December 2007 Changed Everything

Didn't it?

Because if this is not a national emergency, then shut up already.

But if it really is a national emergency, then for God's sake talk about it like a national emergency.

And however much it may cause the plutocracy's bland, pinstriped Janissaries to shart their Ronald Reagan Underoos to hear it, talking about national economic catastrophe in clear, unadorned language is not at all unprecedented in America history.

If you're looking for a template, look no further than the introductory remarks from Harry S. Truman's 1946 Radio Address to the American People on the Railroad Strike Emergency.

My fellow countrymen:

I come before the American people tonight at a time of great crisis. The crisis of Pearl Harbor was the result of action by a foreign enemy. The crisis tonight is caused by a group of men within our own country who place their private interests above the welfare of the nation.

As Americans you have the right to look to the President for leadership in this grave emergency. I have accepted the responsibility, as I have accepted it in other emergencies.

Every citizen of this country has the right to know what has brought about this crisis. It is my desire to report to you what has already taken place and the action that I intend to take.
...

Yeah, he said that.

The historical context was Truman beating up the leaders of the two railroad unions (out of 18) who were blowing off an arbitrated agreement, but the content itself is what matters in the here-and-now. Truman gave it to his obstructers "with the bark on" as the saying goes: naming names, laying out the details of how negotiations were upended, and invoking the still-fresh memory of Pearl Harbor to make it crystal clear exactly what he thought of his opponents.



Then he threatened to nationalize the railroads and draft every rail worker into the Army to make it stick.

It never happened because just as he was concluding his remarks he was handed a note that said the strike had been settled --

Word has just been received that the rail strike has been settled on terms proposed by the President.

-- and the idea of using the military and conscription to bulldoze labor makes my skin crawl, but I do believe that real national emergencies merit their own, blunt vocabulary and direct action delivered at with a throw-weight equivalent to that emergency.

So the Republican Congress rejected your modest jobs bill?

Fine.

Doesn't our state of national economic emergency merit adding one million new civilian contractor jobs to the Army Corps of Engineers? These new civilian contracts would be put to work repairing and upgrading America's infrastructure for the same reason we put millions to work building battleships, tanks and aircraft during WWII: because we cannot with the life-or-death struggle we are in without them.

We seem to have no trouble finding dough to line Halliburton's pockets, so why not a decent wage for one million unemployed Americans to bring our country back up to code?

Doesn't our state of national economic emergency merit adding one million new teachers or administrative assistants or coders or rural WiFi-ifiers? In exchange for 50% student load forgiveness and a small salary for each year of service?

I understand perfectly why the Last Defenders of Robber Baronism are stuck in a pre-December 2007 mindset


But that is no reason the rest of us have to be.

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