Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms series was inspired by Roosevelt's Four Freedoms speech to Congress on January 6, 1941. The Saturday Evening Post first published the paintings in 1943.
Within a year of the speech we would be pulled into World War II
In 1943 the government finally used Rockwell's paintings as posters to sell war bonds. How do you think that would go over today?
The excerpt for Rockwell's inspiration. . .
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.
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
you can read or listen to the entire Four Freedoms Speech as presented to Congress January 6, 1941 here
thanks to The Anchoress who kinds sorta gave me the idea for this
3 comments:
I purchased these posters a few years ago and have since decided not to hang them in my office. The utopian dreamworld is unachievable within the framework described.
Is there a workable framework? I don't know.
But I am certain that this quote:
"The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world."
. . .is what has the world in a tizzy on the brink of world war yet again. When Islam (I'm not talking muslims - I'm referring to the doctrine) is no longer identified as a valid 'religion' or protected under the umbrella of faith, then, perhaps this quote will work.
Then the quote:
"a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Nuh uh . . .no way. I remain firmly clinging to my guns and bible. Get a copy of the film "Innocents Betrayed" and you'll understand this is a non-negotiable position. Period.
torrent
A longer preview to the movie "Innocents Betrayed" discusses the disarmament plan which enabled the genocide of 3/4 of the Armenian population of Turkey.
HRW
Facing what we were in 1941 I believe Roosevelt was refering to reduction of arms of the nations, not individuals. To prevent the rise of Hitlers, Tojos and Mussolinis in the future.
The speech in no way comes across as pacifist to me. And especially in it's early paragraphs is one that ought to be given today. Word for word though few would listen.
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