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The New York Times published today a strong, provocative editorial by a biographer of Franklin Roosevelt: Jean Edward Smith. She throws her rhetorical weight on behalf of those liberals who urge President Obama to forsake bipartisan consensus and to forge a true program of universal healthcare with a bare liberal majority. She holds up FDR as a model, showing that he did not seek the blessing of Wall Street to pass meaningful financial reform, nor did Roosevelt feel any need to appease the virulent opposition of business interests to pass his calls for minimum wage rates and maximum work hours. You don't have to satisfy the foxes in order to protect the hens. Though, I suspect too much damage has been done to public opinion regarding universal healthcare at this point, so that it may be too late to make such strong moves, and now the game is just about covering one's ass and getting any bill passed, to be able to argue during the campaign season that real progress has been made and it is a success - what they call "politics as usual".
It does seem to me like the conservatives have been playing Obama for a fool, and that he has gladly accepted that role. For instance, it was not many weeks ago when he was insisting that the "public option" (the option to buy health insurance from the government) was vital and necessary to his universal healthcare proposal, but the conservatives got him to renounce that and to accept the idea of "insurance co-ops" (a way for private actors to provide insurance alternatives to the usual insurance businesses), and then the conservatives insisted that these co-ops are unacceptable. I don't know, maybe Obama is satisfied that he has already secured for himself a decent place in history as America's first black president, and it is enough for him just to keep from creating bad scandals and disgracing himself, so that the fight in him is just no longer there, since in his mind he has won already, even if those who were pulling for him are only losing.
This may actually have some interesting personal ramifications for me. I can only find it ruefully amusing that, by the end of all this, not only will I not have healthcare coverage, but I may also be a criminal for failing to buy insurance from a private insurer, since healthcare reform will be largely reduced to government mandates for the people to buy health insurance, which the insurers even love since this means more business is being tossed their way through legal compulsion. Well, if there is one thing the government can do well, it is to punish and break people, and as Obama is learning now, it is much easier to direct that government action against the weakest, powerless people instead of elite interests such as insurers and Wall Street financiers. Maybe this would make for a great anti-poverty program, too: just make it a crime to be poor! See, it's not so hard to make a perfect world. Hasn't the War on Drugs done wonders to end drug abuse and addiction? You just have to dare to dream big dreams, and, yes, we can make change happen - yes, we can!
___ ___ ___
Roosevelt: The Great Divider
By JEAN EDWARD SMITH
Huntington, W.Va
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S apparent readiness to backtrack on the public insurance option in his health care package is not just a concession to his political opponents — this fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead.
This was not true of Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Congresses that enacted the New Deal. With the exception of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 (which gave the president authority to close the nation’s banks and which passed the House of Representatives unanimously), the principal legislative innovations of the 1930s were enacted over the vigorous opposition of a deeply entrenched minority. Majority rule, as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents’ permission.
When Roosevelt asked Congress to establish the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide cheap electric power for the impoverished South, he did not consult with utility giants like Commonwealth and Southern. When he asked for the creation of a Securities and Exchange Commission to curb the excesses of Wall Street, he did not request the cooperation of those about to be regulated. When Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act divesting investment houses of their commercial banking functions, the Democrats did not need the approval of J. P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers.
Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard and Congress enacted legislation nullifying clauses in private contracts stipulating payment in gold over the heated opposition of many of the nation’s wealthy. The Agricultural Adjustment Act setting production quotas and establishing price supports was adopted over the fierce opposition of the nation’s food processors. Establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps was fought tooth and nail by organized labor because of the corps’ modest wages. Social Security became law over the ideological objections of those who believed that government was best which governed least and that individuals should fend for themselves or rely on charity. And the authority of the government to set maximum hours and minimum wages, as well as the right of labor to bargain collectively, was established despite the vociferous opposition of American business.
Roosevelt relished the opposition of vested interests. He fashioned his governing majority by deliberately attacking those who favored the status quo. His opponents hated him — and he profited from their hatred. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” he told a national radio audience on the eve of the 1936 election. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
Roosevelt sought consensus among his fellow Democrats, which is why he sometimes kowtowed to the Southern oligarchs who were the chairmen of Congressional committees. But his Republican opponents were relegated to the political equivalent of Siberia. Roosevelt rode up Pennsylvania Avenue with President Herbert Hoover to the inauguration in March 1933, but he never saw or spoke to him again — not even in World War II.
For Roosevelt was a divider, not a uniter, and he unabashedly waged class war. At the Democratic Convention in 1936, again speaking to a national radio audience, Roosevelt lambasted the “economic royalists” who had gained control of the nation’s wealth. To Congress he boasted of having “earned the hatred of entrenched greed.” In another speech he mocked “the gentlemen in well-warmed and well-stocked clubs” who criticized the government’s relief efforts.
Roosevelt hived off the nation’s economic elite to win the support of the rest of the country. The vast majority of voters rallied to the president, but for a small minority he was the Devil incarnate. Few today remember the extent to which Roosevelt divided the nation. The sense of unity wrought by World War II blurred the divisiveness of the 1930s. Also, Roosevelt endeavored to ensure that more than half of the country was always on his side. Finally, and most important perhaps, the measures he championed have stood the test of time. It is difficult for Americans today to comprehend how anyone could have opposed Social Security, rural electrification, the regulation of Wall Street or the federal government’s guarantee of individual bank deposits.
