Transcript Slide 1

Herbert Hoover, Relief Efforts (1931)
Main Points:
1. Relying on the Federal government in times of crisis will
only hinder our country in future times of need.
“My own conviction is strongly that if we break down this
sense of responsibility of individual generosity to individual
and mutual self-help in the country in times of national
difficulty and if we start appropriations of this character we
have not only impaired something infinitely valuable in the life
of the American people but have struck at the roots of selfgovernment.”
“The opening of the doors of the Federal Treasury is likely to
stifle this giving and thus destroy far more resources than the
proposed charity from the Federal Government.”
“Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of
paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the
sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the
indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and
conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common
brotherhood.”
Herbert Hoover, Relief Efforts (1931)
2. It is possible to provide relief for our nation through self-help and other
organizations, aside from the assistance of the Federal Treasury.
“The basis of successful relief in national distress is to mobilize and organize
the infinite number of agencies of self-help in the community. That has been
the American way of relieving distress among our own people and the country
is successfully meeting its problem in the American way today.”
3. There have been many attempts and charitable donations made to help with
the nations two major problems of drought and unemployment.
“The Red Cross established committees in every drought county, comprising
the leading citizens of those counties, with instructions to them that they
were to prevent starvation among their neighbors and, if the problem went
beyond local resources, the Red Cross would support them.”
“The Red Cross…can command the resources with which to meet any call for
human relief in prevention of hunger and suffering in drought areas and that
they accept this responsibility.”
“…measures of mutual self-help have been developed such as those to
maintain wages, to distribute employment equitably, to increase construction
work by industry, to increase Federal construction work from a rate of about
$275 million a year prior to the depression to a rate now of over $750 million a
year…”
Herbert Hoover, Relief Efforts (1931)
4. I will do everything in my power to prevent suffering in my
country.
“I am willing to pledge myself that, if the time should ever
come that the voluntary agencies of the country together
with the local and State governments are unable to find
resources with which to prevent hunger and suffering in my
country, I will ask the aid of every resource of the Federal
Government because I would no more see starvation
amongst our countrymen than would any Senator or
Congressman.”
“The American people are doing their job today. They should
be given a chance to show whether they wish to preserve
the principles of individual and local responsibility and
mutual self-help before they embark on what I believe is a
disastrous system.”
Questions:
If Hoover had relied upon the Federal aid of the government during
the start of the Great Depression would the outcome have been
any different?
Should Hoover be blamed for the downward spiral into depression?
Herbert Hoover, Financing Relief Efforts (1931)
Main Points:
1. The best way to help people during times of
national difficulty is through mutual self-help and
voluntary giving.
My own conviction is strongly that if we break
down this sense of responsibility of individual
generosity to individual and mutual self-help in the
country in time of national difficulty and if we start
appropriations of this character we have not only
impaired something infinitely valuable in the life of
the American people but have struck at the roots of
self-government. (p. 109)
Herbert Hoover, Financing Relief Efforts (1931)
2. Federal aid to the hungry and poor encourages expectations of future
paternal care and weakens Americans’ self-reliant character. It also
weakens Americans’ willingness to help each other and give to each
other, and thus enfeebles the bonds of common brotherhood.
Quotation of President Grover Cleveland by President Herbert Hoover: The
friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to
relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and
quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encouraged the
expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens
the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence
among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which
strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood. (p. 110)
President Herbert Hoover: The help being daily extended by neighbors, by
local and national agencies, by municipalities, by industry and a great
multitude of organizations throughout the country today is many times
any appropriation yet proposed. The opening of the doors of the Federal
Treasury is likely to stifle this giving and thus destroy far more resources
than the proposed charity from the Federal Government. (p. 110)
Herbert Hoover, Financing Relief Efforts (1931)
Herbert Hoover, Financing Relief Efforts (1931)
Main Points:
1. The best way to help people during times of
national difficulty is through mutual self-help and
voluntary giving.
My own conviction is strongly that if we break
down this sense of responsibility of individual
generosity to individual and mutual self-help in the
country in time of national difficulty and if we start
appropriations of this character we have not only
impaired something infinitely valuable in the life of
the American people but have struck at the roots of
self-government. (p. 109)
Herbert Hoover, Financing Relief Efforts (1931)
2. Federal aid to the hungry and poor encourages expectations of future
paternal care and weakens Americans’ self-reliant character. It also
weakens Americans’ willingness to help each other and give to each
other, and thus enfeebles the bonds of common brotherhood.
Quotation of President Grover Cleveland by President Herbert Hoover: The
friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to
relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and
quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encouraged the
expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens
the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence
among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which
strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood. (p. 110)
President Herbert Hoover: The help being daily extended by neighbors, by
local and national agencies, by municipalities, by industry and a great
multitude of organizations throughout the country today is many times
any appropriation yet proposed. The opening of the doors of the Federal
Treasury is likely to stifle this giving and thus destroy far more resources
than the proposed charity from the Federal Government. (p. 110)
Roosevelt consciously abandoned the term
“progressive” and chose instead to employ
“liberal” to define himself and his
administration. In so doing, he transformed
“liberalism” from a shorthand for weak
government and laissez-faire economics into
belief in an activist, socially conscious
state, an alternative both to socialism and to
unregulated capitalism. (Foner, The Story of
American Freedom, pp. 201-204.)
