Day 36 of Nat'l Emergency: What Will Be Its Legacy?

The yarhzeit memorial candles flickered throughout Wednesday night and Thursday for Gilda’s and my parents. Her father died in 1958. Her mother in 2005. My mother in 1996. My father in 1998.

Born between 1901 and 1924, their generation has been dubbed the Greatest, a designation earned mostly for their contributions during World War II. But they experienced and endured so much more in crafting a legacy for their children and grandchildren.

It is not too presumptuous to ask, what type of America will we bequeath to our offspring? Will we match up to the Greatest Generation’s legacy? Consider what transpired during their formative years through 1971, the year the first of them reached 70, the biblical assignment of what constituted a full life. 

As they entered their teenage years the world exploded into war. Even before the United States aided in ending the The Great War (World War I), the Spanish Flu ravaged America and societies around the globe. A decade later the stock market crashed, the Depression began, the Dust Bowl exhausted America’s breadbasket. Lucky ones, like my mother and father and Gilda’s father, managed to emigrate from Europe (Gilda’s mother was born in New York). 

The Greatest Generation defeated Nazi Germany, Italian fascism and imperial Japan.  

Prior to World War II the United States had tilted toward isolationism. But with victory came the assumption of several mantles—liberator and peacemaker, supporter of progressive democracy and enlightened capitalism, developer and exporter of ideas in medicine, science and technology.

Despite the Korean War, McCarthyism, the Cold War with its capacity for nuclear annihilation, political assassinations and the Viet Nam war, the Greatest Generation soldiered on through the post-war economic boom, the civil rights movement, the space program and cultural transformation perhaps best exemplified by the move to suburbia, rock and roll and the sexual revolution.

The Greatest Generation left a global legacy that included the conquering of many diseases, the genesis of the computer age, the rebuilding of war-ravaged regions, the formation of global pacts for defense, health, trade and care of refugees.

All that and more are threatened by a pandemic that descended during a time of retraction from the belief that the United States has a role, an obligation, to lead the world through partnerships, not through isolated example.

Daily we are advised our future will be different from our present, be it by social distancing measures in restaurants, theaters and sports arenas, or through greater reliance on virtual shopping and workplace employment. Almost all aspects of life will be affected.

Truly transformative changes—legacies—require bold action. Will COVID-19 prompt America to finally adopt universal health care and increase the availability of trained medical personnel in rural areas? With Internet access seen as vital for education and employment, will we finally eliminate Web connectivity deserts in our cities and rural areas? With so many unemployed and the need for infrastructure upgrading of our roads, bridges, airports, dams, harbors and tunnels, will we create a Works Progress Administration à la the Depression era New Deal program that employed millions to build up America? With the Internet forcing faster consolidation in the retail industry, will we find new uses for shuttered shopping centers including affordable housing and low risk penal institutions? With the increased realization of the importance of healthcare workers and educators, as well as public servants who provide police, fire, ambulance, correction services, transportation and waste management, will we more appropriately compensate these contributors critical to our collective existence? Will we take steps necessary to flatten the curve of disparity between the incomes of the wealthiest and the remaining 90% of society?

Will any or all of this happen? There is a streak of individualism in the country that shares the same genes with isolationism and averseness to big government. After 80 years of Social Security there remain diehards who oppose it. The pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities we all live with. We will never be able to guarantee a new virus strain will not emerge some day, somewhere. But we would be able to smooth out any impact it might have if we have in place a more equal society.

Second Bill of Rights

As night falls, the nation’s quadrennial process of picking the next president of the United States begins in earnest with the Iowa caucuses. There are a lot of scary people running for the highest office in the land this year. No doubt, my Republican-leaning friends would count Barack Obama among the most scariest, particularly since he currently holds that office.

I’m not here tonight to shower criticisms on those who want to succeed him. Nor am I here to praise Obama. Rather, I’d like to share with you the thoughts of one of our greatest presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Similar to Obama, FDR was labeled a socialist in his time. Perhaps it’s because he advocated for the less fortunate.

Most of us know about his New Deal policies and programs intended to raise the country out of the Depression. We know of his leadership during World War II. But few, I’d venture to say, know of his advocacy for a Second Bill of Rights, an initiative he championed in his January 11, 1944, State of the Union speech to Congress and the country, a speech he made by radio from the White House as he was too ill from the flu to venture to the Capitol. Near the end of the radio address, FDR paused so cameras could be brought in to record his new proposal. Here’s a link to view most of it, with a transcript below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoFLH8D7Xys

In our day certain economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. A second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, or race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job;

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, 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.

For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.


I’m struck by the parallels between currents events and the challenges FDR and America faced. We’re fighting a war on terror, seemingly never ending, a conflict of civilizations. Sixty-eight years ago we battled forces determined to undermine all of our liberties and way of life. No one would doubt the argument that a strong America is vital to world peace. FDR understood the relationship between security, at home and abroad, and the economic fortunes of Americans. It’s a relationship we need to embrace today, given the fiscal distress too many of our compatriots experience.

Here’s what FDR said just moments before the earlier sound bite:

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.

