The Four Freedoms under Siege The Clear and Present Danger from Our National Security State

Subjects:

• Political Science » American Politics/Government
• Political Science » Political Philosophy
• Political Science » Civil/Political/Human Rights

Reviews:

• Raskin and Spero present a powerful indictment of the seemingly inexorable march of the US toward becoming a national security state in the latter half of the 20th century and most dramatically since 9/11. America has always had a tendency toward triumphalism and militarism, but in recent decades, and particularly under the current administration, these tendencies have increasingly undercut the core values of democracy and personal freedom. The reader is led through the government's systematic rejection of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The authors decry unprecedented government secrecy and monitoring of the populace, increased poverty and economic disparity, and perpetual state of fear promoted by those in power--multiple attributes of a failed imperial state....[t]he authors' alternative vision of American democracy is visionary and serves as a useful foil for criticism of the existing state. Recommended. General readers and undergraduates.
  —Choice July 2007
• Raskin and Spero take off from Franklin Delano Roosevelts proclamation of the Four Freedoms in his annual message to Congress, January 6, 1941 and apply them to present day America. These four freedoms are the freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. It is not a pretty picture. It can be changed, and this book contains wise words for such liberations.
  —Ralph Nader's Holiday Reading List Nader.org December 17, 2007
• While George W. Bush proclaims regularly that his "War on Terror" is being fought for the advance of freedom, Raskin and Spero argue that his expansion of the national security state (a term first used by Raskin to describe Cold War America in 1967) is in fact undermining the four freedoms delineated by Franklin Roosevelt in his 1941 State of the Union address: freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. They touch upon a wide range of issues in making their argument, including the PATRIOT Act, misconceptions about terrorism, voting rights violations, the religious right, economic inequality, and the mobilization of fear in the name of the "War on Terror."
  —Reference & Research Book News February 2007

Table of Contents:

• What is Past is Prologue: The Clear and Present Danger to Our Freedoms from Our National Security State
• Freedom of Speech
• How Free Is Our Speech?
• The U.S.A. Patriot Act Vs. the U.S. Constitution
• September 11: A Golden Opportunity for Conservatives
• Lessons about Terrorism the Government Never Learns
• When Is Danger Clear and Present?
• Can the Homeland Ever Be Secure?
• The Right to Vote, The Right to Have It Count
• Do You Already Live In An Authoritarian State?
• Escape from Authoritarianism
• Freedom to Worship
• Our Religious Sea Change
• Holier than Thou
• Religious War without End
• How Silent Must Prayer Be?
• Faith, Science, and Rationality
• Freedom from Want
• The Business of Hunger
• FDR's Economic Bill of Rights
• The Haves and the Have-Nots
• The National Health
• Who Decides Who Gets Freedom from Want?
• Freedom from Fear
• The United States Goes to War for Power, Peace, and Profit. Subverts Constitutional Government. And Makes Americans Fearful
• Can You Sign a Separate Peace?
• Last Things First: How Come This Liberal Think Tank Has Never Been Wrong?
• Marcus Raskin and the Institute for Policy Studies

PDF Catalogs:

Praeger Politics 2008.pdf