Redefining Liberalism
Freedom, Hoover insisted, meant unfettered
economic opportunity for the enterprising
individual. Far from being an element of liberty,
the quest for economic security was turning
Americans into “lazy parasites” dependent on the
state. For the remainder of his life, Hoover
continued to call himself a “liberal,” even though,
he charged, the word had been “polluted and
raped of all its real meanings.” (Foner, The Story
of American Freedom, p. 205.)
Socialist Party Platform, 1932
• The Capitalist system is breaking down.
Capitalism leads to unemployment and
exploitation of workers, but protects the rich
industry owners.
– “Unemployment and poverty are inevitable products of
our present system. Under capitalism the few own our
industries. The many do the work. The wage earners and
farmers are compelled to give a large part of their labor
to the few. The many in the factories, mines, shops,
offices and on the farms obtain but a scanty income and
are able to buy back only a part of the goods that can be
produced in such abundance by our mass industries…”
• Vote Socialist!! We will create a society with only
one class, the working class.
– “The Socialist Party is to-day the one democratic party of
the workers whose program would remove the causes of
class struggles, class antagonisms, and social evils
inherent in the capitalist system.”
Socialist Party Platform, 1932
• Socialism will solve America’s problems
and improve the lives of American workers
by using the government’s awesome power
to redistribute capital and provide for social
ownership of industry.
– We propose “to transfer the principal industries
of the country from private ownership and
autocratic, cruelly inefficient management to
social ownership and democratic control…”
• Questions to Consider
– Is there any similarity between the Socialist
platform and Roosevelt’s New Deal?
– Why do most leftist movements lose momentum
during renewed periods of prosperity?
The Socialist Party Platform of 1932
Programs Adopted by the Roosevelt Administration
A federal appropriation of $5,000,000,000 for immediate relief for those in
need to supplement state and local appropriations.
Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA), May 12, 1933
A federal appropriation of $5,000,000,000 for public works and roads,
reforestation, slum clearance, and decent homes for the workers by the
federal government, states, and cities.
Public Works Administration (PWA), established by the National Industrial
Recovery Act (NIRA), May 17, 1933
Civilian Conservation Corps (Reforestation) Act (CCC), March 31, 1933
Home Owners Loan Corp. (HOLC), established by the Home Owners
Refinancing Act, April 13, 1933
Other agencies
Legislation providing for the acquisition of land, buildings, and equipment
necessary to put the unemployed to work producing food, fuel, and
clothing, and for the erection of housing for their own use.
Various experimental communities were established toward these ends.
The six-hour day and the five-day work-week without a reduction in
wages.
The Black bill for the establishment of a thirty-hour week was not passed by
Congress.
A comprehensive and efficient system of free public employment
agencies.
Each state now maintains such offices throughout its jurisdiction.
A compulsory system of unemployment compensation with adequate
benefits, based upon contributions by the government and by employers.
Provided by the Social Security Act, 1936, with additional contributions by
employees.
Old age pensions for men and women sixty years of age and over.
Provided by the Social Security Act, 1936, for those sixty-five years of age and
over.
Health and maternity insurance.
Provided by the Social Security Act, 1936.
Improved systems of workmen's compensation and accident insurance.
Senate bill 2793, introduced May 9, 1935, by Senator Wagner, culminated in
passage by Congress of the Wagner Act, a comprehensive labor-management
act.
The abolition of child labor.
Statutory education requirements and minimum work age laws.
Government aid to farmers and small homeowners to protect them against
mortgage foreclosure and a moratorium on sales for nonpayment of taxes
by destitute farmers and unemployed workers.
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), March 16, 1933
Farm Credit Administration (FCA), March 27, 1933
Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), 1938
Federal Housing Administration (FHA)
HOLC
Adequate minimum wage laws
Established by the National Recovery Administration (NRA), created by NIRA,
May 17, 1933. In 1935, the NRA was found to be unconstitutional by the untied
States Supreme Court. Nonetheless, minimum wage limits still exist.
Source: http://www.drfurfero.com/books/231book/ch03f1.html
Inaugural Address (1933)
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Presented by David Mitchell
Main Points
• 1. “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” The
nation will survive this disaster.
• “This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive
and will prosper.”
• 2. Everyone is facing the difficulty of the
Depression.
• “government of all kinds face curtailment, 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.”
Main Points Cont.
• 3. Unemployed Americans face the main
troubles of the Depression.
• “More important, a host of unemployed citizens
face the grim problem of existence, and an equally
great number toil with little return.”
• 4. People of this generation know nothing
about helping others.
• “They only know the rules of a generation of selfseekers.”
Main Points Cont.
• 5. We need to get people to work and
action is the answer to the problem.
• “Our greatest primary task is to put people to
work.”
• “Restoration calls, however, not for changes in
ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and
action now.”
Main Points Cont.
• 6. As a nation we can get through this
together.
• “Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize
the overbalance of population in our industrial
centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a
redistribution, of endeavor to provide a better use
of the land for best fitted for the land.
Main Points Cont.
• 7. Foreign trade is not important right now,
getting the nation back on track is. Also our
foreign policy is to respect the rights of other
countries just like good neighbors.
• “I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international
economic readjustment, but the emergency at home can not
wait on that accomplishment.”
• In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the
policy of the good neighbor-the neighbor who resolutely
respects himself and, because he does so, respects the
rights of others- the neighbor who respects his obligation and
respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of
neighbors.
Main Points Cont.
