 GMT

We might wonder why no Democratic Party contender for the presidency has invoked the memory of the New Deal and its unprecedented series of laws aimed at helping people in need. The New Deal was tentative, cautious, bold enough to shake the pillars of the system but not to replace them. It created many jobs but left 9 million unemployed. It built public housing but not nearly enough. It helped large commercial farmers but not tenant farmers. Excluded from its programs were the poorest of the poor, especially blacks. As farm laborers, migrants or domestic workers, they didn't qualify for unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, Social Security or farm subsidies.

Still, in today's climate of endless war and uncontrolled greed, drawing upon the heritage of the 1930s would be a huge step forward. Perhaps the momentum of such a project could carry the nation past the limits of FDR's reforms, especially if there were a popular upsurge that demanded it. A candidate who points to the New Deal as a model for innovative legislation would be drawing on the huge reputation Franklin Roosevelt and his policies enjoy in this country, an admiration matched by no President since Lincoln. Imagine the response a Democratic candidate would get from the electorate if he or she spoke as follows:

"Our nation is in crisis, just as it was when Roosevelt took office. At that time, people desperately needed help, they needed jobs, decent housing, protection in old age. They needed to know that the government was for them and not just for the wealthy classes. This is what the American people need today.

"I will do what the New Deal did, to make up for the failure of the market system. It put millions of people to work through the Works Progress Administration, at all kinds of jobs, from building schools, hospitals, playgrounds, to repairing streets and bridges, to writing symphonies and painting murals and putting on plays. We can do that today for workers displaced by closed factories, for professionals downsized by a failed economy, for families needing two or three incomes to survive, for writers and musicians and other artists who struggle for security.

"The New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps at its peak employed 500,000 young people. They lived in camps, planted millions of trees, reclaimed millions of acres of land, built 97,000 miles of fire roads, protected natural habitats, restocked fish and gave emergency help to people threatened by floods.

"We can do that today, by bringing our soldiers home from war and from the military bases we have in 130 countries. We will recruit young people not to fight but to clean up our lakes and rivers, build homes for people in need, make our cities beautiful, be ready to help with disasters like Katrina. The military is having a hard time recruiting young men and women for war, and with good reason. We will have no such problem enlisting the young to build rather than destroy.

"We can learn from the Social Security program and the GI Bill of Rights, which were efficient government programs, doing for older people and for veterans what private enterprise could not do. We can go beyond the New Deal, extending the principle of social security to health security with a totally free government-run health system. We can extend the GI Bill of Rights to a Civilian Bill of Rights, offering free higher education for all.

"We will have trillions of dollars to pay for these programs if we do two things: if we concentrate our taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population, not only their incomes but their accumulated wealth, and if we downsize our gigantic military machine, declaring ourselves a peaceful nation.

"We will not pay attention to those who complain that this is 'big government.' We have seen big government used for war and to give benefits to the wealthy. We will use big government for the people."

How refreshing it would be if a presidential candidate reminded us of the experience of the New Deal and defied the corporate elite as Roosevelt did, on the eve of his 1936 re-election. Referring to the determination of the wealthy classes to defeat him, he told a huge crowd at Madison Square Garden: "They are unanimous in their hatred for me--and I welcome their hatred." I believe that a candidate who showed such boldness would win a smashing victory at the polls.

The innovations of the New Deal were fueled by the militant demands for change that swept the country as FDR began his presidency: the tenants' groups; the Unemployed Councils; the millions on strike on the West Coast, in the Midwest and the South; the disruptive actions of desperate people seeking food, housing, jobs--the turmoil threatening the foundations of American capitalism. We will need a similar mobilization of citizens today, to unmoor from corporate control whoever becomes President. To match the New Deal, to go beyond it, is an idea whose time has come.

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:19:35 GMT

The warmth of your smile
smile for me, little one
and this will be our year
took a long time to come

Morrison Library

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 09:20:51 GMT

Plan for Monday: Study for Political Economy while listening to Phil Spector singles

Alan Greenspan

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:29:18 GMT

the source of so much of my grief.

and yet I've done it again.

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:28:30 GMT

You know.
You'd think I'd learn the first time, but I most clearly have not.
For, irrespective of my dismal mid-semester experiences, I find myself in yet the same position.
My paper on capitalism and freedom, for one, had the potential to be so much more.

Milton, doll! Forgive me; you deserve better.

I think I miss the way we used to be

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 03:11:43 GMT

Pet Sounds in Morrison with M. Friedman in hand; could things get better?
Tomorrow I may even take a chance and put on some Ys.

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 06:09:24 GMT

Summer is, at its very core, a done deal, and yet aside from my interpersonal growth, I haven't much to show for it. My handle over language, for one, has slipped in the past few months. So much, in fact, that reading anything remotely challenging is...well, a challenge. I picked up Howl just few minutes ago, and watched as the words became a disgusting stew of intelligibility! I once championed myself (perhaps incorrectly) as a fairly well-read individual; but now? Ha! My life has become a vicious cycle of work and reflection; there is no time to read. In my attempt to become a more efficient person, I must not forget to nurture what I once cherished. life without art is nothing...the economist, the new york times and the los angeles times can only take one so far.

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 22:24:45 GMT

summer's greatest gift has been an incipient form of self-actualization. I have had a great deal of time to reevaluate where I stand and what is most important to me. I've come to realize my faults, my shortcomings, all that made me inadequate in countless ways for so many years; I'm mending it all - it's about time. This isn't my attempt to become something I'm not, or to catch your wandering eye, it's simply my move toward a more sound mind and a healthier way of living.

As someone said, "it's like you're growing up..."
I guess I am.

m. pimentel

A Message From Howard Zinn

Morrison Library

Alan Greenspan

and yet I've done it again.

I think I miss the way we used to be