Heed well the words of FDR...

[King_Crimson]

Please find here snippets from the greatest of our leaders...from his 1936 acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Notice how what this great man says eerily ties in with what we are experiencing today:

"Senator Robinson, Members of the Democratic Convention, My Friends

Here and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the nation. It is an occassion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression of an attitude toward problems, the determination of which will profoundly affect America.
I come, not only as a leader of a party, not only as a candidate for high office, but as one upon whom many critical hours have imposed and still impose a great responsibility.

For the sympathy, help and confidence with which Americans have sustained me in my task I am grateful. I salute the members of our great party, in and out of political life in every part of the Union.

<snip>

America will not forget these recent years, will not forget that the rescue was not a mere party task. It was the concern of all of us. In our strength we rose together, rallied our energies together, applied the old rules of common sense,and together survived.
In those days, we feared fear. That was why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.
But I cannot, with candor, tell you that all is well with the world. Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy indeed a fullness of lifereater than that of most nations. But the rush of modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulities, new problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United Staes the political and economic freedom for which Washington and Jefferson planned and fought.

<snip>

The hours men and women worked, the wages they recieved, the conditions of their laboe- these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-buisnessman, the investments set aside for old age- other peoples money- these were the tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.
Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed my men in distant cities.

<snip>

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor- other people's lives. For too many of us, life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.
Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of the government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.
**********************************************************************
The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of government, but they have maintained that economic slavery is nobody's business. They granted that the government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.
Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.
These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America.. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. IN THEIR BLINDNESS THEY FORGET WHAT THE FLAG AND THE CONSTITUTION STAND FOR. NOW, AS ALWAYS, THEY STAND FOR DEMOCRACY...NOT TYRANNY; FOR FREEDOM, NOT SUBJECTION; AND AGAINST A DICTATORSHIP BY MOB RULE AND THE OVER-PRIVILEDGED ALIKE!
BUT THE RESOLUTE ENEMY WITHIN OUR GATES IS EVER READY TO BEAT DOWN OUR WORDS UNLESS IN GREATER COURAGE WE WILL FIGHT FOR THEM.
**********************************************************************

more...http://www.geocities.com/americanpresidencynet/nomafdr36.htm

Very interesting and very much right on. Think maybe the Dems oughtta drag out the "Royalist" terminology and "Enemy within our gates".
To only have this great man around again.......

[fabius]

1. Hear, hear! We need an FDR again. nt

[Johnyawl]

2. That speech is enough to make a person start warming up the tar...

...and cutting open the feather pillows! And so much of it accurately discribes conditions today.

For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital - all undreamed of by the Fathers - the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.

There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small-businessmen and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer.
<snip>
It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor - these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age - other people's money - these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

<snip>

Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

[King_Crimson]

3. Johnyawl if you get the feathers...

I'll round up bunches and bunches of boiling hot tar!:smoke:

[banana republican]

4. don't for the rail

we need to run them out of town on a rail tared & feathered like my grandpa did in missouri....

[bleedingheart]

5. We must not mourn the loss of such a great man but fight the legacy

he left to us.

Fight the Royalists! We must take up the banner of FDR and make a better world for all of us.