Note: I am cross-posting to Bleeding Heartland my latest installment in MyDD's partisan candidate diary series.
I was planning to write this post about my impressions from Tom Harkin's steak fry on Sunday. However, my camera wasn't working for some reason, and there have already been other good diaries covering that event.
So my thoughts turned to words from a different time and place.
Last Thursday I attended my temple's services for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. As is my habit when the service starts to drag, I began leafing through the front section of the High Holidays prayer book, which contains quotations, legends and meditations on themes relevant to this time of year. You Jewish readers out there may also enjoy reflecting on those parts of the prayer book if you spend long hours at Yom Kippur services. [note: are there any other Jewish readers of Bleeding Heartland?]
One of the snippets that caught my attention contained a quotation attributed to the Baal Shem Tov, the 18th century rabbi who founded the Hasidic Jewish movement. I don't have a link, but I jotted down the relevant portion:
The first time an event occurs in nature it is a miracle; later it comes to seem natural and is taken for granted.
The quote reminded me of something I had recently read in The Atlantic Monthly. That magazine is 150 years old, and to celebrate that milestone editors have been publishing decades-old excerpts on a particular theme in each issue. In the October 2007 issue, the magazine reprints portions of articles about philanthropy, including a piece written by Alice Hamilton for the May 1930 issue:
I must … join with those who stand for state pensions for the aged poor rather than support given through private charity …
[…]
In thinking of old-age pensions we must take into consideration a great new class of needy people. These are not men who have lived all their lives on the edge of poverty; they are self-respecting artisans, skilled workers, men who have made good wages and held their heads high. At a moment when such a man still possesses all his old skill of eye and hand, and the gains of long experience, he finds himself no longer wanted, of less use in our American social system than his little feather-brained daughter with a year’s training in a business school …
It will be harder and harder for him to find any sort of job, even if he dyes his hair and makes pitiful efforts to hide the senility of fifty years … Personally, I am very loath to accept the verdict that a dependence on the benevolence of the uppermost class toward the lowest class is the only possible American way of solving the problem of the poor, or even that it makes for a healthy state and contentment at the bottom of society …
The American workman may earn high wages … but even if he does, he must live all his working life under the shadow of three Damoclean swords: sickness, loss of his job, and old age, and against these our country, the richest in the world, gives him no protection.
Think about that. In 1930 it was not a given that the elderly should receive any kind of state pension. Our country, “the richest in the world,” offered no protection for those who had worked hard their whole adult lives.
Probably there were plenty of naysayers who thought that efforts to adopt a state pension were a pipe dream which would never get through Congress.
Not long after that, Social Security became a reality, and now there are few programs that seem like a more “natural” obligation of our government than that one.
I am no expert on the history of the labor movement, but the activists who were advocating the right to collective bargaining in the late 19th century must have sometimes felt like it would be a miracle for them to ever succeed. It took decades before the right to join a union seemed “natural” even in the manufacturing sector, and we still haven't done enough to strengthen organized labor.
During this presidential campaign, John Edwards has set out very ambitious policy proposals, like his universal health care plan and his plan to end poverty in 30 years. Some journalists and even some progressives have dismissed these proposals as pandering or a waste of time, since Congress would (supposedly) never adopt them.
I think it is important for the Democratic Party's standard-bearer to set the bar high. Let's not become resigned to the idea that it would take a miracle to get a universal health care plan through Congress. Let's accept that our country, “the richest in the world,” has an obligation to provide universal access to health care, and let's debate the best way to get that done.
Let's talk about who has the best combination of ideas to end poverty or bring the United States closer to true energy independence.
Let's work to make the progressive achievements of the next presidency seem as natural decades from now as Social Security seems to us today.
By putting these goals front and center, John Edwards is not only running a strong campaign, he is inspiring his competitors to be better candidates as well. I hope that all Americans will benefit, no matter who ends up winning the Democratic primaries.
Final note: it's a few days late, but for all you Jewish MyDD readers, here is the Rosh Hashanah message released by John Edwards:
“Rosh Hashanah is an occasion for contemplating the past year and considering our future path. What have we done to make the world a better place? What can we do to improve ourselves as individuals? Elizabeth and I will be asking these questions as we wish all those who observe the high holiday a Happy New Year and pray for a year of peace, prosperity and good health for our brothers and sisters.”
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