I believe in the constitutionally codified General Welfare, that the personal IS political, that active informed Democrats are required to insure the health/welfare of the nation. To that end, my focus is on informing across social media platforms from a Democratic point of view. My working motto is: If the shoe fits, wear it; if it doesn't fit ~ don't wear it!
Warning– this is a piece written in a stream of consciousness format, sort of, in
the form of free association, with the core message being:
Be
vigilant regarding truth and communicate relevant truth to your
representatives in government – it is how our system works...
In
case in gets lost in the lack of the classic structuring of the
essay, beginning with:
I
think public officials, as public officials, can be addressed
publicly. I have, in fact, addressed them publicly but only on very rare
occasions as I work hard not to publicly trash Democrats ~
particularly
those who stand to be counted and run for office and serve us all but
sometimes I am so tempted to just publicly say WTH???, Senator?
(And
that, BTW, in today's case would be U.S. Senator.)
At
any rate, allow me to share, without naming the two parties who
offended my political senses, an e-mail that arrived in my Inbox on June 22nd that produced in me a strong desire to instantly and publicly
take on one of my U.S. Senators – to ask that what in the hell
are you thinking question.
Fortunately,
I have a process and that process is:
One:
I get upset by something I read or hear re issues of concern to me;
Two:
I want to respond with righteous indignation – quickly and
publicly;
Three:
I recognize that my first reaction in these cases is almost never
right;
Four:
I rant and Rave in a safe place and I lower my frustration level and;
Five:
I communicate my concern (s) with the public official in question privately.
To
set the scene: As we speak, I am and I have been in the midst of very publicly supporting the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in support of President Obama's vision for
building strong economies with like-minded nations based on the bringing of American values and principles to the global table. My federal legislators and I are not in
sync on this one and I am and have been highly frustrated by an apparent inability to
grasp the big picture and/or to do the homework, resulting in uninformed decision-making and the perpetuation of misinformation to constituents.
The e-mail in question arrivedon
June 22nd :
Noting
it was from XXXXXX XXXXXX and Senator XXXXXX (My Senator's name!), I
opened it and this was what I saw ~
“How
Much Was Your Member Paid to Support Fast Track? Take Action
XXXXXX
XXXXXX and XXXXXX XXXXXX
Email and then Call Your
Senators - Say Vote No on Fast Track”
Including
an Email Congress widget, enabling a quick response time.
Mind you, I am
immediately heated by the casual bribery charges being lobbed at a
list of Senators who have been willing to stand up and be counted and
run for office and serve us all – with my Senator's name attached
to it – when I get to the body of the e-mail:
Dear
Gail,
According to
OpenSecrets.org, some $200 Million dollars was spent buying our
representatives’ Yes votes on Fast Track*.
So ask your senator two
questions:
“How much were you
paid to vote against your constituents and the environment?
Is it worth losing your
seat over this vote?
In a cynical move, the
Boehner-led Pro Fast Track Democrat team made the outrageous decision
to tack Fast Track on to a bill giving Police and Firefighters a tax
break on early withdrawals from their pension funds(1).
On Friday 28 House
Democrats voted YES on Fast Track. They are the reason the bill
passed. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will
be pushing for a Fast Track vote—without Trade Adjustment
Assistance for workers(2). These are the Senators who voted yes on
Fast Track the first time around. Let them know they’ll pay
dearly if they sell us out on Tuesday:
Michael Bennet
(D-CO) Maria Cantwell (D-WA) Tom Carper (D-DE) Chris
Coons (D-DE) Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Heidi Heitkamp
(D-ND) Tim Kaine (D-VA) Claire McCaskill (D-MO) Patty
Murray (D-WA) Bill Nelson (D-FL) Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) Mark
Warner (D-VA) Ron Wyden (D-OR)
Call
the Capitol Switchboard 202-224-3121 or the number from the
AFL-CIO 855-712-8441.
