We Dissent/ Unfinished Business
“It is not enough to allow dissent. We must demand it. For there is much to dissent from.
“We dissent from the fact that millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich.
“We dissent from the conditions and hatreds which deny a full life to our fellow citizens because of the color of their skin.
“We dissent from the monstrous absurdity of a world where nations stand poised to destroy one another, and man must kill their fellow man.
“We dissent from the sight of most of mankind living in poverty, stricken by disease, threatened by hunger and doomed to an early death after a life of unremitting labor.
“We dissent from cities which blunt our senses and turn the ordinary acts of daily life into a painful struggle.
“We dissent from the willful, heedless destruction of natural pleasure and beauty.
“We dissent from all these structures -- of technology and society itself -- which strip from the individual the dignity and warmth of sharing in the common tasks of his community and his nation.”
-- Senator Robert F. Kennedy
I can only speak for myself. I’ve met both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, and like them both. I believe that they are both good and sincere individuals, who honestly believe that they could accomplish the most good for the people of this nation. Still, I support the Sanders campaign. My support for Sanders does not include any dislike of, or disrespect for, Ms. Clinton.
Rather, it is because Bernie Sanders represents the values that have influenced my thinking and behavior throughout the decades of my being involved in social-political activism. When people in the media or the republican party call Sanders’s positions “unrealistic” or “pipe dreams,” I dissent.
Last year, the Pope visited the United States. He spoke about the need for social justice. The concepts he spoke of were much the same as those detailed by Senator Robert Kennedy fifty years ago. It would be easy to dismiss them as unrealistic and pipe dreams. But we also learned that the Pope played a central role in discussions between officials in the United States, and in two of our nation’s “enemies” -- Cuba and Iran. And, as we have seen, these dialogues resulted in very real advances …..advances in some of the very things that Senator Kennedy had spoken of.
These are the same values that America’s greatest prophet, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., fought for. King began his public career struggling for Civil Rights. By the mid-1960s, he expanded his ministry to emphasis economic justice. He understood that there could not be social justice domestically, if the US continued its military approach to foreign affairs. That’s just as true today, as it was in 1968.
The Sanders campaign offers those of us who share these values the best opportunity to advance them. For some of us, they are our ethics; for others, our religious beliefs; and for others, our spiritual reality. Some of us are old, others young; we are male and female; black, brown, red, yellow, and white; we are citizens who believe that Aristotle was correct when he said, “The true nature of anything is what it becomes at its highest.”
We want America to reach its true nature.
“Come, my friends. ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”
-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Peace,
H2O Man
= new reply since forum marked as read
Integrity, sound judgment, and passion.
FEEL THE BERN
FEEL THE BERN 
Well-spoken, intelligent discourse should always be respected and held in the highest esteem.
Thank you for the read and the profoundly well-rounded and thought out position you have taken in your endorsement of Sanders as your candidate.
