End Of Civil War

Well folks, today marks the 145th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. On this day in 1865, Robert E. Lee signed surrender papers to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House. One week later, President Lincoln was shot.

The Republican Party, once the proud party of Lincoln, today basically a Southern regional political party, might want to take note of these facts as they gather in New Orleans for the Southern Leadership Conference. This history remains relevant today, perhaps more so than ever.

Michael Tomasky takes note of this historic milestone and draws some comparisons to our modern political climate:

I don't want to be hyperbolic and say we're in another civil war. But by the same token I don't want to diminish what's happening in this country. As I've noted, it was the concept of nullification that started the process that led to the civil war. You have some people today talking about nullification of health care. They probably have no idea the fire they're playing with, and if they knew they wouldn't care. If it can help make Democrats lose elections, it's fair game.

Last December Mr. Beale and I took in the Lincoln And New York exhibit at the New York Historical Society. I admit my knowledge of the Civil War is spotty; I grew up in California so the focus of high school history class was on the Gold Rush, westward expansion, the Mexican-American War. Stuff that happened in our backyard, so to speak. I went to elementary school in New Jersey, where we focused primarily on the Revolutionary War in school -- again, stuff that happened nearby. So I found this exhibit especially interesting and educational.

More than anything I was struck by comparisons to our modern era. Lincoln didn't enjoy much support in New York prior to the Civil War; in particular the monied (i.e. “corporate”) interests objected to his policies toward the South, because that is where their markets were. They were looking out purely for their own economic self-interest, just like today. Meanwhile, we had the news media fanning the sectarian flames, also just like today. Something to consider.

It ended with Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Some interesting facts about that which I did not know:

Lincoln was shot on Good Friday, April 14, and in the midst of Passover. He died the next day, which had been scheduled as a national day of prayer marking the end of the Civil War. These circumstances contributed to the transfiguration of his death into an act of Providence.

Wow. Imagine if they had the internet back then. There would be all sorts of wild conspiracy theories about the Anti-Christ and whatnot.

Amazing how little has changed in 145 years.

Something to consider, folks.

Happy Birthday, Social Security!

On August 14, 1935 President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. You can check out the vote tally here.

It’s worth remembering that when the debate over Social Security raged, groups like the National Assn. of Manufacturers, AMA, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce denounced the Social Security concept as “totalitarian.”

Now there’d be a revolution if anyone tried to touch it.

Interesting.

I just saw one of those TV ads from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce asking us to tell Congress to “slow down” on healthcare reform, which is hilarious since we’ve been trying to get some kind of healthcare reform in this country for decades. National healthcare was included in the original Social Security Act, but President Roosevelt removed it in a concession to the American Medical Assn. Figures. We've been suffering without it ever since.

In 1985 on the 50th anniversary of Social Security, Wilbur Cohen, one of the architects of the Social Security Act, reflected:

In 5 short months in 1934 the basic framework of the Social Security Act was formulated. And in another 7 months in 1935 it was enacted into law! A monumental change in the relationships between individuals, the States, and the Federal Government had been instituted. Today, 50 years later, we can see the significance and magnitude of that historic legislation in protecting families, communities, and the Nation.

Yet it’s been eight months and we still don’t have a healthcare bill. But we do have members of Congress bragging about how they’ve slowed the process down. Interesting.

Meanwhile, over at the Social Security Administration’s archives, one can read Congressional testimony and other documents from the program’s founding.

Here is Elon H. Hooker, president of the Manufacturing Chemists Assn.:

My opposition to this bill rests, in the first place, on the ground that, to my knowledge, it has been prepared without an factual study and without the necessary consultation with persons who will be most directly affected by its provisions.

I am sorry Senator Harrison is not here, because he takes exception to that, as I listened to the previous speaker. This bill was prepared with 6 months of study by a committee. That may seem to you gentlemen a long time, but the provisions contained in this bill are to cover a period of time running on to our children’s children, and our grandchildren, and months of experience in this kind of a complicated thing, 6 months study is not nearly enough.

