Working Families Mourn the Loss of Sen. Edward Kennedy

Working Families Mourn the Loss of Sen. Edward Kennedy

by aflcioblogger, Aug 26, 2009

The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy today leaves a void in the lives of working families that will be hard to replace, if ever it can be. Kennedy fought throughout his life with one goal in mind: to improve the lives of working people. He championed civil rights for people of color and LGBT people; better education for literally millions of kids; immigration reform; women; workers’ rights; the freedom of workers to choose a union; and, of course, health care reform.

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.

For some other senators, these issues were opinions. For Kennedy, they were a passion. (Kennedy’s Senate office has compiled the extensive list of his accomplishments here.)

In fact, there is a simple and beautiful pattern in these causes Kennedy made his own. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin once wrote about another gifted politician Franklin Roosevelt, “he really did desire a better life for mankind.” That precisely explains Ted Kennedy.

He called health care reform “the cause of my life,” and as early as 1966, introduced his first health care bill. He had toured a community clinic at the Columbia Point housing project in Boston, and he was deeply impressed to see it bringing medical care to people who needed it. Typically for him, Kennedy noticed everything, including the rocking chairs set aside in special waiting rooms for nursing mothers.

A few months later, Kennedy secured funding for creating about 30 such clinics in low-income areas around the country. The number later grew to several hundred.

Passion for justice fueled his decades in the Senate. Perhaps his earliest important battle when he took office was against the poll tax, which he despised. Although he had little power and less seniority, he tried to eliminate it with an amendment to the 1965 Voting Rights Act when better-established liberals were stepping aside.

Kennedy has been rightly called the greatest senator of the 20th century—and even in entire history of this country. In a magnificent career, Kennedy achieved considerably more than did most presidents, and he proved to be of the finest friends in public life American working women and men have ever had.

It may seem odd for someone who came from vast wealth and privilege, but his relationship with workers and their unions was one of deep affection and—one hesitates to say it—love. Anyone who ever spotted Kennedy at a Labor Day event or local union meeting could see it. He always listened closely to us. He understood and enjoyed us. He was one of us. As he said to our union movement in 2005:

We stand together in our founding purpose to improve the lives of workers and their families and to achieve social and economic justice. And we will emerge from these times bigger and stronger than before, better prepared to take on the challenges, the global economy, and guarantee that America’s workers are always put first.

Like his brothers, John F. and Robert, Kennedy believed that unions are key to improving the lives of working people. Speaking at the 2005 AFL-CIO Convention, Kennedy put it this way:

Kennedys are with you, because we know the difference you make in the lives of average families. Union workers earn 25 percent more than non-union workers, 40 percent more likely to have health insurance, four times more likely to have a solid pension plan.

But each year—each year over 20,000 workers are illegally discriminated against for exercising their rights in the workplace. In a quarter of all organizing campaigns, a worker is fired for supporting the union. Every employee who manages to form a union often can’t get a contract because employers refuse to bargain. That’s wrong, and it’s doubly wrong that this GOP Congress won’t fix it.

There must be a room somewhere in Boston or Washington filled with the trophies and plaques and honors Kennedy received from countless local unions.

Kennedy never ceased in his dedication to working families and if truth be told, after 43 years, they’re still not over. They will come to an end on the day when President Obama signs the bill that provides affordable universal health care. On that day, America will owe Ted Kennedy a great debt of honor.

The Lion is at rest

MoveOn member,

The Lion is at rest.

Senator Teddy Kennedy passed away last night and our movement lost a hero. His leadership, his vision, and his passion will never be forgotten.

As we grieve, we must honor his memory and re-dedicate ourselves to his fight. Right now, let's listen to his words. Below is a powerful video that lots of MoveOn members are passing around this morning:

Click here to watch the video

Tonight, please light a candle in your window to memorialize him.

Tomorrow, as Senator Kennedy said, "...the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Tomorrow, let's re-commit ourselves to achieving the thing that mattered most to him: Quality, affordable health care for every single American.

Thank you for all you do.

–Justin, Adam, Amy, Anna, Annie, Carrie, Christopher, Daniel, Danielle, Eli, Emily, Gail, Ian, Ilya, Ilyse, Joan, Jodeen, Julie, Kat, Keauna, Laura, Lenore, Marika, Matt E., Matt S., Matthew, Melanie, Michael, Nita, Noah, Peter, Sasha, Scott, Stephen, Steven, Susannah, Wes, and the entire MoveOn team

BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. This email was sent on August 26, 2009..

End War & Occupations, Redirect Funding

End War & Occupations, Redirect Funding

We call on President Obama to fulfill his campaign commitment to withdraw all U.S. military personnel and mercenaries from Iraq within 16 months, and to resist redeployment to Afghanistan or the Pakistan border. Instead, bring the military home to their families and redirect wasteful military spending to meet human needs at home and abroad. Toward that end, we call on the Democratic-led Congress to use its powers to cut off funding that prolongs the military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and begin the important work of bringing peace to the Middle-East region.

We do not support Democratic leadership proposals with prolonged and porous timelines that allow tens of thousands of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq on vaguely-defined "training" or "anti-terrorism" measures. Nor do we support escalation of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan; alternatively we support a political and diplomatic solution to deter terrorist activities and create a foundation for peace and democracy. PDA coordinates its "Out of Iraq & Afghanistan" efforts with dozens of Congress members, including Reps. Raul Grijalva, Lynn Woolsey, Jim McGovern and Maxine Waters.

Actions You Can Take

READ: End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding IOT Report View

Seek a Political Solution in Afghanistan/Pakistan View

Windmills not weapons -- Seek to cut the Military Budget View

Join PDA's End War & Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT) View

We Need an Exit Strategy for Afghanistan/Pakistan View

Sign the Healthcare NOT Warfare petition View

Find out about freeway bannering for visibility View

Find your elected officials View

Write letters to the editor View

Visit the PDA store for health care not warfare merchandise merchandise View

CAP's Lawrence Korb: More Fringe than Orly Taitz?

By Derrick Crowe
August 25, 2009

Lawrence Korb

Join PDA's End War and Occupations, Redirect Funding Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.

Published by Return Good for Evil.

It’s not easy to craft an argument more fringe than those of the Birthers, but Center for American Progress’ Lawrence Korb managed to get the job done in his recent wrong-headed piece on Afghanistan.

A recent ABC/Washington Post poll showed that 59 percent of Democrats want troop levels decreased in Afghanistan, versus 29 percent of Republicans. Roughly twice the percentage of Republicans support a troop increase in Afghanistan compared to Democrats. But here’s the thing: Republicans supporting a troop increase in Afghanistan comprise only 33 percent of their party, meaning that they are an even more fringe group than those who doubt/are not sure that Obama is a citizen–a group that claims an additional 25 percent of Republicans compared to the Surgers (let’s coin a phrase, shall we?). Surgers are the true extremists in American politics today.

That’s why it’s absolutely stunning to find a senior fellow of a supposedly progressive think tank like the Center for American Progress pushing Surger rhetoric.

Korb’s article admonishes the president to stop letting troop deployments in Iraq (and, implicitly, American public opinion) limit his troop deployments in Afghanistan. He calls a 21,000 troop increase earlier this year a “good start.” Korb’s piece includes all the assumptions that got us into the mess in Afghanistan in the first place: that the September 11 attacks were acts of war, not of grand-scale criminality; that Afghanistan was therefore a war of necessity, not of choice; that because it’s a war of necessity, the Afghanistan expedition justifies massive expenditures and commitment of personnel. In other words, Korb validates the basic frame of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy and of Osama bin Laden’s dreams: the War on Terror.

