John Edwards "Two Americas"

[Jeanette in FL]

For the last two weeks I have listened to the MSN pundits go from "Why didn't they leave", "Why didn't they heed the warnings" to "Why didn't we know that there is so many poor people out there" and "Why didn't we know this" to "This shouldn't happen in America" "What were these people to do"

Hello

Wasn't that John Edward's campaign. From the moment he declared himself a candidate, he spoke about "The Two Americas"

He told us about his humbled beginnings, while the media groaned "Oh, this is where he tells us about his Mother the postal worker and his father a blue collar worker and he was the first one in his family to go to college.

He told us about, the however many millions of children it was that don't have health care, and the media rolled their eyes saying "Here's where he tells us about his son Wade and how they would have been able to do anything necessary to save his life, yet many can not.

He told us about an America that lives one paycheck to the next. Have we forgotten, how many of us were once one paycheck away? I know I was, in fact I was probably about 2 and a half days away. Waitress at that time, depended on the tips of the day. Nothing else will dominate your thoughts if you are poor.

Money is only important unless, you don't have it. Once you can put food on your table and pay your bills on time, money becomes irrelevant.

So there you go media, you failed us once again. The message was out there, but you thought it was more important to know, "Who would I rather have a beer with?"

I want my President to be smarter than me. I want someone who will challange me. I want someone who will make me think.

My dream ticket:

Al Gore/John Edwards

Must be in my cabinet:
Dennis Kucinich
Maxine Waters
Henry Waxman
Cynthia McKenney
John Conyers. *edit to add, smacking my head, how could I have left him off my list

the spirit of Paul Wellstone and Henry Gonzales (TX)

Now off to make my Campaign Slogan and Campaign Song....Pfftt

[AnnInLa]

1. I have never forgotten The Two Americas

People scoffed at this speech. In the deep South, we often see the Two Americas....it's just that the whites close their eyes and pretend the poor blacks don't exist, and the poor whites are "shiftless" but tolerated, barely. IMAGINE

[MadMichDem]

2. Can't have a Cabinet without John Conyers and John Lewis. n/t

[Jeanette in FL]

5. Absolutely correct

I knew there was more that needed to be there. Thank you

[Lancer]

3. I remember too.

It was good to hear John Edwards with Wolf Blitzer on Sunday. He talked about the Two Americas in relation to NOLA. He was worried about Hurricane Ophelia, and told viewers of the impoverished, primarily black towns in eastern NC that are still coming back from Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

He is such an empathetic person, IMO. I remain a big fan of my fellow Tarheel.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

4. Recommended. Edwards framed it so eloquently. Katrina exposed

it so horrifically.


MKJ

[Vox_Reason]

6. You're my kind of Democrat, Jeanette.

Add Conyers to your cabinet and you're gold.

John Edwards has more integrity in his little finger than all of BushCo. Indeed, there are two Americas, as he clearly and correctly pointed out--and he's doing something about it, at his UNC Center for Poverty, Work, and Opportunity:
http://www.law.unc.edu/Centers/details.aspx?ID=425&Q=3

John Edwards is doing something about the poverty recently thrust in our faces during the Katrina debacle. Everything Edwards said during last year's campaign has marched into living rooms across America in vivid color in the last 2 weeks.

John Edwards is too big a man to say "I told you so."

Americans should have the courage to listen to the question he does ask: "What are you going to do about it?"

Let's step up to the plate and answer him, with loud conviction.

It is blatantly immoral for the richest nation in the world to be afflicted with the poverty we face; for tens of millions to be without basic health care; for millions of children to go hungry every day.

It is a blight on our national honor that the poor in this country are so demonized and marginalized, so often by those that selectively quote the Bible and conveniently neglect such key passages as the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount.

Katrina was the wake-up call. It's time to for all of us to answer with the courage of our convictions. John Edwards is out front. Let's get behind him and dedicate ourselves to addressing the scourge of poverty on our society.

[Jeanette in FL]

8. Will add

I can't believe I left him out. Thank you.

[SaveElmer]

7. Nope, nope, nope...

John Edwards was DLC...he is a traitor...didn't you get the memo?

[Jeanette in FL]

9. I think we can send John Edwards the message

or that message.

[newswolf56]

10. Edwards is the one candidate who dares articulate...

the real issue in America today: the class warfare the oligarchy is waging against all the rest of us, in Iraq, in New Orleans and throughout the United States. This -- whether of race or class or both -- is the great divide: between those of us who know the desperate struggle to survive from week to week and from meager paycheck to meager paycheck -- just as you said, "nothing else will dominate your thoughts if you are poor" -- and those others who are either too rich to give a damn or who merely haven't yet been laid low by worsening economic reality and moronically believe (by the process of identifying with the oppressor) they will somehow remain exempt from what is being done to all the rest of us.

