Four Freedoms

 

 

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.