There’s good reason for the fringe Right to be enthused about policies that fall in line with the War on Terror frame. As George Lakoff and Evan Fritsch wrote in 2006,

The war metaphor was chosen for political reasons. First and foremost, it was chosen for the domestic political reasons. The war metaphor defined war as the only way to defend the nation…Once adopted, the war metaphor…gave [the president] extraordinary domestic power to carry the agenda of the radical right: Power to shift money and resources away from social needs and to the military and related industries. Power to override environmental safeguards on the grounds of military need. Power to set up a domestic surveillance system to spy on our citizens and to intimidate political enemies. Power over political discussion, since war trumps all other topics. In short, power to reshape America to the vision of the radical right — with no end date.

Osama bin Laden intentionally encouraged this kind of thinking as part of his anti-American strategy. According to a 2002 piece by Bruce Riedel:

Bin Laden’s goals remain the same, as does his basic strategy. He seeks to, as he puts it, “provoke and bait” the United States into “bleeding wars” throughout the Islamic world; he wants to bankrupt the country much as he helped bankrupt, he claims, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Now, notice that when Korb writes:

On the other hand, Afghanistan is a war of necessity. Our only choice after the Taliban refused to stop providing a safe haven and support for Al Qaeda was to go after those responsible for the attacks of September 11th.

He conflates “to go after those responsible for the attacks” with “a war of necessity.” There are only two groups of people who should be enthused about such a conflation: the radical Right and terrorists like Osama bin Laden, both of whom find this frame convenient for advancing their agendas.

Korb never says the words “War on Terror,” but his reasoning assumes the frame. Korb’s and others’ inability to shake this frame has me wondering whether some members of the progressive foreign policy community have Stockholm syndrome. When Korb last trotted out his justifications for escalation in Afghanistan using this frame, I wrote:

The War on Terror is a metaphor designed to bludgeon the progressive movement to death. Write that in stone. Tattoo it somewhere on your body where it will hurt. The phrase “War on Terror” blunts dissent, it undermines progressive values at home, and it plays directly into the hands of al-Qaida’s propaganda. People who perpetuate the War on Terror metaphor are, knowingly or not, undermining progress, justice, and peace.

The War on Terror frame is dangerous, and the policies that emerge from it make us less secure while failing to stop terrorism. Given the effects of the frame on American domestic policy and politics, though, it’s not surprising that Surgers are the only ones left supporting the War on Terror centerpiece in Afghanistan. What’s stunning is that an outfit like the Center for American Progress allows the preferred framing of this fringe group to show up on their letterhead.

One more thing. Korb ends his piece thus:

Peter, Paul and Mary put it well when they warned us some 40 years ago, “when will they ever learn?”

Now, I know Larry just plucked a random song out of the air that contained a line useful for making his point (George Bush did the same thing all the time with Bible verses). The thing is, Korb could not have picked a worse lyric to make his point. Here’s the full song, minus all the repetitions and the “long time passing” and the “long time ago”:

Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone for husbands everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the husbands gone?
Gone for soldiers everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?

When will you ever learn, Larry?

(Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. You can learn more about the threat the Afghanistan war poses to our security at Rethink Afghanistan, or by watching the latest segment, “Security,” on YouTube.)

Holder--and Obama--Must Focus on Torture Accountability and what you can do

Holder--and Obama--Must Focus on Torture Accountability

By John Nichols
August 25, 2009

Holder with Obama

Join PDA's Accountability and Justice Issue Organizing Team (IOT); learn more here.

Published by The Nation.

Attorney General Eric Holder chose not to take the counsel of the Republican partisans who have been campaigning in recent weeks to avert an accountability moment with regard to the Bush-Cheney administration's torture regime.

But that does not necessarily mean that an accountability moment will come.

For that to happen, Holder--and, by extension, President Obama--must stop being so cautious about laying the groundwork for the prosecution of wrongdoings.

They must, as well, be far more explicit in spelling out the purpose and point of the investigation into the use and abuse of so-called "harsh-interrogation" techniques by the Central Intelligence.

For now, Holder has opened what he refers to as a "preliminary review" into whether some CIA operatives broke the law in their coercive interrogations of suspected terrorists in the years after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"As a result of my analysis of all of this material, I have concluded that the information known to me warrants opening a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations," Holder said in a statement issued by his office. "The department regularly uses preliminary reviews to gather information to determine whether there is sufficient predication to warrant a full investigation of a matter. I want to emphasize that neither the opening of a preliminary review nor, if evidence warrants it, the commencement of a full investigation, means that charges will necessarily follow."

Let's be clear: it is good that Holder has decided to take a more serious look at the use of torture during the Bush-Cheney years.

But he has done so in a disturbingly cautious manner that is described by the American Civil Liberties Union as "anemic." That runs the risk of encouraging the campaign by Missouri Senator Kit Bond and a handful of senators--working in conjunction with conservative broadcast and print outlets--to narrow the scope of any inquiry to such an extent that it will yield little in the way of accountability.

As with the battle to defend insurance-industry control over the healthcare system, Republican partisans in Congress are going to fight hard to block any inquiry that might expose and hold to account members of the Bush-Cheney administration.

Bond, in particular, has made it his mission to thwart anything akin to a real investigation.

Taking the lead in the campaign to block an investigation of officials who initiated, authorized and encouraged the use of torture, Bond has shown no qualms about using his position as the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee to protect partisan allies and prevent checking and balancing of executive excess. He has little to lose; after an undistinguished Senate tenure, the man who was once boomed as a Republican presidential or vice presidential prospect is a lame duck senator who will leave the Capitol after the next election.

But Bond is determined to finish his career with a partisan flourish.

And he is in a position to do so.

As a senior Republican senator with close ties to key players within the intelligence establishment -- both at the CIA and among independent contractors associated with the agency, Bond was the key signer of a last-minute missive urging Attorney General Eric Holder to drop plans to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the use of torture during the Bush-Cheney years.

The other signers of the letter, all Republican senators, are Alabama's Jeff Sessions, Arizona's Jon Kyl, Georgia's Saxby Chambliss, Texan John Cornyn, Oklahoma's Tom Coburn, Utah's Orrin Hatch, Iowa's Chuck Grassley and North Carolina's Richard Burr. With the possible exceptions of Hatch and Grassley, all are among the more rabidly partisan members of the senate's Republican caucus. Bond has traditionally been a more responsible member of that caucus. But with this letter, he positions himself as the key point person in the struggle to prevent the inquiry Holder has initiated from getting anywhere.

Bond and his compatriots argued that the appointment of a special prosecutor would "have serious consequences not just for the honorable members of the intelligence community, but also for the security of all Americans."

In fact, the appointment of a special prosecutor should have serious consequences primarily for dishonorable members of the Bush-Cheney administration--including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Vice President Dick Cheney and, perhaps, former President Bush. Creating a false conflict between the rule of law and national security, Bond and his co-signers argued in their letter to Holder that, "It is ironic that the Obama administration, which has delayed justice for the victims of September 11 by suspending the trial of (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed), may soon be charging ahead to prosecute the very CIA officials who obtained critical information from him." The absurdity of this argument is that it suggests the primary focus of an investigation will be on low-level or even mid-level Central Intelligence Agency operatives.