In other words: slow down! This is too important! Not much has changed, has it?

Here is John Corson, another Social Security architect, recalling political opposition to the program:

Despite widespread approval of this new law, the times were rough. The Republican candidate for president in 1936 promised, if elected, to repeal the law. At his suggestion many employers inserted materials in their employees' pay envelopes warning them that the payroll taxes to be deducted from their wages would be lost. And when it was proposed that Social Security numbers would be issued, this candidate branded them as "dog tags to be hung around the neck of every American worker."

Fearmongering and lies, can you imagine? No indeed, not much has changed at all!

The American Medical Assn. fought both including a healthcare provision in the Social Security Act and fought private insurance, calling both “socialist.” From encyclopedia.com:

By the 1930s the AMA was a very powerful political organization that controlled medical schools and medical education and defined the nature of medical practice in the United States. It fought third-party-payment insurance schemes for decades because it saw most insurance schemes and other potential external controls as forms of governmental paternalism, or "creeping socialism." Dr. Morris Fishbein, the editor of the AMA's publications and its primary spokesman in the 1930s, warned that any form of group health insurance or governmental aid in medical care "breaks down that initiative and ambition which are the marks of a young country going ahead," and the young doctor who steps into such a job, "begins a mechanized routine type of service that is harmful not only to his patients but to his own character and advancement."

That’s fascinating to me. The AMA didn't want public OR private insurance? I wonder what would have happened if we had neither: no BlueCross/BlueShield or Medicare?

Finally, here’s John Harrington, general counsel for the Illinois Manufacturing Assn., making the argument that Social Security would sink already Depression-stressed small businesses, causing even greater unemployment:

We believe that this measure, if adopted, means at best an annuity of doubtful value for the aged of the future and unemployment benefit of doubtful value for the normally temporarily unemployed of the future--at the terrific cost of retarding the reemployment of those who are unemployed today.

It was interesting plowing through the archives because the arguments against creating Social Security are the very same points being voiced today by those who oppose healthcare reform--and from the same interests. I didn’t see anyone mention “death panels” but I did see lots of fearmongering about “socialism,” “totalitarianism,” higher costs, oppressing business, etc. etc. And yet here we are 74 years later, and Social Security is deemed the “third rail” of politics: mess with it and you’re toast.

We’ve been here before, people. Nothing has changed in America’s political discourse, save people have gotten sillier and more hysterical. But 74 years ago we were able to pass sweeping Social Security legislation in the face of opposition from Republicans, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, industry groups, and fearmongers worried about “socialism.” There is no reason to not reform our broken healthcare system now.

I leave you with a piece of pop culture, my favorite quote from “The West Wing,” as a reminder of who the players are in this fight:

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things. Every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, liberal, as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator. Because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor."

Amen to that.

Revisionist History Alert

Hilarious. Tea Party Protests coming to a village near you.

Since it’s coming from Pajamas TV, let’s rephrase that: coming to a village idiot near you.

I guess these folks think the Boston Tea Party was some kind of populist uprising against the government.

It was not.

It was a populist uprising against a corporation. It was against the British East India Company, which enjoyed great influence with and access to the British Parliament--so much so, in fact, that they received a TAX CUT that effectively priced the colonists out of the tea market.

But, this being Pajamas TV, and this being wingnuts, they are clueless. How very sad ... and amusing.

I couldn’t say it better than this fella:

Thus, I’m saddened to reveal: most of us don’t know the real story of the Boston Tea Party. As it turns out, what’s really fundamental about being an American is not so much a hatred of taxes (though we don’t have to like them, either) as it is a hatred of corporatism, corporate cronyism in our government, and tax policies which benefit the rich and powerful over the Everyman, or the local American. Early American patriots were inspired toward their exceptional act of independence primarily in resistance to their lack of representation in contrast to the power of a big business lobby.

I’m not surprised that “the Pajamas TV team including Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, and Joe Wurzelbacher (aka Joe the Plumber)” would be too clueless to know their American history. Facts are stupid things, remember?

You people are tools.