A president’s 75-year-old speech that needs repeating and rejuvenation
Seventy-five years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt put forth his “Second Bill of Rights” as part of the State of the Union address delivered in January 1944. Here is that section. Still unfulfilled three-quarters of a century later:
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 equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
One of the great American industrialists of our day—a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis-recently emphasized the grave dangers of “rightist reaction” in this Nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such reaction should develop—if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called “normalcy” of the 1920’s—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.
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“If Irish or Italian culture dies in America it really isn’t that big a deal. They will still exist in Italy and Ireland. Not so with us. There is no other place. North America is our old country.”
~~Janet Campbell Hale (Coeur d’Alene/Kutenai/Cree/Irish)
At Daily Kos on this date in 2002—Americans hijack Iraq weapons doc:
As if the US wasn’t already losing the PR war in its mad rush to war against Iraq…
Diplomats and U.S. officials said Monday that after an intense lobbying campaign, the United States received an early and uncut copy of Iraq’s 11,807-page weapons declaration and whisked it to Washington for analysis.
The United States was then put in charge of making duplicates for its four fellow permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, China, France and Russia — on grounds that Washington had the best photocopying capabilities.
[…]
The Security Council had previously agreed to leave the report with U.N. inspectors until it was screened for material that might aid others in making weapons. All five permanent members are nuclear powers.
The decision upset several of the 10 non-permanent members of the 15-member Security Council, including Norway and Syria, as it overrode what the body had decided Friday.
And why would the Americans want first dibs at the document? Because it would allow it to scrub it clean of the names of foreign corporations that helped Iraq build its WMD programs.
Of course, there’s an easy solution to this whole mess. Iraq should simply leak the document to the press. If the Bushies are insistent on starting this war, then I want to know what role American companies played in building Iraq’s arsenal.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Impeachment articles drop as the IG’s report is digested. Big day for Christopher Steele! He’s Ivanka’s pal! He was huge in the FIFA bust over Russia’s bribes to win the 2018 World Cup! Which reminds us, Trump Tower was crawling with corrupt FIFA officials.
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