• 8. The normal procedures of government
may work, but the government may need
to change to combat this disaster.
• “But it may be that an unprecedented demand and
need for undelayed action may call for temporary
departure from that normal balance of public
procedure.”
Main Points Cont.
• 9. America has many natural resources
and hard working people. The Depression
is due to the money changers or leaders of
big business.
• Our distress comes from no failure of substance…
Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts
have multiplied it.
• There must be an end to a conduct in banking and
in business which to often has given to a sacred
trust the likeness of callous and selfish
wrongdoing.”
Main Points Cont.
• 10. He would invoke emergency powers to
solve the problems of the Depression.
• “I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining
instrument to meet the crisis-broad Executive
power to wage a war against the emergency, as
great as the power that would be given to me if we
were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”
Main Points Cont.
• 11. The government needs to create and
implement safeguards to help stop another
Depression.
• “Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of
work we require two safeguards against a return of
the evils of the old order….”
Questions to Consider
• Why, unlike the President before him, did
Roosevelt consider big business to be
trouble?
• Why was there immediate action instead
of a gradual set of actions?
• Does Roosevelt suggest any radical
alterations in American politics or society?
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address (1933)
Main Point 1
• American society is being seriously threatened by
outsiders.
– “…at no previous time has American security been as
seriously threatened from without as it is today…”
– “…the democratic way of life is at this moment being
directly assailed in every part of the world- assailed
either by arms or by secret spreading of poisonous
propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and
promote discord in nations still at peace.”
– “…I find it necessary to report that the future and the
safety of our country and of our democracy are
overwhelmingly involved in the events far beyond our
borders.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address (1933)
Main Point 2
• America needs to be prepared to go to war.
– “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.”
– “When the dictators are ready to make war upon
us, they will not wait for and act of war on our
part.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address (1933)
Main Point 2 Contd.
– “Therefore, the immediate need is a swift and
driving increase in our armament productions…”
– “I also ask this Congress for authority and for
funds sufficient to manufacture additional
munitions and war supplies of many kinds, to be
turned over to those nations which are now in
actual war with aggressor nations.”
– “They do not need manpower. They do need
billions of dollars’ worth of the weapons of
defense…”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address (1933)
Main Point 4
• Look forward to a world founded on freedom of
speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want,
and freedom from fear. These four freedoms are
what differentiates the United States from other
nations.
– “In 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.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address (1933)
Main Point 4 Contd.
– “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 neighboranywhere in the world.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address (1933)
Historical Significance
The Four Freedoms set the stage for our
entrance into World War II. The speech
gave a good indication that the United States
would join the war efforts. By joining the
war efforts, the United States would be
fighting for the four freedoms, which are,
freedom of speech, freedom of worship,
freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address (1933)
Questions
• Would you have supported Roosevelt in his
endeavor to supply other nations with
weapons of defense?
• Were Roosevelt’s critics fair in charging him
with sneaking the U.S. into World War II?
• Harry S. Truman was born in
Lamar, Missouri on May 8,
1884.
• In 1905, shortly after graduating
from high school, Truman
served in the Missouri National
Guard.
• Part of the 129th Field Artillery
and sent to France, he and his
unit saw action in several
different campaigns.
• He was promoted to captain,
and after the war he joined the
reserves eventually rising to the
rank of colonel.
Harry S. Truman
in the Military
Harry and Bess
Truman
• On June 28, 1919, Truman
married Elizabeth Virginia
Wallace.
• Their only child, Mary
Margaret, was born on February
17, 1924.
• He ran a men's clothing store in
Kansas City but due to the postwar recession it failed.
• Truman began politics in 1922
as one of three judges of the
Jackson County Court.
• In 1934, Truman was elected to
the United States Senate where
he gained national prominence
as chairman of the Senate
Special Committee to Investigate
the National Defense Program.
• On January 20, 1945, he
took the vice-presidential
oath, and after President
Roosevelt's unexpected
death, he was sworn in as
the nations' thirty-third
President.
• Truman's presidency
focused on foreign policy
which was centered on the
prevention of Soviet
influence by which he
proposed The Truman
Doctrine.
President
Harry S. Truman
Main Point 1: At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose
between alternative ways of life. The alternatives are between a free society and
totalitarianism. The choice is too often not a free one.
• “The peoples of a number of countries of the world have recently had totalitarian regimes
forced upon them against their will. This imposed aggression undermines the foundations of
international peace and the security of the United States.”
• “Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far reaching to
the West as well as to the East.”
•
•
•
Sub-Point 1: One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished
by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual
liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.
“We shall not realize our objectives, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain
their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to
impose upon them totalitarian regimes.”
“If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world-and we shall surely
endanger the welfare of this Nation.”
Sub-Point 2: The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed
upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio;
fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.
•
“The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and
grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a
people for a better life has died.”
“If Greece should fall under the control of an armed minority, the effect upon its neighbor,
Turkey, would be immediate and serious. Confusion and disorder might well spread throughout
the entire Middle East.”
Main Point 2: I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support
free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by
outside pressures.
• “One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the U.S. is the creation of
conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free
from coercion.”
• “This was a fundamental issue in the war with Germany and Japan. Our victory
was won over countries which sought to impose their will, and their way of life,
upon other nations.”
Main Point 3: I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own
destinies in their own way.
• “Great responsibilities have been placed upon us by the swift movement of
events.”
• “The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their
freedom.”
• “Our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is
essential to economic stability and orderly political process.”
