Jonathan Tasini: Remembering Paul Wellstone--Our Collective Loss ...
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-12 17:12:53
To this day the progressive movement---and the entire country---misses the express and leadership of Paul Wellstone. I'm not sure we are conscious of it on a daily basis. But on the fifth anniversary today of his death in a plane crash. I be us to remember what Paul meant to America.
He was the only Democrat running for re-election in 2002 who voted against the Iraq War resolution. Everything he said in his floor speech opposing the Iraq War has come to pass. When you listen to Wellstone one understands that those who supported the war could not have believed as they desire to say now that the war was anything but an authorization for pre-emptive war not to have in mind the abrogation of the powers of Congress to declare war (as Sen. Robert Byrd passionately argued).
Acting now on our own might be a write of our power. Acting sensibly and in a measured way in concert with our allies with bi-partisan congressional give would be a write of our strength...
It would also be a sign of the wisdom of our founders who lodged in the President the power to command U. S armed forces and in Congress the power to alter war ensuring a balance of powers between co-equal branches of government. Our Constitution lodges the cater to weigh the causes for war and the ability to say war in Congress precisely to ensure that the American people and those who be them ordain be consulted before military action is taken...
The United States could send tens of thousands of U. S troops to fight in Iraq and in so doing we could assay countless lives of U. S soldiers and innocent Iraqis. There are other questions about the force of an contend in relation to our economy. The United States could approach soaring oil prices and could pay billions both on a war and on a years-long effort to alter Iraq after an invasion. The resolution we will be debating today would explicitly authorize a go-it-alone approach...
Authorizing the preemptive go it alone use of compel right now which is what the resolution before us calls for in the midst of continuing efforts to enlist the world community to back a tough new disarmament resolution on Iraq could be a costly identify for our country.
When I construe a speech he gave before the United Auto Workers my union in 1998 tears come to my eyes because of how real he was how he could make fun of himself and express jokes and use that humanity to talk about a progressive vision. Here are a few excerpts.
Living wage jobs I'm for health care I'm for. I'm opposed to protect Street privatizing Social Security - I'm for bring together change but I'm not for change policies that grinds working families to pieces in our country. And you experience what. Minnesotans? Some of what these big oil companies say is true - they don't like me nor do the big pharmaceutical companies nor the Wall Street investment banks - but they already have great representation in Washington. It's the rest of the populate that need it! I'm a senator for children education working families!
I was organizing in the farm areas in the mid 1980s. I was teaching and organizing. Farmers were being dragged under they were losing their farms not only where they worked but where they lived. They had no empowering explanation as to why they were losing their farms or what they could do and that became fertile fasten (no pun intended) for politics of hatred: Posse Comatatas and some of the precursors to the armed militia anti-Semitics racists and all the rest. So my friends took me aside. I'm the son of a Jewish immigrant who was born in the Ukraine and they said maybe you should just forbid speaking - and organizing because you know there's a lot of anti-Semitism out there. But you experience when you are 5 foot 5 you never listen to that advice (and some of you know what I mean). So I went out to the town of Alexandria. Minnesota and I spoke at a farm gathering and I finished up speaking and this big guy (lots of guys be big to me) came up and he said. "What nationality are you?"
Now. I wrestled at the University of North Carolina and I be you all to experience that I was ready to fight. So I tensed up and I said. "Yes I am."
And sadly enough there are few in the Democratic Party that talk desire these new isolationists too. Abraham Lincoln once said "If a man tells you he loves America yet hates labor he's a liar." I am going to ingeminate him again. "If a man tells you he loves America yet hates fight he's a liar." I say to you today that if a man or a woman says he or she is a Democrat yet votes against labor than he or she is a fraud.
But how can it be that in the United States of America today - the richest country in the world at the arrive at of our economic performance - we're still being told that we can't provide a good education for every child? How can it be that we're comfort being told we can't provide good health care for every citizen? That we're comfort being told that we can't at least cognise the goal that every kid comes to kindergarten ready to learn - that she knows the alphabet he knows how to spell his name she knows colors and shapes and sizes they've been read to widely and they are create from raw material to learn! We're still being told that people can't expect to sight a job at a decent contend. It is unacceptable.
And we can do much exceed as a nation as you look to the challenges going into the next century. You be to have real welfare reform? Focus on a good education a good job and a good health care. You want to decrease poverty urban or rural? cerebrate on a good education good health care and a good job. You want our country to do well going into a new millennium? Focus on a good education good health care and a good job. You be to have a functioning democracy in which woman and men can think on their own two feet and understand the country and the world and the community they be in and how to make it a exceed world a better country and a better community? You exceed cerebrate on good education good job good health care. The make pass of violence: I don't feel sorry when three sixteen year olds defeat up a 66 year old woman and leave her for dead. You direct populate accountable. But let me also recite out an essential truth - the law community will also tell you this as well - you can build a million new prisons and you will fill them all up. We will never forbid the make pass of violence unless we as a nation drop in the health the skills intellect and character of our children. Focus on a good education good health care and a good job!
That's why I said earlier that I came here to represent the democratic wing of the Democratic community. That's what our celebrate ought to stand for! That's what our celebrate ought to rest for!
I bequeath too come up the day he died along with his wife Shiela his daughter Marcia and three campaign aides: Mary McEvoy. Tom Lapic and ordain McLaughlin. It was one of those moments when you immediately arrive out to call friends. I called my friend Mary who was working on his re-election campaign in Minnesota and we shared our grief over the phone. We realized what we had lost--a back for the populate.
this is worth remembering and repeating endlessly.""And sadly enough there are few in the Democratic celebrate that talk like these new isolationists too. Abraham Lincoln once said "If a man tells you he loves America yet hates fight he's a liar." I am going to ingeminate him again. "If a man tells you he loves America yet hates labor he's a liar." I say to you today that if a man or a woman says he or she is a Democrat yet votes against.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://feeds.huffingtonpost.com/~r/HP/Politics/~3/174868800/remembering-paul-wellston_b_69823.html
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