full employment and
minimum wage, national
health and education
Looking ahead to the mid-terms, what could result if we see a change in the politcal parties in charge of Congress?
What would I ask for?
I point you to the book, Dutch: A memoir of Ronald Reagan by Edmund Morris (New York, Random House, 1999), where Mr. Morris writes about Ronald Reagan right after WW2:
Ronald Reagan thus publicly endorsed the AVC’s draft constitution, which was “liberal” enough to satisfy a Swede. It called among other things for peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union, cession of American nuclear power to the United Nations, full employment and a minimum wage, comprehensive national health and education programs, protection of strikers from compulsory arbitration, abolition of all discriminatory laws, minority rights to sue for slander, and federal enforcement of civil liberties.
President Reagan was a member of the AVC
According to Wikipedia, “The American Veterans Committee (The AVC) was founded in 1943 as a liberal veterans organization and an alternative to groups such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which supported a conservative political and social agenda. The organization’s roots were planted in 1942 when Sgt. Gilbert Harrison began to correspond with fellow servicemen concerning an organization that expanded beyond the needs of military men. In 1943, the University Religious Conference at UCLA became a meeting place for the military men who shared this desire for a veterans organization that also advocated peace and justice.”
It called among other things for peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union,
cession of American nuclear power to the United Nations,
full employment and a minimum wage,
comprehensive national health and education programs,
protection of strikers from compulsory arbitration,
abolition of all discriminatory laws,
minority rights to sue for slander,
and federal enforcement of civil liberties.
If it was good enough for Ronald Reagan, it’s good enough for me.
Sounds like a great place to start on November 4th.
Mr. Morris continued:
“Let me tell you, I was impressed with Reagan,” the AVC’s founder told me many years later. Gilbert A. Harrison was then the retired editor of The New Republic, and a fellow biographer. “We had some big names on our national planning committee—FDR Jr., John Hersey, Michael Straight—but Ronnie wasn’t about to be pushed into joining. I’ve never known a man ask such careful, probing questions before agreeing, after long thought, to give us his support. It was as if he were recruiting me.”
The support, once given, was total. Harrison said that what Dutch liked about the AVC was, first, its determination that the bad old days of isolationism and relief would never return, and second, “my idea of expanding the Committee into an international lobby under the aegis of the United Nations, working to contain the A-bomb.”
Both men were gratified to see the national enrollment rate rise to twenty-five hundred a week. Dwight D. Eisenhower signed on, as did such other celebrated vets as Bill Mauldin and Audie Murphy. Reagan was personally responsible for at least two hundred new members.