The Communist Menace
J. Edgar Hoover, The Communist Menace (1947)
Main Points
1. The greatest threat of communism is not the number
Communists in this country, but their ability to insert
themselves into positions of power and their ability to
persuade others through lies and deception. Americans
should FEAR the communist infiltration.
• “What is important is the claim of the
Communists themselves that for every party
member there are 10 others ready, willing, and
able to do the party’s work. Herein lies the
greatest menace of communism. For these are
the people who infiltrate and corrupt various
spheres of American life. So rather than the
size of the Communist Party the way to weigh
its true importance is by testing its influence,
its ability to infiltrate.”
• “…When the Communists overthrew the
Russian government there was one Communist
J. Edgar Hoover, The Communist Menace (1947)
2. American programs to help society such as, social security,
veterans’ benefits, and welfare are all communist ideas
used to lure the support of unsuspecting citizens.
•
“The American progress which all good citizens
seek, such as old-age security, houses for veterans,
child assistance and a host of others is being
adopted as window dressing by the Communists to
conceal their true aims and entrap gullible
followers.”
3. The Communist Party of the United States intends on
destroying the American businessperson, take over our
government, and throw the whole world into revolution.
•
“The Communist movement in the United
States…stands for the destruction of free
enterprise, and it stands for the creation of a
“Soviet of the United States” and ultimate
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)
Main Points
• 1. The People of United States expect the
President and the Congress to find
answers to the problems that are plaguing
America.
• “Our people expect their President and the
Congress to find essential agreement on issues of
great moment, the wise resolution of which will
better shape the future of the Nation.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)
Main Points Cont.
• 2. America is the most influential and most
productive nation in the world. America’s basic
purposes has been to keep the peace, help with
progress in human achievement, and enhance
liberty in other nations.
• “Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the
most influential and most productive nation in the world.”
• “America’s leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon
our unmatched material progress, riches and military
strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of
world peace and human betterment.
• “Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our
basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster
progress in human achievement; and to enhance liberty,
dignity and integrity among people and among nations.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)
Main Points Cont.
• 3. The troubles around the world deserve our
attention. The main establishment that
Americans have keeping peace in the world is
with our military. There has to be a balance in
government. We have to watch government
so not let too much power rise and the misuse
of the military.
• “Progress toward these noble goals is persistently
threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It
commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings.”
• “We face a hostile ideology….”
• “A vital element in keeping the peace is our military
establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant
action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to
risk his own destruction.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)
Main Points Cont.
• 3. Cont.
• “This conjunction of an immense military
establishment and a large arms industry is new
in the American experience. The total
influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is
felt in every city, every State house, every
office of the Federal government. We recognize
the imperative need for this development. Yet
we must not fail to comprehend its grave
implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood
are all involved; so is the very structure of our
society.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)
Main Points Cont.
• 3. Cont.
• “But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a
broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in
and among national programs.”
• “Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it
eventually finds imbalance and frustration.”
• “In councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The
potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power
exists and will persist.”
• “We must never let the weight of this combination
endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)
Main Points Cont.
• 4. Americans have a lot of time. We must look to
the future where for the sake of our children. We
must disarm and learn to do get along with each
other without violence, but with intellect and good
purposes.
• “we must avoid the impulse to live for today, plundering, for
our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of
tomorrow.”
• “We cannot mortgage the material assets of our
grandchildren…”
• “Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is to a
continuing imperative.”
• “Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with
arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)
Main Points Cont.
• 5. I ask all the peoples of the world to try to
aspire to America’s example to enjoy all the
freedoms and get rid of all the evils of the world.
• “that all who yearn freedom may experience its spiritual
blessings; that those who have freedom will understand also”
• “to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of
poverty; disease and ignorance will be made to disppear
from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples
will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the
binding force of mutual respect and love.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)
Questions to consider?
• Since Eisenhower says the building of the
military is the best way to maintain peace,
but he says disarmament is needed to
create peace. Why does he say that?
• Has any part of Eisenhower’s warning
come true?
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address (1961)
Historical Significance
• The audience that Eisenhower was speaking to
was the American people and the government
defense contractors.
• This was very historical because no president
has ever spoke out like this before. It was his
last days in office so he decided why not speak
out against the defense industry.
• He was the world to gain peace by getting rid of
all their weapons and quit building them also.
By :Jackson Boyd
Brown v. Board of Education
U.S. Supreme Court (1954)
U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Oliver Brown
U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
United States Segregated
U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Chief Justice Warren
…The plaintiffs contend that
segregated public schools are
not “equal” and cannot be made
“equal,” and that hence they are
deprived of the equal protection
of the laws…
U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Main Points
• 1. To be separate deprives the child of equal
educational opportunities, and affects them
mentally in a harmful way.
– “…To separate children from others of similar
age and qualifications solely because of their
race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their
status in the community that may affect their
hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be
undone.
– “Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore,
has a tendency to [retard] the educational and
mental development of negro children and to
deprive them of some of the benefits they would
receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system.”
U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Main Points
• 2. Education is the most important function
of state and local governments.
– “…it is doubtful that any child may reasonably
be expected to succeed in life if he is denied
the opportunity of an education. Such an
opportunity, where the state has undertaken
to provide it, is a right which must be made
available to all on equal terms.”