For it to be meaningful, the investigation can and should focus on the people who authorized the use of torture and who outlined how it should be applied. Those are high-level players in the Bush-Cheney administration, not "honorable members of the intelligence community." The only place at which low-level CIA operatives might become targets of an investigation--or perhaps face prosecution--would be if followed their own personal agendas.

The Center for Constitutional Rights offers a proper perspective:

Responsibility for the torture program cannot be laid at the feet of a few low-level operatives. Some agents in the field may have gone further than the limits so ghoulishly laid out by the lawyers who twisted the law to create legal cover for the program, but it is the lawyers and the officials who oversaw and approved the program who must be investigated.

The attorney general must appoint an independent special prosecutor with a full mandate to investigate those responsible for torture and war crimes, especially the high-ranking officials who designed, justified and orchestrated the torture program," the center said in a statement. "We call on the Obama administration not to tie a prosecutor's hands but to let the investigation go as far up the chain of command as the facts lead. We must send a clear message to the rest of the world, to future officials, and to the victims of torture that justice will be served and that the rule of law has been restored.

The point of any inquiry has to be to identify those who set the torture policy--deliberately violating the US and international laws, refusing to share information with Congress and lying to the American people--and hold them to account.

Holder needs to spell this out.

So, too, does President Obama.

It is essential to confront the spin from Kit Bond and compatriots immediately and aggressively.

