Media

Blaze Magazine Special Report: Occupy the Great Depression

Editor’s note: In “Occupy the Great Depression,” found only in the newest issue of The Blaze Magazine, Natasha Pascetta takes a look at the Occupy Wall Street movement and exposes that their efforts are nothing new. Young socialist activists demanding money, jobs, and education from the government have been with us for a long, long time.

Below is an excerpt from Natasha’s insightful piece, which you’ll find only in the pages of The Blaze Magazine.

——–

The radical activists “occupying” everything and touting the benefits of socialism and communism these days aren’t new. FDR had to face a movement that embraced the efforts of the Soviet Union—and backed Hitler’s Germany.

As the youth unemployment in America continues to climb, calls for a “New Deal” for the Millennial Generation come from professors, pundits and students alike. While American youth are suffering from the highest unemployment in more than 60 years, their support for certain government programs indicate that they may also be suffering from selective memory.

Blaze Magazine: Radicalism in the Occupy Wall Street Movement Is Not New; Entitlement Youth Attacked FDR, Too

The New Deal program for the youth of the 1930s didn’t really work all that well. This may be shocking, but progressive patriarch President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was not able to satiate the youth’s demands in Depression-era America. Knowing that his federal programs had not lived up to their expectations, FDR, in a Feb. 11, 1940, address to the American Youth Congress (AYC), had this unlikely dose of tough love for the youth of the nation:

“To you who are voters and who will soon be voters, don’t seek or expect Utopia overnight; don’t seek or expect a panacea—some wonderful new law that will give to everybody who needs it a hand-out or a guarantee of permanent remunerative occupation of your own choosing.”

His words hit the young audience like a slap in the face. The president’s New Deal had failed them and now he was berating them for their idealistic views.

But the AYC was familiar with being disappointed by FDR. According to Robert Cohen, in his book “When the Old Left Was Young,” the AYC, since its formation in 1934 as the foremost influential leftist-led youth federation and lobby, had been extremely critical of Roosevelt’s answer to the massive youth unemployment—the National Youth Administration (NYA).

The NYA was created as an agency under the New Deal’s Work Progress Administration in 1935 to provide paying jobs to student and non-student youths. Although the NYA was able to provide temporary jobs to millions of young people, Cohen reports that it never managed to employ more than one-sixth of the nation’s jobless youth at one time. The AYC was never shy to point out the considerable limitations of this federal agency.

Cohen recounts how the AYC was comprised of a smorgasbord of mostly left-leaning organizations, including the Youth Committee Against War, the Young People’s Socialist League, the Young Communist League, United Auto Workers, and the American Student Union. Think of the AYC as a much more organized Occupy Wall Street.

In fact, although many compare Occupy Wall Street to the student activist movements of the 1960s, a more fitting parallel could be the youth activism of the 1930s. For example, consider this statement from the AYC’s 1936 “Declaration of the Rights of American Youth”:

“We declare that our generation is rightfully entitled to a useful, creative, and happy life, the guarantees of which are: full educational opportunities, steady employment at adequate wages, security in time of need, civil rights, religious freedom, and peace.”

Blaze Magazine: Radicalism in the Occupy Wall Street Movement Is Not New; Entitlement Youth Attacked FDR, Too

Fast forward to 2012 and these same “rights” show up on protesters cardboard signs and Occupy Wall Street online threads that demand “Guaranteed Living Wage Incomes Regardless of Employment,” “Free College Education” and “Debt Forgiveness for All!”

The AYC wanted much more than the government’s National Youth Administration would ever be able to give them. In October 1935, William Hinckley, the executive secretary of the American Youth Congress, declared, “If we young people are going to sit back and wait for the National Youth Administration to put us on our feet, we’re far more likely to land on another part of our anatomy.”

Despite the NYA’s attempts to cope with youth joblessness by paying students to participate in work-study programs, the AYC found the wage scale to be unacceptable. “One week after the NYA was introduced, the American Youth Congress was asked to endorse it. We laughed and proceeded to draw up a truly democratic and adequate plan,” Hinckley said. That plan was the “American Youth Act.”

The act would have provided financial aid to all needy people between the ages of 16 and 25. High school students would receive $15 a month and college students at least $25 a month. Obviously, this was a completely unreasonable request in the face of . . . .

Get the full report ONLY in the pages of The Blaze Magazine. Subscribe here today.

Comments (21)

  • agelover_c0m
    Posted on June 7, 2012 at 10:45pm

    It’s the best place to meet beautiful and rich cougar women. Come in and stay a while.

    Report Post » agelover_c0m  
  • Netsurfer2
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 9:31pm

    The truth of the sad thing is that most politicians are lawyers who are millionaires. You practically have to be rich in order to even run for President. It really does not make any sense! There are tax brackets dividing people, you have a lot of people who are greedy, none of which are thankful and a loss in integrity! I really don’t understand any of this society!

    I strongly believe that other people are running the system behind the scenes and will always!

    While the working class continue to hold things up, there is no reprimand to those who really made the mess in the first place! We also need many changes of the system so that it doesn’t ever happen again! Meanwhile I hope it all falls apart and they get their just reward!

    Report Post » Netsurfer2  
  • Joe Bonham
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 8:27pm

    Nice bit of Conservative pseudo-history. Its funny how Neo-cons love to blame the victims. God forbid we expect corporations to hire actual Americans, instead of outsourcing everything to Indian sweat-shops.

