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International Human Rights Day: The Legacy Of Eleanor Roosevelt

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Eleanor Roosevelt’s biographer says if she were alive today she would celebrate the  advancement of the LGBT, economic and social human rights movements globally

Today marks International Human Rights Day around the world. It is the day that we recognize the important role and place of human rights in people’s lives who inhabit the globe from the Arab Spring uprising to the transformative elevation of women’s and girl’s human rights. Indeed, there is a planetary recognition that all people yearn to be free, despite the best efforts of despotic regimes to oppress, suppress and shackle those who are different.

This year’s International Human Rights Day celebrates the right to free speech with the tagline of “My Voice Counts” and touted in a promotional video by luminaries like Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu, an outspoken advocate for LGBT human rights, who has spoken forcefully in recent days about Uganda’s “kill the gays bill”.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), considered the foundational document from which all human rights law emanates, was drafted under the tutelage of Eleanor Roosevelt, a leader in the establishment of the United Nations after the conclusion of World War II.  Arguably, Roosevelt’s greatest legacy was the adoption of the UDHR and the development and adoption of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, has not been ratified) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 and ratified  by Congress under President George H.W. Bush in 1992).  Indeed, in 1945 she was appointed U.S. delegate to the UN by then-President Harry S. Truman where she took charge of establishing what many believed at the time, an organization that would end all wars and peacefully negotiate all disputes.

Roosevelt was no push over, according to  Blanche Wiesen Cook, Distinguished Professor at John Jay, City University New York who shared her thoughts about Roosevelt with The New Civil Rights Movement this afternoon.  Wiesen, who resides on the Upper West Side with her partner Clare Coss, is Eleanor Roosevelt’s most recent biographer and most eloquent trenchant story teller about the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, will publish a third volume of a completed trilogy next year.  It was during the short period between the end of World War II and when the Communist “Red Curtain” came down over Soviet controlled Europe that Eleanor Roosevelt pushed for the inclusion of not only civil and political rights, but also included economic and social rights. Truman told her he would not support economic and social rights because they were socialist. In a push back, according to Cook, Roosevelt told Truman she would resign, insisting you can not convince hungry people of the merit of human rights. Truman relented and asked her not to resign.

What would Eleanor Roosevelt think about the state of human rights today?

 “She would really celebrate the work of The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (U.S. based human rights organizations)–she would support the rights of all people across the globe.

How would she feel about the drone utilization of targeted killings by the U.S. government?

“Eleanor would be appalled by the drone policy and targeted killings.  Certainly, these policies contradict the UDHR.  We have upended the Magna Carta with these policies.”

How did she resolve the political issues around civil and political rights versus social and economic human rights?

“In the end she divided these rights into two different covenants, thinking she could get them through the Senate much more easily for ratification.  But it took until President George H.W. Bush to ratify the civil and political rights.”


 

Eleanor Roosevelt was a pioneer on a number of fronts and made a pact to remain with FDR, although he had betrayed her by engaging in a life long romantic relationship with Lucy Mercer Rutherford, and maintained a close relationship with his long serving secretary Missy Leland.  She turned to others for emotional support and intimacy, including a several-years relationship with Lorena Hickok, the first AP reporter assigned to follow the First Lady who happened to be Eleanor Roosevelt.  According to Cook, the two women loved each other and wrote daily letter that contained intensely political and loving references throughout the duration of their relationship.

Not withstanding her private and perhaps complicated life, Roosevelt was appointed U.S. Delegate to the UN where she was a force to be reckoned with and not even Harry Truman was willing to risk damaging his reputation by forcing her resignation.  Indeed, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is arguably one of Eleanor Roosevelts’s greatest achievements, and no doubt she would be amazed how that document has evolved to encompass the human rights of LGBT persons, peoples with disabilities and more recently, the embrace of indigenous peoples by the world community.

 

In fact, Eleanor Roosevelt’s distinguished accomplishments to establish the UDHR and the Human Rights Commission has galvanized a global movement to erect a memorial in her honor which is memorialized in the above video.  We are once again reminded why we remain  in her debt 64 years after this singular, triumphant  accomplishment that extends hope to the entire world with these words: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”.