Here’s
the message;keep it simple:
Vote NO on fast track
Don’t cave to GOP
pressure; Republicans are not our friends—their votes on TAA
are a trap
Focus on pet concerns:
- Claire
McCaskill of Missouri cares about seniors. - Maria Cantwell,
Patty Murray, Bill Nelson, and others have championed environmental
and water concerns; - Many have concerns with currency
manipulation, immigration and climate change. And Export-Import bank
reform. They don't want to be stuck with the customs bill. They need
to keep control for now to get changes. The current Fast Track bill
will take that away.
Ask your House member to
publicly pressure your senators to stand with us. Republicans see
Trade Adjustment Assistance for workers (TAA) as welfare—they will
vote no once Fast Track passes.
Democrats are on shaky
ground. Let’s convince them that keeping our votes matters more
than pleasing corporate lobbyists or protecting a lame duck
president’s agenda.
Now, I'm going to be honest with you and tell you three things:
One: I am already unhappy with a particular Senator re the topic of trade. Someone in the office knows that as I have written to share my feelings directly and I have sometimes shared those feelings a bit more publicly via my social media activity and I usually copy my Senator on such things and;
Two: The title following my Senator's name at the end of that e-mail is not Senator, it is another title, one that might be found in an organizational chart of an organization so I am not 100% sure of what is going on here.
Is my Senator involved in what appears to be a scandalous call to action, a possibility based on past performance? Or Is my Senator being used and abused by an organization with an agenda, also a possible based on past performance? I am going to ask and he/she is going to hear what I am thinking at this point in time in the passing of the TPP process, as well.
Three: This key representative of mine has not been very responsive, in the sense that I do get responses but they are not related to my questions so I am not 100% sure of what is going on there either.
Is my Senator getting my messages through the government website? Or not?
One, Two, Three, Four, Five ~ my processing is done and now my letter to my Senator can be written:
Dear
Senator XXXXXX,
Let's
cut to the chase shall we?
Frankly, I am very close to NOT supporting
you for another term as a Senator in my state and the e-mail I
received in my Inbox today, if true, will make my decision for me.
I
am definitely leaving the door open to the possibility that you are
being by used by an organization with an agenda but I am going to
need you to let me know if that is the case or not. As a
constituent, it is important to me to know.
First,
I have a bit of an introductory paragraph for you, then I have a
questions paragraph for you.
I
am also alerting you to the fact that the e-mail in question and your
responses will be used in my Blog so I will need your answers
e-mailed back to me by the end of the day on Friday. Thanking you in
advance for that!
I
have no interest in going into a long list of specific concerns I
have with many of your actions on my behalf in Washington, D.C. to
date, suffice it to say that overall I have been highly disappointed
in a work style that focuses on flash and not substance, is willing
to use media to trash fellow Democrats, including most recently our
President and, by extension our Secretary of State … , all the
while relying on a few highly visible and alleged progressive
organizations for information which is, more often than not,
questionable at best, as opposed to rolling up your sleeves and
working with fellow Democrats in the manner in which I am accustomed
to as a XXXXXX constituent.
In
fact, I have written to you about this in the past but, to my
knowledge, I've never gotten response from you addressing it. Now
would be a good time for that.
Having
said all of that, today I received an e-mail with your name attached
to it accusing good Democrats in the Senate of being bought and paid
for per TPP. I am appalled by it. I am particularly appalled by it
because I am fairly certain you are fully aware what it costs to run
for a Senate seat and that raising money to run for a Senate seat
does not equate to being bought.
Bought
and paid for, Senator? A shameful charge that seems to call for
evidence being provided, does it not? And that doesn't even touch on
the cynicism it perpetuates.
What
I need to know from you is: 1.) Are you affiliated with this e-mail
and this group in your role as a United States Senator from XXXXXX ?
Or not? 2.) Are you in agreement with this character assassination
and threatening of your colleagues in the Senate because they have a
different point of view than you do? Or not? And 3.) Are you a
Democrat? One who subscribes to the Democratic Platform? One who
works to implement that Platform with his/her colleagues, debating
tactics with all due respect? Or not?
As
noted above, I am pro-TPP and I am because I
understand the Obama Doctrine – a 21st Century vision
that seems to be beyond the comprehension of so many of you. I have
followed this very, very closely, Senator, and I am aware that you
have been misinformed and you have, as a result, mislead as well. It
is not what I expected from you.