Roosevelt understood that governing involved choice and that choice engendered dissent. He accepted opposition as part of the process. It is time for the Obama administration to step up to the plate and make some hard choices.
Health care reform enacted by a Democratic majority is still meaningful reform. Even if it is passed without Republican support, it would still be the law of the land.
-- Jean Edward Smith for The New York Times
It does seem to me like the conservatives have been playing Obama for a fool, and that he has gladly accepted that role. For instance, it was not many weeks ago when he was insisting that the "public option" (the option to buy health insurance from the government) was vital and necessary to his universal healthcare proposal, but the conservatives got him to renounce that and to accept the idea of "insurance co-ops" (a way for private actors to provide insurance alternatives to the usual insurance businesses), and then the conservatives insisted that these co-ops are unacceptable. I don't know, maybe Obama is satisfied that he has already secured for himself a decent place in history as America's first black president, and it is enough for him just to keep from creating bad scandals and disgracing himself, so that the fight in him is just no longer there, since in his mind he has won already, even if those who were pulling for him are only losing.
This may actually have some interesting personal ramifications for me. I can only find it ruefully amusing that, by the end of all this, not only will I not have healthcare coverage, but I may also be a criminal for failing to buy insurance from a private insurer, since healthcare reform will be largely reduced to government mandates for the people to buy health insurance, which the insurers even love since this means more business is being tossed their way through legal compulsion. Well, if there is one thing the government can do well, it is to punish and break people, and as Obama is learning now, it is much easier to direct that government action against the weakest, powerless people instead of elite interests such as insurers and Wall Street financiers. Maybe this would make for a great anti-poverty program, too: just make it a crime to be poor! See, it's not so hard to make a perfect world. Hasn't the War on Drugs done wonders to end drug abuse and addiction? You just have to dare to dream big dreams, and, yes, we can make change happen - yes, we can!
___ ___ ___
Roosevelt: The Great Divider
By JEAN EDWARD SMITH
Huntington, W.Va
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S apparent readiness to backtrack on the public insurance option in his health care package is not just a concession to his political opponents — this fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead.
This was not true of Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Congresses that enacted the New Deal. With the exception of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 (which gave the president authority to close the nation’s banks and which passed the House of Representatives unanimously), the principal legislative innovations of the 1930s were enacted over the vigorous opposition of a deeply entrenched minority. Majority rule, as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents’ permission.
When Roosevelt asked Congress to establish the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide cheap electric power for the impoverished South, he did not consult with utility giants like Commonwealth and Southern. When he asked for the creation of a Securities and Exchange Commission to curb the excesses of Wall Street, he did not request the cooperation of those about to be regulated. When Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act divesting investment houses of their commercial banking functions, the Democrats did not need the approval of J. P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Lehman Brothers.
Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard and Congress enacted legislation nullifying clauses in private contracts stipulating payment in gold over the heated opposition of many of the nation’s wealthy. The Agricultural Adjustment Act setting production quotas and establishing price supports was adopted over the fierce opposition of the nation’s food processors. Establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps was fought tooth and nail by organized labor because of the corps’ modest wages. Social Security became law over the ideological objections of those who believed that government was best which governed least and that individuals should fend for themselves or rely on charity. And the authority of the government to set maximum hours and minimum wages, as well as the right of labor to bargain collectively, was established despite the vociferous opposition of American business.
Roosevelt relished the opposition of vested interests. He fashioned his governing majority by deliberately attacking those who favored the status quo. His opponents hated him — and he profited from their hatred. “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today,” he told a national radio audience on the eve of the 1936 election. “They are unanimous in their hatred for me — and I welcome their hatred.”
Roosevelt sought consensus among his fellow Democrats, which is why he sometimes kowtowed to the Southern oligarchs who were the chairmen of Congressional committees. But his Republican opponents were relegated to the political equivalent of Siberia. Roosevelt rode up Pennsylvania Avenue with President Herbert Hoover to the inauguration in March 1933, but he never saw or spoke to him again — not even in World War II.
For Roosevelt was a divider, not a uniter, and he unabashedly waged class war. At the Democratic Convention in 1936, again speaking to a national radio audience, Roosevelt lambasted the “economic royalists” who had gained control of the nation’s wealth. To Congress he boasted of having “earned the hatred of entrenched greed.” In another speech he mocked “the gentlemen in well-warmed and well-stocked clubs” who criticized the government’s relief efforts.
Roosevelt hived off the nation’s economic elite to win the support of the rest of the country. The vast majority of voters rallied to the president, but for a small minority he was the Devil incarnate. Few today remember the extent to which Roosevelt divided the nation. The sense of unity wrought by World War II blurred the divisiveness of the 1930s. Also, Roosevelt endeavored to ensure that more than half of the country was always on his side. Finally, and most important perhaps, the measures he championed have stood the test of time. It is difficult for Americans today to comprehend how anyone could have opposed Social Security, rural electrification, the regulation of Wall Street or the federal government’s guarantee of individual bank deposits.
Roosevelt understood that governing involved choice and that choice engendered dissent. He accepted opposition as part of the process. It is time for the Obama administration to step up to the plate and make some hard choices.
Health care reform enacted by a Democratic majority is still meaningful reform. Even if it is passed without Republican support, it would still be the law of the land.
-- Jean Edward Smith for The New York Times