Tanya L. Domi is the Deputy Editor of the New Civil Rights Movement blog.  She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and teaches human rights in East Central Europe and former Yugoslavia.  Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi was a nationally recognized LGBT civil rights activist who worked for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force during the campaign to lift the military ban in the early 1990s. Domi has also worked internationally in a dozen countries on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights and gender issues.  She is chair of the board of directors for GetEQUAL.  Domi is currently writing a book about the emerging LGBT human rights movement in the Western Balkans.

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News

‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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April 23, 2024

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Republicans in the Tennessee House passed legislation Tuesday afternoon allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms across the state, thirteen months after a 28-year old shooter slaughtered three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

The measure is reportedly not popular statewide, with Democrats, teachers, and parents from the school, Covenant Elementary, largely opposed. The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, at one point literally shut down debate on the bill by shutting off a Democratic lawmaker’s microphone and then smiling.

Ultimately, Republican Rep. Ryan Williams’s legislation passed the GOP majority House as protestors in the gallery shouted their objections: “Blood on your hands.”

READ MORE: Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

The legislation bars parents from being informed if their child’s teacher has a gun in the classroom.

State Troopers were called to “prevent people from getting close to the House chambers,” WSMV’s Marissa Sulek reports.

“You’re going to kill kids,” one woman had yelled at Rep. Williams from the gallery on Monday, The Tennessean reports. “You’re going to be responsible for the death of children. Shame on you.”

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Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said on social media, “This is what fascism looks like.”

“In recent weeks,” the paper also reports, “parents of school shooting survivors, students and gun-reform advocates have heavily lobbied against the bill, with one Covenant School mom delivering a letter to the House on Monday with more than 5,300 signatures asking lawmakers to kill the bill.”

The bill, which already passed the state Senate, now heads to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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OPINION

Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

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April 23, 2024

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At the end of another short courtroom day that required barely three hours of Donald Trump’s time, the ex-president spoke to reporters inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building to complain about a wide variety of perceived and alleged wrongs he is suffering, including, not being “allowed to talk.”

The ex-president’s presence was required only from 11 AM until just 2 PM. Judge Juan Merchan is overseeing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of the ex-president in a case that has already drawn a straight line through the “hush money” headlines to correct them to alleged criminal conspiracy and election interference.

Judge Merchan, for nearly two hours Tuesday morning, heard prosecutors’ allegations that Trump has violated his gag order ten times, and heard defense counsel’s claims that he had not.

It did not go well for the Trump legal team, with Judge Merchan toward the end of the hearing, during which no jurors were allowed, telling Trump lead attorney Todd Blanche, “You’re losing all credibility.”

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During the day’s hearing, jurors heard prosecutors’ lead witness, the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer tabloid, David Pecker, explain how he was working to help the Trump campaign.

“David Pecker testifies that, following his 2015 meeting with Trump and [Michael] Cohen, he met with former National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard,” MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reports. “Pecker outlined the arrangement and described it as ‘highly private and confidential.’ Pecker asked Howard to notify the tabloid’s West Coast and East Coast bureau chiefs that any stories that came in about Trump or the 2016 election must be vetted and brought straight to Pecker — and ‘they’ll have to be brought to Cohen.’ Pecker told Howard the arrangement needed to stay a secret because it was being carried out to help Trump’s campaign.”

Trump did not discuss any evidence against him with reporters, but he did complain about the gag order. And President Joe Biden. And the temperature in the courtroom. And his apparent attempt to stay awake, which has been a problem for him almost every day in court.

“We have a gag order, which to me is totally unconstitutional, I’m not allowed to talk but people are allowed to talk about me,” Trump told reporters, emphasizing the last word in that sentence.

“So they can talk about me, they can say whatever they want, they can lie. But I’m not allowed to say anything, I just have to sit back and look at why a conflicted judge has ordered me to have a gag order.”

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“I don’t think anybody’s ever seen anything like this,” Trump claimed, falsely implying no criminal defendant has ever had a gag order imposed on them previously. “I’d love to talk to you people, I’d love to say everything that’s on my mind, but I’m restricted because I have a gag order, and I’m not sure that anybody’s ever seen anything like this before.”