U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Main Points
 3. When looking at this problem, we can not turn
back the hands of time nor should we completely
be shackled by precedent. We must consider the
affects of segregation today, in the light of our
current situation and knowledge.
 “We can not turn the clock back to 1868 when the
Amendment was adopted, or even to 1896 when
Plessy v. Ferguson was written.”
 “We must consider public education in the light of its
full development and its present place in American life
throughout the Nation. Only in this way can it be
determined if segregation in public schools deprives
these plaintiffs of the equal protection of the laws.”
U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Main Points
 4. Any language in Plessy vs. Ferguson
contrary to this finding is rejected. The
doctrine of “separate but equal” has no
place.
 “Separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs
and others similarly situated for whom the
actions have been brought are, by reason of
the segregation complained of, deprived of
the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by
the Fourteenth Amendment.
U.S. Supreme Court, Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Questions?
 If school segregation was as much in force in
the rest of the country as it was in the South
do you think that the problem ever would
have been solved?
 How does the Court propose to desegregate
the nation’s schools?
 If Chief Justice Fred Vinson had not died
right before this, do you think that this
decision would have taking place at this
time?
The Southern Manifesto (1956)
Linda Brown and her new class mates after the Supreme
Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
Sen. Strom Thurmond prepared
first draft of Southern Manifesto
repudiating the Supreme Court's
1954 school desegregation
decision. February 1956.
Source:
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/marsha
ll/manifesto.htmlCourtesy: Strom Thurmond Institute
The Southern Manifesto
In 1956, 96 congressmen from the former
Confederate States wrote the Southern
Manifesto to voice their opposition to the
1954 Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board
of Education. It was signed by 77 members
of the House of Representatives and 19
Senators, including the entire
congressional delegations of the states of
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi and South Carolina.
Main Points
The Southern Manifesto
1. The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of
Education is a clear abuse of judicial power.
We regard the decision of the Supreme Court in the schools
cases as a clear abuse of the judicial power. It climaxes a
trend in the Federal judiciary undertaking to legislate, in
derogation of the authority of Congress, and to encroach
upon the reserved rights of the States and the people.
Main Points Continued…
The Southern Manifesto
2. The doctrine of separate but equal is an established legal principle,
almost a century old, and the Supreme Court has no legal bases to
overturn it.
The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does the
14th amendment nor any other amendment. The debates preceding the
submission of the 14th amendment clearly show that there was no intent
that it should affect the systems of education maintained by the States.
•The very Congress which proposed the [14th] amendment provided for
segregated schools in the District of Columbia.
•In 1868, 26 out of the 37 states
approved of segregated schools
•The doctrine of separate but equal
schools originated in the North in the
1849 case of Roberts v City of
Boston.
•In the 1896 case of Plessy v.
Ferguson, the Supreme Court
declared that separate but equal
facilities did not violate a citizen's
right under the 14th amendment.
Main Points Continued…
The Southern Manifesto
3. The Supreme Court’s unwarranted decision in Brown v. Board of
Education is creating chaos and hurting relations between whites
and blacks.
This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the
Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States
principally affected. It is destroying the amicable relation between
the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years
of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted
hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and
understanding.
4. Outside agitators threaten to destroy the system of public
education in much of the South.
Without regard to the consent of the
governed, outside agitators are
threatening immediate and revolutionary
changes in our public-school systems. If
done, this is certain to destroy the
system of public education in some of
the States.
Thurgood Marshall with James Nabrit Jr. and George E.C. Hayes after their victory in
the Brown v. Board of Education case before the Supreme Court, May 17, 1954.
Main Points Continued…
The Southern Manifesto
5. The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education
violates States’ rights and is unconstitutional.
We decry the Supreme Court’s encroachments on rights reserved to
the States and to the people, contrary to established law and to the
Constitution.
Linda Brown
Main Points Continued…
The Southern Manifesto
6. We Southerners will refrain from lawless acts, even as we confront
the wrongs of the Supreme Court and provocations by outside
agitators.
In this trying period, as we all seek to right this wrong, we appeal to
our people not to be provoked by the agitators and troublemakers
invading our States and to scrupulously refrain from disorders and
lawless acts.
September 4, 1957: In Little Rock, Ark.,
shouts of approval greeted Paul Davis
Taylor as he waved a Confederate flag at
Central High School.
September 5, 1957: A jeering Student follows
Elizabeth Echford as she tries to enter Central
High School.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
January 15,1929-April 4,1968
By Melissa Conway
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
What is happening in Birmingham will affect the country as a whole.
•
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
•
“Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside
agitator” idea.”
•
“Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an
outsider anywhere within its boundaries.”
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
The Negro community has been left with no other
alternative but direct action.
•
“In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the
facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and
direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham.”
•
“In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the
merchants—for example, to remove the stores’ humiliating racial signs. A
few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained.”
•
“Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a
tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is
forced to confront the issue.”
•
“The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisispacked that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
It is time for the Negro race to stand up for the rights they are owed.
•
“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given
by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
•
“We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and
Godgiven rights.”
•
“Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of
segregation to say, “Wait”…[But] when you are forever fighting a
degenerating sense of “nobodiness” then you will understand why we find it
difficult to wait.”
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
Although individuals are morally responsible for obeying just laws, they
are also morally responsible for disobeying unjust laws.
•
“Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades
human personality is unjust. All segregation statues are unjust because
segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality.”
•
“Thus is it that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme
Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation
ordinances, for they are morally wrong.”
