Kerry quote challenge

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5700878&mesg_id=5700878

I know there's got to be a few that are appropriate here.

This is important to me not as a Democrat and not to somebody as Republican, it’s important to all of us as Americans. It’s important to us in terms of our Constitution and the fulfillment of the promise of this land. I don't believe that we have to go through a great soul searching about what we stand for or who we are or where the values fit in the debate in America, frankly. I think we know where they fit, and I think we know profoundly as Americans what really makes a difference. But when fear is dominating the discussion, and when there are false choices presented and there is no arbitrator, we have a problem. We learned that the mainstream media in the course of the last year did a pretty good job of discerning. But that there's a subculture and a sub-media that talks and keeps things going for entertainment purposes rather than the flow of information, and that that has a profound impact and undermines what we call the mainstream media of the country.

And so the decision-making ability of the American electorate has been profoundly impacted as a consequence of that. The question is what are we going to do about it? We’re obviously not just going to stand up and complain about it, I’m not. I think we can do a lot about it. If you look at the margin in Ohio -- half the people in a football stadium on a Saturday afternoon -- if they’d decided differently, this would be a different discussion tonight. Less than a percentage point in two or three other states. Many of those states aren’t red, they’re purple, as you’ve head people describe. And the question today is how we’re going to put on the table the real choices for the American people and achieve a new accountability in American politics. That to me is what this award and this evening is about. What brought me into politics, and many of you here, was the sense that we could make a difference, and we did. A 26 year old preacher in Birmingham, Alabama, who changed people’s thinking about relations between people in America and set us on the march towards civil rights. And then the war which drew on and on and out of which ultimately came a sense of obligation about how we were going to stop it and change the face of America. And I remember an old adage then which I wish I had talked about more in the course of the campaign, but we used to say "My country, right or wrong. When right, keep it right; when wrong, make it right." And that's what we set out to do. (applause) And, ultimately, we created what we are lacking today in American politics, which is accountability. I have colleagues who can vote with impunity against things that they know are in the common interests of the people, but not necessarily in the interest of fundraising or the power of the special interest groups. And they can vote against that common interest and go back home with impunity. As long as people can do that, my friends, we’re not going to change what's happening. What we need to do is go back to what we did when 20 million people came out in the streets of America when the river was lit on fire, called the Cayuhoga River, when we marched and worked and went street to street and house to house and did what we began to do again in this campaign but what you can’t do in four and a half, five months, what you have to do over the course of years.

And we have to do what we did in 1970 when 12 congressmen were identified as the Dirty Dozen and 7 out of 12 of them lost. And you know what happened after that? We passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the EPA. And those laws and that success have carried this country for almost 30 years. But today, we’re going backwards. We’re going backwards on almost everything by which you really measure the quality of life, which Robert Kennedy in a brilliant speech in Kansas reminded us of so eloquently. We’re going backwards on children, more of them uninsured than ever before in America; backwards on health care, more Americans uninsured than ever before in America; backwards on the quality of air; backwards on the quality of water; backwards in our relationships with children and who protects them and how you protect them; backwards with our relationship with the rest of the world as we walk away from global warming or other important efforts -- under-fund proliferation, counter-proliferation efforts as Graham Allison would tell you, or others.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/forum_kerry_distinguished_american.html




We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? We are here in Washington to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying, as human beings, to communicate to people in this country--the question of racism, which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions, such as the use of weapons: the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage at the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions; in the use of free-fire zones; harassment-interdiction fire, search-and-destroy missions; the bombings; the torture of prisoners; all accepted policy by many units in South Vietnam. That is what we are trying to say. It is part and parcel of everything.

John Kerry's 1971 Statement before Congress




Impatient that the freedoms we thought we guaranteed in the 1960's seem still to be unsecured. Governor Doug Wilder - the first African American elected governor in the old Confederacy - fought for freedom in Korea, but wasn't free to eat at a lunch counter in America. People gave their blood and even their lives to change that. Since then, another generation of African Americans have given their country their service in Vietnam, in the Persian Gulf, in Kosovo and Bosnia and are giving back to their country today around the globe But here we are more than two years after election day 2000 in Florida, and we need to make clear, the battle for civil rights in America has yet to be won. We must make clear to this Administration -- we're going to live up to our own ideals and honor the service of those in uniform by making certain that every vote is counted in every county in every state in every part of our nation in every election bar none. We must be impatient. We can't acquiesce. And we need to melt the ice of indifference that leaves three and a half million children living in poverty and creates an unemployment rate for African Americans that's double the national average. We need to melt the ice of inaction that freezes us in place even as nearly 3/4ths of the homicide victims last year were black men . And I say to you as a former prosecutor that we need to melt the ice of avoidance that allows too many to remain silent even as study after study reveal serious questions, racial bias, and deep disparities in the way the death penalty is applied in our criminal justice system system.