    Report Post »  
    • Jaycen
      Posted on June 7, 2012 at 1:30am

      Strawman much, Joe? How does your point have anything to do with the article, or with history?

      How is this fake history? You dispute the facts? Try using some of your own instead of a string of nonsense words.

      Report Post » Jaycen  
    • Jaycen
      Posted on June 7, 2012 at 1:48am

      Ya know, guys like Joe are so stupid, they can’t even name-call properly. Neo-cons are Progressive Socialists who are hawkish on war. It’s a term made up by your own ideological buddies to scare others back into line.

      You shouldn’t try to use big words, when you don’t own a clue.

      Report Post » Jaycen  
    • Constructionist
      Posted on June 7, 2012 at 9:01am

      I‘m sure you wouldn’t mind paying $250 for a pair of blue jeans if they did.

      Report Post » Constructionist  
  • christos
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 5:54pm

    ,,,Given the ability to counter them also with “OCCUPY CREATIVITY” we are more than Conqueror’s through +CHRIST+ .

    Report Post » christos  
  • lukerw
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 4:52pm

    Idealism = Ideology… Utopia was a plan for Paradise for the Elite where Slaves served thier needs; Socialism always fails to Equalize…. because we are a PREDATOR SPECIES!

    Report Post » lukerw  
  • tommyg524
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 3:41pm

    I‘m betting most don’t realise that the federal reserve, if it had done the job it was created to do, could have avoided the entire 1929 crash. But then, money has always known to be blind. As is our very shallow and meaningless one way street , err, wall street existance. The day wall street was allowed in the oval office is the day democracy died. End of story. Anyone check their 401k lately? LOL>

    Report Post »  
  • AmericanMutt
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:20pm

    These sniveling little pantywaists need to occupy Parris Island for 12 weeks. That might get the ones who survive headed in the right direction…

    Report Post » AmericanMutt  
    • ozchambers
      Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:31pm

      I’d prefer they hold an “Occupy Gravity” rally and jump off a cliff.

      Report Post » ozchambers  
  • jakartaman
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:02pm

    I think (pray) that the majority of Americans have figured it out.
    Socialism is a failure and there is no such thing as a free lunch.
    Unfortunately we collectively – the world -have been living way over our heads.
    The piper is playing and we will all have to dance.

    Report Post »  
  • Free_Thinker
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:37pm

    The more things change the more they stay the same.

    Report Post » Free_Thinker  
  • RightPolitically
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:31pm

    The more things change, the more they remain the same. The one common thread between these commie groups of old and new is their sense of entitlement. You see, those who understand the American concept also understand that we are all entitled to LIFE, LIBERTY and the “pursuit” of HAPPINESS…….. not it’s guarantee! These bastards, liberals in general, are ANTI-AMERICAN.

    Report Post » RightPolitically  
    • FedUpAlready
      Posted on June 6, 2012 at 2:42pm

      We have only ourselves to blame, I’ve been trying to tell people about UN Agenda 21 for years, but, have been touted as a whack job. Well now it’s all coming true, and, this Action based Initiative is now in overdrive. It means not what party you elect to office, they’re all in it together, so you must get new candidates for office, who don’t support this effort to destroy our National Sovereignty, Individual Rights.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzEEgtOFFlM

      Report Post » FedUpAlready  
  • jeffgman
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:28pm

    Editors note: “exposes that they’re efforts are nothing new”… should be “their”. Love the Blaze, but I note errors like these all the time. ;-)

    Report Post »  
  • drphil69
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:27pm

    “The president’s New Deal had failed them and now he was berating them for their idealistic views.”

    Is it idealistic to expect something for nothing? Seems to me it is quite SELFISH. They expect the farmer to provide free food, the seamstress to provide free clothes, the doctors to provide free medical care, homebuilders to provide free housing – what are they going to provide? Their wonderful selves??

    When they get what they want, they will have nothing and will be starving in the streets. That’s when it gets FUN! We get to sit back and watch them kill each other for a slice of bread. And when they come after what’s mine…. BANG! Food for the foxes!

    Report Post »  
  • huey6367
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:17pm

    It is pretty well known that WWII saved FDR from being an obivously, horrible President. And that is the only thing that will save the Barry – a giant war. Barry’s programs, like FDR’s, suck and are doing nothing to help this country. Just take from it. Yes, they are jobs – until the job runs its course and then there is nothing. Get the government out of the private sector and everything works pretty well. Lost your job due to a downturn in business? Welcome to the business world. After this is all over, how many will remember this? and be prepared for it to happen again.

    Report Post »  
  • Sue Dohnim
    Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:04pm

    History never repeats,

    But is sure does assonate…

    Report Post » Sue Dohnim  
    • The-Monk
      Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:21pm

      @Sue Dohnim

      Back to the duplicate voter issue. I wonder if one person has 2 mailing addresses they show up twice and if they vote using one address they are marked off as “voted” for both addresses?

      What do you think?

      Report Post » The-Monk  
    • Sue Dohnim
      Posted on June 6, 2012 at 1:42pm

      @THE-MONK

      I don’t know, it is something that needs to be investigated,
      Remember, you don’t need ID, so, it could be a huge opportunity for voter fraud or exploitation

      the liberal media won’t look into it if it damages the Dems.

      My spidi sense tells me that if you are registered in multiple zips you or somebody could vote twice or more under that registration.

      Voter fraud benefits the Dems.. it is a real indictment of the State lists and the process,

      Report Post » Sue Dohnim  

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