•
“I submit than an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is
unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to
arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality
expressing the highest respect for law.”
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
The white moderates are the Negro’s greatest obstacle to gaining
freedom.
•
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great
stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s
Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more
devoted to “order” than justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the
absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice…”
•
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than
absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is
much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
The nonviolent approach is the middle ground between complacency
and aggression.
•
“I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need to
emulate neither the “donothingism” of the complacent nor the hatred and
despair of the black nationalist.”
•
“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for
freedom eventually manifests itself, and this is what has happened to the
American Negro.”
•
“If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will
seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history.”
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
The white church and its leaders have failed to live up to the
expectations of the Negro race.
•
“…I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of
this community would see the injustice of our cause and, with deep moral
concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances
could reach the power structure. But again I have been disappointed.”
•
“In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched
white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and
sanctimonious trivialities.”
•
“In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be
assured that my tears have been tears of love. But, oh! How we have
blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of
being nonconformists.”
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
The contemporary church has become weak and ineffective.
•
“So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an
uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo.”
•
“If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church,
it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as
an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.”
•
“I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour.
We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the
eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.”
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
The nonviolent protesters are the true heroes in this struggle.
•
“I wish you had commended the Negro sit-inners and demonstrators of
Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer, and their
amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will
recognize its real heroes.”
•
“One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God
sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best
in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our JudeaoChristian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of
democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation
of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”
Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963)
Questions
•
Do you think the protest would have been as successful if Martin Luther
King, Jr. had not responded to the criticisms made by the eight clergymen?
•
Would you consider Martin Luther King’s views the middle ground between
the views of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois?
Patrick Moynihan, The Negro Family (1965)
Photograph of a Black Family During the
Great Depression
Moynihan, D. P. (1965). The negro family: The case for national action. U.S. Department
of Labor. Retrieved October 17, 2002 from
http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm.
Moynihan, D. P. (1965). The negro family: The case for national action. U.S. Department
of Labor. Retrieved October 17, 2002 from
http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm.
Source: Moynihan, D. P. (1965). The negro family: The case for national action. U.S.
Department of Labor. Retrieved October 17, 2002 from
http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm.
Photograph of a Black Family
During the Great Depression
Source: Moynihan, D. P. (1965). The negro family: The case for national action. U.S.
Department of Labor. Retrieved October 17, 2002 from
http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm.
Patrick Moynihan, The Negro Family (1965)
Main Points:
1. The role of the family is central to shaping the character of
people, and “[a]t the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro
Society is the deterioration of the Negro family.”
•
The role of the family in shaping character and ability is so
pervasive as to be easily overlooked. The family is the basic
social unit of American life; it is the basic socializing unit….
But there is one truly great discontinuity in family structure in
the United States at the present time: that between the white
world in general and that of the Negro American.
•
…the family structure of lower class Negroes is highly
unstable, and in many urban centers is approaching complete
breakdown….
•
…There is considerable evidence that the Negro community is
in fact dividing between a stable middle-class group that is
steadily growing stronger and more successful, and an
increasingly disorganized and disadvantaged lower-class
group….
2. A long history of discrimination and segregation has worked
against the emergence of a strong father figure in African American
family.
The Negro was given liberty, but not equality. Life remained
hazardous and marginal. Of the greatest importance, the Negro male,
particularly in the South, became an object of intense hostility, an
attitude unquestionably based in some measure on fear.
When Jim Crow made its appearance toward the end of the
19th century, it may be speculated that it was the Negro male who
was most humiliated thereby.…
Unquestionably, [Jim Crow humiliation of the Negro male]
worked against the emergence of a strong father figure. The very
essence of the male animal, from the bantam rooster to the four-star
general, is to strut. Indeed, in 19th century America, a particular type
of exaggerated male boastfulness became almost a national style.
Not for the Negro male. The “sassy nigger” was lynched.
The White Man’s Double Standard
“We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the
man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never
wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but
who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the
stern strife of actual life.”
--Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life
White mobs murdered some 500 blacks between 1870 and
1900, and more than 100 black people between 1900 and
1910.
White prejudice included animosity toward black troops in
the U.S. Army. Brownsville whites, for example, objected
to the stationing of the all-black Twenty-fifth Infantry at
Fort Brown. In anger, they charged that the troops had
raided the city in 1906 in protest of discriminatory
practices. Later evidence demonstrated the unfairness of
the charges, but at that time President Theodore
Roosevelt had dishonorably discharged 160 of the troops.
(The History of Texas, 189, 261-262)
THE DECLINE IN AMERICAN MORALS?
The general failure of prohibition enforcement brought home
to many Texas what they defined as a decline in American
morals. The rapidly increasing urbanization seemed to blur
what were once clear moral and community values. Migration
to the city disrupted the neighborhoods of rural America and,
coupled with more and better transportation facilities, broke
up the extended family. Historians have cited the urban
growth of the United States as creating tensions between
rural and urban Americans. The anxiety emanated not only
from the countryside, but also from developing southern cities
filled with recent foreign immigrants. The anti-city focus of
rural Texans resulted from their perception of urban areas as
hotbeds of disloyal foreigners, religious modernism, illegal
speakeasies, organized crime, morally suspicious “New
Women,” and corrupting modern music. These tensions were
further abetted by the post-World War I Red Scare and
reinforced by the progressive drive for social control. (The
History of Texas, p. 310)
3. Unemployment of the African-American male has largely
contributed to the present crisis of the African-American family,
which has been forced into a matriarchal structure.
