Gleaning Facebook: FDR's Economic Bill of Rights

I'm with FDR!

Here's his complete list from his 1944 State of the UNion address:

"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."

Comments

Laurie Craw We can have all that. Or we can have the most billionaires and multi-millionaires in the world and the lowest taxes on capital gains and corporate profits. But not both.

Dan Ledford i think we should go back to these basics
Steven Savage That means access to.... not given by the government

Seiler Rankin Hmm - lets see where I'm at:

1. Just lost my job a couple days ago (as a graphic artist, this happens often).
2. Never achieved the wage I was promised for the last several years.
3. Have never been able to afford a home in California.
4. I have no health insurance.
5. I was let go in the middle of a bout of bronchitis.
6. I obtained a good education but will be paying off the loans for the rest of my life.

I have worked hard since age 13, raised two wonderful children, volunteered for community improvement, grown my own vegetables, and striven to improve this world through charity, kindness, and sacrifice. Think I lost this game.
Laurie Craw It IS a game and living by your own values is better than "winning" a "game." You're a good human being and a credit to the family.
Seiler Rankin Thanks, Laurie. I feel the same about you! Love from California.

Luis Schnitzer Da Silva FDR died before he was able to establish the society he envisioned. All these goals are achievable and definitely were achievable at the time, even without "forcing" anyone to provide housing or jobs etc as Jonathan Ingram fears. The right to an education and to health care are definitely achievable through the government... And these 2 rights would go a long way towards insuring that you'd get a good job and have access to housing etc. This is totally what a nation should strive for ... and a rich and capable nation like ours is more than capable to achieve this. It is a shame that we don't , and even more, that we don't strive for it. Instead we come up with "reasons" as to why we shouldn't .
Laurie Craw Perfectly stated. Thanks

Gleaning Facebook: No One Should Be Over It

[2022 note: I am a Washington Post subscriber and found this article by Eugene Robinson congenial to my point of view. I posted this link to Robinson's post on this date in 2016, before four years of the scandal, racism, incompetence, and childishness of Donald Trump's presidency. Since links sometimes fail I want to preserve his complete column here for my future reference.]

By Eugene Robinson

WASHINGTON -- The people chose Hillary Clinton. But it's the electoral vote that counts, not the popular vote, so Donald Trump will be president. And no, I'm not over it.

No one should be over it. No one should pretend that Trump will be a normal president. No one should forget the bigotry and racism of his campaign, the naked appeals to white grievance, the stigmatizing of Mexicans and Muslims. No one should forget the jaw-dropping ignorance he showed about government policy both foreign and domestic. No one should forget the vile misogyny. No one should forget the mendacity, the vulgarity, the ugliness, the insanity. None of this must ever be normalized in our politics.

The big protests that have followed Trump's election should be no surprise. You can't spend all those months trashing our nation's values and then expect everyone to join you in a group hug. Trump made the bed in which he now must lie.

How did the unthinkable happen? Is Trump, like Brexit, part of some world-sweeping populist wave? Are the Rust Belt hinterlands in open rebellion? Was Clinton just a spectacularly flawed candidate? Did FBI Director James Comey boost Trump over the top? Did too many anti-Trump voters stay home out of complacency?

There is evidence to support all of those theories. But the urgent question isn't why, it's what now.

If a normal Republican had been elected, I could say the polite and socially acceptable thing, something like, "I didn't support So-and-So but he will be my president, too, and I wish him success." But I cannot wish Trump success in rounding up and deporting millions of people or banning Muslims from entering the country or reinstituting torture as an instrument of U.S. policy. In these and other divisive or cruel or unwise initiatives, I wish him failure.

I do hope he succeeds in avoiding some kind of amateurish foreign policy blunder that puts American lives or vital national interests at risk. And let me be clear that I am not questioning his legitimacy as president. When the results are certified and the Electoral College casts its votes, Trump will be the nation's duly chosen leader, ridiculous though that may be.

But he has not earned our trust or hope. Rather, he has earned the demonstrations that erupted in cities across the country. He has earned relentless scrutiny by journalists, whom he shamelessly made into scapegoats during the campaign, and he has earned the constant vigilance of the public he now must serve.

There have been more than 200 reports since the election of harassment and hate crimes, mostly directed at minorities, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. During an interview broadcast Sunday on "60 Minutes," Trump addressed his supporters: "I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: Stop it."

