OPINION
Clairvoyance: Roosevelt’s “Nothing to Fear” Speech
Franklin D. Roosevelt gave this inaugural address March 4, 1933. It still rings true.By Amy Linn, 2-02-10
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| President Roosevelt and Eleanor. Flickr photo courtesy of FDR Library and Tonythemisfit. | |
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The following is a partial text of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Inaugural Address, provided by History Matters, from The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of Crisis, 1933. (For the audio portion and full text, click here.)
“This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves, which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
… Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men. … They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
… The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. …Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.
... In our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.
… If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective.”
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Comments
He is somewhat right. Fearing fear for fear itself is for the ignorant and emotional. Being stunned, flabbergasted, and a couple steps past alarmed at total debt loads, whether private or public, surely should cause one to fear for the future. Such an emotional state is a simple reflection about the fact that the same group of economists and bankers who led us into this abyss are the same group that is supposedly to lead us out it.
Fear or no fear, I don't want the captain of the Exxon Valdez at the helm after he tore the damn hull apart, do you?
A few years back, one Ben Bernake was in attendance at Milton Friedman's 90th birthday party. "Helicopter Ben", as he is known in some circles, admitted to Mr. Friedman that "The Federal Reserve", that non-government "Privately Held Bank" (Google it) had in fact caused the 1929 Stock Market crash and the ensuring "Great Depression."
Friedman was a jerk, and a run through Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine" will certainly validate that argument, but nevertheless, he won a Nobel Prize in economics for that one same argument. Bernake publicly fessed up to it. Well, what entity since F.D.R.'s presidency created Hobbe's Leviathan and with it, all the debt and deficit that now burdens us? The same entity he presided over, the Federal Government. Between debt and unfunded liabilities, the Government (we and our offspring owe this) our Government is 64 TRILLION DOLLARS in the hole.
And that figure doesn't even include the 23 Trillion more debt "The Fed" so burdened us with by handing that sum to the Banksters during the Bailout. Yes, while we're busy looking over there at T.A.R.P., a mere 787 Billion dollar bailout, these fine people are looting us for 23 Trillion Dollars behind the curtain.
Where did all this so-called "made out of thin air" money (debt) come from? Why "The Federal Reserve", the same privately held bank that caused " Great Depression One" and is in charge of not only staving off "Great Depression TWO", but putting we subjects in ever greater debt, for from that debt comes their profit and our slavery.
So we are to ignore the raw and uncomfortable truths offered by mathematics and listen to F.D.R. instead? "Rah, Rah, SIS KUM Bah!" "That's not a Tsunami coming!" Why don't we just throw in some, "Don't worry, Be Happy" stuff from Booby McFarin while we're at it? Get real here - If the Government was a "Legal Person" as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment, they would be in Jail for the commission of both fraud and theft. So would the owners and managers of "The Federal Reserve."
What a racket! They literally create money out of thin air and therefore debt owed them by the wave of a pen. I've got a far better idea than listening to F.D.R.'s little "Fear speech." How about Andrew Jackson's speech instead, where he said he would "Kill the Bank" and have the country follow the Constitution instead of enriching a handful of Oligarchs. To hell with "fear" and F.D.R., how about we follow the LAW instead?
The same crooks that created this malaise remain in charge as I write. While profiting mightily for themselves and their masters, they have run the economic "Ship of State" right into the ground. And the advice regarding this sad circumstance is that we are to suspend belief in reality, channel in F.D.R. on A.M., and fear not that a den of thieves led by Bernake, Geithner and other three-piece suited velociraptors shall bring prosperity to us all.
"Be Afraid. Very Afraid!"
Reminicient of the tactics used to elect the Mack Daddy Player Pimp in Chief.
No facts Ms. Linn
Try these.
http://www.takeitbackday.org/Website_Summary.php
http://www.takeitbackday.org/