acroyear | "they say we lack vision; we don't see that..."

Consider this vision statement: "The issue of government has always been whether individual men and women will have to serve some system of government of economics -- or whether a system of government and economics exists to serve individual men and women."

The words are Franklin D. Roosevelt's from his 1932 speech to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, FDR's boldest statement of purpose before he was elected. Roosevelt's point was that while powerful groups often claim to oppose a strong government role in the nation's economic life, they almost always seek government's protection for their own interests. Government's task, Roosevelt argued, was to intervene "not to hamper individualism but to protect it" by helping the less powerful confront economic difficulties and abuses of the system by the powerful.

Whatever message Democrats come up with, they will continue to lose ground and be untrue to what's best in their tradition if they fail to stand up for this affirmative government role in enhancing both individual liberty and self-sufficiency.

-- E.J.Dionne Jr, "Vision Check for the Democrats"