That would have been a better start had he not also sought to minimize the incidents, saying there had been a "very small amount" of them; and had he not also claimed the media were somehow applying a double standard in reporting on the protests.

The most troubling post-election development thus far was Trump's appointment of campaign chief executive Steve Bannon -- a prominent figure in the racist, xenophobic "alt-right" movement -- as chief strategist and senior adviser. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the move "signals that white supremacists will be represented at the highest levels in Trump's White House."

On "60 Minutes," Trump hinted that he might moonwalk away from some of his most radical promises on immigration, the issue that made him stand out from the crowd of Republican contenders. He still says he will build a wall on the Mexican border, but there "could be some fencing" instead of an actual wall in places. And he said that "we're going to make a determination" about the fate of millions of undocumented immigrants who have not committed crimes -- sounding as if he knows his pledge to carry out mass deportation cannot be fulfilled.

He also backed away from the idea of having a special prosecutor reinvestigate Clinton over her emails. "They're good people, I don't want to hurt them," he said of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

If Trump is beginning to confront reality on some fronts, that's a first step -- in a thousand-mile journey toward credibility and respect. But appointing Bannon is a big step backward. We must watch Trump, and judge him, every single inch of the way.

Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinsonwashpost.com.

 

Gleaning Facebook: The Electoral College Is a Major Flaw

The Electoral College is a major flaw in our Constitution.

It is unfair.

It is anti-republican.

It has caused nothing but trouble.

It has failed (never so clearly as 2016) in its purpose of barring the election of an unqualified demagogue. It is a remnant of the age of slavery. It is a remnant of the original view of us as a confederation of nations rather than the "one nation" we all have pledged our allegiance to since the Civil War.

One of the silliest anti-popular vote arguments (that gets repeated over and over) is that Americans would be giving the power to elect a president to just a few large states. Hogwash! Even the most polarized states have sizable minority votes. Both major party candidates get significant support in all fifty states. As it stands now candidates ignore most states and campaign ONLY in a few "battleground" states. Under a true popular vote system nominees would campaign nationwide. Even Anchorage AK and Birmingham AL and Cheyanne WY might get a campaign event! Republicans in CA and Democrats in TX would know their votes could count toward a possible national victory even if they were outnumbered in their own state.

The 2016 race is really the most striking case against the EC. Hillary Clinton had a narrow but clear victory. The people chose, narrowly but clearly by almost three million ballots, the Clinton policies over the Trump policies. President Obama leaves office as one of the most popular retiring presidents of modern times. Given the opportunity, I think the American people would choose today to continue the Obama presidency. Trump takes office with the least support of any president since polling has been conducted. He may claim one, but he has no legitimate mandate.

We must find a way eventually to abolish the EC. That will be very hard, since there is little incentive for small states to agree to an amendment to that effect.

In the meantime we must form a clear, vocal, unwavering resistance to the authoritarian Trump. We must battle to build our state and local parties. We must battle tooth and nail to block the dismantling of environmental, economic, healthcare, diplomatic, civil rights, and other gains of the last eight years.

As usual, this topic spurs lots of discussion. I enjoyed this one.

George Barton You can always move to Wyoming. It's just wishful thinking, a Constitutional amendment requires the consent of 3/4ths of the state Legislatures, and since most states would lose clout if it were passed, they are not going to go for it. And Wyoming has just as many US Senators as California, we should change that too.

Terrell Shaw Maybe, but it's fight that must be fought. Short of that, instant runoffs would likely stop candidates like Trump.
John Carlin $500 million to win 3 million more votes doesn't sound like democracy either.

Terrell Shaw $$ in politics is a real problem. The Democratic Party is the one that, at least, proposes to do something about it. I DO NOT recommend unilateral disarmament however. 

John Carlin It is the problem. Instead of attending fundraisers in Hollywood CA, the Democrats should have picked a candidate that would have at least campaigned in Wisconsin. She was good at raising money though.
Terrell Shaw Wish we had 20/20 foresight. She was also good at campaigning, though not as good as her husband or Obama... still good. And she won more votes than any candidate except Obama in history. It is useless and incorrect to blame the candidate. In a close election there are always a million things that could have made a difference, including, of course, different tactics by Clinton. It remains: w/o Putin's meddling she wins. Without Comey's stupidity, she wins. Without the faux Benghazi investigations, she wins. Without media's false equivalence of e-mail mistake with Trump scandals, she wins. Etc. ad infinitum.
John Carlin I disagree.
Terrell Shaw That's ok. :-)

Raymond Atkins Terrell Shaw Comey wasn't being stupid. He knew exactly what he was doing, and to whom.