January 20, 2003
Kerry: Martin Luther King Day


Senator John Kerry
DPC Hearing
April 19, 2005

I want to thank the members of the panel for joining us today to wrestle with an issue that’s not just an environmental issue, but which is as real and present a health care crisis as you’ll find in numerous communities across our country.

When fathers across America take their kids fishing but can’t risk cooking the catch for dinner because of the risk of mercury contamination, that’s a health care issue. When expectant mothers can’t trust the tuna fish sandwich they are eating because it might some day lead to seizures in their child, we have a public health problem on our hands. When teachers are seeing increases in learning disabilities around mercury hotspots, we have an education and a public health issue staring us in the face. And what’s most troubling is, Washington’s not being honest about it.

In this city, it’s almost become standard-fare for honesty to be sacrificed for political expediency. We saw it when the President’s budget left out literally trillions in spending. We saw it when a Medicare actuary was forced to fudge the numbers and lie to Congress to keep his job. We saw the falsified numbers in Iraq on everything from the cost of the war to the number of trained Iraqi troops. We saw the fake newscasts produced by the Bush Administration and funded with your tax dollars.


Snip...

The dangers of mercury exposure are undeniable. Every year more than 600,000 babies are born with dangerously high levels of mercury in their blood. We live with this every day in New England. The Merrimack River Valley in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and the Penobscot River area in Maine have been classified as “bio-hotspots” due to dangerously high levels of mercury.

Still, year after year strong mercury rules fail in Washington under pressure from corporate interests. Why? Not because the risks of mercury poisoning aren’t real. No, lobbyists for the big industries just say they can’t afford to make changes. But the study commissioned by the Administration actually made it clear we can’t afford not to. The report estimates health benefits of nearly $5 billion from reducing mercury emissions to a safe level of 15 tons. This health benefits analysis, the key to sound rulemaking, should have sounded alarm bells at the EPA and throughout the Bush White House. The need for change was clear. But the fact that the report was not even considered only raises more questions about what other information has been disregarded by this Administration.

The mercury issue, like so many others, shows not only a dangerous lack of candor and honesty by our government, but that in making public policy to protect the health of our kids, Washington has lost its sense of right and wrong. It’s wrong to keep information from the people. It’s wrong to make decisions while ignoring important data. It’s wrong to give industry a free pass when our children will pay the price.

The Harvard report was not a rogue study. It was commissioned by the EPA and financed by your tax dollars. This Administration just didn’t like the results, so they hid it away. Taxpayers’ dollars were well spent, because the study helps confirm that mercury pollution can and must be controlled better to protect the health of our children. At a minimum we should demand that the Harvard data be given a fair hearing.

It’s time for the EPA to come clean, halt implementation of inadequate mercury rules and rewrite them based on this groundbreaking research that should have been taken into account all along. That's the least Washington can do to protect the health of our children.

http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/hearings/hearing20/kerry.pdf

they are looking specifically for something like what RFK said about how GNP does not measure what is important...i.e. something about economic values vs more important values.

Still I would contend that Kerry's voice in the quotes you posted is just as eloquent and just as important.

Kerry speech on the economy -- City Club of Cleveland

Tuesday, December 3, 2002


We come here at an important time.

Every American understands the challenge of our economy in very personal ways. Lifetime savings have been wiped out by greed, bad judgement, criminal activity and the natural course of economic cycles. Jobs have been lost – retirements postponed – personal debt has increased and more and more of our fellow Americans are squeezed out of health care. Long term unemployment has doubled. The stock market has plunged more than 30 percent.

We have seen the weakest level of economic growth and business investment in 50 years. These aren’t just statistics: this is what America’s families are dealing with every day.

Too many working families feel like they are on a treadmill – working harder and harder just to make ends meet. They worry about how they’ll be able to pay the taxes, pay the bills and how they’ll ever pay for retirement.

We need to do more than just call for economic recovery. We have to demand real economic reform and renewal and revitalization.

We have to show the courage of our convictions. Instead of just quoting the words of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, let’s match their leadership with our own, with thinking equal to a new and different time.

All of us recognize that government is not by itself the solution to our economic problems. The economy of the 1990s was driven primarily by monetary policy that encouraged growth... and by businesses retooling and investing in new technologies. And it was helped by sound fiscal policy – investing in the right things but getting the budget back into balance.

Now we find that monetary policy is exhausted. Businesses are reluctant to spend. And this administration has taken the government out of the equation by single-mindedly pushing irresponsible new tax cuts. The Bush administration has made their choice very clear – from the snows of New Hampshire in early 2000 to this moment, they have chosen tax giveaways that reward the wealthiest Americans over tax cuts for everyday working Americans.

From the moment they were inaugurated, they have chosen to throw tax giveaways to the largest companies, instead of helping to grow our small businesses.

