Too bad we can’t re-reelect FDR

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:25:00 +0000

On Oct. 19, former President Bill Clinton, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg all turned out for the dedication of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island in New York City. And all of them, along with newsman Tom Brokaw, who hosted the proceedings, and Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel, who led the campaign to construct the long-delayed memorial park, spoke eloquently of FDR’s greatness in leading the nation through the Great Depression and Second World War and proclaiming the promise of the Four Freedoms -- “Freedom of speech and expression … Freedom of worship … Freedom from want … Freedom from fear …” – a promise that has inspired generations ever since he pronounced it on Jan. 6, 1941.

The 47 percent: What FDR fought against

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:48:00 +0000

But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life…

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

But it is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1937

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Too bad we can’t re-reelect FDR

The 47 percent: What FDR fought against