Now, I always take these things with a grain of salt, I mean this is America and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. As a student I have always felt an attraction to studying John and Robert Kennedy, and fully feel as if I have inherited the flame of idealism that exists within me from the vision set forth and followed by these two men. I have long believed in their view of our nation and our world, where the masses are lifted up from poverty, foreign policy is determined by strength, mixed with common sense and compassion, and true equality for all is not a political talking point or football, but an honest belief that has been lived out and is reflected in policy.
Which makes the stinging rebuke from a man that has been left to carry on this legacy today particularly painful. Sen. Kennedy has long been one of the leaders in my government that has backed me with his votes on just about every kind of legislation I am for. I guess actually I should apolegize to him for writing this. Those were his brothers, and I guess I don't have the right to try to attach my ideals to the vision these great men have laid down, but they are the very men with vision that made me aspire to even think that I could make a difference in this world, where so many of the things I truly believe in end up as they were, murdered.
Regardless of whether I am right or wrong, I DO believe in the vision for our world that these brave souls, who could've lived out a life of luxury and lived, but instead died too soon left behind. I draw this fire, and it is a fire that burns within me daily, to fight for these things as if they are part of myself from them. It is a legacy I may not have claim to but I feel as if I am part of it.
I also have strong feelings about the things JFK and RFK would consider important now, and how they would approach our modern world. I think another candidate has gotten it right long ago, and has presented a vision worthy to carry on the vision of the long-lost Kennedy Executive Branch. That candidate is John Edwards, and I would present some of his Transformational Change for America and the World speech from March 15, 2007 as proof. Of course it wasn't reported on anywhere, and most but Edwards supporters have forgotten it if they ever saw it. It lays out a modern Kennedy vision for Executive policies and vision:
First, Edwards understands the problems of inequality and injustice in our own land:
Because we have not yet realized the promise of America; we still struggle to live up to the idea. There are still two Americas here at home, one for the powerful and another one for everyone else. And there are two Americas in the world, the America that we aspire to and has been a light to the world, and the one you've seen too often on the news lately.
Here at home, the country with the most advanced health care in the world, we have more Americans without health care – 47 million – not fewer.
In the richest country in the history of the globe, we have more millionaires and more billionaires that ever – but we also have more Americans living in poverty – 37 million people unable to fulfill their basic needs of food and shelter, no matter how many jobs they work – not less.
Edwards would shine a light to the world as Kennedy did, by initiating a whole new kind of leadership:
What we used to call foreign policy has such a profound effect on our everyday lives that there really is no such thing as purely foreign policy anymore. Trade policies affect jobs and wages here and throughout the world. Energy policy affects climate change here and all over the world, and it impacts domestic and foreign security. Poverty is an issue for us here – I could talk about that all day long – but poverty is also an issue directly related to the rise of terrorism and our place in the world economy. A well-known politician from a neighboring state used to say that all politics is local. Today, all policy is local.
We are not going to solve these problems with the usual approaches. These challenges are too big, too connected, and too complicated to be answered with the same old politics of incrementalism. Meeting them requires more than just a new president—it requires an entirely new approach.
Edwards has also unmistakenly drawn much of his inspiration in public service from Robert Kennedy's bold campaign against poverty, as myself and countless other Americans have:
Restoring our moral authority means leading by example, and making clear that hard challenges don't frighten us, but call us to action.
To me, there is no better opportunity to make this clear than the enormous challenge of helping the 37 million Americans who live in poverty.
Maybe you've heard the phrase "it's expensive to be poor." Well, it's also expensive for America to have so many poor.
We all pay a price when young people who could someday find the cure for AIDS or make a fuel cell work are sitting on a stoop because they didn't get the education they need.
And don't think for a second that addressing poverty is charity – addressing poverty makes our workforce stronger and our economy stronger.
That is why I've set a national goal of eliminating poverty in the next 30 years – and laid out a detailed plan to do it by creating what I call a "Working Society," building on what we've learned to create solutions for the future.
In a Working Society, we will reward work with a higher minimum wage, stronger labor laws, and tax credits for working families. We will offer affordable housing near good jobs and good schools, and create a million stepping-stone jobs for people who cannot find work on their own. We will help workers save for the future with new work bonds and homeownership tax credits. And we will all take responsibility for the problem of poverty and not just leave it to government.
By building a Working Society, we won't just try the old solutions and the old politics. Instead, we will work, as a nation, to change fundamentally the culture of poverty itself and create the conditions that allow people to lift themselves up into the middle class.
John Edwards also shows great vision towards the modern global threat of global warming and Energy Independence, much as JFK showed great vision in the threat of nuclear annihilation:
Our domestic problems are intertwined with our global challenges, and nowhere is this truer than at the nexus of global warming and energy independence.
