I’ve been thinking … I’m mad as hell

By Jim Heffernan

I’ve really tried to be chill and calm, in spite of everything.

Neil Lemery tells me, “There’s no shortage of opportunities now. Local volunteer opportunities and job possibilities offer much in doing things that truly make a difference in the lives of our neighbors and our community.”

Alan Watts tells me, “No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.”

And yet the outrage seeps into my mind and threatens to consume me.

All my life I have watched the football of the presidency pass back and forth between the parties. Always the football dripped with the filth of money and influence. This last time, I can’t even see the football, it’s all the filth of money and influence.

Even though 68% of America did not vote for him, a man with the intellect and morality of a petulant toddler is taking an axe to our Republic and its rule of law. He is making a mockery of our historic traditions of fairness and equality. My rage is doubly fueled because my beloved, yet unfaithful, Democratic party has been complicit. They were given clear and concise goals to follow over 80 years ago, but they lost the thread.

January 6, 1941, just a month after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roosevelt delivered his “State of the Union” speech. At the end of the speech he describes the basic needs of humankind, the four freedoms. Here are his words.

“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.”

Below are the classic Norman Rockwell paintings from 1943 that most Americans saw first on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. The originals were 36” by 48”. I would like to see them. I do feel a pang that there are no black and brown faces in them.

January 12, 1944. It’s three years later, war rages around the world. Millions of deaths worldwide. Thousands of Americans lost in combat. Guadalcanal, Midway, El Alamein, Stalingrad, and Sicily are all catastrophic defeats for the Axis powers. It’s clear how WWII is going to play out. The only question is how long will it take.

In Franklin Roosevelt’s 11^th “State of the Union” speech he introduces us to his “second bill on rights”. The following passage is from the conclusion of the speech,

“It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our nation has grown is size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men”. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, and unemployment
The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”

We didn’t hear much of that sort of talk from either side this election cycle. My Democrats need to start shouting out these truths from the past and mean it. Each and everyone of us needs to become the citizens we ought to be.

Our sacred Republic has endured for 350 years. It is in danger. We need to vote like our future depends on it, because it does.

68% of the electorate did not vote for Trump!

As always, discussion welcome at codger817@gmail.com