A Second Bill of Rights

In the United States, people talk a lot about rights and freedoms. Often, however, the discussion is narrow in scope, as in freedom from external constraints or the interference of others. Thinkers such as Erich Fromm have referred to this concept as “negative freedom” for “freedom from.”

While these freedoms are important — some are inscribed in the Bill of Rights — they are incomplete. Positive freedom, sometimes called “freedom for” or “freedom to” is about the ability of people to act freely and develop their potential. It also implies the right of people to meet their basic needs as members of the human community.

Having one kind of freedom without the other is pretty cold comfort. As the French author Anatole France wryly noted, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

As World War II was winding down, President Franklin Roosevelt in an address to Congress explicitly recognized that negative freedom was not enough. “We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. ‘Necessitous men are not free men.’ People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

He called for a “Second Bill of Rights,” which would guarantee all Americans the right to such basics as employment, a living wage, education, health care, leisure and security in the event of sickness, age or disability.

Roosevelt died before he could advance this vision, but his call helped inspire the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which includes a pretty comprehensive enumeration of social, civil and economic rights.

Alas, it’s one thing to declare rights and quite another to actually exercise them.

Twenty years after the U.N. declaration, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. renewed Roosevelt’s call, saying that “We need an economic bill of rights. This would guarantee a job to all people who want to work and are able to work. It would also guarantee an income for all who are not able to work. Some people are too young, some are too old, some are physically disabled, and yet in order to live, they need income.”

The original Poor Peoples’ Campaign that King and allies initiated 50 years ago aimed to make those rights a reality.

As you may have noticed, we haven’t got there yet. Up until now, such demands and declarations have been matters of wish and aspiration rather than fact. In the real world, people only have those rights they can effectively realize, even in the face of opposition.

And that’s why the people and organizations from across America are participating in a revived Poor Peoples’ Campaign, which describes itself as “A National Call to Moral Revival.”

A basic demand of the campaign is that that everybody has the right to live: “Given the abundance that exists in this country and the fundamental dignity inherent to all humanity, every person in the United States has the right to housing, education, health care, welfare, decent and dignified jobs and the right to organize for the realization of these rights.”

It’s past time to make those rights and freedom a reality.

In West Virginia, we have a long tradition of fighting for those rights — and sometimes winning. That tradition reaches from the Great Rail Strike of 1877, which spread from Martinsburg across the nation, to the Mine Wars of the early 20th century to the Black Lung Movement of the 1970s to the W.Va. Teachers’ Strike of 2018, the ripples of which are still spreading across the nation. It’s a record to be proud of.

Those who came before us aimed high. Henry David Thoreau’s challenge to us is more relevant than ever: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

THE TWO BUMS, PLUS WAL-MART AND HUMAN RIGHTS AND A WV ITEM

Caption: Here are two bums.

(This week's posts are loosely connected. If this is your first visit, please consider clicking on the last two.)

El Cabrero has a soft spot for the Wobblies, a nickname for the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical branch of the labor movement that saw its best days between its founding in 1905 and the massive political repression that accompanied the First World War.

Their goal was to unite all workers, regardless of skill, race, sex, religion, or national origin, into One Big Union. They were also very clever in making use of funny and irreverent songs, poems, and signs (similar to modern bumper stickers) which they called silent agitators to get their message across.

They gave the labor movement some of its best songs, such as Solidarity Forever, which was inspired by a coal strike in El Cabrero’s beloved state of West Virginia, The Commonwealth of Toil, Bread and Roses, and The Preacher and the Slave.

One Wobbly poem called The Two Bums, is the most eloquent statement on social policy that I’ve ever found.

Then as now, people are all to ready and eager to blame all social problems on poor and working people and ignore the vast harm done to the vast majority by a wealthy and powerful minority of people who own and control most economic and political power.

Here it is:

The Two Bums

The bum on the rods is hunted down as an enemy of mankind
The other is driven around to his club, is feted, wined and dined.

And they who curse the bum on the rods as the essence of all that's bad
Will greet the other with a willing smile and extend a hand so glad.

The bum on the rods is a social flea who gets an occasional bite
The bum on the plush is a social leech, bloodsucking day and night.

The bum on the rods is a load so light that his weight we scarcely feel
But it takes the labour of dozens of folks to furnish the other a meal.

As long as we sanction the bum on the plush the other will always be there
But rid ourselves of the bum on the plush and the other will disappear.

Then make an intelligent organised kick get rid of the weights that crush
Don't worry about the bum on the rods get rid of the bum on the plush.

(Railroad trivia note: the "rods" referred to here are the rods underneath rail cars--not a very safe way to travel cross country.)

ON THE PLUSH. Our old friend Wal-Mart made the cover of the print version of Business Week again, but this item about its human rights record from the online version of the magazine is even more interesting. Here's the lead:

Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental group based in New York, is best known for scathing reports on political issues such as the Rwandan genocide and the Congo's use of children in its military. But late on Apr. 30, the human rights group focused on Wal-Mart (WMT), issuing a report that charged the giant retailer with using strong-arm tactics and, in some cases, illegal means to stop its workers from forming unions. In a 210-page report, the organization says "the retail giant stands out for the sheer magnitude and aggressiveness of its anti-union apparatus."

This is only the second time in the organization's 29-year history that it has issued a book-size report on a corporation. The first one was on Enron in 1999. The study's author, Carol Pier, says the group decided to focus on Wal-Mart because of its broad impact on labor practices and the U.S. economy. "Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the world. Therefore, the way it treats its workers matters," says Pier, senior labor rights and trade researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Our message is that when the world's largest economy has labor laws that are so weak that it is unable to prevent the world's largest corporation from violating workers' rights to organize, it is troubling."

WV ITEM. We hear a lot of complaints in this state from conservatives about the drastic growth of state government. Last week, Antipode did some math and found that state spending actually declined over the last 25 years as a proportion of state GDP.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED