Those remembered as America's greatest presidents were also three of its greatest radicals.

Given the state of American politics and public life, we need to embrace our radical past and start putting it to good use. I refer here not -- or at least not simply -- to the great tradition of American radicals that has included such figures as revolutionary patriot Thomas Paine, feminist Fannie Wright, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, socialist Eugene Debs, anarchist Emma Goldman, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Just as much, I have in mind those figures whom both historians and the American people at large consider our greatest presidents: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Rarely thought of as radicals, they definitely do stand as radicals in the American grain.

Ask most people why Washington, Lincoln, and FDR are so revered and you will get various answers… Ask them what they share as historical heroes and you will likely hear it had to do with the fact they led America through its most challenging wars to final victories. Allowing the fact that Washington was not yet President when he led the Continental Army – remember, there was no national executive at the time – the answer is clearly correct and will work on a short answer test in any classroom. But as essential as military action has been and remains to the defense of the nation and American democratic life, the answer is inadequate and potentially debilitating of patriotism and good citizenship.

What we need to appreciate – and I think most Americans will readily understand – is that Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt led us through our greatest national crises and not only prevailed, but made America freer, more equal, and more democratic in the process.

Washington led the American army against the British Empire to secure the nation’s independence. He led a force and a citizenry-in-the-making to create a nation committed to the proposition that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And he presided over a constitutional convention that endorsed the proposition that in this country, “we the people…” govern. Washington himself may not have recognized just how radical those lines of 1776 and 1789 would prove to be, but he was the man who helped guarantee that they survived to inspire generations of radicals to come.

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Lincoln confronted the breakup of the United States over the question of slavery, a vile institution that denied the very principles upon which the country was founded. And he led the nation -- at least the northern and western sections of it -- in a brutal war to sustain the Union. But hating slavery, and coming to see how important it was to liberate black Americans and remake America without the chains that shackled them, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Whatever tragic and ironic turns U.S. and Southern history took thereafter, it did so without the “peculiar institution” holding it back. As he said at Gettysburg: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Franklin Roosevelt led the United States through two terrible crises, each of which placed the very survival of the nation in jeopardy. In the 1930s, the Great Depression threatened to destroy the country economically and socially and, quite possibly, politically. But FDR harnessed American energies to carry out not only vast programs of relief, recovery, and reconstruction, but also struggles to institute major programs of reform -- from Social Security to the National Labor Relations Act -- which together revolutionized American government and public life. And if that were not enough, in the 1940s, Nazism, Fascism, and Japanese Imperialism threatened to destroy the United States militarily and politically. Yet articulating Americans’ finest ideals in the words “Freedom of speech and expression, Freedom of worship, Freedom from want, Freedom from fear,” he once again inspired and encouraged his fellow citizens not only to defend those ideals, but also to progressively advance them.

Each of those men accomplished more than they ever promised or possibly, imagined. They did so not because God led them to it or each found it in himself to go beyond himself – though both may have played a fundamental role in making it happen. Even more critically, they all had faith and confidence in their fellow Americans, who not only responded to the challenge, but also propelled Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, respectively, to transcend themselves and join in making great democratic history.

So, it is time to embrace our radical history – progressive history, if you prefer – and to push, inspire, and encourage our current president to transcend his own limitations. Given the crises we face, we need to get Obama to embrace the tradition of Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt and start harnessing Americans’ persistent democratic aspirations and energies to do something about them. Better said, if we want to save the nation, we need to do what our greatest generations and their greatest leaders did – make America freer, more equal, and more democratic.

Reflecting on the achievements of the FDR years and the political debacles of the immediate postwar years, progressive Max Lerner wrote in the summer of 1948: "What we did once we can resume. The tragedy lies in the waste of our experience, in the waiting while all the old blunders are committed over again.”

Harvey J. Kaye is the Ben & Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and the author of Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. He is soon to finish the writing of The Four Freedoms and the Promise of America: FDR, the Greatest Generation, and Us. Follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/HarveyJKaye

On June 18th Van Jones gave a rousing speech at Netroots Nation, calling for a new effort to “Rebuild the American Dream”. Moveon.org and several other organizations have come together to build a new movement to rebuild the American dream, and this past weekend, 25,000 people went to over 1500 house parties to talk about a potential set of issues that could constitute a “Contract for the American Dream”. My wife and I headed down to Greenwich Village for one of the many completely filled house meetings. As one of our group summed up the meeting, it was a “good” meeting, one we were happy to attend.

The meeting was divided into three parts, and I was wondering how a bunch of New Yorkers would handle such “touchy-feely” questions for first part, such as: “Tell a story about you or a friend and how you were affected by the economic downturn”.  Or: “What moment most made you proud to be an American?”. Our group wound up talking more about how much we had expected of Obama before he was elected, Andrew Cuomo’s presidential ambitions, and how we could possibly find candidates that might move in a progressive direction -- which led us naturally to the main part of the evening, rating 40 ideas that might become part of the “Contract for an American Dream”.

The nice problem was that almost all of the ideas were very good ones. I hope that Rebuild the Dream and Moveon don’t overly narrow the focus of their efforts, and keep most of the 40 ideas in some form. I know Moveon has successfully used the strategy of focusing on a few key issues at a time. However, I think that for a serious, broad-based movement that might actually, like the Tea Party, back various candidates, it is important to have a longer list. Perhaps a few major ideas could be the focus, with a longer list of very important issues that could be linked with the larger themes.

We were directed to pick three out of 10 ideas, from four groups (you can see the full list several pages into this PDF). First up was what seems to be the overriding focus of Rebuild the Dream, that is, “good jobs now”. I think that this is the correct number one focus, since it is clearly the number one concern of the American public, and I think it is our number one economic problem. Our house meeting picked “Move toward a clean, green, independent energy future”, “Invest in America's infrastructure”, and “Stop paying corporations to offshore American Jobs” as our top three. This list also included ideas about investing in transit, as well; I think the overarching theme here is to rebuild the infrastructure.

From the list called “We pay our share”, the meeting chose “Return to fairer tax rates”, “Make Social Security solvent”, and “Be sure corporations pay their taxes”. There were several other good ideas, such as stopping subsidies to dirty energy and higher taxes for capital gains and a tax on financial transactions.

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For “Strong Communities”, the clear winners seemed to be “Medicare for all”, “Substantially reduce military spending”, and “Invest in public education”, with “Protect women's rights and health” as a runner-up, and there were other good ideas like universal childcare and pro-family work policies.

Finally, “Working Democracy” elicited support for “Eliminate corporate personhood”, “Reinstate common sense rules of the road for Wall Street” – such as reinstating Glass-Steagall – and “Place elections into the hands of everyday people”, which seems to boil down to public financing of elections.

I heard that when the ideas are all tallied, the final mix will be discussed with various “liberal economists”. Hopefully these will include the economists associated with the Roosevelt Insititute, such as James Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz – and then the final list will be presented in August.

I think that it is enormously important to start an effort such as this, something that can pull together the various strands of the progressive community, which will directly tackle the economic problems of our day. Progressives have tended to leave the larger economic questions to the Right, at least since the 1950s, and I think it is critical to take back this central social debate.

So my advice would be to think big – both in terms of ideas, and in terms of money. If Rebuild the Dream winds up advocating 10 billion to be spent here and 10 billion to be spent there, it won’t add up to enough to really turn the economy around. I would urge the organization to think in terms of trillions of dollars, not billions – say, a program of one trillion dollars per year for 10 or 20 years, to rebuild the infrastructure and thereby re-establish manufacturing.

The importance of manufacturing was not mentioned in any of the lists, but it can easily be a part of the infrastructure rebuilding effort, as long as domestic manufacturing is required for all of the trains, roads, buildings, wind turbines, and other physical structures and equipment that are required for a re-haul of the infrastructure.