If Holder and Obama pull their punches, they will give opponents of accountability the opening they need to thwart it.

~~~

Accountability and Justice

The primary mission of the PDA Accountability and Justice Action Group is to hold the Bush Administration accountable for all crimes there is probable cause to believe they committed during their tenure in violation of the U.S. Constitution, the federal and state civil and criminal codes, and all international laws and treaties to which the United States is a party.

The A&J Action Group works closely with PDA Congressional District Point People and local chapters to affect legislation and Congressional action, especially the appointment of an adequately-funded, independent Special Prosecutor/Counsel to prosecute (where appropriate) individuals belonging to and/or associated with the Bush Administration. We also pursue other avenues of accountability through courts, state and local governments, and international bodies.

Actions You Can Take
Amnesty International to Obama 8/12	View
Center for Constitutional Rights to Obama 8/12	View
Free Don Siegelman 8/9	View
Voters for Peace and Velvet Revolution complaints 8/8	View
send ACLU video to Holder 8/8	View
READ: Accountability and Justice IOT Report	View
Tell Congress to Support a Select Committee on War Crimes	View
Impeach Jay Bybee	View
ProsecuteGeorgeBush.com Project Petition	View
Email US Attorney General Eric Holder: Appoint an Independent Special Prosecutor/Counsel	View
CCR Petition on Accountability and Prosecutions for Bush Administration Crimes	View
Petition: Special Prosecutor for Bush War Crimes	View
Take Action to End Torture and Hold Health Professionals Accountable	View
Demand the indictment of Bush & Co. for their criminal CIA programs	View
State Secrets: Ask Representative to Co-sponsor State Secrets Protection Act of 2009	View

"The Cause Endures"

August 26, 2009

Ted Kennedy with Jimmy Carter, 1980

Published by History Place.com.

The keynote speaker at the 1980 Democratic convention in New York was the man who had hoped to get the nomination for president, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

He had unsuccessfully opposed Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter whose own political fortunes were sagging due to an economy plagued by chronic inflation and high unemployment. Further political problems resulted from the taking of American hostages in Iran after the downfall of the American backed Shah of Iran.

In July of 1980, the Republicans had chosen popular conservative Ronald Reagan as their nominee. He was riding the crest of a new wave of conservatism by opposing many of the traditional liberal Democratic policies which traced their roots back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.

Those policies utilized the power of the Federal government to implement social change and improve the well being of citizens in need though expensive government programs. Conservatives argued the policies resulted in inefficient government bureaucracies which spent billions of taxpayer dollars with little actual success.

As a candidate for president, Ted Kennedy stood for the Democratic ideals championed by Roosevelt and also by his late brothers, President John F. Kennedy and especially his brother Robert, a presidential candidate in 1968.

This speech is generally considered the finest of Senator Kennedy's career and serves as an eloquent defense of those liberal ideals:

Well, things worked out a little different from the way I thought, but let me tell you, I still love New York.

My fellow Democrats and my fellow Americans, I have come here tonight not to argue as a candidate but to affirm a cause. I'm asking you--I am asking you to renew the commitment of the Democratic Party to economic justice.

I am asking you to renew our commitment to a fair and lasting prosperity that can put America back to work.

This is the cause that brought me into the campaign and that sustained me for nine months across 100,000 miles in 40 different states. We had our losses, but the pain of our defeats is far, far less than the pain of the people that I have met.

We have learned that it is important to take issues seriously, but never to take ourselves too seriously.

The serious issue before us tonight is the cause for which the Democratic Party has stood in its finest hours, the cause that keeps our Party young and makes it, in the second century of its age, the largest political party in this republic and the longest lasting political party on this planet.

Our cause has been, since the days of Thomas Jefferson, the cause of the common man and the common woman.

Our commitment has been, since the days of Andrew Jackson, to all those he called "the humble members of society--the farmers, mechanics, and laborers." On this foundation we have defined our values, refined our policies and refreshed our faith.

Now I take the unusual step of carrying the cause and the commitment of my campaign personally to our national convention. I speak out of a deep sense of urgency about the anguish and anxiety I have seen across America.

I speak out of a deep belief in the ideals of the Democratic Party, and in the potential of that Party and of a President to make a difference. And I speak out of a deep trust in our capacity to proceed with boldness and a common vision that will feel and heal the suffering of our time and the divisions of our Party.

The economic plank of this platform on its face concerns only material things, but it is also a moral issue that I raise tonight. It has taken many forms over many years. In this campaign and in this country that we seek to lead, the challenge in 1980 is to give our voice and our vote for these fundamental democratic principles.

Let us pledge that we will never misuse unemployment, high interest rates, and human misery as false weapons against inflation.

Let us pledge that employment will be the first priority of our economic policy.

Let us pledge that there will be security for all those who are now at work, and let us pledge that there will be jobs for all who are out of work; and we will not compromise on the issue of jobs.

These are not simplistic pledges. Simply put, they are the heart of our tradition, and they have been the soul of our Party across the generations. It is the glory and the greatness of our tradition to speak for those who have no voice, to remember those who are forgotten, to respond to the frustrations and fulfill the aspirations of all Americans seeking a better life in a better land.

We dare not forsake that tradition. We cannot let the great purposes of the Democratic Party become the bygone passages of history.

We must not permit the Republicans to seize and run on the slogans of prosperity. We heard the orators at their convention all trying to talk like Democrats. They proved that even Republican nominees can quote Franklin Roosevelt to their own purpose.

The Grand Old Party thinks it has found a great new trick, but 40 years ago an earlier generation of Republicans attempted the same trick. And Franklin Roosevelt himself replied, "Most Republican leaders have bitterly fought and blocked the forward surge of average men and women in their pursuit of happiness. Let us not be deluded that overnight those leaders have suddenly become the friends of average men and women."

"You know," he continued, "very few of us are that gullible." And four years later when the Republicans tried that trick again, Franklin Roosevelt asked "Can the Old Guard pass itself off as the New Deal? I think not. We have all seen many marvelous stunts in the circus, but no performing elephant could turn a handspring without falling flat on its back."

The 1980 Republican convention was awash with crocodile tears for our economic distress, but it is by their long record and not their recent words that you shall know them.

The same Republicans who are talking about the crisis of unemployment have nominated a man who once said, and I quote, "Unemployment insurance is a prepaid vacation plan for freeloaders." And that nominee is no friend of labor.

The same Republicans who are talking about the problems of the inner cities have nominated a man who said, and I quote, "I have included in my morning and evening prayers every day the prayer that the Federal Government not bail out New York." And that nominee is no friend of this city and our great urban centers across this Nation.

The same Republicans who are talking about security for the elderly have nominated a man who said just four years ago that "Participation in social security should be made voluntary." And that nominee is no friend of the senior citizens of this Nation.

The same Republicans who are talking about preserving the environment have nominated a man who last year made the preposterous statement, and I quote, "Eighty percent of our air pollution comes from plants and trees."

And that nominee is no friend of the environment.

And the same Republicans who are invoking Franklin Roosevelt have nominated a man who said in 1976, and these are his exact words, "Fascism was really the basis of the New Deal." And that nominee whose name is Ronald Reagan has no right to quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The great adventures which our opponents offer is a voyage into the past. Progress is our heritage, not theirs. What is right for us as Democrats is also the right way for Democrats to win.

The commitment I seek is not to outworn views but to old values that will never wear out. Programs may sometimes become obsolete, but the ideal of fairness always endures.

Circumstances may change, but the work of compassion must continue. It is surely correct that we cannot solve problems by throwing money at them, but it is also correct that we dare not throw out our national problems onto a scrap heap of inattention and indifference. The poor may be out of political fashion, but they are not without human needs. The middle class may be angry, but they have not lost the dream that all Americans can advance together.

The demand of our people in 1980 is not for smaller government or bigger government but for better government. Some say that government is always bad and that spending for basic social programs is the root of our economic evils. But we reply: The present inflation and recession cost our economy $200 billion a year. We reply: Inflation and unemployment are the biggest spenders of all.

The task of leadership in 1980 is not to parade scapegoats or to seek refuge in reaction, but to match our power to the possibilities of progress. While others talked of free enterprise, it was the Democratic Party that acted and we ended excessive regulation in the airline and trucking industry and we restored competition to the marketplace. And I take some satisfaction that this deregulation was legislation that I sponsored and passed in the Congress of the United States.

As Democrats we recognize that each generation of Americans has a rendezvous with a different reality. The answers of one generation become the questions of the next generation. But there is a guiding star in the American firmament. It is as old as the revolutionary belief that all people are created equal, and as clear as the contemporary condition of Liberty City and the South Bronx.