Jeff Hodges Whoever designed this meme has no clue about how the Electoral College was designed to work. Thank God the founding fathers were more intelligent than "Occupy Democrats".
Raymond Atkins The founding fathers had little faith in the common man and were worried about “the tyranny of the majority.” Ironically, they then hedged their bets and created a de facto tyranny of the minority instead. The Constitution is an amazingly flexible document, but it has its flaws. I have always believed that the Electoral College is one of them.

John Teague White I was never a big fan of the electoral college. Until this election. Now I kind of understand it. It keeps large population states like California and New York from dictating presidential elections. It keeps regional favorites from running away with elections. And best of all it negates rabid voter fraud (massive illegal immigrants voting in the election) from stealing an election.

Terrell Shaw I could not disagree more completely, Mr White. The object of the EC was to prevent the very sort if perfect storm that occured in 2016 to allow an unqualified demagogue to be selected. The EC would step in and in their wisdom choose a statesman. That did not happen. A popular election would empower minorities in each state to aspire to combine with like minded folk in other stares to make a majority. It would make all men equal. The EC is a betrayal of the Declaration's ideal that all men are created equal. Your argumentbus exactly the one that I decsribed above (before you made it here) as 'silly'. No state is all Democrat or all GOP.

In the five cases where the popular vote winner lost tge Presidency the popular winner in each case was as much a major nationwide candidate as the person who was actually selected. There is no reason to doubt the national legitimacy of Andrew Jackson, Samuel Tilden, Grover Cleveland, Al Gore, or Hillary Clinton compared to JQ Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, GW Bush, or (for heaven's sake) Donald Trump.

John Teague White All well and good, and I might even concede the point under one circumstance. An iron clad and un counterfeitable voter I'd system. One that ensures one vote for one legal voter.
Terrell Shaw There is no significant voter fraud. We do have significant voter suppression problems that need attention. And we need better verifiable methods of reliable recounts.

John Teague White There is no significant voter fraud? Are you insane or just oblivious? There are reports of voter fraud from almost every state. People caught voting two and three times or more. Illegals voting by the van load. Now I don't know if all that is 100% true but I'd rather know it's not than hope it's not.
Dawn N Luke Andrews Jonathan Ingram The facts are conveniently ignored as usual.
Raymond Atkins A solution that would address both this issue and the much larger issue that not enough people can be troubled to vote in presidential elections would be to move election day to April 15 and require folks to vote when they file their taxes.

John Teague White Never thought I'd amount to enough to actually have to pay taxes. Guess that GED and college paid off somehow. Cause damned if uncle Sam don't send me a bill for services every year now. Feel like hurting someone every time it comes time to write that check.

Gleaning Facebook: Nothing Human Is Foreign To Us

 

"'Every one of us bears within him the possibility of all passions, all destinies of life in all its manifold forms. Nothing human is foreign to us." -Edward G. Robinson

I found this very basic piece of acting theory today. Every decent actor knows this. It might greatly reduce xenophobia and other biases if more folks would fully realize this truth.

Though I am, it follows, as capable of hatred and prejudice and fear as anyone else, at my most self-aware, even in the case of evil men pity is more appropriate than hate.

Jim Geist
There is a new 12 step group dealing with racism.....seriously.

Sam Burnham
And maybe patience to see what actually happens as opposed to just rhetoric

Moon Over Our House

 The moon rises over our house, decked out for Christmas.

Gleaning Facebook: Family Pictures

I posted a bunch of family photos today:

________________________ Post One ________________________

This is one of my favorite pics of little Nora, my only niece on the Matthews side. We were thrilled when Brannon got a Matthews cousin when she was only a toddler herself. Nora is now a parent herself, with Derrick Drewek, of Vada. Nora, Derrick, and Vada actually live in the house that Sheila lived in from second grade till her marriage to a certain Georgia boy.

________________________ Post Two ________________________

Left to Right:

1. Ann Snell Campbell

2. Blanche Snell Collins

3. Rose Snell Trawick

4. Katherine Snell

5. Thelma Snell Brannon

6. Inez Snell Layton

A bunch of Snell cousins.

The Brannons and Snells were intermarried several different ways.

Comments

Frances Willis Love it!
Gary Sumlar What is your relationship to Mrs Rose @ Jee.

