Nowadays, liberals and progressives are taking a beating from the right wing media and Republican politicians.  The word “liberal” has become a dirty word.  I think it is time to remind readers what progressive Democrats have done for this country – creating benefits too many of us now take for granted.

What everyone should remember is that Republicans hated the New Deal when it was born and still hate it now.  Republicans would love to roll back all the progressive legislation that Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed through Congress in the 1930s.  Many rich capitalists would love to take us back to the Roaring Twenties when the Robber Barons got richer and the poor got poorer – back to the days when we all paid for the excesses of the rich during the Great Depression.

For those of you who have forgotten or just take this history for granted, here are but a few of the benefits that the New Deal brought to all Americans during the 1930s:

The New Deal added stability and accountability to our collapsed and ruined financial markets – the Securities Act of 1933, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal Savings & Loan Insurance Corp. (FSLIC), and others.

The New Deal put unemployed people to work – The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Work Projects Administration (WPA), National Youth Administration (NYA), and others.

The New Deal helped poor people buy homes – National Recovery Administration (NRA), Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and others.

The New Deal helped families – Emergency Relief Act of 1935, Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), Rural Electrification Act of 1936, the Social Security Act, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), Resettlement Administration, and others.

The New Deal helped veterans – the Veterans Administration, the GI Bill.

The Great Depression was a catastrophic economic event in American history that was precipitated by the stock-market crash of 1929.  At the depth of the depression, there were 16 million unemployed – about one third of the available labor force.  The gross national product declined from the 1929 figure of $103 billion to $56 billion in 1933.  The Great Depression was unprecedented in its length and in the wholesale poverty and tragedy it inflicted upon ordinary Americans.

Many factors contributed to the collapse of the economy, but economists agree on several factors.  The prosperity of the 1920s was unevenly distributed between the rich and the poor.  Farmers and unskilled workers were notably excluded from that prosperity.  The nation's productive capacity was greater than its capacity to consume.  In addition, the tariff and war-debt policies of the Republican administrations of the 1920s had greatly reduced foreign markets for American goods.  Finally, easy-money policies led to an inordinate expansion of credit and installment buying and fantastic speculation in the stock market.

I am a Democrat today because in 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law America’s first minimum wage law – 25 cents an hour, rising to 40 cents an hour over seven years.  This law, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), gave you and me and all of us - the right to organize, the 40 hour week, overtime pay, the weekend, and placed severe restrictions on child labor (when previously they worked 14 hour days in sweatshops).

I am a Democrat today because the New Deal raised millions of homeless and unemployed Americans out of poverty and created the ‘Middle Class’ in America – the ‘Middle Class’ that you and I enjoy – a middle class with benefits that too many young people now take for granted as though those benefits have always been with us.  Today's young people seem to know very little or nothing about the struggles of the twenties and thirties to achieve the fairness in the workplace that was achieved by working people, unions, and the Democratic Party.

The economic, agricultural, and relief policies of the New Deal stabilized our economy, put people back to work, restored the confidence of the American people, and saved America.

That's why I am a Democrat.  To be a Democrat meant helping people – the working man, the sick, and the needy.  Today. such views are sneeringly condemned as being “Liberal” – a “dirty word” synonymous with “Marxist” or “Socialist” or even “Communist” – a word intended to smear Democrats.  Well, I am an FDR-Democrat, a progressive, a liberal – whatever you want to call me, but I still believe the Democratic Party is the only party really interested in helping the working man, the poor, the sick, our children.  In contrast, I believe Republican policies are negative and 'regressive' – to cut taxes, cut welfare, cut funding for education, cut veterans' benefits, cut work rules and environmental regulations that restrict the ability of large corporations to earn even greater profits, etc.  I believe that the Republican Party is the party of big corporations and the very rich who embrace “trickle down” tax policies that were disproved in the 20s and helped bring about the Great Depression.

So when Democrats tell you that they are the party that brought you “the weekend,” you should believe them and remind all of your children and grandchildren about this period of our history.

Today, unfortunately, we are witnessing history repeat itself.  Bosses today are paid like rock stars.  The CEOs of the five hundred largest corporations earned an average of ten million dollars each last year, according to Forbes magazine.  And the income disparity between the “haves” and “have-nots” is now approaching the obscene pay ratios of the 1920s.  We are also seeing the same damaging effects of easy-money and rising consumer debt that now inhibits people’s ability to consume and even pay their outstanding debts.

When “liberals” brings up these facts, we are accused of “class welfare.”  But this is not “class warfare.”  These are facts that find a disturbing and depressing parallel in the collapse of our economy in 1929.

To quote the philosopher George Santayana, “those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”