FDR, considered by many historians to be one of our greatest presidents,
gave a speech on this day in 1941.
https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall
Officially, it was his state of the union speech, but it quickly
became know as the Four Freedoms speech. If you click on the website below, you
can find a link that will allow you to hear the entire speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms
The Four Freedoms were goals articulated by U.S.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt on
Monday, January 6, 1941. In an address known as the Four Freedoms
speech (technically the 1941 State of the Union address),
he proposed four fundamental freedoms that people "everywhere in the
world" ought to enjoy:
1.
Freedom of speech
2.
Freedom of worship
3.
Freedom from want
4.
Freedom from fear
Roosevelt delivered his speech 11 months before the surprise Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor that
caused the United States to declare war on Japan, December 8, 1941. The State of the Union speech
before Congress was largely about the national
security of the United States and the threat to other
democracies from world war. In the
speech, he made a break with the long-held tradition of United
States non-interventionism. He outlined the U.S. role in helping
allies already engaged in warfare, especially Great Britain and China.
In that context, he summarized the values of democracy behind the
bipartisan consensus on international involvement that existed at the time. A
famous quote from the speech prefaces those values: "As men do not live by
bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone." In the second half of
the speech, he lists the benefits of democracy, which include economic
opportunity, employment, social security, and the promise of "adequate
health care". The first two freedoms, of speech and religion,
are protected by the First Amendment in the United States
Constitution. His inclusion of the latter two freedoms went beyond
the traditional Constitutional values protected by the U.S. Bill of
Rights. Roosevelt endorsed a broader human right to economic
security and anticipated what would become known decades later
as the "human security" paradigm in studies of economic development.
He also included the "freedom from fear" against national
aggression and took it to the new United Nations he was setting up.
Inspired by FDR’s speech, the United Nations released the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of
human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural
backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by
the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 (General Assembly resolution 217 A) as a common standard of achievements for all
peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human
rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into
over 500 languages. The UDHR is widely recognized as
having inspired, and paved the way for, the adoption of more than seventy human
rights treaties, applied today on a permanent basis at global and regional
levels (all containing references to it in their preambles).
In the 1930s many Americans, arguing that the involvement in World War I
had been a mistake, were adamantly against continued intervention in European
affairs. With the Neutrality Acts established after 1935, U.S. law banned
the sale of armaments to countries that were at war and placed restrictions on
travel with belligerent vessels.
When World War II began
in September 1939, the neutrality laws were still in effect and ensured that no
substantial support could be given to Britain and France. With the revision of
the Neutrality Act in 1939, Roosevelt adopted a "methods-short-of-war
policy" whereby supplies and armaments could be given to European Allies,
provided no declaration of war could be made and no troops committed. By
December 1940, Europe was largely at the mercy of Adolf Hitler and Germany's Nazi regime. With Germany's defeat of France
in June 1940, Britain and its overseas Empire stood alone against the military
alliance of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Winston Churchill, as Prime Minister of
Britain, called for Roosevelt and the United States to supply them with
armaments in order to continue with the war effort.
The 1939 New York
World's Fair had celebrated Four Freedoms – religion, speech,
press, and assembly – and commissioned Leo Friedlander to create sculptures
representing them. Mayor of New York
City Fiorello La Guardia described
the resulting statues as the "heart of the fair". Later Roosevelt
would declare his own "Four Essential Freedoms" and call on Walter Russell to create a Four Freedoms
Monument that was eventually dedicated at Madison Square Garden in
New York City.
They also appeared on the reverse of the AM-lira, the Allied Military Currency note
issue that was issued in Italy during WWII, by the Americans, that was in
effect occupation currency, guaranteed by the American dollar.
The Four Freedoms Speech was given on January 6, 1941. Roosevelt's hope
was to provide a rationale for why the United States should abandon the
isolationist policies that emerged from World War I. In the address, Roosevelt
critiqued Isolationism, saying: "No realistic American can expect from a
dictator's peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or
world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion–or even
good business. Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our
neighbors. "Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a
little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
The speech coincided with the introduction of the Lend-Lease Act, which
promoted Roosevelt's plan to become the "arsenal of democracy" and
support the Allies (mainly the British) with much-needed supplies. Furthermore,
the speech established what would become the ideological basis for America's
involvement in World War II, all framed in terms of individual rights and
liberties that are the hallmark of American politics.
