From Hagan.Heller@Eng.Sun.COM Wed Aug 12 21:07:26 1992 Return-Path: Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 12:35:17 PDT From: Hagan.Heller@Eng.Sun.COM (Hagan Heller) To: bzs@world.std.com Subject: Kennedy Text of Ted Kennedy's Speech Here is the prepared text of the address Wednesday by Sen Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts to the Democratic Natl Convention: Fellow Democrats and fellow Americans: On behalf of our family, I thank you for this tribute to Robert Kennedy, gone now nearly a quarter of a century, but indelible in memory--a vivid fire that still lights the best and most honorable paths of public life. Those who shared his hopes were a source of great strength for him. And it would be a source of great pride to both my brothers that so many of you here in this convention hall were first brought to politics by their urging and example. You are their living legacy. Their truest history is written in your hearts and in the hearts of people everywhere who refuse to be content with things as they are. Today the ideals which became part of the very fabric of their being are not simply something to remember. Their ideals ask us, beckon us, challenge us once again to do better--to give something back to our country in return for all that it has given to us. After 12 years of wintry indifference at the center of power, it is time to return to the ideal of compassion. We must end the politics of neglecting the needy and then blaming them for their pain. In the 1990s, we must make war against poverty, not war against the poor. We must trust and speak to the best instincts of our people. We must demand an America that helps the homeless, feeds the hungry, breaks the cycle of poverty, and replaces welfare with work--not because these things are easy, but because the fundamental test of our society is how it treats the least powerful among us. An America that does not care is not really America at all. Second, after 12 years of official hostility to minorities and to the majority who are women, it is time to renew the ideals of equality. Our national journey across 2 centuries has been a pilgrimage away >from prejudice. It is our task as Americans to be dissatisfied with discrimination. We must stand, with pride and without apology, for the great unfinished cause of civil rights. We must resume our progress towards a truly free society where people will no longer be oppressed, or held back, or held down because of the color of their skin. We must break the glass ceiling that stretches across our government and our economy, so that at long last, all Americans will be equal in life as well as in law. I believe that women will be a majority of the new senators elected this year. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. And I believe that 1 day, women will also be a majority of the US Senate. We are beginning to end a discrimination against women so ancient and embedded that until this generation it was hardly even noticed or named. We must refuse to go back. We must defend a woman's right to choose. We must defend family values, not by denying women's rights, but by passing family and medical leave. American workers should never be forced to decide between the job they need and the child that they love. All this is part of a long struggle to push back the frontiers of freedom. Along the way, we have learned again and again that equality is a continuing struggle, and that America is a continuing revolution. This means many things, but it surely means that Cabinet posts must be filled on the basis of talent, not sexual orientation. And young Americans should not have to deny who they are, in order to fight and die for their country. Third, after 12 years of false prosperity, recession, and slow decline, we must restore the ideal of economic growth and opportunity for the hard-working people who are the strength and soul of America. We are the best in the world at training bomber pilots. Why can't we be best at training people for 21st-century jobs? We are the best in the world at building smart bombs. Why can't we be best at building the high technology products of the future? It is time to stop wasting our wealth on junk bonds, mergers and speculation. Let's use our resources to reopen college doors to the daughters and sons of the middle class. Let's use our resources to reform public education, without diverting scarce tax dollars to private schools. After WW II, we rebuilt Germany and Japan. Now, in the wake of the Cold war, let us rebuild our own country. And let's begin with the health of our families. No one is immune >from sickness, and almost no one is immune from the rising costs of care. Our fight for health care goes on. And under President Clinton and Vice President Gore, we can, we will win the battle for national health insurance. We also have a stake--all of us--in the survival and revival of our cities. So let's remove the guns and crack from our streets and our schools--and the poison from the air we breathe. In the last half century, we won one of the truly fateful contests of human history. Through it all, the US was an example-and a witness to the world--of what a free society can be. As others turn to us now, we should not be stumbling, adrift, uncertain of our purposes and prospects. The nation that won the Cold War should not and must not lose its own future. I just don't understand how a president--any president--can be out of ideas for action here at home. There is so much to do to continue the American journey--to be worthy of our stewardship, to leave a better life and a better land for our children. So, finally, and fundamentally, after 12 years of calculated division and appeals to fear, we must return to the ideals of common vision and common purpose. Perhaps more than any other leader in memory, my brother Bobby reached across the deepest divides of American life--black activist and blue collar, suburb and city, the young students on campus who protested the war, and the young soldiers drafted to fight it. He taught us that the things which bind us as 1 people are stronger than the things which drive us apart. That is now the greatest single obligation of this party--and the greatest opportunity for our country. I could say many things here in support of Bill Clinton. But there is 1 thing that matters most. He has sought to heal, to oppose hate, to reach across the divides and make us whole again. With Bill Clinton, with Bill Clinton, it is time to reject the politics of slash and burn--the evil politics that makes the face of Willie Horton more important in a national campaign than the face of a hungry child. Bill Clinton understands that government should enlarge, not diminish, the hopes and expectations of an entire generation. Let others offer easy promises and then just as easily break them. Let us offer challenges which will require effort and sacrifice, and which will give our country back its prosperity, its future, and its truth. I have stood with so many of you in so many great causes. The times have changed. But the ideals are the same. We have only just begun to fight. We will never give up. We will never give in. And in 1992, we are going to win. My brothers had every gift but length of years. The years have been left to us--to use them, with all the inevitable setbacks, to accomplish the works of peace and justice. So when the members of our family think of our brothers now, we think of the poet's words: What is precious is never to forget--the names of those who wore at their hearts the fire's centre. Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, and left the vivid air signed with their honour. Now let us, in our journey, give our strength for those who are weak; give our voice to those who are voiceless; give our commitment to the working families who make America work--and whatever the winds of the moment, carry high the banner of hope. Thank you and God bless you.