You are hereNewsletter Editorial – Feb. 9, 2010
Newsletter Editorial – Feb. 9, 2010
Resurrect the HOPE
by Mayer Segal
Is it too late to resurrect the HOPE that Obama brought to the presidency for an end to the despair, lack of health care, unemployment, foreclosure of small businesses—all left over from the Bush administration?
I and many others believe that the time has come for the President and progressive Democrats in Congress to abandon the path of “bipartisanship” while the Republicans have unanimously waged the most vigorously partisan and obstructionist strategy in recent history.
“No” to economic stimulus … “No” to health care reform … “No” to addressing climate change …”No” to every single major initiative the Democrats have tried to advance. This includes blocking the appointment of well-qualified Edward Chen to become a U.S. District Judge in Northern CA; and Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama placing a blanket hold on more than 70 administration nominees until he gets funding for his home-state projects.
Instead of making it clear that the first two years of the Obama administration would be digging the country out of the incredible mess the Bush administration left us in (financial collapse, deep recession, record-breaking deficits, disintegrating health care systems, two wars, lack of respect from the international community, neglect of the environment) President Obama, incredibly, has enabled tens of millions of Americans to now believe that Bush’s failures are his as well. See the recent polls—an ominous sign for the approaching elections coming this year.
Unlike Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, who consistently denounced Herbert Hoover’s Republican policies as the cause of the country’s perilous condition, Obama appears very reluctant to be partisan and point out to the American people, as Roosevelt did in 1932, “I welcome the hatred of the economic royalists whose greed has devastated the country.”
By the time FDR assumed the presidency on March 4, 1933, the Great Depression seemed to have no bottom. Beginning with the stock market crash in late 1929, the nation had plunged into an economic catastrophe. Thousands of banks and businesses had shut down. 15 million Americans—a third of the work force—were out of jobs. Agricultural prices had dropped below the cost of production, leaving millions of farmers on the edge of insolvency. The political crisis had resulted in a strong, liberal congress with FDR vowing a “New Deal.” In his first 100 days he expanded federal intervention in the economy and expanded the role of laissez faire. He launched the largest relief program in American history, extended federal regulation over the stock market, banks and transportation, and mandated the restructuring of mortgage debt to save homeowners from foreclosure. The Tennessee Valley Authority was a grand foray into national planning, designed to develop a vast region’s resources under public ownership and control. The Agriculture Adjustment Act sought to restore farm income by guaranteeing parity prices to farmers who agreed to cut production. The National Industry Recovery Act (NIRA) was passed in June 1933, with the aim of putting millions of Americans back to work, gave government authority to regulate labor relations.
In contrast with the Obama administration, FDR was able to do this for two good reasons—one, he had an honest, liberal congress more interested in bringing the country out of the depression than being re-elected; and two, FDR appointed a cabinet of individuals each of whom was an expert in their field, sometimes called “the brain trust.”
Republicans, like today, called FDR the worst names possible, but were a smaller minority in Congress than today, and had not yet developed the “buying” of congresspersons. Incidentally, historians have credited FDR with saving the country from a revolution.
The opponents of New Deal policies now turned to the conservative Supreme Court, which on “Black Monday”, May 25, 1935, vetoed three major New Deal Programs including the National Industry Recovery Act (NIRA). FDR, in trying to resurrect some of his major legislation, suggested “packing the court.” This, despite his vast popularity, was unsuccessful and looked upon with disfavor. He did gradually replace justices as they retired, and did actually appoint his ninth and last justice shortly after he was elected for an unprecedented third term.
This was the most memorable revelation in my lifetime of the Supreme Court’s power to subvert the intention of the framers of the Constitution to have three separate but equal decision makers to rule the country. In a wonderfully researched and documented recent book, James MacGregor Burns has written “Packing the Court”—“The Rise of Judicial Power and the Coming Crisis of the Supreme Court.” In it he says “Much of the Supreme Court’s power is unconstitutional. The framers of the Constitution never gave the court the authority to overturn the laws signed into being by Congress and the president. It was intended to referee constitutional disputes, but now its power goes beyond interpreting the rules—it can now create them.”
Burns explains how the court’s power changed so drastically, fundamentally changing the system of checks and balances. In sodoing it gives disproportionate power to nine justices who were never elected, who aren’t accountable to the people, and who are not above partisan politics. Many owe their position to party ties. He details how the court illegally appointed Bush to the presidency over Gore. What enlightened this writer was Burns comments about Obama. “Few presidents had scrutinized the Constitution and the powers of its judicial ‘third branch’ more closely than Obama had before entering the White House. … As a professor of law at the University of Chicago, he had delighted in opening students’ eyes to a Constitution that was ‘a part not just of the past but of their present and their future.’“
At this point, it seems questionable to me whether Obama can stand up to the incredible powers of negative Republicans, really big unlimited sources of money, racism and lies, and a Supreme Court that just recently upheld the power of corporations to use their wealth to influence the elective process. There are many good thinkers out there that have plans and tactics they believe can help to restore democracy in the U.S. I hope to live long enough to see them come to fruition.
