Until tonight, I had never heard of Norman Thomas

[Syrinx]

Or if I had, I forgot about him.

I watched the late replay of Larry King Live, with Michael Moore.

Larry mentioned to Michael that a Socialist candidate named Norman Thomas once ran for president on a platform of 20 principles, and that today 19 of those principles are law.

I would be interested in finding out what those 20 principles were, especially the 20th that is still not law.

Below is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Norman Thomas. It's also interesting to note that he was the guest on the first episode of William F. Buckley's Firing Line program. I've got to try to find a video of that on Youtube.

Thomas was initially as outspoken in opposing the Second World War as he was with regard to the First World War. Upon returning from a European tour in 1937, he formed the Keep America Out of War Congress and spoke against war, thereby sharing a platform with the America First Committee.<14> However, after the United States was attacked by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, his stance changed to support for US involvement,<15> and later wrote self-critically for having "overemphasized both the sense in which it was a continuance of World War I and the capacity of nonfascist Europe to resist the Nazis.".<16>

Thomas was one of the few public figures to oppose President Franklin Roosevelt's (D) internment of Japanese Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Thomas accused the ACLU of "dereliction of duty" when the organization supported the internment. Thomas also campaigned against racial segregation, environmental depletion, anti-labor laws and practices, and in favor of opening the United States to Jewish victims of Nazi persecution in the 1930s.

Thomas was an early proponent of birth control. The birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger recruited him to write "Some Objections to Birth Control Considered" in Religious and Ethical Aspects of Birth Control, edited and published by Sanger in 1926. Thomas accused the Roman Catholic Church of hypocritical opinions on sex, such as requiring priests to be celibate and maintaining that lay people should only have sex to reproduce. "This doctrine of unrestricted procreation is strangely inconsistent on the lips of men who practice celibacy and preach continence."<17>

Thomas also deplored the secular objection to birth control because it originated from "racial and national" group-think. "The white race, we are told, our own nation — whatever that nation may be — is endangered by practicing birth control. Birth control is something like disarmament — a good thing if effected by international agreement, but otherwise dangerous to us in both a military and economic sense. If we are not to be overwhelmed by the 'rising tide of color' we must breed against the world. If our nation is to survive, it must have more cannon and more babies as prospective food for the cannon."<18>

Thomas was also very critical of Zionism and of Israel's policies towards the Arabs in the postwar years (especially after the Suez Crisis) and often collaborated with the American Council for Judaism.

[dreamnightwind]

1. Same here

I didn't know or didn't remember about Thomas either, that was a cool thing in the Larry King - Michael Moore chat. No positive history of socialism is taught to us, as far as I know. Socialism (in its democratic form) is looking better all the time.

[Scuba]

2. Such good people are routinely dropped from history. Thanks.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. True 'dat. Henry Wallace, for instance.

Almost..... not quite... a non--person. In the historical sense.

[benddem]

4. that's cause

you are too young.

[Better Believe It]

5. Check out this video on Eugene Debs, the greatest and most popular American socialist of them all.

The Debs speech begins about 30 seconds into the video.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x523010

[Odin2005]

14. Debs was DA MAN!

Ran for president while in jail for dissent! :D

[hobbit709]

6. the better product of Marion, OH-as opposed to Warren G. Harding.

[Scruffy1]

8. Please go to the nearset library

If we wait for the media to inform us we will always be ignorant. Check out some Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky etc. I particularly like Nick Salvatore's Eugene Debs biography:"Eugene Debs Citizen and Socialist." I think it gives an honest appraisal of the successes and failures of the early twentieth century Socialist Party. The Zinn Reader is excellent. Socialists wasn't always a dirty word and Helen Keller and Jack London were two of the better known socialists of their day.

[Scruffy1]

9. Funny how both Debs and Thomas cam from Ohio.

Also that Harding let Debs out of prison after the Democrat Wilson wouldn't.

[JHB]

7. One more reason for a "Sunday school" for liberalism

When you pick up history "by osmosis" it tend to leave out a lot.

[DavidDvorkin]

10. I heard him speak in 1964

He was 80 at the time and died just a few years later. He came out of retirement to campaign for LBJ - not because he liked LBJ all that much or had given up his socialist principles, but because he knew that Goldwater would be so terrible for the country. There's a lesson for DU!

This was in a jam-packed classroom at Indiana University. He was brought in by a left-wing student group, possibly the YSA. The university refused to let him speak in one of the big auditoriums, I think.

His hearing was poor, and he had to have audience questions repeated for him by an assistant. But his voice was still strong, and he was a riveting and eloquent speaker. He was also witty and charming, and I think every student there (except for the few angry right wingers in the audience) would have voted for him if he had been running.

I treasure that memory.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. I heard about him when I was a kid.

My dad voted for Norman Thomas for President in 1932.
He said that was because there was no difference in the Republican and Democratic platforms. After he was elected, Roosevelt took the Socialist platform and used it for the New Deal.

I have a friend whose grandfather was a union organizer with my father, so this is a multi-generational friendship. She said that her grandparents had Norman Thomas over for Sunday dinner and one of her uncles had letters from him addressed to "Dear Comrade".

[Odin2005]

12. Thomas's popularity is what pulled FDR to the Left. We need another like him.

[Blue_Tires]

13. ttt