Trump then started to discuss the “articles” in his hand, what appeared to be dozens of articles he said had “all good headlines,” while implying they claimed “the case is a sham.”

Trump oversimplified the legal arguments attached to his gag order, as discussed with Judge Merchan Tuesday morning. The judge has yet to rule on prosecutors’ request to hold Trump in contempt.

“So I put an article in and then somebody’s name is mentioned somewhere deep in the article and I end up in violation of a gag order,” he told reporters, apparently referring to his posts on Truth Social with persecutes say violated his gag order. “I think it’s a disgrace. It’s totally unconstitutional. I don’t believe it’s ever – not to this extent – ever happened before. I’m not allowed to defend myself and yet other people are allowed to say whatever they want about me. Very, very unfair.”

“Having to do with the schools and the closings – that’s Biden’s fault,” Trump said, strangely, as if the COVID pandemic were still officially in process. “And by the way, this trial is all Biden, this is all Biden just in case anybody has any question. And they’re keeping me, in a courtroom that’s freezing by the way, all day long while he’s out campaigning, that’s probably an advantage because he can’t campaign.”

“Nobody knows what he’s doing. he can’t put two sentences together. But he’s out campaigning. He’s campaigning and I’m here and I’m sitting here sitting up as straight as I can all day long because you know, it’s a very unfair situation,” Trump lamented. “So we’re locked up in a courtroom and this guy’s out there campaigning, if you call it a campaign, every time he opens his mouth he gets himself into trouble.”

Watch below or at this link.

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News

Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

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14 hours ago

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April 23, 2024

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Four years ago today then-President Donald Trump, on live national television during what would be known as merely the early days and weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggested an injection of a household “disinfectant” could cure the deadly coronavirus.

The Biden campaign on Tuesday has already posted five times on social media about Trump’s 2020 remarks, including by saying, “Four years ago today, Dr. Birx reacted in horror as Trump told Americans to inject bleach on national television.”

Less than 24 hours after Trump’s remarks calls to the New York City Poison Control Center more than doubled, including people complaining of Lysol and bleach exposure. Across the country, the CDC reported, calls to state and local poison control centers jumped 20 percent.

“It was a watershed moment, soon to become iconic in the annals of presidential briefings. It arguably changed the course of political history,” Politico reported on the one-year anniversary of Trump’s beach debacle. “It quickly came to symbolize the chaotic essence of his presidency and his handling of the pandemic.”

How did it happen?

“The Covid task force had met earlier that day — as usual, without Trump — to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads. Trump was briefed by a small group of aides. But it was clear to some aides that he hadn’t processed all the details before he left to speak to the press,” Politico added.

READ MORE: ‘Cutting Him to Shreds’: ‘Pissed’ Judge Tells Trump’s Attorney ‘You’re Losing All Credibility’

“’A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway,’ said one former senior Trump White House official. ‘I actually argued that President Trump wouldn’t have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did.'”

The manufacturer of Lysol issued a strong statement saying, “under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” with “under no circumstance” in bold type.

Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks were part of a much larger crisis during the pandemic: misinformation and disinformation. In 2021, a Cornell University study found the President was the “single largest driver” of COVID misinformation.

What did Trump actually say?

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out, in a minute,” Trump said from the podium at the White House press briefing room, as Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx looked on without speaking up. “Is there a way we can do something like that? By injection, inside, or almost a cleaning, ’cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. You’re going to have to use medical doctors, right? But it sounds interesting to me.”

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

Within hours comedian Sarah Cooper, who had a good run mocking Donald Trump, released a video based on his remarks that went viral:

The Biden campaign at least 12 times on the social media platform X has mentioned Trump’s infamous and dangerous remarks about injecting “disinfectant,” although, like many, they have substituted the word “bleach” for “disinfectant.”

Hours after Trump’s remarks, from his personal account, Joe Biden posted this tweet:

Tuesday morning the Biden campaign released this video marking the four-year anniversary of Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks.

See the social media posts and videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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