Two more US soliders died in Iraq last night. For
what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three Stooges
Reich...Meanwhile, for the third consecutive night,
the Democratic Party's all-out assault on the failed
_residency of George W. Bush, i.e. the Bush
abomination, continued unrelentingly -- for the rescue
of our military personnel stranded in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the restoration of the US Constitution
and the redemption of America's soul...
Al Sharpton (D-Hood): We are here 228 years after
right here in Boston we fought to establish the
freedoms of America. The first person to die in the
Revolutionary War is buried not far from here, a black
man from Barbados, named Crispus Attucks...
We are also faced with the prospect of in the next
four years that two or more of the Supreme Court
Justice seats will become available. This year we
celebrated the anniversary of Brown v. the Board of
Education.
This court has voted five to four on critical issues
of women's rights and civil rights. It is frightening
to think that the gains of civil and women rights and
those movements in the last century could be reversed
if this administration is in the White House in these
next four years.
I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had
selected the court in '54, Clarence Thomas would have
never got to law school...
Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if
both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this
far playing political games. It was those that earned
our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights
Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act
under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under
Democrats.
Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to vote wasn't gained because of our age. Our vote was soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of four little girls in Birmingham. This vote is sacred to us.
This vote can't be bargained away.
This vote can't be given away.
Mr. President, in all due respect, Mr. President, read
my lips: Our vote is not for sale.
Thwart the Theft of a Second Presidential Election,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/28/dems.sharpton.transcript/index.html
Sharpton answers Bush in speech
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- The Rev. Al Sharpton
brought down the house with a passionate speech to
Democratic National Convention delegates about what's
wrong with the Bush administration and how Sen. John
Kerry will help fulfill America's promise. This is a
transcript of his remarks:
Thank you.
Tonight I want to address my remarks in two parts.
One, I'm honored to address the delegates here.
Last Friday, I had the experience in Detroit of
hearing President George Bush make a speech. And in
the speech, he asked certain questions. I hope he's
watching tonight. I would like to answer your
questions, Mr. President.
To the chairman, our delegates, and all that are
assembled, we're honored and glad to be here tonight.
I'm glad to be joined by supporters and friends from
around the country. I'm glad to be joined by my
family, Kathy, Dominique, who will be 18, and Ashley.
We are here 228 years after right here in Boston we
fought to establish the freedoms of America. The first
person to die in the Revolutionary War is buried not
far from here, a black man from Barbados, named
Crispus Attucks.
Forty years ago, in 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer and the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party stood at the
Democratic convention in Atlantic City fighting to
preserve voting rights for all America and all
Democrats, regardless of race or gender.
Hamer's stand inspired Dr. King's march in Selma,
which brought about the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Twenty years ago, Reverend Jesse Jackson stood at the
Democratic National Convention in San Francisco,
again, appealing to the preserve those freedoms.
Tonight, we stand with those freedoms at risk and our
security as citizens in question.
I have come here tonight to say, that the only choice
we have to preserve our freedoms at this point in
history is to elect John Kerry the president of the
United States.
I stood with both John Kerry and John Edwards on over
30 occasions during the primary season. I not only
debated them, I watched them, I observed their deeds,
I looked into their eyes. I am convinced that they are
men who say what they mean and mean what they say.
I'm also convinced that at a time when a vicious
spirit in the body politic of this country that
attempts to undermine America's freedoms -- our civil
rights, and civil liberties -- we must leave this city
and go forth and organize this nation for victory for
our party and John Kerry and John Edwards in November.
And let me quickly say, this is not just about winning
an election. It's about preserving the principles on
which this very nation was founded.
Look at the current view of our nation worldwide as a
results of our unilateral foreign policy. We went from
unprecedented international support and solidarity on
September 12, 2001, to hostility and hatred as we
stand here tonight. We can't survive in the world by
ourselves.
How did we squander this opportunity to unite the
world for democracy and to commit to a global fight
against hunger and disease?
We did it with a go-it-alone foreign policy based on
flawed intelligence. We were told that we were going
to Iraq because there were weapons of mass
destruction. We've lost hundreds of soldiers. We've
spent $200 billion dollars at a time when we had
record state deficits. And when it became clear that
there were no weapons, they changed the premise for
the war and said: No, we went because of other
reasons.
If I told you tonight, "Let's leave the FleetCenter,
we're in danger," and when you get outside, you ask
me, Reverend Al, "What is the danger?" and I say, "It
don't matter. We just needed some fresh air," I have
misled you and we were misled.
We are also faced with the prospect of in the next
four years that two or more of the Supreme Court
Justice seats will become available. This year we
celebrated the anniversary of Brown v. the Board of
Education.
This court has voted five to four on critical issues
of women's rights and civil rights. It is frightening
to think that the gains of civil and women rights and
those movements in the last century could be reversed
if this administration is in the White House in these
next four years.
I suggest to you tonight that if George Bush had
selected the court in '54, Clarence Thomas would have
never got to law school.