Global warming is a problem that is here, now, and not going away. The United States must lead – lead smart, lead courageously, and lead by example.
It is time to ask the American people to be patriotic about something other than war. We need investments in renewable energy – more efficient cars and trucks – and a national cap on carbon emissions.
By taking personal responsibility for our energy use, we can all reduce our impact on the environment in big ways and small. This week, I announced that we're going to do exactly that in our campaign – our campaign is going to be carbon neutral.
Tackling global warming through responsibility and conservation helps reduce our reliance on foreign oil. And reducing our reliance on foreign oil strengthens our national security. But we won't stop there.
By creating a new energy economy – by transforming our energy infrastructure and investing in research, development and deployment of alternative energy technologies – we can not only address global warming and energy independence, we can create more than a million new jobs in America, and lay the foundation for a secure middle class and a manufacturing base for America in the 21st century.
Edwards also has inherited his vision on dealing with the world upon President Kennedy's strong but compassionate policies which endeared him to most of the world:
When we're serious about moral leadership at home, we have the standing to assert moral leadership in the world.
And I believe we can begin by leading in areas that – at first glance – might not seem directly related to our self-interest. I'm talking about global poverty, primary education. But I believe if you look closely, it's clear that these areas are in fact directly related to our present and future national security.
We know that terrorists thrive in failed states, and in states torn apart by internal conflict and poverty.
And we know that in many African and Muslim countries today, extreme poverty and civil wars have gutted government educational systems.
So what's taking their place? The answer is troubling – but filled with opportunity if we have the courage to seize it.
A great portion of a generation is being educated in madrassas run by militant extremists rather than in public schools. And as a result, thousands and thousands of young people who might once have aspired to be educated in America are being taught to hate America.
When you understand that, it suddenly becomes clear: global poverty is not just a moral issue for the United States – it is a national security issue for the United States. If we tackle it, we will be doing a good and moral thing by helping to improve the lives of billions of people around the world who live on less than $2 per day – but we will also begin to create a world in which the ideologies of radical terrorism are overwhelmed by the ideologies of education, democracy, and opportunity. If we tackle it, we have the chance to change a generation of potential enemies into a generation of friends. Now that would be transformational.
Edwards also presented plans to shine that "moral light" to the world:
As President I would implement a four-point plan to tackle global poverty – and improve the national security of the United States:
First, we would launch a sweeping effort to support primary education in the developing world.
More than 100 million young children have no school at all, denied even a primary education to learn how to read and write. Education is particularly important for young girls; as just one example of the ripple effects, educated mothers have lower rates of infant mortality and are 50 percent more likely to have their children immunized.
As president, I will lead a worldwide effort to extend primary education to millions of children in the developing world by fully funding the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by 2015. The U.S. will do its part by bringing education to 23 million children in poor countries, and we will ask our allies to step up and do the rest. It's not just good for our security; it's good for theirs.
Second, we will support preventive health care in the developing world.
Women and children bear the burden of poverty and disease in the developing world. Women in our poorest countries have a 10% chance of dying during childbirth. More than 10 million children die each year from preventable diseases. Many of these diseases are preventable with clean water and basic sanitation or affordable immunizations.
As president, I will convene a worldwide summit on low-cost investments in clean drinking water and sanitation. Under my plan, the U.S. will increase its investment in clean water six-fold.
Third, we can get to the root of global poverty by increasing opportunity, political opportunity and economic opportunity. Democratic rights allow poor citizens to force their countries to create more progressive laws, fight oppression and demand economic stability. Economic initiatives like microfinance and micro-insurance can spark entrepreneurship, allowing people to transform their own lives.
And fourth, I would appoint an individual in the White House, reporting directly to me, with the rank of a Cabinet member, to oversee all of our efforts to fight global poverty. Despite its importance to our national security, the United States still lacks a comprehensive strategy to fight global poverty. We need to embrace the vision of John F. Kennedy, who recognized that "the Nation's interest and the cause of political freedom require" American efforts to lift up the world's poor.
So while everyone is entitled to their own opinions, Edwards has paid attention to the vision of the world left behind by these two great men. He has done so with more than oratory, but with hard policy, and a challenge much like JFK's to ask not, by asking us to be patriotic about something other than war. This is the spirit to fight for compassion that John and Robert Kennedy died for.
So, I must respectfully completely disagree with Ted Kennedy for one of the few times ever. John Edwards has been consistently and diligently laying down a Kennedy vision with hard policy proposals every step of the way in this campaign. I am just sorry so many of you obviously missed it.
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