Egberto Willies is a self-employed software Developer/Engineer & Political Activist who lives in Houston, TX and is the author of the book, As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom and founder of the Coffee Party 2.0 program Americans for Racial Equality & Economic Justice.
I am so exited about the Enough Is Enough! campaign for a government of, by, for the People in Washington DC on Saturday October 29th, 2011. I WILL BE THERE and I want to meet you in person. Come join us and take your country back.
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by Egberto Willies
The reason for America’s independence, for America’s existence as a sovereign state, is stated perfectly from these words from our Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The preamble to our Constitution codifies in summary that:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, ensured the rights of the states and the individual from an overreaching federal government. It is now time for a 2nd Bill Of Rights to ensure the rights of the federal government, the states, and the individual from the dangerous power of the world's ultra-elite and multi-national corporations.
This idea is not novel at all. After all, a 2nd Bill Of Rights was first put forth by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s State of the Union Speech to Congress on January 11, 1944. It is amazing that the call to duty in this speech still holds true, and sad that so much of what he wanted for America is still unrealized:
It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
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.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.
For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
Upon reading Roosevelt's 2nd Bill of Rights, two distinct thoughts should occur to us all. The first is the realization that there was a time that our government — irrespective of “intramural fights” and rancor — was on the path to achieving FDR’s 2nd Bill of Rights. The second, destructive polices are successfully dismantling America’s people-first infrastructure.
We had unions to ensure that good wages and working conditions were afforded working Americans enabling them to move into the middle class. We had farm policies to ensure the continuity of profitable farming and thus the insurance that farming would be constant and consistent. We had anti-trust regulation to mitigate the power of monopolies. We had banking regulations to ensure a healthy financial sector as a foundation for a healthy economy. We had environmental, food, and other regulations to ensure a healthy and safe population. We had Medicare to ensure our elderly would not be bankrupted by the cost of aging. We had Social Security to ensure the retired and disabled could maintain a fairly decent standard of living. We had a robust education system that ensured all could get a high school and college education and thus an equal opportunity to enter the middle class and beyond. We had policies that allowed home-ownership to be a realistic dream for most.
Until 1980, FDR’s 2nd Bill of Rights was, for all practical purposes, on its way to realization. While it is true that many problems persisted, the blueprint for the American social contract was in place.
In every endeavor there are setbacks. Some are unforeseen while some are self-inflicted. Ironically the 2007-2008 economic collapse was unforeseen by a citizenry — some of us willfully ignorant and some simply apathetic — but self-inflicted indirectly by our corporate class.
After all, it is the corporate class that championed President Reagan's supply-side economics that began our budget deficit explosions. It is the corporate class that with the power of their capital, corrupted politicians and revoked banking regulations, allowing the Wall Street to create the financial schemes that now have the world economy on the brink of collapse. It is this corporate class that has waged the systemic destruction of unions and with it a destruction of middle class wages for working Americans. It is the corporate class that unpatriotically exports American jobs for the obscene maximization of profits at the expense of reinvesting in our country, the country that provided the foundation for its success. It is the corporate class that has so distorted our tax code and accelerated our wealth and income disparity, crippling the upkeep of our national infrastructure, crippling our healthcare delivery system, and is destroying our public education system.
The need for FDR’s 2nd Bill Of Rights is greater today than the day he called for it. Our Declaration of Independence sought a country that delivered prosperity. Our Constitution dictates that our government ensures the general welfare. But we have endured over 30 years of systematic erosion of our quality of life. “We The People of The United States” have allowed it by allowing, and in many cases supporting, the re-election of corrupt politicians who represent their funders before their constituents. This must stop now, lest we lose the America we all knew. It is time to force our politicians to support the working and middle class. It is time for us to standup and say “We are not taking this anymore, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.”
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