•
The impact of unemployment on the Negro family, and particularly
on the Negro male, is the least understood of all the developments
that have contributed to the present crisis…. The fundamental,
overwhelming fact is that Negro unemployment, with the exception
of a few years during World War II and the Korean War, has
continued at disaster levels for 35 years…. As jobs became more
and more difficult to find, the stability of the family became more
and more difficult to maintain….
•
[The African-American community has paid a fearful price] for
the incredible mistreatment to which it has been subjected over
the past three centuries.
•
In essence, the Negro community has been forced into a
matriarchal structure which, because it is so out of line with the
rest of the American society, seriously retards the progress of the
group as a whole, and imposes a crushing burden on the Negro
male and, in consequence, on a great many Negro women as well.
4. A national effort should be made to help the problems faced by the
African-American family.
• It was by destroying the Negro family under slavery that white
America broke the will of the Negro people. Although that will has
reasserted itself in our time, it is a resurgence doomed to
frustration unless the viability of the Negro family is restored….
•
…[A] national effort towards the problems of Negro Americans
must be directed towards the question of family structure. The
object should be to strengthen the Negro family so as to enable it
to raise and support its members as do other families. After that,
how this group of Americans chooses to run its affairs… is none of
the nation’s business….
Questions:
• What is wrong with having female heads of households?
• What are the origins of “the tangle of pathology” in the black community?
• How can the government alter familial relations?
Single Parents
Single parents account for 27 percent of family households with children under 18.
More than two million fathers are the primary caregivers of children under 18,
a 62 percent increase since 1990.
One in two children will live in a single-parent family at some point in childhood.
One in three children is born to unmarried parents.
Between 1978 and 1996, the number of babies born to unmarried women per year
quadrupled from 500,000 to more than two million.
The number of single mothers increased from three million to 10 million between
1970 and 2000.
Divorced Parents
Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce.
More than one million children have parents who separate or divorce each year.
More than half of Americans today have been, are or will be in one or more stepfamily
situations.
In 1976, Carter in his presidential bid ran
against the memory of Nixon and Watergate as
much as he ran against his Republican
opponent, Gerald Ford. His most effective
campaign pitch was his promise that “I’ll never
lie to you.”
Jimmy Carter, Energy and National Goals
(1979)
Main Points:
• 1. Our nation and government as a whole is
quickly beginning to lose all “confidence”.
– “The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to
destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”
– “Our people are losing that faith, not only in government
itself but in the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate
rulers and shapers of our democracy.”
– “In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families,
close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us
now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.”
Jimmy Carter, Energy and National Goals (1979)
• 2. The energy crisis is a real problem we are facing and we
must recognize it.
– “Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this
nation, and it can also be the standard around which we rally.”
– “The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and
present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply
must face them…”
• 3. It is time to take charge and do something about this
growing problem.
– “Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign
oil than we did in 1977-- never. From now on, every new addition
to our demand for energy will be met from our own production
and our own conservation.”
– “I’m asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law,
that our nation’s utility companies cut their massive use of oil by
fifty percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels,
especially coal, our most abundant energy source.”
– “…I’m asking you for your good and for your nation’s security to
take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public
transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day
per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to
save fuel.”
Anastasio Somoza
Debayle
& Sandinista Soldiers
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from
extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream.
It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do
the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our
children and our children’s children what it was once like in the
United States where men were free.”
1984 Electoral Map
Ronald Reagan, Support
for the Contras (1984)
Main Points:
• The United States does not start
wars.
– “We will never be the aggressor. We maintain
our strength in order to deter and defend
aggression, to preserve freedom and peace. We
help our friends defend themselves.”
• “Central America is region of great
importance to the United States.”
– …San Salvador is closer to Houston, Texas, than
Houston is to Washington, D.C.
– “…[I]t’s become the stage for a bold attempt by
the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua to install
communism by force throughout the
hemisphere….”
Ronald Reagan, Support
for the Contras (1984)
Main Points
• The war in El Salvador is resulting
in massive waves of refugees.
– “Concerns about the prospect of
hundreds of thousands of refugees
fleeing Communist oppression to seek
entry into our country are well-founded.
• The Communist threat is moving
closer to the USA.
– “What we see in El Salvador is an attempt
to destabilize the entire region and
eventually move chaos and anarchy
toward the American border….”
Ronald Reagan, Support
for the Contras (1984)
Main Points
• The Communist Sandinistas rule Nicaragua
under the veil of Democracy.
– “…Castro cynically instructed them in the ways
of successful Communist insurrection. He told
them to tell the world they were fighting for
political democracy, not communism.”
• The Contras have taken up arms against
the government.
– “Many of those who fought alongside the
Sandinistas saw their revolution betrayed.
– “Thousands who fought with the
Sandinistas…are now called the contras.”
– “They are freedom fighters….”
Ronald Reagan, Support
for the Contras (1984)
Main Points
• With the help of the Soviet Union and Cuba, the
Sandinistas are funding terrorism.
– “Shortly after taking power…began supporting
aggression and terrorism against El Salvador,
Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.”
– “…Nicaragua is still the headquarters for
Communist guerrilla movements….”
• The Communist presence in Nicaragua is
growing.
– “There were 165 Cuban personnel in
Nicaragua in 1979. Today that force has
grown to 10,000.”
