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A White Girl Like ME

I was disappointed by the dem. party's reaction to the Rev. Sharpton's speech.
I guess it was actually the reporter's at the convention that focused more on his running over his allotted time than on his content...or more importantly his passion (at least he HAS some...)

I understand this was not supposed to be a week of Bush bashing, but honestly the worst thing he said was his comment about Clarence Thomas...which although unable to be backed up by fact, is probably true...

The rest of the speech I think was fiery, emotional and full of heart. (Click the Header to SEE the actual speech.)

The kind of heart that Kerry is going to need to show more of if we are really going to win back the minds AND hearts of hard working, busy, disconnected Americans.

Speeches like this allow us to take back phrases like "family values" - Sharpton gave his story about his mother "family values" more real value than any Republican looking for a sound bite.

His comment about us needing to focus not on the bedroom, but getting food into the kitchen, is also a great down to earth look at our priorities and how quickly they get lost in ridiculous hot button topics like caring about sexual orientation...

I say to our current President, Mr. President, listen closely to speeches like Rev. Sharpton's, because within his rhetoric and his passion is the heartbeat of most African Americans and it is just as closely tied to the heart of a white girl like me and together that's about 60 -70% of America ... no matter what those polls are saying.

Those polls are spouting out numbers based on voters from 2000, but they aren't counting the people that Rev. Sharpton is talking to, the folks who haven't voted once in their lives, but (wehich Bush didn't count on) are smart enough to pick up on the impact to their civil rights, their pocketbooks and most of all their loved ones dying over seas!

A cut down version of Al Sharpton's speech, delivered at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, taken from e-Media, Inc.'s transcription:

"Last Friday, I had the experience in Detroit of hearing President George Bush make a speech. And in the speech, he asked certain questions. I hope he's watching tonight. I would like to answer your questions, Mr. President.

...We are here 228 years after right here in Boston we fought to establish the freedoms of America. The first person to die in the Revolutionary War is buried not far from here, a Black man from Barbados, named Crispus Attucks.

Forty years ago, in 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party stood at the Democratic convention in Atlantic City fighting to preserve voting rights for all America and all Democrats, regardless of race or gender.

Hamer's stand inspired Dr. King's march in Selma, which brought about the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

...Tonight, we stand with those freedoms at risk and our security as citizens in question.

I have come here tonight to say, that the only choice we have to preserve our freedoms at this point in history is to elect John Kerry the president of the United States.

...And let me quickly say, this is not just about winning an election. It's about preserving the principles on which this very nation was founded.

Look at the current view of our nation worldwide as a results of our unilateral foreign policy. We went from unprecedented international support and solidarity on September 12, 2001, to hostility and hatred as we stand here tonight. We can't survive in the world by ourselves.

I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had selected the court in '54, Clarence Thomas would have never got to law school. (Whew!)

This is not about a party. This is about living up to the promise of America. The promise of America says we will guarantee quality education for all children and not spend more money on metal detectors than computers in our schools.

The promise of America guarantees health care for all of its citizens and doesn't force seniors to travel to Canada to buy prescription drugs they can't afford here at home.

We did it with a go-it-alone foreign policy based on flawed intelligence. We were told that we were going to Iraq because there were weapons of mass destruction. We've lost hundreds of soldiers. We've spent $200 billion dollars at a time when we had record state deficits. And when it became clear that there were no weapons, they changed the premise for the war and said: No, we went because of other reasons.

...The issue of government is not to determine who may sleep together in the bedroom, it's to help those that might not be eating in the kitchen.

The promise of America that we stand for human rights, whether it's fighting against slavery in the Sudan, where right now Joe Madison and others are fasting, around what is going on in the Sudan; AIDS in Lesotho; a police misconduct in this country.

The promise of America is one immigration policy for all who seek to enter our shores, whether they come from Mexico, Haiti or Canada, there must be one set of rules for everybody.

We cannot welcome those to come and then try and act as though any culture will not be respected or treated inferior. We cannot look at the Latino community and preach one language. No one gave them an English test before they sent them to Iraq to fight for America.

The promise of America is that every citizen vote is counted and protected, and election schemes do not decide the election.

It, to me, is a glaring contradiction that we would fight, and rightfully so, to get the right to vote for the people in the capital of Iraq in Baghdad, but still don't give the federal right to vote for the people in the capital of the United States, in Washington, D.C.

Mr. President, as I close, Mr. President, I heard you say Friday that you had questions for voters, particularly African- American voters. And you asked the question: Did the Democratic Party take us for granted?

... It is true that Mr. Lincoln (A Republican) signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. ...We never got the 40 acres... We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us.

Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this far playing political games. It was those that earned our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under Democrats.

...And we come with strong family values. Family values is not just those with two-car garages and a retirement plan. Retirement plans are good. But family values also are those who had to make nothing stretch into something happening, who had to make ends meet.

I was raised by a single mother who made a way for me. She used to scrub floors as a domestic worker, put a cleaning rag in her pocketbook and ride the subways in Brooklyn so I would have food on the table.

But she taught me as I walked her to the subway that life is about not where you start, but where you're going. That's family values.

And I wanted somebody in my community -- I wanted to show that example. As I ran for president, I hoped that one child would come out of the ghetto like I did, could look at me walk across the stage with governors and senators and know they didn't have to be a drug dealer, they didn't have to be a hoodlum, they didn't have to be a gangster, they could stand up from a broken home, on welfare, and they could run for president of the United States.

...But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.

Starting in November, let's make America beautiful again."

