This is a very sad day for the tens of millions of us who live below or just above the poverty line. This is a sad day for the millions of us who cannot afford health insurance. This is a sad day for those of us who hope the equality labor unions bring to the American worker will be re-energized. Indeed this is a sad day for those of us who wish to dispel the sickening cowardice of centrism from our party. We are now stuck with the choice within our party of a DLC candidate, and one that has gone to the right of her in a shameless attempt to get elected. Yes, this is a sad day for many reasons.
This is a sad day when we realize once more that a candidate, even in the Democratic Party cannot talk about the 37 million people who live in poverty, and the countless millions more that live just above that line struggling to make ends meet and win. If the Democratic Party will not fight for these people then just who in the hell will? Without John Edwards in this race we are relegated to a nameless, voiceless society that has yet again been spurned and shunned and told we should shut up and fall in behind our media selected rock stars.
This is a sad day because it has been proven yet again that we cannot talk about corporate greed, and fighting them to take our country back. We cannot continue the work RFK gave his life for because we simply have no champion to fight for us. We are again relegated to appeasing and caving in to the interests that insure inequality in our country. We are relegated to running the lesser of two evils and laughing as millions of Democrats hold their nose to vote.
I was afraid all along that this would happen to Edwards. You simply cannot care about those of us who have had no voice in this party or country and win. Our party has drunk the poisoned Kool-Aide of centrism and continually asks for seconds. We simply can't talk about the ideals this party was founded on and win.
So today I am not only sad beyond solace, but I am ashamed. I am ashamed to be a Democrat, when Democrats care little about fighting for the ideals Thomas Jefferson started it to fight for. I am ashamed because my party has sold its soul to the devil and recieved nothing in return. I am ashamed to be an American because once again America confirms that style matters more that substance.
I am, and will remain an EDWARDS Democrat. If the mantle of centrism has taken over the Kennedy vision then I have no claim to it anymore. I was a Kennedy Democrat, now I am an Edwards Democrat. Fighting for what Kennedy died for when everyone else has either forgotten or doesn't care. I have NOT forgotten!!! So before everyone else's supporters celebrate too hard, just remember that history will record that you were led to the water and drank lovingly from the trough that continues to destroy our party.
On this day that Jefferson, Jackson, RFK, and JFK collectively roll over in their graves I affirm this. I will continue to fight as an Edwards Democrat for all the things this party was founded on. I will fight against the centrism that has poisoned this party and primary. Most of the time fighting for what is right is a lonely fight, and I will continue it nonetheless. To my country, party, and all the brave people who have come and gone before me I owe nothing less.
To John and Elizabeth on this sad day for our party and country I would like to end by saying THANK YOU!!! Thank you so much for standing up for people like me and doing it without reserve or shame. You two are heros, true American heros who were underestimated in their day. I hope that you will consider standing up for us again in four more years, because I have little hope now for this fall.
To all my fellow Edwards supporters who have blogged for true hope and change with me for these long months I also say thank you. I wouldn't trade fighting with you for John Edwards for anything.
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