"We
will not let them fool us twice."
2004 Democratic National Convention Speech
By Senator Ted Kennedy
Thank you. Thank you, Bob Caro, for that generous
introduction. With the continuing support of the people
of Massachusetts, I intend to stay in this job until I get
the hang of it.
To my fellow delegates and my fellow Democrats - I've waited
a very, very long time to say this - welcome to my hometown!
To Americans everywhere - whose aspirations have been kindled
anew by this campaign - we, who convene here tonight in liberty's
cradle, say: Welcome home!
Welcome home - for the ideals born in Boston and strengthened
by centuries of service and sacrifice. Ideals like
freedom and equality and opportunity and fairness and common
decency for all - ideals that all Americans yearn to reclaim.
And make no mistake: Come November, reclaim them we
shall - by making John Kerry President of the United States.
These fundamental ideals light the fire in each of us to
do all we can - and then more - to see that next January,
John Kerry has a nice new home - at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It fills me with pride to have our Democratic Convention
in this city - this hallowed ground that gave birth to these
enduring American ideals. Like my grandfather and my
brother before me, I have been privileged to serve this place
where every street is history's home: The Old North Church,
where lanterns signaled Paul Revere; The Old State House,
where John Adams said independence was born; The Golden Steps,
where waves of new immigrants entered this new land of liberty
and opportunity, including all eight of my own great-grandparents
from Ireland.
Here in New England, we love our history, and like all Americans,
we learn from it. We breathe it deep, because it sustains
us, it guides us, it inspires us.
It was no accident that Massachusetts was founded as a commonwealth,
a place where authority belongs not to a single ruler, but
to the people themselves, joined together for the common
good.
The old system was based on inequality. Loyalty was
demanded, never earned. Leaders ruled by fear, by force,
by special favors for the few.
Under that old, unequal system, the quality of your connections
mattered more than the content of your character. Your
voices were not heard. Your concerns did not matter. Your
votes did not count.
The colonists knew they could do better, just as we know
we can do better today - but only if we all work together,
only if we all reach out together, only if we all come together
for the common good.
Now, it is for us, the patriots of this new century to do
that, to shape our own better future and make it worthy of
our past, to choose a leader worthy of our country - and
that leader is John Kerry.
Today, more than two centuries after the embattled farmers
stood and fired the shot heard "round the world," the ideals
of our founders still resonate across the globe. Young people
in other lands - inspired by the liberty we cherish - linked
arms and sang "We Shall Overcome" when the Berlin Wall fell,
when apartheid ended in South Africa, and when the courageous
protests took place in Tiananmen Square.
The goals of the American people are every bit as high as
they were more than 200 years ago. If America is failing
to reach them today, it's not because our ideals need replacing,
it's because our President needs replacing.
We bear no ill will toward our opponents. In fact,
we'd be happy to have them over for a polite little tea party. I
know just the place - right down the road at Boston Harbor.
For today, like the brave and visionary men and women before
us, we are determined to change our government.
I've served for many years in the Senate and have seen many
elections. But there have been none more urgent or more important
than this one. Never before have I seen a contrast
so sharp or consequences so profound as in the choice we
will make for President in 2004.
So much of the progress we once achieved has been turned
back. So much of the goodwill America once enjoyed
in the world has been lost. But we are a hopeful nation,
and our values and our optimism are still burning bright.
Those same values and optimism are what brought our forebears
across a harsh ocean and sustained them through many brutal
winters - that inspired patriots from John Adams to John
Kennedy to John Kerry, and their strong belief that America's
best days are still ahead.
There's a reason why this land was called "the American
experiment." If dedication to the common good were
hardwired into human nature, we would never have needed a
revolution. If each of us cared about the public interest,
we wouldn't have the excesses of Enron. We wouldn't
have the abuses of Halliburton. And Vice President
Cheney would be retired to an undisclosed location.
Soon, thanks to John Kerry and John Edwards, he'll have
ample time to do just that.
Our country demands a great deal from us, and we rightly
demand a great deal from our leaders. America is a
compact, a bargain, a contract. It says that all of us are
connected. Our fates are intertwined. Fifty states,
one nation. Our Constitution binds us together.
Yet in our own time, there are those who seek to divide
us. One community against another. Urban against rural.
City against suburb. Whites against blacks. Men
against women. Straights against gays. Americans
against Americans.
In these challenging times for our country, in these fateful
times for the world, America needs a genuine uniter - not
a divider who only claims to be a uniter.
We have seen how they rule-they divide and try to conquer. They
know the power of the people is weakened when our house is
divided. They believe they can't win, unless the rest
of us lose. We reject that shameful view.
The Democratic Party has a different idea. We believe that
all of us can win. We believe we are one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And when we
say all, we mean all.
Today in this global age, our goal of the common good extends
far beyond America's borders.
As President Kennedy said in 1963 in his quest for restraint
in nuclear arms: "We can help make the world safe for diversity.
For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is
that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the
same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are
all mortal."
Interdependence defines our world. For all our might, for
all our wealth, we know we are only as strong as the bonds
we share with others. The dangers of terrorism and
nuclear proliferation-our greatest challenges - are shared
by all nations. And our greatest opportunities-from
achieving lasting peace and security, to building a more
prosperous society, to ending the ravages of disease and
the despairs of poverty-can all be seized. But only
if the world works together, and only if America helps to
lead in the right direction. And John Kerry has the
skill and the judgment and the experience to lead us on that
great journey.
The eyes of the world were on us and the hearts of the world
were with us after September 11th - until this administration
broke that trust. We should have honored, not ignored, the
pledges we made. We should have strengthened, not scorned,
the alliances that won two World Wars and the Cold War.
Most of all, we should have honored the principle so fundamental
that our nation's founders placed it in the very first sentence
of the Declaration of Independence - that America must give "a
decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind."