California Workers Under Bush - REAL STATISTICS

Nationwide:  2.9 Million Private Sector Jobs Lost; Unemployment At 5.6 Percent—Up 33 Percent Since Bush Took Office.   [Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov]

California Fact: 284,900 Jobs Lost; Unemployment At 6.4 Percent—Up 36 Percent Since Bush Took Office.  [Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov]


Nationally, Workers’ Wages and Salaries Are Stagnant.  [Department of Commerce, 12/23/03; New York Times, 12/31/03]

California Fact: Under Bush, Over 1 Million Workers In California May Lose Critical Overtime Pay.  [New York Times, 7/1/03; Economic Policy Institute, July 2003]


Nationally, Nearly 2.8 Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost Under Bush, And Account For 95 Percent of All Job Loss. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov]

California Fact: 300,800 Manufacturing Jobs Have Been Lost Under Bush.  [Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov]


Nationally, 3.5 Million More Americans Have Fallen Into Poverty Under Bush — Poverty Rate Up To 12.1 Percent [Census Bureau, Poverty in the United States: 2002, Table 4, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html]


California Poverty Rate At 12.8 Percent — Up From 12.6 Percent In 2000-2001. [Census Bureau, Poverty in the United States: 2002, Table 4, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty.html]


Gas Costs Rising.  The cost of fuel in California has risen over the last year, and in the last month alone, it has increased 20 cents to $1.9 a gallon. [www.fuelguage.com]


6.4 Million California Residents (18.2 Percent) Have No Health Insurance. [Census Bureau, Historical Health Insurance Tables, Table HI06, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins.html]


Nationally, Many Seniors Worse Off Under Bush Medicare Prescription Drug Plan.  The Medicare bill that President Bush signed in November 2003 includes limited prescription drug coverage but protects the interests of drug companies by failing to include measures to bring down the cost of prescriptions. The bill has been described as a “big win” for the drug industry, and nationwide, many seniors are worse off under the plan. [Wall Street Journal, 11/17/03; Senate HELP Committee Minority Staff, “National and State Impacts of the Medicare Prescription Drug Conference Proposal,” 11/03, emphasis added]

California Fact: California Seniors Hurt By Bush Plan.  

244,860 California Medicare beneficiaries will lose their employer-based retiree health benefits. 

860,700 seniors will pay more for the prescription drugs they need. [Senate HELP Committee Minority Staff, “National and State Impacts of the Medicare Prescription Drug Conference Proposal,” 11/03] 


Bush’s 2004 Budget Cut $200 Million From Impact Aid Program, Denying Education Funds For Children In Military Families.  [New York Times, 8/22/00; House Appropriations Committee, Minority Staff, 6/17/03, 6/16/03; Washington Post, 6/17/03]

California Fact: Bush Cut $11.9 Million In Impact Aid Money For California in His 2004 Budget. [Department of Education]

California Fact: Over 2.4 Million Veterans In California Affected By Bush Policies.  [Department of Veterans Affairs]


California’s Economic Growth Slowed Under Bush.  From 2000-2001 California’s gross state product has only grown by $29 million, compared to the last years of the Clinton administration, where it grew by more than $100 million. [www.bea.doc.gov/bea/regional/gsp]

"What we need today is a Call to Intellect = A focused challenge that Americans can recognize!"

Familiar themes that we need to echo today -

- A call to intellect
- A choice given to the nation openly and not coated in lies and false information
- The entire country must support the challenge that lies before us
- A challenge that promises if not an answer to all that is wrong at least a future in which we can say we tried, and in trying we gained knowledge, which is never the least that we can attain.

"Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny...time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.

...For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will make us last... But this is not merely a race. Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.

...But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon--if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

...This gives promise of some day providing a means for even more exciting and ambitious exploration of space, perhaps beyond the moon, perhaps to the very end of the solar system itself.

...I believe we should go to the moon. But I think every citizen of this country as well as the Members of the Congress should consider the matter carefully in making their judgment, to which we have given attention over many weeks and months, because it is a heavy burden, and there is no sense in agreeing or desiring that the United States take an affirmative position in outer space, unless we are prepared to do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. If we are not, we should decide today and this year.

This decision demands a major national commitment of scientific and technical manpower, materiel and facilities, and the possibility of their diversion from other important activities where they are already thinly spread. It means a degree of dedication, organization and discipline which have not always characterized our research and development efforts. It means we cannot afford undue work stoppages, inflated costs of material or talent, wasteful interagency rivalries, or a high turnover of key personnel."

- John F. Kennedy May 25, 1961

Education = Jobs = Future for America

As China quickly leaves us in the dust educationally and technologically we need to wake up and realize that we are on the precipice of a new technology era for humans, not just Americans, but everyone.
Losing technology jobs to China, India, etc. does not affect one or two industries, but EVERY industry. In today's world every job is somehow affected by technology and the more we count on foreign influence and support to control our own technologies we will become the 2nd, 3rd, etc. most powerful nation in the world. And in the end it is less about power and more about what a nation does with that influence. While I have not always been proud of every decision America has imposed on the world at least they have all been made beneath a democratic flag that allowed, even demanded, the people have something to say about that decision = do you really see China sharing that kind of influence with its citizens... I thought not.
It seems we are completely bypassing the best use for Broadband and today's technology = education. We can now reach the smallest burg in the country with the best educaton available, all through broadband. There is no excuse for not being able to inspire our youth and show them a future full of knowledge and possibility.

We don't need 2 Republican parties....

America doesn't need a Democratic Party that says "yes but less" or "yes but slower" to Republican policies that take us backward. It doesn't need a Democratic Party that is satisfied with defending our past achievements from Republican attack without also pursuing high ambitions for the future. I say to you: America doesn't need two Republican parties. America needs a Democratic Party resolved to make this nation safer, stronger, and more secure. And you and I are going to build it. --John Kerry