Are YOU willing to fight for the Second Bill of Rights spelled out by FDR in the address below? Can you answer that YOU are your brother’s keeper, and end the march towards the rule of “tooth and claw”, survival of the fittest only, sought by the regressive right in place of the New Deal’s social compact?
The link below will take you to a viewing of FDR giving his Second Bill of Rights speech thanks to the marvels of technology.
<iframe width=”420″ height=”345″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/KmdW3hFPjC0” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe> [Note: the link works, I haven’t mastered embedding in this platform yet]
If so, there is a coming event to which YOU are invited: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2136656798/efblike [This link will take you to the registration page for a grassroots meeting at Lasell College on 10/2/11 that starts at 2:00 PM].
At a minimum, if you attend on 10/2/11, you are sure to experience lively conversation – and perhaps aid in the founding of a new grassroots movement to clean up, energize, and render government clean, responsive and responsible in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I know that for myself, business as usual is not acceptable. I don’t know if this meeting will be a step towards working together with others to clean up and redirect the inbred political culture on Beacon Hill that flourishes behind closed doors – but I am willing to go and find out!
As some may not know, John Adams named this state the “Commonwealth” of Massachusetts, so that the focus would be on the common good, not the enrichment and centralized power of the few. That vision was revolutionary in the 1700s – and it seems, is still revolutionary and worth fighting for today.
“I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.” ~Bishop Desmond Tutu
For example, the recent ruling in Melendez-Diaz – a sole practitioner out of Salem I know fought for and reclaimed the right of confrontation – thank you Mary T. Rogers: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/07-591
Or in my field, take a look at In Re Hilary, thank you Claudia Bolgen, another tough sole practitioner: http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/450/450mass491.html
Or in my own more humble sphere, see my very first appellate win (there have been more) done pro bono out of a home office – because we will get the worst laws and worst government we tolerate (DeToqueville said that first), Care and Protection of Vivian http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/420/420mass879.html
A great quote is: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.”
It is true that good laws, even the Constitution are not worth spit unless there is actual access to justice, and a willingness to fight for what is right. All litigation is, in a very real way, even if there are negotiated settlements at times, ritual warfare.
To the extent that abrogating one person’s rights means that everyone’s rights are compromised, then many of the provisions of the Bill of Rights are being regularly violated. When US citizens are detained without access to counsel, and even deported, or executed without trial, when people attempting to defend their homes are gunned down by paramilitary police units, when de facto poll taxes are enacted in more states every year, those rights are in serious jeopardy.
It’s great that some are fighting back and winning, but from where I sit, the tide is overwhelmingly the other way.
That has always been true. Think of the decades of lynchings. Think of the women who died to get the right to vote, and African Americans who died to get the right to vote. To have democracy we need to train our young to value and understand democracy – you are quite correct that there are monstrous injustices here – and in other countries. That all being said, I repeat, “Americans will have the worst government and the worst society they are willing to tolerate” – a few people fighting hard are like a thin line between preserving or even obtaining justice – and having none at all. Do I see injustice triumph? Yes, I do – but I still fight as hard as I know how for access to justice, equality under the law, and “the rule of law, not of men.” I will do so as long as I am physically and mentally able and I am not alone, though those who do what I and others do are neither appreciated by society at large, nor by the current administration.
…of when women have died to get the right to vote. I’m wracking my brain and cannot come up with any instance (at least in the US and I don’t really know anything about this in other countries) of the women’s suffrage movement becoming violent or resulting in anyone’s death.
A few links. It is often forgotten that women went to prison, were clubbed, beaten, forcefed, and, in some accounts, died to gain the right to vote.
Enjoy:
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage1900/a/suffrage_brutal.htm
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5336/
http://www.onthisdeity.com/9th-july-1977-%E2%80%93%C2%A0the-death-of-alice-paul/
http://www.ampltd.co.uk/digital_guides/womens_suffrage_and_government_control/publishers-note.aspx
http://spot.colorado.edu/~wehr/491R4.TXT
I wonder why the difference in our consciousness as you’ll notice I didn’t ask you to remind me about African-Americans in the same way. Maybe it’s the time in history and the presence of TV as I can vividly see in my mind footage of African-Americans being beaten in their fight for civil rights. I’m also not aware of a KKK-equivalent that has tried to prevent women from voting. The only incident I remembered was Susan B. Anthony being arrested once for trying to vote on the claim that the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause implied that she could. Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for POTUS, was also arrested but I’m not sure for something directly relevant to her campaign.
Also the post suffrage amendment history seems different. At least as I remember the history for women there was a struggle to get the 19th amendment passed, but once it did there seemed to be no need for follow up and in fact some states had gotten ahead of the federal constitution. OTOH the 15th amendment was hardly the last word on black suffrage. For 100 years states, mostly southern, would institute poll taxes, literacy tests, wink at violence, etc. to prevent voting and the federal government had to step in with things like the Voting Rights Act and the 24th Amendment as if to say, “We meant it on the 15th amendment.” Even today we see laws that look suspiciously like they are designed to suppress minority turnout, but again I don’t see women as the target. Is my analysis of the differences correct or am I missing something?
There are so few women – compared to the female percentage of the population – who hold elected office. Myself, I don’t chose candidates by gender – that is not a primary consideration for me, but it is still true that women are not office holders in proportion to their percentage of the population. That is also true of African-Americans and Hispanics, to be sure.
I hold those that fight in the everyday trenches of law in the highest regard. You, your peers, the ACLU and others that monitor and test our systems hold together our nation of laws at the most fundamental level.
I hope the powers at the highest level, the plastic people, that have contempt for the very laws that define us as a people and work silently and quickly to extinguish the light of law are eventually routed by those with a common respect for our law. It boils down to the lack of any foundation in their philosophy. Little wonder they put so much time and effort into spying on citizens, torture, murder. All to hinder the feared truth.
“Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law” –Sophocles