There is now a discussion about the use and abuse of fear. About time. People bring up FDR's famous quote about fear itself and that's good but FDR had much to say that still can speak to us. His fireside chats are a goldmine of ideas and phrases that we can use now to protect our freedoms and liberties.
I tried my best to get word to the Kerry campaign but, unfortunately, didn't make it through. Maybe now the time is ripe for people to remember.
FDR quotes on the flip.
Fireside chats verbatim at http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/
May 26, 1940
To those who have closed their eyes for any of these many reasons, to those who would not admit the possibility of the approaching storm -- to all of them the past two weeks have meant the shattering of many illusions.
They have lost the illusion that we are remote and isolated and, therefore, secure against the dangers from which no other land is free.
In some quarters, with this rude awakening has come fear, fear bordering on panic. It is said that we are defenseless. It is whispered by some that, only by abandoning our freedom, our ideals, our way of life, can we build our defenses adequately, can we match the strength of the aggressors.
I did not share those illusions. I do not share these fears.....
January 6, 1941
In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.The first is freedom of speech and expression --everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants --everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor --anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called "new order" of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
To that new order we oppose the greater conception --the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.
This nation has placed its destiny in the hands, heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.
To that high concept there can be no end save victory.
May 27, 1941
Today the whole world is divided, divided between human slavery and human freedom -- between pagan brutality and the Christian ideal.
We choose human freedom -- which is the Christian ideal. No one of us can waver for a moment in his courage or his faith.
We will not accept a Hitler-dominated world. And we will not accept a world, like the post-war world of the 1920's, in which the seeds of Hitlerism can again be planted and allowed to grow.
We will accept only a world consecrated to freedom of speech and expression -- freedom of every person to worship God in his own way --freedom from want -- and freedom from (terrorism) terror.
Is such a world impossible of attainment?
Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation and every other milestone in human progress --all were ideals which seemed impossible of attainment -- and yet they were attained.
As a military force, we were weak when we established our independence, but we successfully stood off tyrants, powerful in their day, tyrants who are now lost in the dust of history.
Odds meant nothing to us then. Shall we now, with all our potential strength, hesitate to take every single measure necessary to maintain our American liberties?...