SPEECHES ON FREEDOM
The Story of American Freedom 1776-2005, SPEECH BY ERIC FONER
The video and description has been taken from http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/263 as it is a good analysis and speech convering many important issues on Freedom.
Although the idea of freedom is nearly ubiquitous in American public
discourse -- and perhaps no more so than today – it has been subject to
a remarkable degree of flux over the course of the nation’s history.
Eric Foner describes it as “a subject of persistent conflict and
debate,” from the earliest times. “This country founded with the
rhetoric of freedom was also a slave society,” says Foner. “Slave
owners insisted that slavery was the real foundation of freedom,
because a free individual was a person who was autonomous, not reliant
on others for their economic livelihood. Owning a slave enhanced one’s
freedom.” Foner believes that battles “at the boundaries of freedom,”
by African Americans and other racial minorities, women and workers,
“have deepened and extended the meaning of freedom into more areas of
life.” After the nation accepted the 14th amendment -- “a nonracial
idea of freedom”-- the next battle coalesced around economic freedom.
Should an individual be allowed to pursue economic self-interest
without outside restraint, or should economic freedom come to mean
economic security—a living wage, a safety net? World War II, and the
encounter with fascism, helped “reshape the internal boundaries of
freedom,” says Foner, and served as the origins of the civil rights
struggle in the U.S. The Cold War refocused the nation on free
enterprise, central to our global battle against tyranny. And now
globalization and terrorism challenge our notions of freedom. Foner
deplores the current administration’s belief in a single sustainable
model of freedom – our own. This chauvinism, he believes, violates the
very notion of an open society, and paves the way for restricting freedoms at home.
FOR SOME INSPIRATION LISTEN TO THE SPEECH MADE by MEL GIBSON as William Wallace in BRAVE HEART.
UMBRELLA WALK
WILL CONTINUE UNTIL THE TRUTH IS PRACTICED BY MAN