I
look forward to hearing from you by the end of the day on Friday ...
Gail
Mountain
*** The
end of the day on Friday, as referred to, would have been June 26. I
did get a response but, inexplicably, the response was not related to
the e-mail sent. Although the substance of my message to my Senator will not change, I must admit I am beginning to think there is something amiss in that senatorial office.
Point
being ^^^ time for a phone call to the office. If I get a response of any substance and/or interest, I will update here.
G., aka
Partisan Democrat
(
Please follow me at http://gkmtnblogs.blogspot.com/
where
you can sign up for an e-mail notification when GKMTNblogs posts! )
I'm
not going to opinion-ate about the most recent, tragic murdering of our
fellow human beings because of the color of their skin in Charleston,
South Carolina but I am going to take President Obama's lead when he
said he is not going to pretend “that any mention of us doing
something to stop it is somehow politicizing the problem” and I am
going to ask all Democrats to consider "doing something" ~ and reflect, in the
context of Candidate Barack Obama's speech on racism in the Fall of
2007 “A More Perfect Union,” on this question:
Why
did we give Republicans the majority in Congress in 2010 and 2014 and
why might we give Republicans the White House in 2016, too?
It's all relevant. President Obama made that case a long time ago
and, clearly, per our voting (or not voting in 2010 and 2014) we
rejected his case and now we are nearly out of time to rectify the
error of our ways...
“Remarks
of Senator Barack Obama "A More Perfect Union" Constitution
Center Philadelphia, Pennsylvania”
Two hundred and twenty
one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group
of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's
improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen
and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and
persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a
Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they
produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was
stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that
divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until
the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least
twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future
generations.
Of course, the answer
to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution
- a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal
citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people
liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be
perfected over time.
And yet words on a
parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or
provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and
obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed
were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their
part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the
courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at
great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and
the reality of their time.
This was one of the
tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue
the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just,
more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I
chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I
believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless
we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding
that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we
may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place,
but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better
future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from
my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American
people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a
black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with
the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in
Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked
on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas.
I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of
the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who
carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an
inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have
brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race
and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as
I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my
story even possible.
It's a story that
hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story
that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is
more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first
year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we
saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity.
Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial
lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest
populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate
Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans
and white Americans.
This is not to say
that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in
the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too
black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions
bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina
primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest
evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and
black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only
been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this
campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the
spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an
exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire
of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap.
On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah
Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the
potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that
denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that
rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already
condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright
that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions
remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of
American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him
make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in
church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political
views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks
from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly
disagreed.
But the remarks that
have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They
weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against
perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted
view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and
that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is
right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East
as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel,
instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of
radical Islam.
As such, Reverend
Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a
time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to
come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a
terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and
potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither
black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront
us all.
Given my background,
my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt
be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why
associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may
ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I
knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have
run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity
United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by
some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the
same way
But the truth is, that
isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty
years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a
man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to
care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his
country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the
finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over
thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's
work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the
needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison
ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book,
Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service
at Trinity:
"People began to
shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind
carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that
single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that
cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined
the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of
David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's
den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and
freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had
spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church,
on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a
people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials
and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than
black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a
means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame
about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with
which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my
experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across
the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety -
the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former
gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full
of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of
dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to
the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and
cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the
struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias
that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps
explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect
as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my
faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in
my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic
group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted
with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the
contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has
served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown
him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him
than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a
woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as
much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once
confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and
who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic
stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a
part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as
an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable.
I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing
would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades
into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a
demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the
aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated
racial bias.
But race is an issue
that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We
would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his
offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and
amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the
comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over
the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country
that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we
have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat
into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together
and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to
find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this
reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As
William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In
fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the
history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind
ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the
African-American community today can be directly traced to
inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under
the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools
were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty
years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education
they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement
gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized
discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence,
from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American
business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages,
or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire
departments - meant that black families could not amass any
meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history
helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and
the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of
today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic
opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came
from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the
erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many
years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many
urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking
the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all
helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue
to haunt us.