Again and again Democratic leaders have followed that star and they have given new meaning to the old values of liberty and justice for all.

We are the party. We are the party of the New Freedom, the New Deal and the New Frontier. We have always been the party of hope. So this year let us offer new hope, new hope to an America uncertain about the present, but unsurpassed in its potential for the future.

To all those who are idle in the cities and industries of America let us provide new hope for the dignity of useful work. Democrats have always believed that a basic civil right of all Americans is their right to earn their own way. The party of the people must always be the party of full employment. To all those who doubt the future of our economy, let us provide new hope for the reindustrialization of America. And let our vision reach beyond the next election or the next year to a new generation of prosperity. If we could rebuild Germany and Japan after World War II, then surely we can reindustrialize our own nation and revive our inner cities in the 1980s.

To all those who work hard for a living wage let us provide new hope that the price of their employment shall not be an unsafe workplace and a death at an earlier age.

To all those who inhabit our land from California to the New York Island, from the Redwood Forest to the Gulfstream waters, let us provide new hope that prosperity shall not be purchased by poisoning the air, the rivers and the natural resources that are the greatest gift of this continent.

We must insist that our children and our grandchildren shall inherit a land which they can truly call America the beautiful.

To all those who see the worth of their work and their savings taken by inflation, let us offer new hope for a stable economy. We must meet the pressures of the present by invoking the full power of government to master increasing prices.

In candor, we must say that the Federal budget can be balanced only by policies that bring us to a balanced prosperity of full employment and price restraint.

And to all those overburdened by an unfair tax structure, let us provide new hope for real tax reform. Instead of shutting down classrooms, let us shut off tax shelters.

Instead of cutting out school lunches, let us cut off tax subsidies for expensive business lunches that are nothing more than food stamps for the rich.

The tax cut of our Republican opponents takes the name of tax reform in vain. It is a wonderfully Republican idea that would redistribute income in the wrong direction. It is good news for any of you with incomes over $200,000 a year. For the few of you, it offers a pot of gold worth $14,000. But the Republican tax cut is bad news for the middle income families.

For the many of you, they plan a pittance of $200 a year, and that is not what the Democratic Party means when we say tax reform.

The vast majority of Americans cannot afford this panacea from a Republican nominee who has denounced the progressive income tax as the invention of Karl Marx. I am afraid he has confused Karl Marx with Theodore Roosevelt--that obscure Republican president who sought and fought for a tax system based on ability to pay. Theodore Roosevelt was not Karl Marx, and the Republican tax scheme is not tax reform.

Finally, we cannot have a fair prosperity in isolation from a fair society. So I will continue to stand for a national health insurance.

We must not surrender to the relentless medical inflation that can bankrupt almost anyone and that may soon break the budgets of government at every level. Let us insist on real control over what doctors and hospitals can charge, and let us resolve that the state of a family's health shall never depend on the size of a family's wealth.

The President, the Vice President, the members of Congress have a medical plan that meets their needs in full, and whenever senators and representatives catch a little cold, the Capitol physician will see them immediately, treat them promptly, fill a prescription on the spot. We do not get a bill even if we ask for it, and when do you think was the last time a member of Congress asked for a bill from the Federal Government?

I say again, as I have before, if health insurance is good enough for the President, the Vice President and the Congress of the United States, then it is good enough for you and every family in America.

There were some who said we should be silent about our differences on issues during this convention, but the heritage of the Democratic Party has been a history of democracy. We fight hard because we care deeply about our principles and purposes. We did not flee this struggle. We welcome the contrast with the empty and expedient spectacle last month in Detroit where no nomination was contested, no question was debated, and no one dared to raise any doubt or dissent.

Democrats can be proud that we chose a different course and a different platform. We can be proud that our party stands for investment in safe energy instead of a nuclear future that may threaten the future itself.

We must not permit the neighborhoods of America to be permanently shadowed by the fear of another Three Mile Island.

We can be proud that our party stands for a fair housing law to unlock the doors of discrimination once and for all. The American house will be divided against itself so long as there is prejudice against any American buying or renting a home.

And we can be proud that our party stands plainly and publicly and persistently for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Women hold their rightful place at our convention, and women must have their rightful place in the Constitution of the United States. On this issue we will not yield, we will not equivocate, we will not rationalize, explain or excuse. We will stand for E.R.A. and for the recognition at long last that our nation was made up of founding mothers as well as founding fathers.

A fair prosperity and a just society are within our vision and our grasp, and we do not have every answer. There are questions not yet asked, waiting for us in the recesses of the future, but of this much we can be certain because it is the lesson of all our history: Together a president and the people can make a difference. I have found that faith still alive wherever I have traveled across this land. So let us reject the counsel of retreat and the call to reaction. Let us go forward in the knowledge that history only helps those who help themselves.

There will be setbacks and sacrifices in the years ahead but I am convinced that we as a people are ready to give something back to our country in return for all it has given to us.

Let this be our commitment: Whatever sacrifices must be made will be shared and shared fairly. And let this be our confidence: At the end of our journey and always before us shines that ideal of liberty and justice for all.

In closing, let me say a few words to all those that I have met and to all those who have supported me, at this convention and across the country. There were hard hours on our journey, and often we sailed against the wind. But always we kept our rudder true, and there were so many of you who stayed the course and shared our hope. You gave your help, but even more, you gave your hearts.

Because of you, this has been a happy campaign. You welcomed Joan, me and our family into your homes and neighborhoods, your churches, your campuses, your union halls. When I think back of all the miles and all the months and all the memories, I think of you. I recall the poet's words, and I say: What golden friends I have.

Among you, my golden friends across this land, I have listened and learned.

I have listened to Kenny Dubois, a glassblower in Charleston, West Virginia, who has ten children to support but has lost his job after 35 years, just three years short of qualifying for his pension.

I have listened to the Trachta family who farm in Iowa and who wonder whether they can pass the good life and the good earth on to their children.

I have listened to the grandmother in East Oakland who no longer has a phone to call her grandchildren because she gave it up to pay the rent on her small apartment.

I have listened to young workers out of work, to students without the tuition for college, and to families without the chance to own a home. I have seen the closed factories and the stalled assembly lines of Anderson, Indiana and South Gate, California, and I have seen too many, far too many idle men and women desperate to work. I have seen too many, far too many working families desperate to protect the value of their wages from the ravages of inflation.

Yet I have also sensed a yearning for new hope among the people in every state where I have been. And I have felt it in their handshakes, I saw it in their faces, and I shall never forget the mothers who carried children to our rallies. I shall always remember the elderly who have lived in an America of high purpose and who believe that it can all happen again.

Tonight, in their name, I have come here to speak for them. And for their sake, I ask you to stand with them. On their behalf I ask you to restate and reaffirm the timeless truth of our party.

I congratulate President Carter on his victory here.

I am confident that the Democratic Party will reunite on the basis of Democratic principles, and that together we will march towards a Democratic victory in 1980.

And someday, long after this convention, long after the signs come down, and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith. May it be said of our Party in 1980 that we found our faith again.

And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:
"I am a part of all that I have met....
Tho much is taken, much abides....
That which we are, we are--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
...strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy - August 12, 1980

The Senate's Fighting Liberal: A Tribute to Ted Kennedy

The Senate's Fighting Liberal

By Jack Newfield
August 26, 2009

Published by The Nation.

Sen. Ted Kennedy passed away after a long battle with brain cancer on August 25, 2009.

This 2002 profile by the late Jack Newfield captures the essence of what this legend meant to the progressive movement.

When Ted Kennedy arrived in Washington at the close of 1962 as the freshman senator from Massachusetts, he was welcomed with derision and low expectations. Just 30 years old, the President's kid brother, he had accomplished nothing in his life to earn the prize of a seat in the US Senate. Most pundits saw him as a dummy who had cheated on an exam at Harvard to stay eligible for football and who was dependent on an excellent staff to compensate for his inexperience.

Now, forty years later, Ted Kennedy looks like the best and most effective senator of the past hundred years. He has followed the counsel of his first Senate tutor, Phil Hart of Michigan, who told him you can accomplish anything in Washington if you give others the credit. Kennedy has drafted and shaped more landmark legislation than liberal giants like Robert Wagner, Hubert Humphrey, Estes Kefauver and Herbert Lehmann. He has survived tragedy and scandal, endured presidential defeat, right-wing demonization, ridicule by TV comics. Now, at 70, he has evolved into a joyous Job. His career has become an atonement for one night of indefensible behavior, when he failed to report the fatal 1969 accident in which he drove off the bridge at Chappaquiddick, leaving a young woman to drown in the car. He has converted persistence into redemption.