The entry for “investing in the infrastructure” mentioned the idea of an Infrastructure Bank, an idea that I am sure President Obama would like to roll out in a big way. There has been talk of starting with 10 to 30 billion dollars for the Bank, but again, I would start off with one trillion dollars for the bank -- which the Bank, like any bank, could simply create, while charging little or even no interest for the loans. As long as money is used to create more wealth, money creation does not lead to inflation. Quite the opposite, a rebuilt infrastructure and manufacturing economy would generate enough wealth to soak up, not only the loans, but much of the public deficit that Washington DC is, unfortunately, obsessed with right now.

Jon Rynn is the author of the book Manufacturing Green Prosperity: The power to rebuild the American middle class, available from Praeger Press. He holds a Ph.D. in political science and is a Visiting Scholar at the CUNY Institute for Urban Systems.

There's a lot of talk lately about American dream. But what is it, really? We asked our Roosevelt Institute summer interns to give us their perspective. Here, University of Chicago rising sophomore Adam Gluck ponders the tension between freedom and equality in the Land of Opportunity.

Every time some catastrophe or even bad event happens in our country, liberal and conservative pundits write an exciting, "new" article asking the question, "is the American dream dead?" This American Dream seems always to represent the ideology of the author, informed by an assumption about the opportunities that the United States should provide. There's usually something about how the opposing group is "destroying your dreams."

And honestly, who wants their dreams crushed?

For me, though, the dream never seems that compelling. Criteria like "home ownership" or "freedom from taxation" don't really speak to my imagination. Would people come from all over the world to live in America on the image of collective housing? That's a policy, not a narrative. It's an objective, not a dream. It misses what it is about America that has attracted people here throughout history. This narrative includes the artist and the CEO, the capitalist and the academic. And it centers on the idea of America as a land of opportunity -- a place where you don't have to stay in the class you're born into, but have a chance for upward mobility if you work hard enough or have the natural ability.

The upward mobility promise explains why freedom rhetoric is often more compelling than equality rhetoric. To many, opportunity and freedom are one in the same. There's a strong belief that you have the opportunity to do what you will if you have the freedom to do it. But just because you have the political freedom to, say, buy a house, can you necessarily do it? Obviously, no. Opportunity is something more than just freedom. It necessarily involves a measure of equality.

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But we still don't take the equality part of the equation enough into account. This is perhaps why the recent behavior of the banks has led to less general uproar and action than expected. The banks wanted something -- huge profits -- and they got it through a deregulated system that gave them opportunities to make risky bets with depositors' money. Perhaps it was immoral how they went about it. But to some, those record-breaking profits also demonstrate what's great about America: if you want to make lots of money, you can do it. The problem comes in because the freedom of banks to speculate as much as they wanted ended up reducing possibilities for the average person. Credit froze. The financial meltdown caused mass layoffs. By increasing freedom for the banks we ultimately reduced the opportunities available for the vast majority of Americans. This is something worth examining.

In response to another era when the few seized opportunities that restricted them for the many, the early Progressive Movement was born. It was compelling because it provided people a renewed sense that upward mobility could again become possible -- that America was not just a land of opportunity for a handful of wealthy people, but for all.

Progressives support an egalitarian vision of opportunity in which you have freedom because there's a strong social safety net and public institutions to ensure equal access to opportunity. They find it hard to see equality in an economic system where CEOs make 300 times as much as their employees. Conservatives counter with their belief in a free market which is supposed to reward people based on what they deserve -- in their view a "truer" form of equality. They worry that government-mandated equality would reduce their possibilities, such as access to good doctors for their families.

It seems the answer is somewhere in the middle. Equality must play some part in freedom, and freedom must play some part in equality. Equality, and the defenses it implies, ensures that people are not dominated by the market and controlled by their employers. Freedom ensures that people can do what they will without too much intervention. While equality ensures that people have the opportunity to do what they will, freedom implies that people are able to pursue the opportunities that are available. Both are critical.

