I caught the tail end of the Cherry blossoms in DC last week on a last minute business trip and, unlike past visits, I scheduled some free time to play tourist and sample the memorials and museums. The sense of power and history is palpable as one visits the various sites that highlight the beginning of this country's history and memorializes the price that has been paid to preserve our Union and protect our national interests.
The Vietnam War memorial was sublime, the Korean War memorial was befitting the cause and the WWII memorial just fails to connect at an emotional level. The Jefferson and Lincoln memorials are majestic in their construction and carry a sense of the men that they honor. The line was too long for the Washington memorial so I can't add my commentary to that. Bummer, since it has recently been reopened after extensive renovations. Guess I'll have to wait until Dan Brown finishes his next book to learn about its secrets.
What's the point of this diary you may ask? Well, since you asked, it's about Franklin D. Roosevelt and my political eureka moment.
More after the jump...
The FDR memorial covers 7.5 acres and is laid out in four main areas, one for each of his terms of office. FDR is considered to be one of our finest presidents, served a bunch of terms and brought the US through the Great Depression, but he wasn't a Founding Father so what's the big whoop?
Well, like Lincoln, FDR presided over a country facing turbulent times and, like other great leaders, helped carry the nation through by his vision, his eloquence and his personal example of courage, intellect, perseverance, optimism and fortitude.
I've read a number of times that the neocon agenda is to dismantle everything that FDR, and his New Deal, stood for. This hasn't resonated with me until I was actually walking through the FDR Memorial and reading the 21 inscriptions, which are listed below. Seldom does something strike me as so profound that I actually have to stop and spend a few minutes contemplating the significance. This was one of those times.
As I read each inscriptions I just thought, "Oh. My. God" Ok, I'm not opposed to over-throwing a corrupt or irrelevant system (I'm a Jefferson groupie) but the core message of FDR's messages was so clearly focused on doing what is best for the country and the common man. This strikes me to the core of my being as the right thing for each of us, and subsequently, our leaders to do. To strive to erase this legacy when it is fundamentally so sound and right is a travesty.
This saddens me, yet fills me with a renewed sense of resolve. FDR's vision may need some tweaking but it will survive this onslaught of greed and misplaced fervor from the right.
I was planning on writing a "profound", and excessively verbose, commentary on how the neocons have bastardized many of the following FDR's quotations but it may serve a higher objective for each of us to think about each of these inscriptions and contemplate the corresponding statement that Bush would have made, facing a similar situation. Seriously, read these and think of the Bizarro Neocon analog.
PS: Do you fellow Kossacks believe that some of these messages can be resurrected in today's world for the '08 campaign? The common man embraced FDR. The Dems need that.
Inscriptions from the FDR Memorial
- "This Generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny..." Acceptance Speech to the Democratic National Convention for Renomination as Presidential Candidate for a Second Term, Philadelphia, PA, June 27, 1936.
- "No Country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order. Second Fireside Chat on Government and Modern Capitalism, Washington, D.C., September 30, 1934.
- "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a New Deal for the American People." Speech before the 1932 Democratic National Convention; FDR's nomination as Presidential Candidate, Chicago, IL, July,2, 1932.
- "Among American citizens there should be no forgotten men and no forgotten races." Address at the Dedication of the New Chemistry Building, Howard University, Washington, D.C., October 26, 1936.
- "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." First Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C., March 4,1933.
- "Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men." Message to Congress on the Use of Our Natural Resources, Washington, D.C., January 24, 1935.
- "In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice, the path of faith, the path of hope and the path of love toward our fellow men." Campaign Address, Detroit, Michigan, October 2, 1932.
- "I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust." Fireside Chat on Economic Conditions, Washington, D.C., April 14, 1938.
- "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished. 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." Second Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C., January 20, 1937.
- "It is time to extend planning to a wider field, in this instance comprehending in one great project many states directly concerned with the basin of one of our greatest rivers." Message to Congress suggesting the Tennessee Valley Authority, April 10, 1933.
- "I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work, more important, however, than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work." Message to Congress on Unemployment Relief, Washington, D.C., March 21, 1933.
- "We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization." Greeting to the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born, Washington, D.C., January 9, 1940.
- "We must be the great arsenal of Democracy." Fireside Chat on National Security, Washington, D.C., December 29, 1940.
- "We have faith that future generations will know that here, in the middle of the twentieth century, there came a time when men of good will found a way to unite, and produce, and fight to destroy the forces of ignorance, and intolerance, and slavery, and war." Address to White House Correspondents' Association, Washington, D.C., February 12, 1943.
- "They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order." Address to the Annual Dinner for White House Correspondents' Association, Washington, D.C., March 15, 1941.
- "I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war." Address at Chautauqua, NY, August 14, 1936.
- "More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars." Undelivered Address prepared for Jefferson Day to be delivered April 13, 1945.
- "Unless the peace that follows recognizes that the whole world is one neighborhood and does justice to the whole human race, the germs of another world war will remain as a constant threat to mankind." Address to White House Correspondents' Association, Washington, D.C., February 12, 1943.
- "Freedom of speech. Freedom of worship. Freedom from want. Freedom from fear." Address to the Annual Dinner for White House Correspondents' Association, Washington, D.C., March 15, 1941.
- "The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one nation. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world." Address before Congress on the Yalta Conference, Washington, D.C., March 1, 1945.
- "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith." Undelivered Address prepared for Jefferson Day to be delivered April 13, 1945.
Update 4/18: I watched the History Channel's first of two segments on FDR last night. This was a balanced view of FDR's life and political career and didn't try to white-wash some of the less than favorable aspects such as FDR's tactic acceptance of bigotry and lynchings in the South, his attempt to over reach into controlling the Supreme Court and his less than stellar record at jump starting the private sector during his first two terms. As membors of the Reality Based Community it's important to weight the good with the bad and not lionize an individual without looking at the entire person. Still a great man. Part II in on tonight. Check it out.