President Pork Pierre Tristam/Candide’s Notebooks,
“The House and Senate bills have too much pork,” President Bush declared on Wednesday, referring to the latest “supplemental” spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pork? Let’s see. The bill is a monstrosity. No question about that: $122 billion to finish off the year’s fighting — and raise the cost of the wars this year alone to $200 billion, or $3.8 billion a week, or, essentially, $500 million a day. Put aside for now the demonstrated futility of it all. Let’s just take that $500 million a day, most of it in Iraq, some of it to feed Halliburton’s various frauds as it pretends to feed, clothe and toilet the troops, and compare the $500 million a day to what Bush calls Pork. According to a Times blog, the entire porkish amount adds up to some $5.5 billion, $4.2 billion of which being agricultural supports, and $640 million for something called “LIHEAP.” Hmmm. Sounds suspicious. Let’s see.
Let me begin by saying thanks to Tony Owens for filling in for me & reading my speech Sunday, and all of you who organized this event. I'd also like to thank my wife and Sarah Willis for helping to promote this wonderful gathering.
I was asked to come here and talk about the issues with you, the issues as Mr. Obama sees them. I having been trying to find clever ways to recite words you can find on a website to no avail. So I'm just going to ask you a questions and let you figure out the answers for yourself.
I ask you, are you better off right now than you were eight years ago.
I remember hearing Bill Clinton say this at the 2000 Convention, but unlike President Clinton, I'm not going to answer this for you.
Are you better off now, is the world a better place, are you safer when you sleep, is this a time where you are proud to raise your children, are neighbors more like a family then people who just live on the same street?
There are many people who want to answer this question for you,
those who wish to push their wills and ideas upon on the public
serving only opinion and calling it fact
now I am not one of these people.
I am not here to tell you what to feel or think,
What I want is simple and it's for you to go on
From this event with an investigative spirit,
one that questions before it believes.
Now when you turn of your talk radio and Rush or Fraken are silenced,
when the Television is off and our nightly reminders of the evil among us is over,
when you lie your head upon your pillow before sleep,
ask yourself,
am I better off now than I was 8 eight years ago.
We live in an every changing world,
with partisans and pundits,
drive by medias and boosters of bias,
I know it can all get just a little too loud.
With so much stimulus, with so much activity,
different people trying to tell us what to believe and when to believe it,
I understand how most people can turn the channel or move to the arts and entertainment section instead of being reminded of the problems facing us.
We live in a time of so many lights and screens and LCDs that everything becomes blinding and at the end of the day all we can see are the very few things directly in front of us, like our family, our pocket books. We live in a time were a few wish to change the minds of the many, to believe as they believe, to feel as they feel. That's why I'm not going to speak about issues to you.
Are You better off now?
In these tumultuous times we have many problems.
We have numerous wars on numerous fronts,
the rate that many of us face in rent is rising
but the rate of pay is not.
We are paying more for gas,
for power,
for Internet access
all things necessary in our changing times.
Our schools look more like prisons than places of higher learning.
Our citizen still face oppression disguised as issues of states rights.
Our hero's are entering rehab or being released from jail.
All these problems we face together are being used to divide us,
shown to us over and over, interpreted and spun
on the all media outlets.
We are told we are many separate Americas
and this creates the fear needed to create followers,
but there is a man running today
a man who tells us this is not true
that there is no black or white America
only the Untied states, only our union.
My grandfather used to tell me that there is no shame in failed ideas;
only the refusal to admit our failures carries shame.
Weather it's the war on terror or the war on drugs or the war on difference,
Our government is refusing to admit its failures,
declining to try new directions and accept new lifestyles
because they didn't think they up
or because they don't approve.
It's easy to be become cynical,
it's easy to be become jaded
because the aforementioned are easier to swallow than any form of shame.
Robert Green Ingersoll said
"The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart."
I bring this up because heart is completely necessary for hope.
The heart has an obligation and self-interest in being full partners with hope,
It cannot wait for other abstracts to act first.
Without heart we can't find the strength to roll up our sleeves
and push forward in front of looming obstacles,
we can't get hit hard and continue moving towards a promised progress,
towards a better tomorrow not only for us and our families, but for all Americans. We can not lose heart,
we can not welcome into our lives indifference
if we want hope to have any chance in a cynical society.
Dr, Martin Luther King Jr. once said
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. Everywhere I go I hear people losing hope,
I see it everywhere I go and this worries me.
When hope is lost, we are left with only indifference,
with selfishness, and the need to place blame.
It is only in Hope that we can conquer shame,
only hope can bring us together as one union,
indivisible, where justice for all is possible
where we can see passed phenotypes and gender and sexuality,
with hope the future is nothing but infinite progress.
Mr. Obama has spent much time talking about the audacity hope
and I want to second that idea,
the bravado we must have to wish for a better tomorrow,
what tenacity to put our shoulders to the wheel of status quo
and push it towards something different, towards liberty.
I believe, no I feel, in the deepest realms of my being,
that Senator Obama is the man to lead us
from the pits of two minute sound bit issues and solution spin
towards the round table of bi-partisan conversation and compromise.
He urges us to not only let hope into our hearts
but to spread it around like gossip,
to our neighbors, friends, family, community,
to the world.
Senator Obama reminds us of the genius
our founders showed by designing a system of government that can be changed and that in the face of impossible odds,
people who love their country can change it.
He reminds us to have heart
in the face of all our obstacles, he reminds us of hope.
As a people, we are faced with many important decisions,
Some of us have children going to war, some have them going to college,
There is the rent and food and clothing,
But none more important than the one we choose to led us.
Into the fire and into the fight, the one we choose
Must come with the answer to my question,
Are we truly better off now than eight years ago
They must re-sew the fractured fabric Of the American dream
and return it to the many and not the select few,
because that is what makes this country great
and I quote Senator Obama
If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read,
that matters to me, even if it's not my child.
If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription
and has to choose between medicine and the rent,
that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother.
If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process,
that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief "I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper" that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams,
yet still come together as a single American family.
"E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.
The end of this road is far off.
Most Americans haven't even given this race much thought,
so I salute all of you here today.
It is not only our responsibility, it is our job to give this decision,
the decision of who should be president of these united states,
it's due diligence, to read and listen, to question and investigate.
I urge everyone to go home and read the about the issues
set forth by not only Senator Obama, but all the candidates,
I urge you to make up your own mind.
Until these races end,
people are going to try and sway you towards one side or another
and that is not what I hope to achieve today,
though I'd pleased to see a million Obama tee-shirts
in St. Johns and Flagler county.
I hope that after hearing my words,
you go back into your homes
and ask yourself am I better off today
and after doing so explore the issues and solutions before you
find one that suits your own morality, your own heart.
I'd like to end with a quote of Senator Obama.
In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?