I don’t think we’re at the point of being susceptible to dictatorships. But I do wonder how anyone who aspires to lead our country, in the White House or Congress, can rest comfortably knowing millions of our fellow citizens need help. I don’t know how they could reasonably believe private enterprise will take care of the needy, not when the primary function of business is to turn a profit.

Class Warfare

Republicans are right. President Obama’s proposal to raise the taxes of rich people is class warfare. They’re damn right it is, and it’s about time.

It’s about time the president stepped forward and led a revolt against Republican insensitivity to the plight of the middle class and the working class.

Let’s be clear about one thing, however. Obama’s not the aggressor in this war. Republicans have been waging class warfare for decades, decades, at least as far back as FDR’s successful implementation of the Social Security Act, the setting of a national minimum wage and the formation of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The GOP has fought almost all attempts to protect and enhance the lives of working people and the middle class.

It’s class warfare when fat-cat Republicans carry the water for corporate America and the wealthy. It’s class warfare when they resist efforts to provide affordable health care to every citizen, regardless of their income. It’s class warfare when they try to dismantle social security, when they fail to provide adequate benefits to active and retired military personnel, when they work to overturn workplace and environmental protections, when they endeavor to cut back entitlement programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, Aid to Dependent Children, and school lunch programs.

Now, it could be argued Democrats started class warfare by passing all that progressive legislation. Guilty. With an explanation. Government has an obligation to care for and protect its citizens, not just in times of actual war but also when natural and man-made disasters jeopardize safety and even our existence. The Depression, poverty and discrimination fostered the need for corrective actions. Industry and private wealth have shown no continuous commitment to care for our countrymen, leaving it to government to hold the safety net for tens of millions of our citizens.

Obama’s problem is one of his own making. Instead of taking advantage of the strategic high ground his 2008 election provided, he has squandered his resources and allowed the GOP to outflank him and redraw the battle lines. Let’s face it—they have a much more effective PR campaign. They have defined Obama as the enemy of the common folk. Only now is he showing a determination to use his veto to exact the quid pro quo tax increase he has asked for in return for cuts in entitlement spending.

In this latest tussle over taxing millionaires, it’s hard to visualize a Republican-controlled Congress acquiescing, not when most members are millionaires themselves. They may be patriotic (well, maybe), but it’s doubtful they’re like billionaire Warren Buffett, willing to pay their fair share.

Baby Doc and the Bible

After 25 years in exile, “Baby Doc” Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti to expected jeers and some unexpected cheers. Look no further than the Bible to explain why a ruthless dictator might be more acceptable to some than the current tenuous conditions on the Caribbean island.

“Haiti has never had the perfect leader,” said Bernadette Brudet. “Many of them were corrupt. Many of them have blood on their hands. But with Duvalier, we were safe, and our stomachs were full.”

Compare those comments from an ordinary citizen of Haiti in a NY Times story (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/world/americas/19haiti.html?_r=1&hp) to Exodus 16, verse 3, when food is scarce in the Sinai desert: “The Israelites said to them (Moses and Aaron), ‘If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, when we ate our fill of bread.’”

Just weeks earlier, days after witnessing the Ten Plagues wrought upon the Egyptians and their escape from bondage, the Israelites questioned the wisdom of their predicament. Camped by the Sea of Reeds, with Pharaoh’s army approaching, the former slaves complained to Moses, “What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt, saying, ‘Let us be, and we will serve the Egyptians, for it is better to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness’?” (Exodus 14:11-12). As seen from the prior quote, even the subsequent parting of the sea and the drowning of Pharaoh’s army could not alter their mental attachment to a life of servitude and obedience.

Whether you believe the Bible is divinely written or inspired, there’s no disputing it is magnificent literature with unequalled narratives of human drama, frailty, emotions and conflict.

Let’s face it. When confronted with challenges of the moment, it’s human nature to pine for a past perceived to be more benevolent, more passive, more orderly. It’s human nature to long for the “good old days.” Many Russians fondly recall life under communism. Iraqis reminisce about the “tranquility” and economic vibrancy of the Saddam years.

In America, there’s always a fringe who wish for the nostalgic days of the past. Which time do they want to go back to? The 1930s and the Depression? The 1940s and World War II? The 1950s with the Cold War and thoughts of nuclear destruction? The 1960s with battles over desegregation, Vietnam and awakening social and sexual revolutions?

Haitians truly have little to make today’s existence feel like a blessing. Perhaps, in some small way, it can be understood why some would look to Baby Doc for a return to “normalcy.” A quarter of a century has passed without him, yet their country is no better. Even before last year’s earthquake, Haiti was the poorest of nations.

It’s harder to understand why anyone would want to return to the past in the United States. We have a social network system that tries to provide for the needy; a health care system that tries to comfort and heal the fallen; an infrastructure that, though in need of repair, still is the envy of most of the world; a system of government that permits dissent without fear and accommodates orderly transitions of power; an education system, also in need of repair, but still first class for those who desire to use it to full advantage; more food and consumer goods than most of the rest of the world, combined.

The reverse time-travelers would like to go back to an era of less government regulation and involvement in everyday life. But even in the Bible, freedom from slavery came with acceptance of a code of laws that restricted behavior and imposed communal obligations, including wealth (land) redistribution every 50 years.

Baby Doc. Pharaoh. Saddam. Stalin. Tyrants come and go. Human nature stays the same.