(no subject)
My heart is so full; I don't know what to say.
The first election I voted in was 1980, when Ronald Reagan became President, and the US took a steep and damaging turn to the right. Since then, the US has been responsbile for so much pain, destruction, and evil in the world -- both to its own citizens but most particularly abroad. How many have died because of US policies and actions; how many have starved, how much of our precious planet have we destroyed, how many have fallen into poverty while the super-rich have gotten super-richer.
I was raised in a family that valued civic responsibility. My grandfather was one of the bright young lawyers drafted to Washington to help design and implement Roosevelt's New Deal. He later did years of pro-bono legal work on land claims for Indian tribes in Arizona, because it was the right and just thing to do. My Dad was a delegate for Eugene McCarthy at the famous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He was a Fridley City Councilman, and later was active in Kansas University politics, being called upon by the KU administration to talk to the protesting students and try to de-fuse the riots in 1970. For a time we weren't allowed to answer the phone because of the death threats. My parents were both active in the anti-Vietnam war and Civil Rights movements, and one of my fondest early political memories was marching in Milwaukee for an end to segregated housing, with Dick Gregory and Father Groppi. There were posters all over our family room saying "We Question America" for the Poor People's Campaign. I remember standing in silent peace vigil on the corner of Massachusetts Street at South Park after church on Sundays. I remember the Moratorium protests, and feeling part of something that was larger and more important than myself. I remember sitting in at the local Holiday Inn after a racially motivated labor dispute. The ethic transmitted to me by my family was that when you saw injustice, it was your duty to do something about it, and that you put your money -- and your body -- where your mouth was, or you shut up.
These are the American values that I hold dear. And I cannot tell you what it was like to hear those words coming from the mouth of my president, our president. The first president I have ever voted for rather than against.
Imagine it people. Imagine a world where America is a force for good, not evil. Where our formidable economic and political clout, our ingenuity and can-do hopefulness, are brought to bear on the side of the angels. What a world of possibility lies before us today!
Thank you. Thank you all.
The first election I voted in was 1980, when Ronald Reagan became President, and the US took a steep and damaging turn to the right. Since then, the US has been responsbile for so much pain, destruction, and evil in the world -- both to its own citizens but most particularly abroad. How many have died because of US policies and actions; how many have starved, how much of our precious planet have we destroyed, how many have fallen into poverty while the super-rich have gotten super-richer.
I was raised in a family that valued civic responsibility. My grandfather was one of the bright young lawyers drafted to Washington to help design and implement Roosevelt's New Deal. He later did years of pro-bono legal work on land claims for Indian tribes in Arizona, because it was the right and just thing to do. My Dad was a delegate for Eugene McCarthy at the famous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He was a Fridley City Councilman, and later was active in Kansas University politics, being called upon by the KU administration to talk to the protesting students and try to de-fuse the riots in 1970. For a time we weren't allowed to answer the phone because of the death threats. My parents were both active in the anti-Vietnam war and Civil Rights movements, and one of my fondest early political memories was marching in Milwaukee for an end to segregated housing, with Dick Gregory and Father Groppi. There were posters all over our family room saying "We Question America" for the Poor People's Campaign. I remember standing in silent peace vigil on the corner of Massachusetts Street at South Park after church on Sundays. I remember the Moratorium protests, and feeling part of something that was larger and more important than myself. I remember sitting in at the local Holiday Inn after a racially motivated labor dispute. The ethic transmitted to me by my family was that when you saw injustice, it was your duty to do something about it, and that you put your money -- and your body -- where your mouth was, or you shut up.
These are the American values that I hold dear. And I cannot tell you what it was like to hear those words coming from the mouth of my president, our president. The first president I have ever voted for rather than against.
Imagine it people. Imagine a world where America is a force for good, not evil. Where our formidable economic and political clout, our ingenuity and can-do hopefulness, are brought to bear on the side of the angels. What a world of possibility lies before us today!
Thank you. Thank you all.