The point for progressives is this: As labor fails, and as government programs meant to establish avenues towards upward mobility fail, our land filled with "unlimited" opportunity fails also. When the wealthy secure their dreams at the cost of the opportunity of others to pursue ours -- like securing a loan or going to college -- then belief in the American dream dies for many.

Conservatives have equated opportunity with freedom, and that has cost us. For now, then, the ball is in the court of progressives to inject just the right amount of equality in the equation, so that America can once again be the land where the dream of opportunity exists for the many, and not just the few.

Adam is currently the communications intern at the Roosevelt Institute New York office and a student at The University of Chicago.

Will Palestine's "Generation Oslo" be the game-changer in the West Bank?

Last Friday, Muhammad Khatib walked down a long country road toward a security fence. For the last six years, he and a cadre of nonviolent protesters have made their way down the road every Friday. And every Friday, they have been met with tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades. Some protesters threw stones in response. Most would retreat, burned by the gas or hit by the bullets.

Last Friday, Khatib and his fellow protesters marched for the last time in Bilin.

The campaign to reclaim land in the small Palestinian village of Bilin was marching in victory: the security wall deemed illegal in 2007 by the Israeli Supreme Court is being rolled back. While organizers debate the next phase of their campaign, this nonviolent movement's success marks yet another victory for the Arab Spring.

Whether it will be a game changer in the West Bank depends on whether Khatib and the rest of Palestine's "Generation Oslo" become the face of Palestinian leadership. Frustration over years of legal battles in Israel's courts and at the International Court of Justice leave many convinced that Tel Aviv's 'wait it out' policy may ultimately prevail, giving settlers enough time to establish communities that will be difficult to unroot. The youthful leaders like those at the center of events in Tunis and Tahrir Square have little access to power in the Palestinian Authority or political parties. And the longstanding dispute over whether Hamas can join in any legitimate Palestinian government, let alone in peace negotiations with Israel, is a constant source of tension that threatens to unravel any progress.

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All the more reason, then, to believe in Bilin. Palestinians face a critical moment in the months ahead: namely, whether or not a third intifada (popular uprising) will take place in September, when Palestine approaches the UN to claim international recognition of its statehood. Whether that uprising will occur as it did it Tahrir -- and with as much call for fresh Palestinian leadership as for liberation from Israeli occupation -- depends largely on successful organizing among Palestine's well-educated, under-employed youth. Cut off from job opportunities, Generation Oslo spends its time studying; its literacy rate is estimated above 94%, more than 20 points higher than Egypt's. Brian drain from students leaving the territories in search of higher education and jobs has created a diaspora with precisely the kinds of diplomatic, financial, and organizational resources needed to help rebuild the West Bank and Gaza.

But jobs alone will not be enough to create a stable, thriving Palestine; nor will the old, hard-line leaders in Ramallah, Gaza, or Tel Aviv accomplish a lasting peace. The next generation, some of whom I was lucky to meet during a recent trip to the West Bank, understands both the tough game of politics and the power of hope. They, like so many young leaders I worked with in the States, are both deeply pragmatic and fundamentally driven by basic values. They aspire to nothing more -- and nothing less -- than human dignity. All they need is the opportunity to break free of an old and limited political paradigm.

For many, international recognition of Palestine could be a catalyst moment for the Oslo Generation to take charge. And despite all the complexities unique to Palestine and Israel, this next generation of leaders should hold one thing constant from the last year of revolution: a commitment to nonviolence. Leaders like Muhammah Khatib understand the uncompromising power that comes from walking toward walls with no protection other than their faith in each other. That is the power that makes everything else possible.

Let's hope the Oslo Generation believes in Bilin.

Caitlin Howarth is the former policy director of the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network. When not in class at the Harvard Kennedy School, she works on the human security documentation team at the Satellite Sentinel Project.