by Matteo Donato, 5C
Keywords: glasnost :publicity, openness, transparency; perestroika: restructuring.
Relief. Recovery. Reform. These three simple words had the strength to unite the entire American people in a dramatic moment of their past history: the thirties.
Very often politicians love to create slogans, and many times those slogans remain engraved in our memory: I think back of Gorbachev and his “Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (transparency)” or Obama’s “Yes, We Can”. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, instead, talked about a “New Deal”. He gave the impression that he was literally starting a new phase in the American political scenario. Roosevelt’s series of radio talks, known as “fireside chats”, presented his proposals directly to the American audience and won the confidence of his people also thanks to this way to communicate.
Relief was urgently needed by millions of unemployed. Recovery meant boosting the economy back to normal. Reform meant to fix what was wrong, especially with the financial and banking systems. After the “Big Crash” of Wall Street in 1929, FDR with his long series of reforms, in fact, drove America out of the financial crisis. Today our situation is not so different: we are in a deep financial crisis too and Italy is in Premier Matteo Renzi’s hands. Roosevelt did not sort out America’s problems in a couple years or something: but, for once, let’s try to be optimistic. Optimism is always the key to improvement.