Not long after the speech, Norman Rockwell illustrated the four freedoms for
the covers of the Saturday Evening Post:
It's often been said that those who do not study history are doomed to
repeat the mistakes of the past.
The “America First” policy actually originated in the 1850’s, but became
more prominent again during the 1916 presidential race. It resurfaces again in
the early days of WWII, and famed aviator Charles Lindbergh was one of its
chief proponents.
In recent years, it was embraced by Donald Trump.
Following his
election to the presidency, "America First" became the
official foreign policy doctrine of the Trump administration. It was a theme of Trump's
inaugural address, and a Politico/Morning Consult poll released on January
25, 2017, stated that 65% of Americans responded positively to President
Trump's "America First" inaugural message, with 39% viewing the
speech as poor.
(George W. Bush, though was not impressed, and he said “that was some weird
shit”)
Trump embraced American unilateralism abroad and introduced
policies aimed at undermining transnational organizations such as the European Union, and often critiquing them on
economic terms. In 2017, the administration proposed a federal
budget for 2018 with both Make America Great
Again and America First in its title, with the latter
referencing its increases to military, homeland security, and veteran spending,
cuts to spending that goes towards foreign countries, and 10-year objective of
achieving a balanced budget
The administration branded its 2017 National
Security Strategy of the U.S. as "an America First
National Security Strategy". The introduction to that document reads
"This National Security Strategy puts America first. An America First
National Security Strategy is based on American principles, a clear-eyed
assessment of U.S. interests, and a determination to tackle the challenges that
we face. It is a strategy of principled realism that is guided by outcomes, not
ideology.
Trump's use of the slogan was criticized by some for carrying comparisons
to the America First Committee; however, Trump denied being an
isolationist, and said, "I like the expression."] A number of scholars (such
as Deborah Dash Moore),
commentators (such as Bill Kristol) and
Jewish organizations (including the Anti-Defamation
League and Jewish
Council for Public Affairs) criticized Trump's use of the slogan
because of its historical association with nativism and
antisemitism. Others have argued that Trump was never a
non-interventionist. Columnist Daniel Larison from The American
Conservative wrote that "Trump was quick to denounce
previous wars as disasters, but his complaint about these wars was that the
U.S. wasn't 'getting' anything tangible from them. He didn't see anything wrong
in attacking other countries, but lamented that the U.S. didn't 'take' their
resources" and that "he never called for an end to the wars that were
still ongoing, but talked only about 'winning' them."
Trump's "America First" policy has been described as a major
factor in the perceived increase in the international isolation of the U.S. in
the late 2010s, and various media critics such as The New Yorker have described the
policy as "America Alone".
The Vietnam War lasted from 1954 until 1975, but active combat troops
were not introduced until 1965.The Vietnam Veterans wall in D.C. has 57,939
names etched into the granite, but recent additions now total roughly 58,200. The
war in Afghanistan lasted from 2001 to 2021, and result in the deaths of 2401
Americans.
In terms of dollars, the Vietnam War cost $168 billion (I trillion in
today’s dollars) and the war in Afghanistan, and the world-wide war on terror, resulted
in costs of $8 trillion.
The lessons learned from these wars is that America can’t wage wars on
its own, and needs to rely on its allies, precisely why our NATO partnerships
are more important than ever.
Above all, America needs to be a leader in diplomacy in current and future
conflict, which is why Anthony Blinken has been making a lot of trips to the
middle east lately. Although U.S. money and weapons are vital for both Israel and
Ukraine, a peaceful outcome for both conflicts does not mean the sacrifice of
American lives.
During his recent speech near Valley Forge, president Biden said this: “Today, I make this sacred pledge to you,” he said. “The defense,
protection, and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been,
the central cause of my presidency.”
What the GOP
extremists in the House of Representatives
fail to understand is that supporting the democracy in Ukraine also helps strengthen
our democracy in American and other countries.
Today, our
freedom of speech is threatened by those who want to ban books and cut funding
to our universities.
Our freedom
to worship is threatened by Chrisitan Nationalists, who want to impose THEIR beliefs
on the rest of us (Speaker of the House Mike Johnson recently gave a speech to a
Christian nationalist group)
Freedom from
want has been enhanced by the Biden admonition, which has rebuilt our economy
from the bottom up, not the top down, which has made our economy the strongest
in the world.
FDR said
that “we have nothing to feat buy fear itself”. Freedom from fear has come, not
from blaming others (as Trump did) but from working hard to ensure that ALL of
us can participate in our democracy.
