Progressive Democrat Issue 39: THOUGHTS

Personal Note: This issue will be more cut and pasted from other sources than usual. Don’t be fooled: these actions and ideas are VERY important even if they don’t come from me : -). Why am I unable to put as much time into this issue? Simple. I have been too busy. My job hunt has yielded some interviews and those have taken precedence. It has been an interesting week! I have interviewed for a job as a Science Teacher for a brand new private High School in East Harlem as part of Boys and Girls Harbor, a very comprehensive program to improve the communities served by this organization. I have interviewed for a job as a project leader initiating a censorship in science project for the National Coalition Against Censorship. And I have connected with a friend of a friend who works for a major funding agency who asked for my CV. No job offer is certain right now, but at least I have some leads. The teaching job is close to solid, the censorship job is maybe 50/50. If no job materializes, I will be unemployed as of Sept. 1st. I am somewhat disappointed that jobs in my existing field, scientific research, are almost nonexistent these days. It is almost certain that I will no longer be a lab researcher at the end of this month…due to budget cuts in NSF and NIH funding, there are no biology lab research jobs in NYC that I can find. The upside is that I am finding some connections with education, political and public advocacy jobs, and that interests me as well. We’ll see. But now, on to this week’s newsletter!

Awhile back a reader from Tennessee forwarded me excerpts from The Four Freedoms speech delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on January 6, 1941. So much that was said and done by FDR are still very applicable today. I want to draw your attention to this speech and focus on a few excerpts.

In times like these it is immature—and, incidentally, untrue—for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world…

As a nation we may take pride in the fact that we are soft-hearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed. We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the ism of appeasement. We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests…

The nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America. Those things have toughened the fiber of our people, have renewed their faith and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect. Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world. For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy.

The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.

Jobs for those who can work.

Security for those who need it.

The ending of special privilege for the few.

The preservation of civil liberties for all.

The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

These are the simple, the basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding straight of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.

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.

There is no way that anyone can read these words by FDR, said while the world was immersed in WW II, and not realize the inadequacy of the current resident of the White House. Bush violates all the basic principles and morals that FDR outlines so eloquently in this speech. The smallness of Bush is obvious when we compare him with the great leaders of the past. We are not being led today in America. We are being dictated to by petty, greedy men who know nothing about morality, compassion or freedom.

This is why I spend so much time focused on this newsletter, on my blog and on activism. This is why we must fight so hard to defeat these petty, greedy men who are ruining our nation. Never give up no matter how strong they seem. We must prevail because if we don’t, America is lost.