This is not about a party. This is about living up to
the promise of America. The promise of America says we
will guarantee quality education for all children and
not spend more money on metal detectors than computers
in our schools.
The promise of America guarantees health care for all
of its citizens and doesn't force seniors to travel to
Canada to buy prescription drugs they can't afford
here at home.
The promise of America provides that those who work in
our health care system can afford to be hospitalized
in the very beds they clean up every day.
The promise of America is that government does not
seek to regulate your behavior in the bedroom, but to
guarantee your right to provide food in the kitchen.
The issue of government is not to determine who may
sleep together in the bedroom, it's to help those that
might not be eating in the kitchen.
The promise of America that we stand for human rights,
whether it's fighting against slavery in the Sudan,
where right now Joe Madison and others are fasting,
around what is going on in the Sudan; AIDS in Lesotho;
a police misconduct in this country.
The promise of America is one immigration policy for
all who seek to enter our shores, whether they come
from Mexico, Haiti or Canada, there must be one set of
rules for everybody.
We cannot welcome those to come and then try and act
as though any culture will not be respected or treated
inferior. We cannot look at the Latino community and
preach "one language." No one gave them an English
test before they sent them to Iraq to fight for
America.
The promise of America is that every citizen vote is
counted and protected, and election schemes do not
decide the election.
It, to me, is a glaring contradiction that we would
fight, and rightfully so, to get the right to vote for
the people in the capital of Iraq in Baghdad, but
still don't give the federal right to vote for the
people in the capital of the United States, in
Washington, D.C.
Mr. President, as I close, Mr. President, I heard you
say Friday that you had questions for voters,
particularly African- American voters. And you asked
the question: Did the Democratic Party take us for
granted? Well, I have raised questions. But let me
answer your question.
You said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln
and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln
signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which
there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule.
That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations
starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way
to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres.
We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this
donkey as far as it would take us.
Mr. President, you said would we have more leverage if
both parties got our votes, but we didn't come this
far playing political games. It was those that earned
our vote that got our vote. We got the Civil Rights
Act under a Democrat. We got the Voting Rights Act
under a Democrat. We got the right to organize under
Democrats.
Mr. President, the reason we are fighting so hard, the
reason we took Florida so seriously, is our right to
vote wasn't gained because of our age. Our vote was
soaked in the blood of martyrs, soaked in the blood of
Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner, soaked in the blood of
four little girls in Birmingham. This vote is sacred
to us.
This vote can't be bargained away.
This vote can't be given away.
Mr. President, in all due respect, Mr. President, read
my lips: Our vote is not for sale.
And there's a whole generation of young leaders that
have come forward across this country that stand on
integrity and stand on their traditions, those that
have emerged with John Kerry and John Edwards as
partners, like Greg Meeks, like Barack Obama, like our
voter registration director, Marjorie Harris, like
those that are in the trenches.
And we come with strong family values. Family values
is not just those with two-car garages and a
retirement plan. Retirement plans are good. But family
values also are those who had to make nothing stretch
into something happening, who had to make ends meet.
I was raised by a single mother who made a way for me.
She used to scrub floors as a domestic worker, put a
cleaning rag in her pocketbook and ride the subways in
Brooklyn so I would have food on the table.
But she taught me as I walked her to the subway that
life is about not where you start, but where you're
going. That's family values.
And I wanted somebody in my community -- I wanted to
show that example. As I ran for president, I hoped
that one child would come out of the ghetto like I
did, could look at me walk across the stage with
governors and senators and know they didn't have to be
a drug dealer, they didn't have to be a hoodlum, they
didn't have to be a gangster, they could stand up from
a broken home, on welfare, and they could run for
president of the United States.
As you know, I live in New York. I was there September
11th when that despicable act of terrorism happened.
A few days after, I left home, my family had taken in
a young man who lost his family. And as they gave
comfort to him, I had to do a radio show that morning.
When I got there, my friend James Entome (ph) said,
"Reverend, we're going to stop at a certain hour and
play a song, synchronized with 990 other stations."
I said, "That's fine."
He said, "We're dedicating it to the victims of 9/11."
I said, "What song are you playing?"
He said "America the Beautiful." The particular
station I was at, the played that rendition song by
Ray Charles.
As you know, we lost Ray a few weeks ago, but I sat
there that morning and listened to Ray sing through
those speakers, "Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for
amber waves of grain, for purple mountains' majesty
across the fruited plain."
And it occurred to me as I heard Ray singing, that Ray
wasn't singing about what he knew, because Ray had
been blind since he was a child. He hadn't seen many
purple mountains. He hadn't seen many fruited plains.
He was singing about what he believed to be.
Mr. President, we love America, not because all of us
have seen the beauty all the time.
But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on
marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on
believing, we would make America beautiful for
everybody.
Starting in November, let's make America beautiful
again.
Thank you. And God bless you.
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http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/28/dems.sharpton.transcript/index.html