In 1985 Kennedy forever renounced seeking the presidency, declaring, "The pursuit of the presidency is not my life. Public service is." By abandoning higher ambition, he found a form of liberation. He had nothing left to lose. The weight of the country's--and his family's--expectations was lifted from his shoulders. His motives were perceived as less calculating and self-aggrandizing. He could settle into the Senate for the long march. He could become a patient and disciplined legislator without feeling like a failure. When the GOP won control of the Senate in 1994 and some Democrats, like George Mitchell, quit after losing their leadership posts and committee chairmanships, Kennedy stayed and fought in the trenches.

Now, as the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, and as the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, he is at the center of the action. Soon his domestic economic priorities, which were on the front burner prior to September 11--raising the minimum wage, enacting a patients' bill of rights, creating jobs and "passing national health insurance, bit by bit"--will come around again.

Kennedy's zeal to "get something done," and his aisle-crossing friendships with Republicans, have led him into a puzzling, limited partnership with President Bush. They negotiated the details of the education bill together and are now talking about a compromise on the patients' bill of rights.

"I like Bush, personally," Kennedy told me in December. "He has an excellent sense of humor, and I can communicate with him. He's a skilled politician. I would say we are professional friends." The two dynasts also privately share a feeling of having had their intelligence underestimated.

Bush has gone out of his way to court Kennedy, recognizing his power in the divided Senate. Bush named the Justice Department building for Robert Kennedy last November, despite opposition by conservative Republicans in the House. And on the day the education bill was signed, Bush told the crowd at a rally in Boston that Kennedy had been with Laura Bush when the first word of the September 11 terrorist attacks arrived; he thanked Kennedy for "providing such comfort to Laura during an incredibly tough time.... So, Mr. Senator, not only are you a good senator, you're a good man."

Kennedy thought he got more than half of what he wanted in the education bill when it was announced and celebrated. But five weeks later, when the devilish details of Bush's budget request to Congress were disclosed, Kennedy felt betrayed. Money promised to repair dilapidated schools and reduce class size in poor districts was not actually in the budget.

Fortunately for Kennedy's progressive pedigree, he had not pulled his punches in criticizing Bush on domestic issues during the prolonged education negotiations. Kennedy vigorously opposed John Ashcroft's nomination, attacked secret military tribunals for resident aliens and helped defeat Bush's economic stimulus package, which was biased in favor of the rich. He has forged a Democratic consensus behind a bill protecting pensions, a rival to Bush's.

Kennedy and his allies will try to increase spending on education above what Bush allocated. From 1996 through 2002, federal outlays for education expanded an average of 13.4 percent a year; Bush has now proposed a minuscule increase of 2.8 percent for 2003. "The President's budget fails to provide resources that were agreed to," Kennedy said. Today, Kennedy is more skeptical about Bush's intentions, calling his budget "a severe blow to the nation's schools." But he says he will attempt to "pry him away from the far right on some limited issues."

After forty years, Ted Kennedy's name, or imprint, is on an impressive array of legislative monuments, including: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for which he delivered his maiden Senate speech; the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the expansion of the voting franchise to 18-year-olds; the $24 billion Kennedy-Hatch law of 1997, which provided health insurance to children with a new tax on tobacco; two increases in the minimum wage; the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, which made health insurance portable for workers; the 1988 law that allocated $1.2 billion for AIDS testing, treatment and research; the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act; the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act; and last year's 1,200-page education reform act, which he negotiated directly with President Bush and his staff.

Kennedy has also helped abolish the poll tax, liberalize immigration laws, fund cancer research and create the Meals on Wheels program for shut-ins and the elderly.

In 1985 Kennedy and Republican Lowell Weicker co-sponsored the legislation that imposed economic sanctions on the apartheid government of South Africa. The bill became law despite opposition from Bob Dole, a filibuster by Jesse Helms and a veto by President Reagan. Only Kennedy could have mustered the votes to override by 78 to 21 a veto from Reagan at the height of his power.

Kennedy also ignited, and then led like a commando, the successful resistance to Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination by Reagan in 1987. Kennedy's passionate opposition from day one helped keep abortion legal in America. If confirmed, Bork would have provided the fifth vote to repeal Roe v. Wade. Instead, Reagan was forced to nominate Anthony Kennedy in Bork's place, and Justice Kennedy has supported the retention of legal abortion as settled precedent.

The Senator has been influential under Republican Presidents, and when liberals were in the minority in the Senate. He has made himself into a skilled parliamentary strategist, wielding power as the third-most-senior member of the Senate, after Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd.

The key to Kennedy's effectiveness has been his remarkable capacity to form warm, genuine friendships--more than mere working alliances--with GOP senators. He's done this with conservatives like Orrin Hatch and Alan Simpson, as well as with moderates like John McCain, Bill Frist, Lowell Weicker and Nancy Kassebaum, before she retired. He has also established enduring ties with centrist Democrats like Robert Byrd and North Carolina freshman John Edwards, whom he has privately recommended to friends as a potential presidential nominee in 2004. Kennedy's wife and Edwards's wife, both lawyers, are close friends.

Perhaps the only senator Kennedy does not have cordial relations with is the cranky caveman Jesse Helms. Kennedy even co-sponsored and passed a law against church burning with Helms's North Carolina protégé, Lauch Faircloth, in 1996.

Kennedy has found a way to be both bipartisan in his affections and alliances and partisan in his belief that government has an obligation to make America a more equal country. This apparent paradox is Kennedy's paradigm. He can shout, pound a table and turn red in the face while giving a stemwinder that stirs up the party's base. And the next day he can be jovial while making a legislative deal over cigars with the Republican barons of the Senate. Kennedy always wants to "get something done" at the frontier of the possible.

I asked Arizona Republican John McCain (co-sponsor with Kennedy of the patients' bill of rights) to illuminate Kennedy's ability to reach across the divide of party affiliation and form intricate human bonds.

"Ted always keeps his word," McCain responded. "This is essential in a small group of people like the Senate. There is no bullshit with Ted. You know exactly where he is coming from. He does what he says he will do. He is a great listener in a body of poor listeners. This makes it easy to deal with him. Look, I've had my fights with him. We disagree on a lot of things. But Ted doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He likes people. And he doesn't hold a grudge."

Even Trent Lott, the conservative Republican leader in the Senate, has warmed up to Kennedy after years of pressuring GOP senators not to partner with him on legislation. In 1998 Lott sent Kennedy a handwritten note that is now framed in Kennedy's office. Lott wrote:

Your thoughtfulness truly amazes me. First the print from Cape Cod. Then the special edition of Profiles in Courage. I brought it home and re-read it. What an inspiration! Thank you, my friend, for your many courtesies. If the world only knew.

During the 1980s Kennedy spent too many nights drinking too much, chasing younger women, trying to postpone the times when he was alone with his ghosts. He put on weight and seemed almost an Elvis Presley figure in premature, irreversible decline.

Kennedy's silences during the Judiciary Committee's 1991 confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, who was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, were a low ebb for him, drawing rebukes from liberals and feminists for the first time. Anna Quindlen wrote in the New York Times that Kennedy "let us down because he had to; he was muzzled by the facts of his life." The hometown Boston Globe, usually loyal to Kennedy, editorialized that his "reputation as a womanizer made him an inappropriate and non-credible" critic of Thomas.

Thomas was confirmed 52 to 48, and Kennedy was ashamed of his inadequacy. But his failure also revealed that none of the other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee had the stature to fill the void he left. The weak performances of Joe Biden, Patrick Leahy and Howell Heflin--none of whom had the internal inhibitions Kennedy had--proved Kennedy was irreplaceable as an energizing leader. Nobody else could derail Thomas the way Kennedy had stopped Bork.

In April 1991 Senator Hatch, the teetotaling Mormon from Utah, took Kennedy aside and pleaded with him to stop or limit his drinking, suggesting he was drinking himself to death and that Hatch didn't want to "lose Kennedy as a friend or as a colleague." Hatch's lecture did have an impact on Kennedy; two months later he met Vicki Reggie, and ended his partying. They were married in 1992.

Kennedy's family and friends date his political revival to his re-election victory over Mitt Romney in 1994. That campaign allowed him to reconnect with his reasons for believing in public service. In making the physical and emotional sacrifices necessary to win an exhausting campaign, Kennedy recovered his dedication to remain in the Senate, and he focused all his energies on the job.

In mid-September of that year the polls showed the race deadlocked. Romney was attacking Kennedy as a burned-out relic and promising voters, "I will not embarrass you." Then came the campaign's dramatic first debate at Faneuil Hall in Boston. Some of his own campaign staff didn't want Kennedy to debate. The Globe reported that debates "are widely seen as fraught with danger for the aging and sometimes tongue-tied Kennedy." The Boston Herald's venomous, right-wing columnist Howie Carr described Kennedy as "incoherent" and wrote that Kennedy's understanding of "'a sound economic policy' means only buying every fourth round" at the bar.

