Reply to yet another Negative Kerry Post

[TayTay]

I posted this earlier today in response to yet another negative Kerry thread. What do you folks think:

It was never about John Kerry. People placed heart and hope and time and effort into this race because they sincerely believed that America is headed down the wrong road. Kerry was a good nominee, but he is not the message, he was the 2004 messenger.

There are still people who have no idea where their next meal is coming from in America. There are still children who have no health care and whose parents can't find a job with decent benefits. We just saw a news interview wherein our guys, our troops in Iraq have to go out and scavenge in dumps in order to get some armor for their vehicles. We have small towns in America that are closing schools and services because they have no opportunities that beckon young familes to stay. We can't eat the fish we catch because the fish have too much mercury in them. And so on and so on.

The message, as it always, always does, exceeds the messenger. I am not a Democrat because I supported John Kerry. (Or Howard Dean or John Edwards, etc.) I worked for them because they promised to work for America. Because I thought it actually bothered them that we have homeless Veterans who can't get services and that this is wrong. And the Democrats told me that we should be helping more people get Pell grants and go to school because education matters and helps get people out of poverty. And that it is morally wrong to deny a kid health care because their parents can't afford it. And so much more that show America can be better and we can work toward that greater goal.

And I believed them. And I still believe them. The messenger is always imperfect and full of human faults. But the message is still there, ready for the next messenger to pick it up and start running with it. And I'm going to be there and contribute everything I can to help that person. Because the message matters, what I do to support it matters, and the needs of others matter. It's the genuine soul of the Democratic Party and it might get a bit muddled from time to time, but it's there and I supoort it with all my heart. It's bigger than one election and I won't let any defeat be permanent. America demands that much from me. And I will demand that much from any future messengers.

Was this an okay thing to post?

[sandnsea]

1. A very okay thing to post

We have faced challenges before, as Democrats, and there were always people to pick up the torch and carry on.


A Message From ADA President Jim McDermott
-
LIBERALISM IS A DEMANDING FAITH

In January 1947, when John Kenneth Galbraith, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, Reinhold Niebuhr and 200 other activists gathered together to form Americans for Democratic Action, they faced challenging times. The gains of the New Deal were threatened and a rampant anti-communist vitriol was emerging that would climax under Wisconsin's Senator Joe McCarthy leadership in the coming years.

The activists who gathered in Washington then were a determined group. They knew the challenges they faced but they were ready and willing to "light a candle rather than curse the darkness." The founding statement they issued declared that where individuals are faced with hardship and the fear of war, "political freedom may all too easily be compromised and deformed." "Demagogues," they said, "will step in and offer security in exchange for a liberty that has lost its meaning."

The results portend a difficult future for liberals, yet we rise today, on November 3, to say that - like ADA's founders - we are a determined group. Yes, as our founders stated, "Liberalism is a demanding faith." But, we are ready to meet its demands.

Beginning today, we will fight the battles we know will confront us over the next few years to preserve our constitutional rights. We must declare loudly that we are liberals and cede no territory to the forces of bigotry. This year, we fought on jobs, the economy and the war on terror. We will continue that battle with all our strength and we will declare that civil liberties and civil rights are the hallmark of a great democracy. We will look ahead to November 2006 and begin laying the groundwork for a victory that we know can be ours.

Despite the odds, we will fight judicial nominees who think their personal, extremist ideology trumps the law. We will fight the fights we fought this year and we will remind people that we are unwilling to exchange a spurious security for a "liberty that has lost its meaning." Those who would strip others of their basic rights must and will be confronted and we will do so unflinchingly.

We ask you to take only a few minutes to lick your wounds. And, we ask each and every one of you to join us in the fight for the future.

Liberalism is, indeed, a demanding faith. It's a challenge - with your help and support - we will meet.

Fight on,

Jim McDermott
ADA President
http://www.adaction.org/

Sorry if I've posted this before, but it is very meaningful to me in light of the fact that a few of us chose www.lightupthedarkness.org before we'd ever seen this. We have to keep moving forward, lighting candles along the way.

[JI7]

2. great post, one of the reasons i supported Kerry from the start

is because he is very good on those issues which make me a democrat in the first place.

but those issues , the message etc are still there. no matter who wins,loses etc. and they are things Kerry will continue to fight for no matter what position he is in.