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Franklin Roosevelt was a case in point, Zinn explained.
Early in his tenure, "strikes broke out all over the country"Unemployed councils formed" nationwide.
Ordinary people acted on their own, "defying the police"creating self-help organizations with hundreds of thousands of members."
Without mass action by Americans nationwide at a time of economic crisis, it's unlikely that FDR "would have instituted the bold reforms" he and Congress got enacted into law.
Dems today are worlds apart from decades earlier party members.
"They offer no radical change from the status quo."
They support endless wars on invented enemies and serve privileged interests exclusively.
New Deal, Fair Deal, Great Society programs are long ago abandoned Dem party priorities.
Today's Dems fail to push for "a government guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every household, housing relief to" avoid evictions or foreclosures, and healthcare for all.
All of the above and more are fundamental human rights.
Instead, both wings of the US one-party state throw trillions of dollars at corporate favorites and the Pentagon at the expense of fast eroding social justice on the chopping block for eventual elimination.
Zinn stressed that Dems only break in part from dirty business as usual when "encountering rebellion from below as in the thirties and sixties," adding:
No matter who's elected president and gains congressional control when US elections are held, "capitalist greed and militarism" remain unchanged.
He urged Americans to "free themselves from election madness (and) tak(e) action" for equity and justice not obtainable at the ballot box, adding:
"Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Dem(s), conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war."
"Voting is (no) substitute for"direct action by concerned citizens."
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