– “Communist countries are providing new
military assistance, including tanks, artillery,
rocket-launchers, and help in the construction
of military bases and support facilities….”
Ronald Reagan, Support
for the Contras (1984)
Main Points
• We shall defend the
Americas from the
threat of Communism.
– “…We Americans should be
proud of what we’re trying to
do in Central America, and
proud of what, together with
our friends, we can do…to
support democracy, human
rights, and economic growth
while preserving peace so
close to home. Let us show
the world that we want no
hostile Communist colonies
here in the Americas—South,
Central, or North.”
Ronald Reagan, Support
for the Contras (1984)
Ronald Reagan, Support
for the Contras (1984)
“History teaches that wars begin when governments
believe the price of aggression is cheap.”
Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation, January 16,
1984
Andrew Sullivan
This Is a Religious War: September 11 was Only the Beginning
Background Information:
Andrew Sullivan was born in England on August 10, 1963 and is a
renowned journalist in both the United Kingdom and the U.S. He is the
former editor of The New Republic for his battling lifestyle between
conservative Catholicism and active gay lifestyle with HIV. He is also a
pioneer in the genre of Blog Journalism. Sullivan also briefly wrote for
The New York Times Journal. He is often compared to Camille Paglia,
another homosexual who argues from a non-leftist perspective.
Historical Context:
This article was written after the attacks on September 11, 2001 on the
Twin Towers in New York City. It was written in response that people
were not calling this a “religious war” when he clearly saw that it was.
Andrew Sullivan
This Is a Religious War: September 11 was Only the Beginning
Main Points:
1. This is a religious war between Islamic Fundamentalism and faiths of all
kinds
“Rather, it is a war of fundamentalism against faiths of all kinds that are at peace with
freedom and modernity.”
“This is a religious war between “unbelief and unbelievers” in bin Laden’s words.”
“In 1998 he [bin Laden] also told followers that his terrorism was “of the commendable
kind, for it is directed t the tyrants and the aggressors and the enemies of Allah.”
2. This is not the first time fundamentalism has crept into the secular realm
“What, after all, were the totalitarian societies of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia if not
an exact replica of this kind of fusion of politics and ultimate meaning? Under Lenin’s
and Stalin’s rules, the imminence of salvation through revolutionary consciousness
was in perpetual danger of being undermined by those too weak to have faith…so
they had to be liquidated or purged.”
“It is harder for us to understand that in some twisted fashion, they [Nazis] truly
believed that they were creating a new dawn for humanity, a place where all the
doubts that freedom brings could be dispelled in a rapture of racial purity and destiny.”
Andrew Sullivan
This Is a Religious War: September 11 was Only the Beginning
Main Points:
3. The defeat of fundamentalists has been and is an arduous task
“Perhaps the most important thing for us to realize today is that the defeat of
each of these fundamentalists required a long and arduous effort. The conflict
with Islamic fundamentalism is likely to take as long.”
4. The critical link of Western and Middle Eastern Fundamentalism is the
pace of social change
“The critical link between Western and Middle Easter fundamentalism is surely
the pace of social change. If you take your beliefs from books written more
than a thousand years ago, and you believe in these texts literal, then the
appearance of the modern world must terrify you.”
“If you believe that women should be consigned to polygamous, concealed
servitude, then Manhattan must appear like Gomorrah…It is not a big step to
argue that such centers of evil should be destroyed or undermined as bin
Laden does, or to believe that destruction is somehow a consequence of their
sin.”
Andrew Sullivan
This Is a Religious War: September 11 was Only the Beginning
Main Points:
5. The other critical aspect of this faith is insecurity
“American fundamentalists know they are losing the culture war. They
are terrified of failure and of the Godless world they believe is about to
engulf or crush them.”
“They talk about renewal, but in their private discourse they expect
damnation for an America that has lost sight of the fundamentalist
notion of God.”
6. Security from American Taliban: The Constitution
“And the surprising consequence of this separation is not that it led to
a collapse of religious faith in America – as weak human beings found
themselves unable to believe without social and political reinforcement
– but that it led to one of the most vibrantly religious civil societies on
earth.”
“It is a living tangible rebuke to everything they [Islamic
fundamentalists] believe in.”
George W Bush
Born July 6, 1946 New Haven, Connecticut, to
George H W and Barbara Bush
Grew up in Midland and Houston, Texas.
Yale University, bachelor's degree, history
Harvard University, Master of Business
Administration
Married Laura Welch on November 5, 1977
Twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara.
Career and Public Service
• Owner, oil and gas business
• Partner, Texas Rangers Baseball Team
• Governor of Texas
• Elected President of the United States
January 20, 2001
Main Points
– Saddam Hussein has been deceitful and
manipulative.
• The United States and other nations have pursued
patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi
regime without war while the Iraqi regime has used
diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage.
Main Points Con’t.
• This regime has already used weapons of mass
destruction against Iraq’s neighbors and
against Iraq’s people.
***The danger is clear***
• Preemptive strike is justified: The United
States of America has the sovereign
authority to use force in assuring its own
national security.
Main Points Con’t.
• We are now acting because the risks of
inaction would be far greater.
• The security of the world requires
Saddam Hussein disarming now.
• Free nations have a duty to defend our
people by uniting against the violent
nations.
Historical Significance
• Saddam Hussein has been captured and
is now on trial for crimes against humanity.
• His sons have been killed.
• It is too soon to make predictions about
the outcome of the war or the Iraqi people.