Forty-six years ago today, Reverend Martin Luther King, Junior, gave a very famous speech in Washington, DC, in a cry for basic civil rights and dignity denied to a class of people on the basis of the color of their skin:
I need not tell you how the right wing reacted to the movement of which the speech was a part:
One year ago yesterday, we heard another rousing speech. In many ways, this speech was the culmination of Reverend King's dream. This speech marked the progress we have made as a society over the 45 years between the speeches, though we still have far too much work to do. Still, this speech showed us what is possible when we as a society determine that the founding words of our nation apply to every single person, and not merely those who are white, wealthy, male, Christian-of-a-certain-variety, and born in the United States to parents who were themselves born in the United States to parents who were themselves born in the United States and so on and so forth. This speech marked the first nomination by a major party for President of the United States of an African American:
That nominee, of course, is now President Barack Obama. And what did he choose to focus on in his speech?
Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can't afford to drive, credit cards, bills you can't afford to pay, and tuition that's beyond your reach...
This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.
We're a better country than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment that he's worked on for 20 years and watch as it's shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.
We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty, that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes...
For over two decades -- for over two decades, he's (i.e., John McCain) subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy: Give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.
In Washington, they call this the "Ownership Society," but what it really means is that you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck, you're on your own. No health care? The market will fix it. You're on your own. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, even if you don't have boots. You are on your own.
Well, it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States.
You see, you see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.
We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage, whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma.
We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was president, when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of go down $2,000, like it has under George Bush...
What -- what is that American promise? It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.
It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.
Ours -- ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.
Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.
That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper.
That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now...
And how has the right wing responded to that?
But there's one more part of President Obama's speech to which I'd like to direct your attention today, and this is it:
Now -- now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American.
If you have health care -- if you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves.
And -- and as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.
In a country whose founding document declares that all human beings have inalienable rights, among these life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we still allow the bureaucrats staffing the health insurance companies' death panels to determine whose right to life is inalienable and whose is disposable.
Ted Kennedy understood that. He made it the cause of his life to fight for every American, no matter his/her station in life, to have access to the same high-quality, affordable healthcare that the taxpayers provide for the people who are supposed to work for them.
And how does the right wing react to that both before and after this giant had passed away?
They compare him to John McCain, a man who has been privileged to live his entire life with publicly provided healthcare but thinks such care is too good for most Americans.
They hypocritically and preemptively denounce Democrats for taking political advantage of Kennedy's death in order to pass healthcare reform.
They lie, and lie, and continue lying about Democrats' plans for healthcare reform.
They talk about finding a "Great White Hope" to take on the black president.
They "joke" about assassinating President Obama.
They brag about blocking reform while taking millions from the health insurance companies.
And all along, they've been comparing the desire to provide high quality, affordable healthcare to every American to Nazism.
Isn't it amazing how every time there is a question of fundamental human rights, it all comes down to selfishness, dishonesty, violence and threats of violence, corruption, and sickening hyperbole for Republicans? Isn't it amazing how it always comes down to "I got mine, so screw you" for the Republicans?
And these are the people Max Baucus and Kent Conrad and Steny Hoyer want to negotiate with. If it had been up to them to pass civil rights legislation in the 1950s and '60s, we'd still have literacy tests for voting, redlining for housing, legal segregation for schooling, and whites-only public accommodations. And I can guarantee you nobody would be talking about forged Kenyan birth certificates -- it wouldn't even be an issue to the Faux Propaganda Nutwork because Reverend King's dream would have descended ever farther into the nightmare of a farce that was once civil rights in this country.
King's dream may not be fully realized yet, but we have made great progress in the last 46 years. And just as progressives had to fight for his dream, so too must we now fight for Ted Kennedy's.
Ted Kennedy had a dream, and it wasn't so different from Reverend King's. When King said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal,'" he may have been talking about racial equality, but his words could just as easily refer today to healthcare.
Ted Kennedy had a dream that one day the very first inalienable right addressed by the founding document of this country will not be rendered disposable for the sake of corporations' bottom lines.
Ted Kennedy had a dream that no American would ever have to choose between taking care of one's rent and taking care of one's health.
Ted Kennedy had a dream that in the wealthiest nation on earth, no one would ever do without medical treatment for want of insurance or sufficient cash.
Ted Kennedy had a dream that murder by spreadsheet would be treated as homicide rather than business as usual.
I have a dream too, though mine may be more of a fantasy. I have a dream that our public servants would stop being parasites who take high quality taxpayer-provided healthcare from us while denying it to us. I have a dream that so-called Democrats stop selling us out to appease the selfish, the dishonest, the violent, the corrupt, and the hypocritical. I have a dream that these people, far too many of whom have forgotten that they work for us and not the other way around, would vote for the benefit of the people they are supposed to represent and not for the benefit of the people who are paying them legalized bribes to do otherwise. I have a dream that the Democrats learn how to count and realize that there are a lot more people out here in the US who support healthcare reform than oppose it, and that there are a lot more Democrats than Republicans in the House and Senate.
I have a dream that we as a nation stop pretending it's ok to turn the ideals we claim to hold so dear into just so many empty words.
This may be the defining domestic policy issue of President Obama's first term, and our supposed leaders have let the Republicans play them for fools for too long.
The bipartisan fetishists among the Democrats who have been blocking reform have shown they are incapable of leadership, so it's time they followed or got the hell out of the way. And we're just the sort of people to pressure them into doing the right thing for wrong reasons -- because we didn't leave them with a choice if they want to keep their jobs -- or to replace them with people who will do the right thing for the the right reason -- because it's the right thing to do.
So what can you do to help?
- Donate here to support nyceve's and Jane Hamsher's efforts to keep congresscritters' eyes on the ball.
- Find a townhall meeting near you and attend it -- keep the teabaggers from steeping them with idiocy. And make sure to ask the right questions while you're there.
- Let the good folks at FDL know what happened at your townhall meeting.
- Go to the ActBlue page for those leaders who are actually leading on this issue and reward them for doing the right thing.
In short, just keep doing everything such healthcare heroes as slinkerwink and nyceve have been asking you to do. Some day your children and grandchildren will thank you for it.