|
|
DEMOCRATIC
SOCIALISTS
OF
AMERICA
|
April 30,
2009 |
 | ||
|
NEWS FROM DSA |
||
|
FORMER ASSEMBLYMAN SAYS
"CAPITALISM HAS FAILED US"
Luster Urges Democrats to Work for a "New America"
In remarks before the Tompkins County Democratic Committee at the group?s annual Spring fundraiser on Friday April 24 former Assemblyman Marty Luster, after summarizing a number of major turning points in the nation?s history and describing the country?s current economic situation, declared ,"Capitalism, as we have known it, has failed us." He added that "the American people understand this," referring to a recent Rasmussen poll that shows that only 53% of Americans believe that capitalism is preferable to socialism.
Luster acknowledged that under President Obama, those who are "jobless, homeless and helpless" will likely receive greater assistance than has been the case under past administrations, but he said the "bigger question" is yet unanswered:
"Will we go beyond that and seek new and perhaps untried ways of creating and nurturing an economy and an economic system that fairly and democratically distributes its bounty to all who live here? Will we reject the accepted notion that our health, wellbeing and security will always be subject to cyclical forces beyond our control" Will we turn to a system that holds accountable those who plunder the wealth, which is the fruit of our common labor"?
Luster urged the Democratic rank and file to work for democracy in the marketplace and the workplace and to insist that the officials whom they have helped to put in office "put a premium on courage and a tax on timidity." He called for the Party to work for a "new America" that will reject the "greed and selfishness of the modern day robber-barons" and which will put aside "the old divisions of race and class and gender"by "re-creating a nation built upon our common humanity and a vision of an America where the public good is put ahead of private profit." Luster,
67, retired from the New York State Assembly in 2002 after serving 14 years. He
also served as Ulysses Town Supervisor and Ithaca City Attorney. He is an active
member of Democratic Socialists of America.
Full Text
As Americans, we cannot help but recognize moments in our
history that have become turning points in our national journey. Most are
familiar to us: the Continental Congresses, the Revolutionary War, the
Constitutional Convention and the fight for ratification, the issue of slavery
that we managed to mostly avoid for generations until it became just too large
to hide anymore and a ghastly civil war that resulted in more casualties of
Americans than any other conflict before or since. We embraced our manifest
destiny and took possession of a grand land, but we did so at the expense of a
proud and noble race of people. We nurtured an industrial revolution that, in
turn, birthed both the robber barons and the labor movement. In the 1950s and
60s we confronted racism and bigotry, and although the battle for civil and
human rights is far from over, that era became one of our national turning
points. In 2008 we elected a person of color as our
president.
We have lived through world wars, regional wars, the Great Depression, Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon and George W. Bush. Our nation has survived assassinations, constitutional crises, domestic unrest, homegrown fascists and foreign adversaries. Our historical path is illuminated by the glow of our heroes: the founders, the framers of the constitution, our greatest presidents and political leaders, our fallen, both on the battlefield and in the public arena. We remember John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. We
Americans now find ourselves at what history will, without doubt, identify as
yet another national crossroad. We are confronted by the highest unemployment
rate -- more than 10% in at least 7 states -- and the highest home foreclosure
rate in generations. Our young college graduates are trapped in debt. During
March, 6,000 Americans a day filed for bankruptcy. One in 10 Americans relies on
Food Stamps. Our financial system is failing and our major industries teeter on
the brink. The U.S ranks 29th in infant mortality; behind the Scandinavian
countries, behind Cuba, behind the entire modern industrialized world. And what
little progress we have made has not benefited all of us. African-American
infants are still dying at a rate much greater than the children of white
parents. Domestic violence and crime in general is again on the rise. The gap
between the rich and the rest of us continues to widen. Our home values have
been washed away and many of our young people face a future devoid of that
traditional American commodity: hope. One in 50 children are homeless in this
nation. One in 50! Tent cities have sprung up in Seattle, Sacramento, in
Virginia and elsewhere and more and more families are living in their cars. Poor
nutrition and obesity haunt millions of us, many of whom are among the 50
million Americans who are without access to health care.
And if and when we pull out of this great recession, we will look forward to more bubbles that eventually burst, more hardship, more dreams shattered, more greed and more criminality. Let us be
honest with ourselves. Capitalism, as we have known it, has failed us. The
American people understand this. A recent national poll tells us that just a
bare majority -- 53% -- believe that capitalism is superior to socialism. Adults
under 30 are evenly divided on their preference between the two economic
systems. But as we survey our situation we do not yet know if we will choose a
new direction to travel, or continue on the established path. Will we study the
lessons of our past to seek new and better ways to govern ourselves or will we
remain the captives of the worst of what we have wrought: a politics that too
often is determined by expediency, an economy that is governed not by elected
representatives in legislative and executive chambers, but by corporate boards
that meet behind closed doors in their Wall Street offices, a health care system
that excludes more than 50 million of us, and participation in a globalized
economic cabal that employs child and slave labor and which ignores our
environment, our health and our safety.
