Independence Day Delusions [View all]

[Snarkoleptic]

“Necessitous men are not free men.” - FDR in his Economic Bill of Rights Speech

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/07/04/independence-day-delusions

Is Our Nation Really "Free"?

According to the watchdog organization Freedom House, in terms of political and civil liberties the U.S. is tied for 44th freest country, after UK, Chile, Japan, Portugal, and most of the Scandinavian nations. The organization's 2016 synopsis states: "The United States received a downward trend arrow because of the cumulative impact of flaws in the electoral system, a disturbing increase in the role of private money in election campaigns and the legislative process, legislative gridlock, the failure of the Obama administration to fulfill promises of enhanced government openness, and fresh evidence of racial discrimination and other dysfunctions in the criminal justice system."

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A Free Market? Corporations Are Free to Subjugate Consumers

Corporations assume the freedom to deny their customers the right to fight back against corporate malfeasance. A New York Times report notes that companies have found a way to "circumvent the courts and bar people from joining together in class-action lawsuits," by inserting individual arbitration clauses in consumer contracts.

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Freedom from Want? Poverty Keeps Getting Worse.

It's shocking to learn that nearly two-thirds of Americans don't have the savings to pay for a $500 car repair. It brings to mind the poverty of the 1930s, when FDR included "Freedom from Want" as one of the four basic freedoms to which we all have a right. Today, apparently, most of us are deprived of that right.

Real Freedom

In "Common Sense," Thomas Paine spoke of our "common interest [to] mutually and naturally support each other." Freedom and security, he noted, is the design and end of government.

This means freedom for the greatest number of us, not just for the self-centered individuals who see community as an impediment to their taking of our nation's wealth.