This is the reality in
which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation
grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a
time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity
was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many
failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and
women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no
way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who
scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream,
there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately
defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of
defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and
increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or
languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future.
Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism,
continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men
and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of
humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger
and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed
in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does
find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times,
that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial
lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it
finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the
pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger
in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old
truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on
Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too
often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us
from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and
prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it
needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is
powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without
understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of
misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar
anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working-
and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been
particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the
immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed
them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all
their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or
their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious
about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era
of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be
seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So
when they are told to bus their children to a school across town;
when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in
landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an
injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told
that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow
prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within
the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in
polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape
for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action
helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited
fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and
conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims
of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice
and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger
often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments
distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class
squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable
accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by
lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few
over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white
Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without
recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too
widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are
right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years.
Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have
never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial
divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy -
particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a
firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith
in the American people - that working together we can move beyond
some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if
we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the
African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of
our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to
insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life.
But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better
health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger
aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break
the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant
trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility
for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more
time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that
while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives,
they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always
believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this
quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of
self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But
what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that
embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that
society can change.
The profound mistake
of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our
society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no
progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made
it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office
in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and
Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to
a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that
America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have
already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we
can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white
community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that
what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the
minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and
current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the
past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with
deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing
our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice
system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that
were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans
to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my
dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black
and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America
prosper.
In the end, then, what
is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the
world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would
have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells
us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we
all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as
well.
For we have a choice
in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and
conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we
did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the
aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news.
We can play
Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about
them from now until the election, and make the only question in this
campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow
believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on
some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the
race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to
John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can
tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other
distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing
will change.
That is one option.
Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say,
"Not this time." This time we want to talk about the
crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and
white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native
American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that
tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look
like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not
those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind
in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to
talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites
and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have
the power on their own to overcome the special interests in
Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to
talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for
men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once
belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk
of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real
problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your
job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for
nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to
talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve
together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud
flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that
never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and
we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for
them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have
earned.
I would not be running
for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what
the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may
never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it
can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling
doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most
hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and
beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this
election.
There is one story in
particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told
when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his
home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young,
twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for
our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to
organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of
this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where
everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that
when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she
had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care.
They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that
she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was
one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother
that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than
anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the
cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a
year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the
roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she
could help the millions of other children in the country who want and
need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have
made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that
the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare
and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country
illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against
injustice.
Anyway, Ashley
finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone
else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different
stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they
come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the
entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not
bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the
economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that
he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in
the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because
of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between
that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not
enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or
education to our children.
But it is where we
start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many
generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred
and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in
Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
^^^ Why, indeed?
G., aka
Partisan Democrat
Finally back after a couple of weeks of major technical difficulties!
(
Please follow me at http://gkmtnblogs.blogspot.com/
where
you can sign up for an e-mail notification when GKMTNblogs posts! )
Democrats always
need to work at messaging Democratic Truths. You do know the GOP is always
messaging Democratic Lies, right?! Please feel free to share some of my favorite posts
and/or to take action where appropriate. Take the Best; Leave the Rest. But
push back!
I know it can be
annoying to have to take several steps ~ click, save and then post ~ but it
will be a lot more annoying if we have a GOP Congress AND a GOP President in
2016.
My personal habit
is to save each meme on my Desktop; I create a Memes Today folder and drop each
meme into the folder and; when I have a block of about 15 minutes of time ~ I
share them all directly from that folder to my favorite social medium platforms.
I am of the mind that the more space Democrats take up on cyberspace the less
space the GOP will have!
( * I am
providing direct Twitter links on which you can click and share with your
friends. To share on Facebook and Google + you’ll have to do the annoying
thing, as noted above, but hey, winning in 2016 is a good cause...)
^^^
Fourgoals of the Republican Party. Courtesy of Tina Vigilante on Google Plus !
GOP Family Values ~ it's tough, but as long as they present as the holier than anyone else party ... fair target. Courtesy of Democrats Organizing for America !