Edwards tried to make that point during the 2004 campaign but he was effectively silenced by the haughty bourgeois elite that surrounded Kerry -- a group and caste that is different from Republicans only in that these Democrats are utterly indifferent to working families and the poor while the Republicans are overtly hateful. (Note in this context how even Dean is now actually apologizing for Bush in the wake of New Orleans, claiming on FOX TV last night that Bush is not a racist.)

Edwards was the only candidate who spoke for me in 2004 and is the only candidate who speaks for me now. I join you in prayerful hope he will be our presidential candidate in 2008: if he is, I believe he can launch America toward the resurrection of the New Deal we so desperately need.

[eridani]

13. Not the only candidate

The Two Americas stump speech is great stuff, but Kucinich says those things and also voted against the war and the PATRIOT Act.

[Vox_Reason]

15. Dennis Kucinich is a liberal's liberal.

I'd love to get to meet Mr. Kucinich one day. Another super good guy with LOADS of integrity. Here's where Dennis lays it all out: http://www.kucinich.us/issues/

Read it, learn it, live it!

[newswolf56]

11. By the way, thank you. Recommended.

[Hidden Stillness]

12. No War on Poverty Since the '60s, and So It All Gets Worse

I think John Edwards is the best hope that those of us who actually suffer from this state of poverty, or near it, have had since the days of Lyndon Johnson and the War on Poverty, Sargent Shriver, and that great Administration. Most people do not really want to solve this problem: it is complicated; it will involve returning many, many corporate regulations that have been gutted; trying to raise taxes again on rich people and corporations to pay for needed programs (try it); and returning the whole culture to a less selfish, more long-term concern. For those of us threatened with poverty, increasing every year since Bush's oligarchy, the feeling and sense of America as a "rich democracy," etc., just recedes further and further away. It doesn't even matter what the majority wants, as most people have always supported anti-poverty programs, and still they are cut.

Only someone who really cares about this issue as the centerpiece of an Administration's domestic policy, and who will shape all legislation around it, will make a difference to those who need help and aren't getting it. The whole New Deal fabric is being totally ripped apart, and replaced with poverty.

[1932]

14. Al Gore and John Edwards are extremely different candidates.

Al Gore is extremely supportive of capital. Edwards is extremely supportive of labor.

I don't see the two of them on the same ticket.

[tjdee]

16. Edwards was almost VP pick in 2000.

It was down to he, Lieberman, and Kerry.

And Gore picked the worst of the three. Sigh.

[Inspired]

21. You are right

Edwards was on Gore's short list in 2000.

[libnnc]

17. kick and recommended

I talked about this very thing with a friend of mine yesterday. Edwards was right all along...and it only took a horrible natural disaster in one of the poorest areas in the US to make the media understand :banghead:

[CitrusLib]

18. May I put forth Wes Clark as Secretary of State?

[ultraist]

19. John Edwards speaks to the heart of the Democratic party!

Edwards is an advocate for the poor and working class. He currently is working on helping states raise the minimum wage, supporting and fundraising for local Democrats in several states, working at the UNC Poverty Center and has proposed an intiative to cut out the 'no bid' contractors to rebuild NOLA:

We ought to give them the chance to help through a New America Initiative, modeled after the Works Progress administration, to rebuild a devastated region and offer good-paying jobs and hope to the displaced. Join me and say no to President Bush's failed leadership in a growing call to take this tragedy and turn it into an opportunity. It is not enough to talk about it; we will have to show this Administration that the real leadership means visionary action. You, one by one, can increase the power of the call to action by signing my New America petition: here:http://ga3.org/campaign/new_america

As our poverty rate increases and our middle class shrinks, we need now, more than ever, a populist Democrat who articulates our core values.

John Edwards is a Populist-Leaning Liberal


And most importantly, he is married to Elizabeth. ;)

[AuntiBush]

20. We Share the Same Dream! Al GORE/John EDWARDS

Yes, the true American dream, in deed! "AND" GORE is the rightful President, by, and for the people's vote - 2000!

I dare to dream of what life "would have been like" had GORE been President, as he should have been. Yet, we all know we "can" get our country back on tract, and better then ever if GORE/EDWARDS were in place like "yesterday!"

And that cabinet: Yeah... dang-straight!

So, when does the frog-march begin? Come on Fitzgerald & let's all try to be there on Sept 24-26!

[DaDeacon]

22. Edwards is a PTPer

Prime time player BABY! Edwards prez? Clinton V.P ...2008 come on you Know it's lovely !!!! Big timer !!!!

[VolcanoJen]

23. And that's why I'm still on Johnny Edwards' team.

I'm ready. Is America ready?

[Bozita]

24. C-SPAN should rerun one of Edwards' "Two Americas" speeches

I think folks might listen a bit more closely.