Let me be clear – I don’t believe in class warfare and I won’t engage in it. But I do believe in fairness. It is wrong to give tax cuts to those who have been the most rewarded over the last 10 years at the expense of working families and the middle class. We need to stand up and make clear that it matters. It matters in terms of fundamental fairness. It matters in holding together the social fabric of our nation. And it matters in terms of putting money into the economy where it has the most effect.

Finally, this administration has chosen to turn fiscal responsibility on its ear – turning a budget in surplus to a budget with endless deficits – and making it difficult for us to invest in our future.

Even challenged, America has the best economy and the best workforce in the world. But we can do better. And I believe a different, better set of choices can help unleash our potential. We can kick our economy into gear while reforming economic policy so that it focuses on actually helping people – creating jobs, raising incomes and promoting growth.



Snip...


Just as we need to renew American confidence in the markets, we have to restore long-term confidence in our government with budget and tax reform. That means simplifying the tax code and making sure it puts the interests of all Americans ahead of the special interests. It means closing tax loopholes and cutting corporate welfare. And it means a long-term effort to keep our budget balanced – cutting wasteful spending so we can invest in economic programs that work. And if we’re serious about fairness – and about holding the fabric of America together – we must eliminate unfair tax shelters and cut corporate welfare. This will not only save taxpayers money – it will put government back on the side of the people and allow us to focus on actually creating jobs.

Offshore tax havens and shelters enable corporations and executives to evade an estimated $70 billion in taxes each year. How can anyone in this country suggest we have a fair system when companies can take $70 billion off the table? That undermines the very essence of our government. It’s a system only companies like Enron could love. And did they ever. Enron held over 800 subsidiaries in countries with no taxes on income, profits, or capital gains -- 692 in the Cayman Islands alone. Assets in offshore entities have climbed from an estimated $200 billion in 1983, to an estimated $5 trillion today. What are we saying to the vast majority of Americans who actually pay taxes? Well the silence from this Administration speak volumes -- they’ve dragged their feet and fought every attempt to crack down on corporate loopholes. It’s time we stood up and insisted on real reform and real tax fairness. We must also take a hard look at federal spending. We simply can’t afford to keep wasting money on the wrong things.

It won’t be easy. The special interests will stop at nothing to keep their special deals. That’s why I’ve joined John McCain in calling for a “Corporate Subsidy Reform Commission” modeled after the military base-closing commission. A bipartisan group would recommend corporate subsidies to be eliminated and Congress would have to vote up or down on the entire package.

It’s the only way to stop the games that go on in Washington. When I first came to the Senate, each year millions upon millions of dollars were lavished on a wool and mohair subsidy cooked up during WWI to make sure we’d have plenty of wool and mohair for our soldiers’ uniforms. But even after we stopped making our uniforms out of wool and mohair, the subsidy continued. I came to the Senate floor again and again - finally we killed it. Or we thought we did. Last year it came back. This kind of wasteful, no-growth, special interest giveaway is alive and well -- again. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

We voted on a defense bill that gave away $250,000 to an Illinois firm to research caffeinated chewing gum; $750,000 for grasshopper research in Alaska; $250,000 for a lettuce geneticist in Salinas, California and $64,000 for urban pest research in Georgia. This is our defense budget?

By eliminating these expenditures would you balance the budget? No. But that’s not the point. The point is that no politician can - with credibility - tell you he’s ‘fiscally responsible’ if he stays silent while these games are played. Is wasteful spending a tiny part of the budget? Yes. But it’s far more than most working people will ever see in their lives and invested in choices that do matter -- that do grow our economy -- it can make a world of difference.

It’s a question of choices. The Fossil Energy Research and Development program spends more than $400 million on R&D for oil companies who can afford their own – and even duplicates research they’re already engaged in. And for 130 years the Federal government has allowed companies to mine on publicly owned lands for free, and we let them buy public land way below market price -- $5 an acre or less. By requiring royalties and eliminating the giveaway of public lands we could save another $519 million over 5 years.

I think it’s time we cut so we can invest – invest in things that really matter -- starting with the energies of the future.


http://kerry.senate.gov/low/record.cfm?id=189272

was a beautifully constructed piece. I love the whole thing but this was a particularly well-written snippet:



Who else consistently writes like this? Certainly none of the prominent Republicans and damn few of the Democrats. (Teddy Kennedy can come up with beautifully written stuff like this as well.) The REthugs seem to think that stuff like this is too soft and doesn't have enough fear and scare words in it.

Honestly, if * or any of the currently 'cool' Dems had given this speech, we would still be hearing quotes from it. It talks about the problems with forced democracy in the ME, why that won't work, but also talks about the reality of that region moving toward hope and liberty. That's quite the trick and just wonderfully well done.