Obama About To Make A Big "Class Warfare" Speech, And Echo A Republican President At The Same Time [View All]

[jefferson_dem]

President Barack Obama will travel to Osawatomie, Kansas on Tuesday to emphasize the need for Americans to pay their "fair share."

It's an argument that many in the Republican party reject as class warfare, but Obama will draw on a Republican president — Theodore Roosevelt — to justify his message.

Roosevelt's 'New Nationalism' speech on August 31, 1910 called for new government reforms to level the playing field for average Americans against a class of industrial barons.

"The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows," Roosevelt said. "That is what you fought for in the Civil War, and that is what we strive for now."

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"Here in Kansas there is one paper which habitually denounces me as the tool of Wall Street, and at the same time frantically repudiates the statement that I am a Socialist on the ground that is an unwarranted slander of the Socialists."

"I do not ask for over-centralization; but I do ask that we work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what concerns our people as a whole."

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Roosevelt used his 'New Nationalism' speech to launch his failed bid for the presidency in 1912, and it's safe to say that Obama's speech on Tuesday will draw from Roosevelt to lay much of the intellectual framework for his reelection bid.

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-is-about-to-double-down-on-class-warfare-and-echo-a-republican-president-at-the-same-time-2011-12#ixzz1fZeSXZWr

Here's the press release from the White House:

WASHINGTON, DC - On Tuesday, December 6, President Obama will travel to Osawatomie, Kansas where he will deliver remarks on the economy. The President will talk about how he sees this as a make-or-break moment for the middle class and all those working to join it. He’ll lay out the choice we face between a country in which too few do well while too many struggle to get by, and one where we’re all in it together – where everyone engages in fair play, everyone does their fair share, and everyone gets a fair shot. Just over one hundred years ago, President Teddy Roosevelt came to Osawatomie, Kansas and called for a New Nationalism, where everyone gets a fair chance, a square deal, and an equal opportunity to succeed.