But anyone who still harbors the illusion that Ted Kennedy is not smart, or not fast-thinking, should study the tape of that confrontation. When a panelist asked Kennedy how he coped with his "personal failings," Kennedy answered:

"Every day of my life I try to be a better human being," he began, "a better father, a better son, a better husband. And since my life has changed with Vicki, I believe the people of this state understand that the kind of purpose and direction and new affection and confidence on personal matters has been enormously reinvigorating. And hopefully I am a better senator."

Romney then accused Kennedy of a nonexistent financial conflict of interest involving his "profiting" from a no-bid contract with Washington's Mayor Marion Barry, under which minority ownership rules were waived. Kennedy looked his rival in the eye and replied: "Mr. Romney, the Kennedys are not in public service to make money. We have paid too high a price in our commitment to public service." Romney's response was to complain about Kennedy bringing up his family too frequently.

Kennedy's debate performance transformed the election. He won with 57 percent of the vote.

Ted Kennedy is reluctant to be quoted directly about the future direction of the Democratic Party. Like a veteran ballplayer, he prefers to lead by example. He ducks questions about factions and agendas, but his savvy staff points questioners to the texts of two Kennedy speeches, delivered on January 11, 1995, and October 24, 2001.

Together, these texts provide a basis from which to discern Kennedy's road map. They sketch a combative alternative to the GOP's anti-union, anti-poor, anti-urban biases. They are also a warning against the compromising corporate alliances of Democrats like Terry McAuliffe, who made an $18 million profit on Global Crossing stock, and Senator Jeff Bingaman, whose wife made $2.5 million in six months as a lobbyist for Global Crossing before it went bankrupt.

The 1995 speech came in the context of Newt Gingrich being sworn in as Speaker in the wake of the GOP's gain of fifty-three House seats in November 1994--the same day that Mario Cuomo was defeated in the New York gubernatorial race and Tom Foley was trounced in the Washington State House race.

In this sail-against-the-wind speech, given at the National Press Club, Kennedy rejected the conventional wisdom that the 1994 elections proved the country was veering sharply to the right. He argued that the reason the Democrats lost so many elections was that they had compromised too much and shed their distinct identity. Kennedy famously declared: "If the Democrats run for cover, if we become pale carbon copies of the opposition, we will lose--and deserve to lose. The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties."

Before Kennedy made this argument in public, he delivered it in private to President Clinton, who was in a deep funk over the 1994 election and being urged by pollster Dick Morris to compromise even more and embrace portions of the Gingrich-Dole agenda.

Kennedy told Clinton to fight for incremental national healthcare, jobs and an increase in the minimum wage, and to resist making any cuts in education. He gave Clinton a memo that summed up his thinking on what a Democratic Party in power should stand for. The memo said: "Democrats are for higher wages and new job opportunities. Republicans are for cuts to pay for tax breaks for the rich."

Kennedy's October 2001 speech on the Senate floor, opposing Bush's stingy, elitist economic stimulus package, is another road map for lost Democrats. In it, Kennedy asserted that any effective economic stimulus should "target the dollars to low- and moderate-income families, who are most certain to spend it rather than save it."

The key to Kennedy's politics is his belief that Democrats must simultaneously advocate for the poor and the middle class at the expense of the wealthy and corporate America. As someone whose policies and politics are so well integrated, Kennedy knows that liberals win elections when the poor and the middle class vote together. And liberals lose when the suburban, indpendent middle-class votes with the upper classes.

Kennedy made his populist thinking explicit on January 16, when he became the first senator to urge postponement of $300 billion in tax cuts for the affluent. He said the savings should be applied to prescription drugs for the elderly, extending unemployment benefits and protecting Social Security. Since January, only one other senator has joined Kennedy--Paul Wellstone, the Senate's most progressive member.

What is not at all clear is how Kennedy's mentoring of John Edwards fits into his broader thinking about what his party should stand for, and who should be its nominee in 2004. When I asked a Kennedy friend about Massachusetts junior Senator John Kerry, who is testing his own candidacy for 2004, I was directed to page 565 in Adam Clymer's "definitive" biography of Kennedy.

That page contains an anecdote about a January 31, 1995, meeting of Democratic Party leaders from both houses. It was convened to consider whether to back Kennedy's bill raising the minimum wage, from a miserly $4.25 an hour. Kennedy arrived late for the meeting, and as he walked in, he heard Senator Kerry voicing his doubts about the bill. "If you're not for raising the minimum wage, you don't deserve to call yourself a Democrat," was Kennedy's angry response.

For whatever reason, Kennedy doesn't want to appear dogmatic or overbearing about where Democrats should go from here. But this remark makes vivid his thinking that higher wages, more jobs and more healthcare are the foundations of the future.

Personal tragedy often provides the most powerful training in empathy and compassion. Ted Kennedy has buried two assassinated brothers he loved, a brother-in-law (Steve Smith) who became like a brother to him, and three young nephews, including John Kennedy Jr., whom he eulogized as another Kennedy who did not live long enough "to comb gray hair." While Kennedy was still a teenager, his older siblings, Joe and Kathleen, died. And his son survived cancer.

Kennedy has acquired both a tragic sense of life and what the late Murray Kempton called "losing-side consciousness." He identifies with hurt and loss. And he is able to translate his empathy into public remedies and reforms. I realized this when I asked him to tell me the story behind his eight-year campaign to pass the Family and Medical Leave Act, a law he co-sponsored and managed on the Senate floor.

"In 1974," Kennedy began, "I spent every Friday in the waiting room at Boston's Children's Hospital with my son, Teddy Jr. He was getting experimental chemotherapy treatments. And other parents started coming up to me and telling me how they had lost their jobs because they were taking care of a child diagnosed with cancer, and missing work.

"That was the origin of it. Nobody should lose a job because of a family medical emergency. I didn't lose my job because my priorities were with my son. I just told Mike Mansfield [the Democratic leader in the Senate] that I couldn't be there on Fridays. But less fortunate fathers lost their jobs because they couldn't get a leave from their employer."

Kennedy drafted a bill with Senator Chris Dodd that granted up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave to deal with a family medical crisis, protecting the job security of all workers with more than one year on the job. The Kennedy-Dodd bill was originally introduced in 1985 and passed the Congress in 1991, but it was vetoed by Bush the Elder. It was passed again in 1993 and signed by President Clinton. But it was conceived in those painful conversations with other desperate parents in the waiting room of the Children's Hospital in 1974.

Because of his personal experience of tragedy, Ted Kennedy has become America's national grief counselor. When the two planes were hijacked out of Boston's Logan Airport last September 11 and ninety-three residents of Massachusetts were killed, Kennedy personally called about 125 family members to offer assistance and solace.

He was so moved by one conversation with a grieving father that he sent the man a copy of a private letter his own father, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, had written to a close friend in 1958, upon hearing about the death of the friend's son.

Ted Kennedy's ability to get up every morning and just keep going, no matter what, is his defining quality. And this quotation of consolation from his father sheds some light on Kennedy's credo of perseverance. The letter says:

When one of your loved ones goes out of your life, you think of what he might have done for a few more years, and you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours.

Then one day, because there is a world to be lived in, you find yourself a part of it, trying to accomplish something--something he did not have time to do. And, perhaps, that is the reason for it all. I hope so.

Holder Statement on Appointment of Special Prosecutor for Torture Investigation

August 24 2009

Holder Statement on Appointment of Special Prosecutor for Torture Investigation

I have concluded that the information known to me warrants opening a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations."

"As Attorney General, my duty is to examine the facts and to follow the law. In this case, given all of the information currently available, it is clear to me that this review is the only responsible course of action for me to take."

By Eric Holder
Office of the Attorney General
of the United States

The Office of Professional Responsibility has now submitted to me its report regarding the Office of Legal Counsel memoranda related to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. I hope to be able to make as much of that report available as possible after it undergoes a declassification review and other steps. Among other findings, the report recommends that the Department reexamine previous decisions to decline prosecution in several cases related to the interrogation of certain detainees.

I have reviewed the OPR report in depth. Moreover, I have closely examined the full, still-classified version of the 2004 CIA Inspector General's report, as well as other relevant information available to the Department. As a result of my analysis of all of this material, I have concluded that the information known to me warrants opening a preliminary review into whether federal laws were violated in connection with the interrogation of specific detainees at overseas locations. The Department regularly uses preliminary reviews to gather information to determine whether there is sufficient predication to warrant a full investigation of a matter. I want to emphasize that neither the opening of a preliminary review nor, if evidence warrants it, the commencement of a full investigation, means that charges will necessarily follow.

