Working class mourns the loss of its "lion:" Ted Kennedy

Working class mourns the loss of its "lion:" Ted Kennedy

Author: John Wojcik
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 08/26/09 13:33

Millions of working-class families are feeling an emptiness today that they know they will have to struggle hard to fill.

Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death creates that emptiness because throughout his political life he had a single-minded focus: the betterment of the lives of the working people. He was the champion of civil rights and equality for African American, Latino, Asian, Native American, and all people of color. Everyone, he said, should be able to take a seat at a lunch counter anywhere in America.

He fought for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Millions of American children have gotten decent educations because of battles waged by the senator. He was in the forefront of the struggle for immigration reform.

He helped put an end to an America that thought it was OK to relegate women to back alleys for abortions.

No one in the Senate spoke out more forcefully for an entire array of workers’ rights, especially the right of workers to choose a union. Then there is health care reform, the signature cause of his life. In its official statement on his passing, the AFL-CIO labor federation said, “Kennedy wasn’t just a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act. He helped create it, and he was the first to introduce it in the Senate.”

While for some other senators all of these struggles were issues to which they could relate and to which they gave their support, for Kennedy they were a burning passion. Kennedy called health care reform “the cause of my life,” and in 1966 introduced his first health care bill. He had taken a tour of a community clinic at a housing project in Boston and was impressed to see the people there receiving necessary medical care. Some union folks on the tour with him said, as was typical for him, that he noticed everything, including rocking chairs that had been set aside in special waiting rooms for nursing mothers.

In less than 90 days, Kennedy managed to get funding for 30 such clinics in low income areas around the country. Every one of the clinics had the special areas set aside for nursing mothers. A few months later several hundred such clinics were established. The burning passion for justice fueled his entire career in the Senate.

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/16834/

I don't know if she'll run in five months, but I can't think of a better placeholder until the people pick a replacement.

someone to take his place.

please sign this petition to honor his last wish:



http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5649/t/4923/content.jsp?content_KEY=2762&tag=hk1_e1