It is Time to Pass FDR's Second Bill of Rights

FDR's Second Bill of Rights

The Second Bill of Rights was a proposal made by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944 to suggest that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second bill of rights. Roosevelt did not argue for any change to the United States Constitution; he argued that the second bill of rights was to be implemented politically, not by federal judges. Roosevelt's stated justification was that the "political rights" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." Roosevelt's remedy was to create an "economic bill of rights" which would guarantee:

A job with a living wage

Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies

A home

Medical care

Education

Recreation

Roosevelt stated that having these rights would guarantee American security, and that America's place in the world depended upon how far these and similar rights had been carried into practice. Watch our greatest President as he delivers his historic address to the people of the United States. Too ill to give his State of the Union address in Congress, he delivered it over the radio nationally from the White House.



Unfortunately, FDR died in 1945 and the hopes for the Second Bill of Rights being implemented died with him. Over the next decade, the power of the banks, corporations and the military industrial complex grew tremendously and threatened the American way of life. At the end of his Presidential term in 1960, President Dwight David Eisenhower warned the American people of the coming dominance of the military industrial complex.



On Nov. 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, the coup d'etat was accomplished, and the Neocons took power in this country, and untold billions were re-directed to corporate interests at the expense of the American people. Capitalism had won; Democracy had lost. Here is the speech that led to JFK's assassination:

I urge everyone to see Michael Moore's new movie: Capitalism, a Love Story.











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