Assistant United States Attorney John Durham was appointed in 2008 by then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the destruction of CIA videotapes of detainee interrogations. During the course of that investigation, Mr. Durham has gained great familiarity with much of the information that is relevant to the matter at hand. Accordingly, I have decided to expand his mandate to encompass this related review. Mr. Durham, who is a career prosecutor with the Department of Justice and who has assembled a strong investigative team of experienced professionals, will recommend to me whether there is sufficient predication for a full investigation into whether the law was violated in connection with the interrogation of certain detainees.

There are those who will use my decision to open a preliminary review as a means of broadly criticizing the work of our nation's intelligence community. I could not disagree more with that view. The men and women in our intelligence community perform an incredibly important service to our nation, and they often do so under difficult and dangerous circumstances. They deserve our respect and gratitude for the work they do. Further, they need to be protected from legal jeopardy when they act in good faith and within the scope of legal guidance. That is why I have made it clear in the past that the Department of Justice will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees. I want to reiterate that point today, and to underscore the fact that this preliminary review will not focus on those individuals.

I share the President's conviction that as a nation, we must, to the extent possible, look forward and not backward when it comes to issues such as these. While this Department will follow its obligation to take this preliminary step to examine possible violations of law, we will not allow our important work of keeping the American people safe to be sidetracked.

I fully realize that my decision to commence this preliminary review will be controversial. As Attorney General, my duty is to examine the facts and to follow the law. In this case, given all of the information currently available, it is clear to me that this review is the only responsible course of action for me to take.

Thank Barney Frank for standing up to right-wing attacks

Right-wing "deathers," worked into a frenzy by blatant lies from FOX News and the insurance lobby, have hijacked town halls all over the country with bullying and scare tactics. They know that if the voices of the people are heard in the health care debate, there will be no doubt that Americans want real reform, and a strong public insurance option.

This week, when confronted a rightwing activist comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler, Congressman Barney Frank said what we all have been thinking. You can check out the video here.

A couple of choice lines:

"On what planet do you spend most of your time?"

"It is a tribute to the first Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated."

And perhaps the most poignant, given the shut-down-the-dialogue tactics of the right wing:

"Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it."

Will you thank Barney Frank for standing up to the madness and fighting for real health care reform?

So many times the politicians in Washington fail us by caving in to ridiculous attacks from the right wing. Barney Frank stood up and fought back. We should thank him in the hopes that an overwhelmingly positive response will encourage others to speak out as well.

Sign this petition to thank Barney Frank for standing up to the right-wing attacks on health care and democracy.

Center for Democratic Renewal

Researching the Right for Progressive Changemakers

Center for Democratic Renewal

Since 1979, the Center for Democratic Renewal (CDR) has been in the forefront of the struggle against the injustice of white supremacy. Our experience in research, organizing, and training was developed through work with more than 1,000 communities faced with Klan marches, Holocaust denial, or hate crimes. Even though the lines distinguishing the far right, the Religious Right, and ultra-conservatives have blurred, many of their themes are the same. Their ideological and organizational overlap must be exposed. We offer the following strategies for consideration by the progressive movement:

• Build strong think tanks for progressives so that the ideology and strategies of the right can be countered.

• Increase the use of media, especially talk shows and talk radio, to get our message out to the majority of the public that gets its information this way.

• Establish strong relationships with mainstream religious groups and churches to counter the sanctimonious claim that only the Religious Right are people of faith.

• Democratize access to the information superhighway, such as the Internet. This valuable resource is under-utilized by people who share our perspectives and is inaccessible to a large part of our constituency, yet over three million Americans now use the Internet.

• Start grassroots voter education about the true policy implications of the right; don't let them get away with clever soundbites without exposing the policy consequences of their proposals. For example, unfunded mandates would mean that many environmental regulations would be thrown out of the window.

• Decouple their sweet talk from their meanness. Make the right talk about real issues, not just slogans on moral values. Religious groups shouldn't act, or sound, like hate groups.

• Use a human rights analysis to link progressive issues together and offer a strategy for holding our government and individuals accountable to international standards.

• Work in broad-based coalitions that unite all of those affected by the right. Single-issue and identity-based politics have their limits and are inadequate for tackling the complexities of the right.

Understand that the key to combating the right is at the grassroots level, so build and strengthen local organizations that can mobilize people community by community and block by block. Don't get discouraged. The backlash politics of the right are just that--a response to the success of our movements for social justice. We will win again!

The Center for Democratic Renewal in Atlanta, Georgia is a national organization assisting community-based groups fighting prejudice and hate crimes. This article first appeared in the CDR newsletter The Monitor, in March 1995. © 1995, Center for Democratic Renewal.

Center for Democratic Renewal

P.O. Box 50469
Atlanta, GA 30302-0469
(404) 221-0025

Learn more about the Center for Democratic Renewal

Health Care, Guns, Grandma and Our Kids

Submitted by findingavoice on Fri, 08/21/2009 - 5:20am.

• Ann Davidow

FINDING A VOICE by Ann Davidow

The Stock Market and extremists seem to have become the leading indicators of our nation's future. Lobbyists are waging a successful assault on health-care reform while wild-eyed elders and others with a grudge arrive at political meet-ups to engage in over-wrought diversions far-removed from the topics at hand. Motivated by personal fears and desires, they are invigorated by fire-breathing, right-wing fanatics and supported by every conceivable fringe element.

It was telling that, on a day when the market slowed, four of the largest health-care insurers - - Cigna, United Health, Aetna and Wellpoint - - showed significant gains on hints that the "public option" might be dropped from health-care legislation. Yet, despite that up-tick on Wall Street and Republican delight at the possible collapse of the president's agenda, the very-elder statesman, Senator Grassley, said if he can't get enough members of his party to support reform of any kind, he won't sign on either. That statement proves if further proof were needed, that what the minority has in mind is simply to thwart anything the president proposes no matter what it is.

There's been so much talk about grandma everyone seems to have forgotten the younger generation who are the nation's future and who seek educational opportunities, jobs and security. Apoplectic politicians rant about children and grand-children being saddled with debt. But if health-care as we know it is held captive by an aging population that seeks assurance of unlimited, Medicare-financed treatments and procedures in the latter stages of their lives, today's children and tomorrow's grandchildren will be the biggest losers. It would, however, be no great loss if the provision for end-of-life-conversations between doctors and families were eliminated from legislative proposals - - not because the witless have created an uproar by erroneously describing them as "death panels" but because the cost of over a billion dollars to fund them seems excessive.

Republicans want the rest of us to forget the giveaways big pharma received to convince them to participate in the prescription-drug plan for the elderly - - legislation that passed with the arm-twisting of former congressional mover and shaker, Tom Delay. His upcoming appearance on "Dancing with the Stars" will be no match for the fast stepping he must have done as he threatened and cajoled party members for their votes during the three hours he kept the vote open in the House. In terms of fiscal responsibility, the plan passed with no visible means of financial support - - reality check please.

We are told repeatedly ours is "the best health-care system in the world" as if that explained away the uninsured, the underinsured and the enormous burdens ordinary Americans face trying to obtain reasonably priced insurance. The opposition insists there are many medical plans from which to choose. But employees who receive health benefits through their company, must accept whatever plan an employer offers - - no choice involved. One employee's plan included a $10,000 deductible.

But perhaps the worst of what passes for debate over the issue of health care is the license it seems to have provided for disgruntled elements of the population. NRA devotees arrive at presidential visits sporting rifles and hand guns just because they can. Not present to participate in discussion their goal is apparently to make some kind of statement about their 'right-to-carry' and to deliver thinly-veiled threats of insurrection. Even if one accepts the Supreme Court opinion that the second amendment guarantees gun-ownership for individuals, their ruling didn't automatically sanction the right to carry a weapon in public anywhere at any time. Freedom for the un-armed majority and our leaders shouldn't be compromised by fear of those who sport weapons in public places.

We are at a defining moment when we might have expected a more enlightened level of discourse than we have witnessed in recent months. Those gun-toting zealots wearing tee-shirts quoting Thomas Jefferson that "the tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants" seem unaware of the historical context in which our founding fathers lived and labored to establish our republic and a just society. Jefferson would likely find it disturbing that his words were being used so irresponsibly by anti-government extremists at this point in time.

Please respond to Ann Davidow's commentary by leaving comments below and sharing them with the BuzzFlash community.

FINDING A VOICE by Ann Davidow