We failed to do that in Iraq. More than 900 of our
servicemen and women have already paid the ultimate price. Nearly
6,000 have been wounded in this misguided war. The
administration has alienated long-time allies. Instead
of making America more secure, they have made us less so. They
have made it harder to win the real war on terrorism, the
war against Al Qaeda. None of this had to happen.
How could any President have possibly squandered the enormous
goodwill that flowed to America from across the world after
September 11th?
Most of the world still knows what we can be-what only we
can be-and they want us to be that nation again.
America must be a light to the world, and under John Kerry
and John Edwards, that's what America will be.
We need a President who will bind up the nation's wounds.
We need a President who will be a symbol of respect in a
world yearning to be at peace again. We need John Kerry as
our President.
Time and again in America's history, we as Democrats have
offered new hope - of a stronger, fairer, more prosperous
future for all our people - a society that feeds the hungry,
shelters the homeless, and cares for the sick - so that none
must walk alone.
When the elderly faced poverty and sickness that threatened
their golden years, we created Social Security and Medicare.
When the voices of many citizens went unheard and their
lives were blighted by bigotry, we fought for equality and
justice -for civil rights and voting rights and the rights
of women, for the cause of Americans with disabilities.
When higher education was beyond the reach of veterans returning
home from war, we created the GI Bill of Rights - and we
have continued ever since to make college more affordable
for millions more Americans.
When men and women needed protection in the workplace, we
demanded safe conditions for their jobs. We insisted on the
right to higher pay for working overtime. We guaranteed the
right to form a union. We pledged a fair minimum wage, so
that no one in America who works for a living should have
to live in poverty.
Only leaders who know this history - and abide by the ideals
that shaped it - deserve to be trusted with our nation's
future. Sometimes, as in recent years, they have fooled
us with their rhetoric. But we will not let them fool us
twice.
In the White House, inscribed on a plaque above the fireplace
in the State Dining Room, is a prayer - a simple but powerful
prayer of John Adams, the first president to live in that
great house. It reads: "I pray heaven to bestow the best
of blessings on this house and on all that shall hereafter
inhabit it. May none but [the] honest and wise ever rule
under this roof." In November, we will make those words
ring true again.
All of us who know John Kerry know that he is a fitting
heir to these ideals. I have known John Kerry for three
decades. I have known him as a soldier, as a peacemaker,
as a prosecutor, as a Senator, and as a friend. And
in every role he has shown his strengths. He
was the right man for every tough task and he is the right
leader for this time in history.
John is a war hero who understands that America's strength
comes from many sources - especially the power of our ideas. He
knows that a true leader inspires hope and vanquishes fear.
This administration does neither. Instead it brings
fear. Fear of rising costs for health care and for college
- fear of higher unemployment and lesser pay - fear for the
future of Social Security and Medicare - fear of greater
bigotry - fear of pollution's stain on our magnificent natural
heritage - fear of four more years of dreams denied and promises
unfulfilled and progressed rolled back.
In the depths of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt inspired
the nation when he said, "The only thing we have to fear
is fear itself." Today, we say the only thing we have to
fear is four more years of George Bush.
John Kerry offers hope, not fear. The hope of real
victory against terrorism and true security at home. Of
good health care for all Americans. Of Social Security that
is always there for the elderly. Of schools that open
golden doors of opportunity for all our children. Of
an economy that works for everyone. That's the kind
of America we'll have with John Kerry in the White House.
The roots of that America are planted deep in the New England
soil. Across this region are burial grounds - many so humble
you find them without intending to. You're in a town like
Concord, Massachusetts, or Hancock, New Hampshire. You're
visiting the old church there, and behind the chapel you
find a small plot. Simple stones bearing simple markers. The
markers say "War of 1776."
They do not ask for attention. But they command it
all the same. These are the patriots who won our freedom. These
are the first Americans, who enlisted in a fight for something
larger than themselves-for a shared faith in the future-for
a nation that was alive in their hearts but not yet a part
of their world.
They and their fellow patriots won their battle. But
the larger battle for freedom, justice, equality and opportunity
is our battle too, and it is never fully won. Each new generation
has to take up the cause. Sometimes with weapons in
hand; sometimes armed only with faith and hope, like the
marchers in Birmingham or Selma four decades ago.
Sometimes the fight is waged in Congress or the courts;
sometimes on foreign shores, like the battle that called
one of my brothers to war in the Pacific, and another to
die in Europe.
Now it is our turn to take up the cause. Our struggle is
not with some monarch named George who inherited the crown.
Although it often seems that way.
Our struggle is with the politics of fear and favoritism
in our own time, in our own country. Our struggle-like
so many others before-is with those who put their own narrow
interest ahead of the public interest.
We hear echoes of past battles in the quiet whisper of the
sweetheart deal, in the hushed promise of a better break
for the better connected. We hear them in the cries
of the false patriots who bully dissenters into silence and
submission. These are familiar fights. We've
fought and won them before. And with John Kerry and
John Edwards leading us, we will win them again and make
America stronger at home and respected once more in the world.
For centuries, kings ruled by what they claimed was divine
right. They could not be questioned. They could
not be challenged. The people's fate was not their
own. But today, because of the surpassing wisdom of
our founders, the constant courage of the patriots of the
past, and the shared sacrifice of generations of Americans
who kept the faith, the power of America still rests securely
in citizens' hands. In our hands.
True to our highest and noblest ideals, we intend to use
that power. We will use it wisely and well. We will use it,
in the poet's words my brothers loved, "to strive, to seek,
to find, and not to yield." We will use it to heal, to build,
to hope, and to dream again. And in doing so, we will truly
make our country once more America the Beautiful.
Thank you very much.
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