Or get busy watching freedom die Blue America‘s Howie Klein (Down With Tyranny) points to an old idea still current and still popular: FDR’s proposed Economic Bill of Rights (1944). Our political bill of rights, FDR saw, was inadequate for assuring “equality in the pursuit of happiness.” “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”January 20, 1937 As a record number of people die on America’s streets, Abdul Curry fights to stay alive. Howie excerpts FDR’s speech: It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people— whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth— is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure. This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights— among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty. As our nation has grown in size and stature, however— as our industrial economy expanded— these political rights proved inadequate to assure us…