We offer these as building blocks from which you can construct your own letter about Global Good Neighbor to the editor of your local newspaper. Like the GGN concept itself, feel free to use any of the language in your own letters. If you link your letter to recent events or in response to items printed in your newspaper, you will have a better chance of getting your letter published. Also, the shorter the better.
Dear Editor:
Current U.S. foreign policy is a disaster and to continue on this course will lead to even greater disasters, for us and for others in the world we share. More U.S. citizens have died in the misbegotten occupation of Iraq than in the Sept. 11 attacks. Terrorist networks have had a recruitment heyday. Diplomacy has been abandoned as a means of guiding international relations, and resentment is rising throughout the world against U.S. actions. At home, we feel less secure, and our future is less certain.
We do need to change course. We need to turn fear into determination and restore respect for U.S. leadership.
Our proud history and our common values can guide us in setting new directions for foreign policy. The Good Neighbor policy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt emphasized the basic principles of mutual respect, global interdependence, cultural diversity, and common values in foreign and domestic policies. This positive agenda won widespread respect for the United States as a global leader and partner and ended a shameful era of military aggrandizement.
In today's interconnected global neighborhood, we can best serve our national interest by cooperating with our neighbors to solve the global problems we face. This administration has alternately undermined or ignored the multilateral institutions designed in the FDR era to prevent the horrors of another world war. We must re-commit ourselves to cooperative solutions to shared problems. In the global neighborhood, cooperation, alliances, and multilateralism create more stable and enduring security solutions than isolation and unilateral intervention. Today, we need a positive vision—a Global Good Neighbor policy (for more information, see www.globalgoodneighbor.com) for our times.
Sincerely,
Dear Editor:
It's time for a new foreign policy that takes its inspiration from the Good Neighbor foreign policy of President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s and 1940s. Mutual respect should guide U.S. foreign policy. Our government once approached the world with this spirit of international cooperation. In the 1930s and 1940s, FDR's Good Neighbor policy provided the collective determination to defeat fascism and the vision to create international institutions like the United Nations. We can do it again . A foreign policy shaped by common values and informed by common heritage would restore our country's reputation as a responsible global leader and partner. Let's start moving forward toward the construction of a new framework for our foreign policy—a Global Good Neighbor policy (for more information, see www.globalgoodneighbor.com).
Sincerely,
Dear Editor:
Our nation's well-being increasingly depends on that of the entire global neighborhood. We cannot confront the looming threats of global warming, terrorism, infectious disease, loose nukes, a scarcity of natural resources, or the inequity caused by unregulated economic globalization alone. We have a responsibility and an interest in adopting policies that support, not dominate, weaker neighbors and that take into account the interests of the broader community.
In today's interconnected global neighborhood, we can best serve our national interest by cooperating with our neighbors to solve the global problems we face. This administration has alternately undermined or ignored the multilateral institutions designed in the FDR era to prevent the horrors of another world war. We must re-commit ourselves to cooperative solutions to shared problems. In the global neighborhood, cooperation, alliances, and multilateralism create more stable and enduring security solutions than isolation and unilateral intervention.
In the 1930s and 1940s, President Franklin Roosevelt promoted a Good Neighbor policy that emphasized “mutual respect” among nations and international cooperation. At the same time, he stressed that we cannot succumb to the politics of fear—as we are today—but rather we should seek “freedom from fear.” It's time for a Global Good Neighbor policy (for more information, see www.globalgoodneighbor.com) to win respect for the United States and to free us from the politics of fear.
Sincerely,
Dear Editor:
I don't think we know what in the world we are doing anymore.
A new value-based foreign policy must go hand-in-hand with principled policies to address domestic problems. Creating safety, justice, and harmony in the world is a natural extension of what we should do in our own neighborhoods. By restoring the neighborly ethic of mutual respect for each other's rights and an understanding of the importance of community, we can make enormous strides in promoting security, development, and good governance—not only for our nation but also for the entire global neighborhood. Unity of purpose is never achieved through browbeating and bullying. In the global neighborhood, cooperation, alliances, and multilateralism create more stable and enduring security solutions than isolation and unilateral intervention. For more information, visit www.globalgoodneighbor.com.
Sincerely,