We will, under this president, I trust, offer greater assistance to those who are jobless, homeless and hopeless. But, the bigger question which is as yet unanswered is: Will we go beyond that and seek new and perhaps untried ways of creating and nurturing an economy and an economic system that fairly and democratically distributes its bounty to all who live here? Will we reject the accepted notion that our health, wellbeing and security will always be subject to cyclical forces beyond our control? Will we turn to a system that holds accountable those who plunder the wealth, which is the fruit of our common labor? Can we together go from the "free market" to the "fair market"? Can we create a new America? Last November we voted for change. In so doing we elected a president who possesses singular qualities of leadership. President Obama has spoken eloquently about the need to take a long view and to consider new approaches. This is hopeful. We also elected a Democratic congress. We have in place the potential to mark this moment in time as a major turning point for America. To unleash that potential our Democratic colleagues must reach deep down into themselves. To put us on a new path, one that hopefully will avoid a repeat of our current sad condition, they must not shy away from the use of government as a solution to our problems, for government can be an agent of positive change. I say to them, "Do not apologize for the power of a democratic government." Remind the people of the good that government has done. No, despite what Ronald Reagan told us, the problem is not and was not government. The problem was that, after working a lifetime, older Americans were left to spend their last years without security, without hope and without dignity. The solution was government -- Social Security. Similarly, it was the government that provided us with unemployment insurance when we were without work, with child labor laws when 8, 10 and 12 year olds were forced to toil in our factories and sweatshops, with Medicare and Medicaid to serve at least the basic health needs of the elderly and the poor, with Clean Air and Clean Water Acts to protect our natural environment, and with public assistance, food and nutrition programs and with Headstart and other early intervention efforts. As worthy as our previous efforts were, we should look upon many of them as vital first aid administered to an injured body politic. They all were and are beneficial and worthwhile. But they simply stopped the bleeding; they didn't treat the underlying condition. To build our new America we must take the best of what we have done over the past hundred years and improve upon it and incorporate it into structural changes, changes that will in time obviate some of the need for the last century's "liberal" measures and substitute a new economic and social system. In this new system people and their choices must take primacy over money. This new way will embrace government's vital and legitimate role to guide and regulate our economy and to create mechanisms that will allow democratic participation in that economy. It will protect our working people and enable them to play a major role in the economic decisions that so directly affect them and their families. It will tax inheritances and capital gains at the same or a higher rate than work, and in any case tax in proportion to ability to pay. It will subsidize parental leave and childcare for working families. It will spend more on schools and colleges than on prisons. It will recognize that our government must protect our natural environment, our personal liberties, our reproductive freedom, our personal relationships, our ability to freely travel and to practice our religious beliefs. It will understand that government is best equipped to provide a sound education for our children and to guarantee that we all have access to a reasonable measure of health care. It will invest in the new technologies that can avert global warming, training people for the good jobs along the way. Environmental benefits may not show up in the corporate bottom line, but they are good reasons for government investment. It will organize quality public transportation to let us travel swiftly and safely without excessive dependence on fossil fuels. And it will maintain a strong, permanent and reliable safety net that will sustain those among us who are unable to fully benefit from our new system; the aged and frail, the poor and destitute, the homeless, children, the unemployed, the ill and the infirm, the abused, the battered and the beaten. It will work to raise living standards around the globe and reject exploitation of workers in this and all lands where profit maximization has been displacing our humanity. If we, the Democratic rank and file, can convince those we have put in office to remember both the best of our heritage as well as the worst, we can fashion a new America. If our Democrats in government stop worrying so much about the next election and use their office to design and promote this new America and to educate the public, it can become a reality. If our Democrats in public office place a premium on courage and a tax on timidity, we can have this new America. The people are ready. The people are listening. More than 50% of Americans support single-payer health care. More than 50% of Americans believe that large, insolvent banks should be nationalized. Most Americans, believe that an investment house that is "too big to fail", is, in the words of Bernie Sanders, "too big to exist." Most Americans would join unions if they could. Most Americans, I hope, now recognize that the "free market" was only free from effective regulation and government control, but it has never been free of the greed and selfishness of the corporate oligarchy that has run this country for more than a century. We, the people who carry the petitions, make the telephone calls, contribute our money and our energy must convince those whom we have helped put in office that they have an opportunity for change that most did not imagine when the were elected"an opportunity that must not be squandered.
The time is right for a reaffirmation of our faith in American democracy - a democracy that must be extended to the marketplace and the workplace. We Democrats should embrace a reaffirmation of our basic belief that unnecessary suffering by even small numbers of our countrymen diminishes us as a people; that our mighty resources can and must be directed to alleviate environmental degradation, hunger, disease, child mortality, illiteracy, homelessness and the whole broad array of afflictions that result from poverty. And this reaffirmation must be made in the context of a newly constructed economic and social order.
The time is right to reject the greed and selfishness of the modern day robber-barons and to embrace the belief that most Americans share: that we are brothers and sisters and that the success of the American experiment will be judged, not by our attempt to "spread democracy," to foreign lands, but by our success in putting aside the old divisions of race and class and gender and by re-creating a nation built upon our common humanity and a vision of an America where the public good is put ahead of private profit. The time is right for a new America. To contact
Marty Luster click here.
. In
solidarity,
 Frank
Llewellyn
National
Director
|
|
Paid for by Democratic
Socialists of America, 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 505, New York, NY
10038. |
|