Introducing Edwards: Struggle of working Americans. Started a poverty center at UNC. Joined with grassroots or ganizations to pass min. wage ballot initiatives.Helped unions organize thousands of workers across the country. Campaigned tirelessly on behalf of Dem. candidates, traveling to 39 states. Speaks out for those without a voice, core values of Dem. Party.Why are we are? Why?
We're here because, today, somewhere in America an 8-year-old little girl will go to bed hungry. She should be drawing pictures, but she'll go to be crying because father has lost her job. It doesn't have to be that way.
Somewhere in America there's a housekeeper walking the picket line to try and get decent health care, decent benefits, so that her child can have a better life.
Somewhere in America there's a young man who will have a college acceptance, he'll fold the letter, put it back in the desk because he knows he can't afford it even working three jobs. It doesn't have to be that way.
Somewhere in America a mother will be working in the kitchen, she'll hear a knock at the door - chaplain, officer with the name of her precious son on their lips. Son who volunteered after 9/11 because he loves his country. It doesn't have to be that way.
Today, half a world away a 5-year-old boy will lay in a refugee camp with his 2-year-old sister on top of him. Both watched their parents killed. He knows that he has to keep her close. She's all the family he has left. It doesn't have to be that way.
Somewhere in America, a father will come home from working second shift, feel the fever on his daughter's forehead, sit in the emergency room and beg for the health care that his daughter needs. It doesn't have to be that way.
That's why we're here. Today, people need us to stand up. Will you stand up for that man in the emergency room? (Crowd goes wild). If we don't stand up, who will?
Forty years ago, Martin Luther King spoke at Riverside Church in NY about escalation of Vietnam War. Staying silent is a betrayal of yourself and your country. Silence is betrayal. We cannot stand silent. I believe it is a betrayal for us to not speak out against the escalation of this war in Iraq. Bush knows his escalation will not succeed. We cannot stand by quietly. Silence is a betrayal. Not to stop this President's plan to escalate this war. We cannot be satisfied to pass non-binding resolutions.
President Bush, I've got news for you, you're not the decider, the American people are the decider. The American people are speaking out, our leaders can do no less. Bush is counting on us not to stand up. He's counting on the Dem. Party not to press what we know his right. Silence is betrayal. This is a test of political courage. Bush, Cheney, Rove don't think we have the backbone to stand up to them. They're counting on us to be weak, political, careful. This is not the time for political calculation. We are the only stabilizing force in the world. Chaos that results when we don't provide that stabilization.
We need to speak up about Iraq, but also about what's happening right here in America. One out of five children in poverty. Can we have the backbone and guts to stand up for 37 million people in poverty? Stand up for all these forgotten Americans. We cannot walk away from our people,we cannot walk away from the heart and soul of what the Dem. Party should be. 47 million silent victims of health care system. Can't allow health care policy to be set by big healthcare, big Pharma. Can the Dem. Party stop talking about "access to health care" when we know that doesn't mean universal health care.
It's time we stood up for an energy policy not determined by oil companies, an environmental policy not dictated by polluters. It's time to deal with the huge moral issue of climate change.
Will you speak out? Will you stand up? We are not breaking faith with our forefathers, with our fighting men and women, we are keeping faith with our counry. America is better than this. We are not the country that we saw in the Superdome after Katrina. Not the counry of Abu Ghraib, of a government that spies on its own people. America is better than that.
We are a party of action,not reaction. We are a party of principle, not appeasement. We have to leave behind half measures, broken promises, sweet rhetoric. The time is for action, the time is for courage, do what's right for America. Every single American gets a real chance. Time for our Dem. Party to stand with the people who worked in the factories,worked in the mills. Unions, organized labor. They will right injustice when they see it. I am proud to stand with them.
Will you stand with the men and women of organized labor? It is time to be patriotic about something other than war. Tomorrow begins today. We can take responsibility today. We can take action today. Everywhere in America, people are counting on us to stand up for them. So let's stand together. We have always been the party that stood with working men and women, with the neeedy, frail, elderly. Brothers and sisters, we don't need to redefine the Dem. Party, we need to reclaim the Dem. Party!
(Note: Huge enthusiasm to Edwards' speech. I think Edwards did himself a lot of good today. The woman sitting next to me, the organizer of Yearly Kos, told me that Edwards' speech sent chills up and down her spine.]