Living the Legacy of Yesteryear

Who said?:

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Try another: 

“Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”

Here’s a third to stimulate your brain:

“If you think back to the experiences of the early years of this Administration you will remember the doubts and fears expressed about the rising expenses of government. But to the surprise of the doubters, as we proceeded to carry on the program which included Public Works and Work Relief, the country grew richer instead of poorer.”

Some, no doubt, attributed at least one of the quotes to Barack Obama. But they would be wrong. And they’re not from John F. Kennedy, or Lyndon Baines Johnson, and, for sure, not from Ronald Reagan. All three emanated from the greatest president of the 20th century, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Gilda and I visited his ancestral home in Hyde Park, NY, last Friday. The quotations are from the exhibit in the presidential library and museum (little known fact—FDR created the nation’s first presidential library while he was still in office, no less). Spoken almost 70 years ago, the quotes bear witness to FDR’s commitment to providing a better life for all Americans.

Yet, they also reveal how far short we have come in realizing his dream. We still debate the validity of programs Roosevelt initiated: Social Security, the minimum wage, the Securities and Exchange Commission, to name a few. We have not resolved the question whether government should provide a helping hand to the less fortunate or just let them fend for themselves. We have not realized that equality and equal opportunity are everyone’s right regardless of skin color, religion, creed or national origin.

Roosevelt was a canny, pragmatic politician with extreme mental and physical strength, the latter despite the paralysis of his lower body from his bout with polio 12 years before he was elected president for the first time. It is hard to imagine a president more reviled than Obama has been during his tenure, except when you consider the Republican response to Roosevelt. While the vast majority of Americans saluted his leadership by re-electing him three times, and many hung his picture in their homes, Republicans chafed at what they called his imperial presidency. They questioned his attacks on business interests, his support for unions. They thought he was imposing socialism on the country.

For good or bad, sometimes both, every president leaves a legacy. It’s not easy to evaluate a legacy during a president’s time in office. Obama is finding that out while the public ruminates on the Affordable Care Act, his global initiatives for cleaner energy, the nuclear pact with Iran, the ongoing battles in the Middle East, among other actions.

Now 70 years after his death, FDR’s imprint on our lives is immeasurable. Consider, if you will, the following list of accomplishments and societal changes printed on the back of a T-shirt sold in the museum’s gift shop. Imagine what our country would be like without them:

Securities and Exchange Commission, Small business loans, Federal Communications Commission, Labor union right, Child labor laws, Soil conservation, 78,000 bridges, Home ownership, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 40 hour work week, Tennessee Valley Authority, Social Security, First presidential library, U.S. military superpower, 2 billion trees planted, March of Dimes, Disability Insurance, Rural electrification, Banking regulation, Fair employment practices, 650,000 miles of roads, Public housing, GI Bill, Unemployment Insurance, Farm subsidies, United Nations.

You can quibble whether some of these programs need to be retooled to meet modern conditions. Republicans opposed Social Security back in the 1930s and they remain committed to altering its promise of a secure retirement for working Americans. Roosevelt had laws passed to make employment and living conditions safer, less onerous and fairer. Yes, it required regulations, but they are not, as Reagan pompously proclaimed about government, “the problem.”

Roosevelt’s confidence and vision kept our democracy not just afloat but also buoyant. In the words of historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “The world we live in today is Franklin Roosevelt’s world.”  

Veterans Day Commemorations, Good and Bad

They picked up our garbage today as they normally do on Tuesdays. Last Tuesday they didn’t. It was Election Day. An homage to the right we enjoy in a democratic country to choose our leaders. 

But I am more than a little befuddled by the choice of our local government and union officials (I’m assuming the sanitation crew and the rest of the public works team are unionized) to consider November 11 as just another ordinary garbage collection day. The day we have designated to honor those who fought on our behalf to preserve the right to vote freely and live in freedom should not be a throwaway day. Veterans fought to preserve the rights of workers to unionize. How could any union, or for that matter non-union, worker not honor their sacrifice? 

Garbage collection is suspended 10 days of the year. Memorial Day, when we remember those who died in defense of our country, is one of them. So is Columbus Day. Given all we now know about the impact discovery of the New World by Europeans had on indigenous populations, perhaps we might want to rethink our commitment to the Great Admiral and instead rededicate our devotion to those who served and protected our freedom and way of life by giving Veterans Day its proper respect. 

Despite being of the optimal age for service during the Vietnam War, I am not a veteran. I earned a deferment for being underweight for my height (for details. Follow this link: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2009/11/veterans-day-salutes.html).

I thought I’d share with you a recent post on the jewishcurrents.org Web site about who served in the Vietnam War:

The first American casualty of the Vietnam War was killed during a training mission on October 21 in 1957. Of the 58,193 Americans in the military who died in that war, only 269 were Jewish. Jews were protesting instead of fighting: In 1964, they were twice as likely as Protestants and Catholics to favor a U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam; by 1970, when a majority of Protestants and Catholics still favored fighting or even escalating the war, half of American Jews favored an immediate pullout. A 1966-67 survey by the American Council of Education revealed that the best single predictor of anti-war campus protests was a high proportion of Jewish students.

Have you seen the new Air Force TV commercial? It’s a slap in the face of Barack Obama. The ad features inspirational quotes from four presidents: Reagan, Kennedy, Bush II and Clinton. Not a word from, or even an image of, Obama. Shameful! I’ll resist detailing why each of those presidents had tarnished times as commander-in-chief. Like it or not, Obama has been a wartime president. He should have been included in that ad. 

Speaking of shameful, what’s with all the recent Nazi memorabilia stories? In the last six weeks three tasteless Nazi-related stories surfaced:

First, a supplier to Sears and Amazon placed on their Web sites rings bearing the Nazi swastika. Though quickly removed, it was a stunning example of poor taste topped by the second example, that of a Swiss company that somehow felt it appropriate to put pictures of Hitler and Mussolini on packages of its coffee creamer. 

