In 1944, in his annual message to Congress, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked for an Economic Bill of Rights: "We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. Necessitous men are not free men. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. In our day, these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all - regardless of station, race or creed. Among these are: the right to a useful and remunerative job, the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation, the right of every family to a decent home, the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health, the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment, the right to a good education."

The newly established United Nations appointed a commission, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, to write FDR's concepts of the four freedoms -- freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion -- into international law, guaranteeing these freedoms to all people, regardless of country, age, sex, race, or religion. The result was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR], adopted by the U.N. in 1948.

The UDHR defines five categories of human rights to be protected: civil, political, economic, social and cultural. During the Cold War, the U.S. touted civil and political rights as if they were the only human rights, loudly proclaiming U.S. superiority on that basis, while the USSR espoused only economic and social rights and denied civil and political rights.

Today ...

Civil rights -- the right to be equal to any other member of society -- are losing ground in the U.S., as seen in the loss of Affirmative Action and in the increasingly punitive criminal laws relating to drugs.

Political rights -- the right to vote and participate in the political process -- have been largely abrogated by the power of corporations to influence every step of the electoral process, and more than 50% of voters have either succumbed to cynicism and apathy and no longer exercise these rights, or are too busy trying to survive economically to do so.

Economic rights -- the right to an economy that meets people's needs -- have always been ignored in the U.S., along with

Social rights -- the right to education, health care, and housing. Without economic and social rights, civil and political rights are fairly meaningless.

Of course, a Declaration is a resolution, not law. What makes values into laws are treaties, and there are several supporting the UDHR: the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights [ICESCR], the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR], the Treaty against Race Discrimination, and the Treaty for the Rights of Women and Children.

The ICESCR guarantees the universal right to work, the right to just and favorable working conditions, the right to form trade unions and to strike, the right to social security, and the right to an adequate standard of living. Adopted by the U.N. January 3, 1976, it was signed by President Carter in October, 1977, but has never been ratified by Congress. The U.S. is the only G-7 country that has not ratified the treaty, positioning America among the countries it condemns for human rights violations. This failure is all the more glaring as, among the G-7, the U.S. has the highest disparity between rich and poor, and the highest rate of child poverty.

The average American knows nothing about the UDHR, the ICESCR, or any of the other international treaties establishing rights -- and rights aren't much good if you don't know you have them. Far from being a human right, welfare has been framed as a giveaway to undeserving people, and whereas it is doubtful that the majority of Americans bought that idea, Congress certainly did. The ignorance about human rights is hardly an accident -- this information is not taught in our history or government classes, is never mentioned in the media. Loretta Ross, founder and director of the Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, GA, has been educating people about their rights. She reports that Georgia Legislators, who consider being called racists a badge of honor, get very upset at being called human rights violators and being confronted by people with their own copies of the UDHR, and pointing out violations perpetrated in welfare "reform."

Hen Cackles

©Wanda Ballentine, 1998