Terrell Shaw My wonderful Mother-in-Love was Rose’s sister, Mavis. Sheila & I loved her Aunt Rose & Uncle Gee. We enjoyed many family reunions in Headland at Rose & Gee’s or the community center or the Snell farm or out at Center church

Suzan Redmon I miss them all so much. Thankful for a loving family.

Nora Matthews Oh my! I miss them all so much! It's not the same. Can I share this ?
Terrell Shaw Of course!
Nora Matthews Where's granny?
Terrell Shaw She's not in this one. Just Rose and Inez and some of their cousins.

Nora Matthews Oh 

________________________ Post Three ________________________

Annie Belle Brannon Snell 1884-1881
I took this picture of Sheila's Granny fairly late in her life, at Ethel's house near Quincy FL, I think. She was famous for her Butter Roll and her cheerful acceptance of what life threw at her. A teacher early in life, she grew up on a farm in L.A. (Lower Alabama) and married a farmer who, I think, also taught some. He died before I met her. I'm one of the things life threw at her and she accepted me from day one. She is way up there among the most admired folks I've known. She had bad eyes and knees but her mind was sharp and her heart warm till her death at 97.

Another pic of Annie Belle Brannon Snell. 

James Clarence Matthews, 1911-2002
Sheila's Daddy scared me a little in the early years. I wonder what he thought of the long-haired talkative kid who wanted to marry his daughter. He didn't talk much and seemed a little gruff. I learned he was smart, honest, and dependable. I still miss him.

Here he is with one of the horses they had on their four acre track off Buck Lake Road near Tallahassee. He grew up in LaGrange GA and married, just after Pearl Harbor, a nurse from L.A. (Lower Alabama) when she came to work in LaGrange. They were both in their thirties. He was soon criss-crossing the Atlantic as a quartermaster in the army, shepherding supplies to the troops in Europe and Africa.

Further evidence that I am a lucky man. 
Sheila Ann Matthews Shaw 

Sheila's paternal grandparents with their grandchildren (before Sheila and Dona were born.)
Children L-R
Leland Ward 
Jimmy Mathews 
Rica Matthews 
Carol McAfee
Carie Bell Norris Matthews (holding Jimmy), Joseph Clarence Matthews (holding Rica)

Jay & Mavis Matthews, Sheila's parents

I am jealous that Sheila got to grow up with horses.

That face. Is it possible not to love that kid? That is the picture of a child who grabbed life from the get go and has been giddying-up ever since. I am a wealthy man.

Comments

Lillian Shaw
Aww

Laurie Craw
You still got enough giddy-up to keep up?

Mike Bock
What a sweet picture — I can see you and Sheila in her.

Gleaning Facebook: Noel Y'all!

 A joyous Noel from all of us animals at Arrowhead!

Gleaning Facebook: Dear Friends

 Dear Friends,

I want to ask a very special favor of you, especially my friends who have chosen to support the cause of preserving the natural area at Burwell Creek in Rome.

Were it not for the efforts and expertise of the Coosa River Basin Initiative and the fine folks who work there our 80 acres at Burwell Creek would be far beyond the rescue that now seems possible.

I have been a member of CRBI for over a decade and a member of its Board of Directors for many of those years. I have tremendous respect for what this non-partisan group does to advocate for the preservation and restoration of our river basin. In my opinion there is no finer grassroots environmental organization anywhere.

Like all such groups CRBI has a constant struggle to raise the necessary funds to pay salaries and rent and all the other expenses of the organization. During the last couple of years CRBI has expanded its programs.

• Ask a child if Amos Tuck (The Fish Dude) has talked with their class or led them on a nature walk.

• Tag along on one of CRBI's many floats on our beautiful rivers.

• Talk to some of the children who have attended CRBI's summer camps or competed in the annual EQ Bowl (Environmental Quiz Bowl)

• Did you attend our first Green Gala to celebrate outstanding environmental efforts by regionla businesses, groups, and individuals?

• Did you see our David Tucker or Joe Cook speaking before the City Commission or planning commission, or some other group to promote the welfare of our watershed.

Visit www.coosa.org to learn more.

Won't you help? Please click on the link below and join the cause.

$35 dues for 2016 ($15 senior or student)

If many of us would go ahead and join or renew today it would be a tremendous boost to CRBI and simultaneously help them continue their work which is so essential to the cause of our Burwell Creek natuarl area as well. Please comment when you have joined or renewed to encourage all of us!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

-Terrell Shaw