The third incident is more sinister. Unknown parties earlier this month stole a sign above the gate to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. The sign bore the infamous slogan, “Arbeit macht frei” (Work sets you free), that the Nazis placed in their forced labor and death camps. 

It’s a chilling reminder that reactionary forces are on the rise in Europe, again.

One year before the guns of the Great War went silent at 11 am on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 my mother was born in Lodg, Poland. With two sisters (a third would be born in America) and a brother, she traveled to New York in 1921 with their mother to join their father who had emigrated earlier. She would be 97 if alive today.

McChrystal Light in 2016

Twice in the last three days I have seen on TV the next Republican Party candidate for president. He is tall, slim, articulate, a young-looking 59, a man with vision, accomplishment and dedication. He commands, instills, inspires and practices loyalty.

He's a retired U.S. Army general, forced to resign for imprudent comments his staff made to a Rolling Stone reporter about their civilian leaders. But in the bizarro world of politics we operate under today, insulting Vice President Joseph Biden or President Barack Obama would be listed as an accomplishment on his résumé when read by the Republican elite. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the next Republican candidate for president, General Stanley McChrystal.

As a nation we have a long history of electing generals and other war heroes to lead our country. Washington. Jackson. Tippacanoe’s William Henry Harrison. Taylor. Grant. Teddy Roosevelt. Eisenhower. Kennedy. Bush 1. McChrystal would slide in quite nicely with that list.

McChrystal is making a publicity tour to promote his book, My Share of the Task: A Memoir. He's a darling of corporate America. Executives pay top dollar to soak up his leadership mantra as they sweat together jogging around the capital, stopping at various monuments so McChrystal can impart some leadership lore. 

I'm not sure he's fully on board with the main GOP planks. Heck, I don’t even know if McChrystal is a Republican. He actually has come out for limiting public access to military style weapons. That would be a novel position for any Republican standard bearer. Perhaps he would offer a more common sense alternative to the crazies who have crushed the mainstream of the party during the last two presidential elections. 

Perhaps he’s not as dogmatic when it comes to GOP platform planks. Who knows if he is anti abortion? Anti taxes? Pro debt reduction? Anti social services spending? Pro big defense spending? Blindly reveres Ronald Reagan? As a military strategist, he’s had to maneuver assets based on resources and capabilities. He’d figure out quickly what are electable positions. We might actually get a Republican candidate not so intimated to admit science proves global warming, science proves the earth is more than 6,000 years old, Creationism is bunk, evolution should be embraced, infrastructure is important to the military and our economy and money should be invested to upgrade it.  

I can't foresee any right-minded Republican presidential hopeful man enough to challenge him in the primaries. Sure, they might be correct in saying he has no government experience, but that might be appealing to Tea Party faithful and independents who consider normal politicians to be most of the problem in Washington. Let him pick a vice president with congressional experience, someone like senator Marco Rubio, and we might be looking at the ticket that restores the Grand Old Party to the White House, with perhaps strong enough coattails to sweep majorities along in the House and Senate.

McChrystal believes all Americans should engage in national service, not just military service. Having commanded troops most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, he's fulfilled his military obligations. Now he's primed for public service at the highest level. There's no way Republican poobahs are not salivating at the prospect. There's no way Democratic strategists are not shivering at the possibility. Democrats will need a really strong counter-candidate, someone who can keep together the Obama coalition of women, minorities, East and West Coast liberals and independents. Are you up to the challenge, Hillary?

Political Offspring

Should Mitt Romney find himself sitting in the president’s chair next January, he would have done more than just unseat an incumbent. He would have ended three straight White House presidencies exclusively populated by distaff offspring. Indeed, six of the last 12 presidents sired daughters-only. Romney has five sons. 

Fathering daughters-only is a bi-partisan effort, though Democrats have done it more often than Republicans, four times to two. 

Dividing up male progeny by political party is harder as Ronald Reagan had five children, including two sons, while still a member of the Democratic Party. He didn’t shift to the GOP until 1962, four years after his youngest child, Ron, was born. Not counting Reagan’s output, Republicans spawned eight sons to just five for Democratic presidents.

Here’s the listing of the last 12 presidents and their offspring:

Harry S. Truman—Mary Margaret

Dwight D. Eisenhower—Doud Dwight, John Sheldon Doud 

John F. Kennedy—Caroline, John Jr., Patrick

Lyndon B. Johnson—Lynda Bird, Luci Baines

Richard M. Nixon—Patricia, Julie

Gerald R. Ford—Michael Gerald, Steven Meigs, Susan Elizabeth

Jimmy E. Carter—John William, James Earl III, Donnell Jeffrey, Amy Lynn

Ronald W. Reagan—Maureen, Michael, Christine, Patti Davis, Ron

George H.W. Bush—George W., John E., Neil, Marvin P., Dorothy

William J. Clinton—Chelsea

George W. Bush—Barbara Pierce, Jenna Hager

Barack H. Obama—Malia Ann, Sasha

If you’ve been fascinated this far into the blog, here’s another offbeat trend I’ve noticed—the daughters of prominent Democrats seem to have a passion for Jewish men. 

Last week Ashley Biden, daughter of Vice President Joseph Biden, married Dr. Howard Krein. A year ago Chelsea Clinton married investment banker Marc Mezvinsky. Caroline Kennedy married Edwin Schlossberg, an exhibit designer, in 1986.   

Perhaps they are all taking a cue from Caroline’s mother, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, who had a 15-year liaison with Maurice Templesman, a businessman and diamond merchant, until she died in 1994.