Just taking a moment to say...

...that some of us have been talking about values for some time. This is an excerpt from, actually the final part of, a speech I gave at my one major campaign rally when I ran for Congress way, way back in 1984. You could call it my major policy address. Because of the date, some of the references are a little dated but after thinking (and having a rethink) about it I decided to post it because I still stand by the sentiments. Consider it now my own statement of values.

Our heritage as a people includes a great many idealistic values like compassion, tolerance, and decency. But our leaders usually appeal to the worst in heritage: to selfishness, suspicion, competitiveness, to "what's in it for me." I think we're better than our leaders give us credit for and it's time we had government that speaks to the highest of our ideals instead of the lowest of our fears.

There followed a list of policy proposals with the theme "we can show our commitment to" ending the arms race, economic justice, the environment, racial and sexual justice at home, and political justice abroad by adopting the ideas presented. I've omitted them both for space reasons and because many were specific to that campaign - but note they were presented as in service to certain principles. I continued:

Our leaders don't understand that. The appeal of Reagan, and to a smaller but still considerable extent the Democrats, is to selfishness: what the British call "I'm-all-right-Jack." They want you to think of just yourselves in isolation: You're working, you're not hungry, your mortgage hasn't been foreclosed, so the hell with everybody else. They speak of family but it's a tight, constricted, limited view; a soulless, cold, isolated vision that sees little tiny groups of people in constant struggle against all the other little tiny groups, looking always to protect their turf against outsiders.

I want you to know that the concept of family is as precious to me as it is to all the Falwells, all the Reagans, all the Ferraros. But I have a different vision of family, a broader vision, a deeper vision, a vision based on commitment, not just on ceremonies, based on ties of the heart, not just on ties of the blood. There are people here tonight who are every bit as much a part of my family as any blood relation could ever be: people like [some people named] and others who I know will understand when I don't take the time to mention all of them.

But our leaders don't understand that vision. That's why they speak of the personal but never of the public; of self but never others; of us and them but never we; of family but never of community. No, never of community. In fact, they're afraid to talk of community, because that means to talk of social obligations, of moral commitments to a type of extended family that goes far beyond the Reaganites' circumscribed view: a community that includes strangers, people who you'll never see, never meet, never have any contact with, but with who you share a mutual obligation, a mutual moral duty, a community extending even to the community of humanity.

Now I may sound like a philosopher, but the fact is that what I'm interested in is change: not slogans, not philosophies, but getting-the-job-done type change. That means being hard-nosed, practical, and factual in our programs. It was the Italian pacifist Danilo Dolci who said "Faith does not move mountains. Work, exacting work, moves mountains."

But when I say "practical," I don't mean practical in the sense of the neoliberals, those people who lower their sights, harden their hearts, darken their vision, and then congratulate themselves on their realism. No, I mean something different. You know the saying "I dream dreams of things that never were and ask 'Why not?'" What we have to do is dream dreams of things that never were and ask "How?" How? What are the practical steps we can take right now, today? We have to approach the world with steel in our eyes.

But at the same time we can't let the steel in our eyes cloud the dream in our hearts. We have to hold to the vision of what we as a people, what we as a nation, can do, what we can be, and not settle, as so many do, for the mere hope that it will get no worse. So that's what I call on you, all of you, to be: steely-eyed dreamers, people who know the hard, factual work to be done but never forget just where that work is supposed to take them.

What I ultimately reject is the right of so few to have so much when so many have so little; what I ultimately resist is the power of so few to control so much when so many control so little. What I ultimately affirm is the right of every human being to a decent life free of hunger, fear, and oppression; what I ultimately demand from our society is the effort to guarantee that right. I've no desire to place a ceiling over anyone's aspirations, but I do intend to put a floor under everyone's needs.

Because compassion is not a cliche; it's a requirement of our humanity. Decency isn't for case-by-case convenience but must be a basic social tenet. And justice is not a prerogative of the powerful but a basic human right and it must be protected as such.

And there, there in that one word, lies the dream, a dream that reaches to the depths of the human dream. We don't dream of perfection, of idealized utopias, but of justice. Simple justice. Human justice. Justice in its truest sense: economic, social, and political. A justice that rejects the ascendancy of bombs over bread, of private greed over public good, of profits over people. A justice that centers on the preciousness of life and will fight to maintain and even expand that preciousness.

That dream is there for us, and if we can but have the courage to hold to that dream, to take risks for it, to look to the future, together we can do it. It won't be easy. It won't be cheap. And it won't be convenient. But it is possible - and, after all is said and done, it's simply the right thing to do..

And that's my pledge to you, here, tonight: to live that dream as best as I can, to hold to it, to work for it, in Congress, out of Congress, in public, in private, in groups, on my own, for the rest of my life. Because I'll never give up on that dream. Never.

I'll leave it to others who actually know me and my life, not superficially or by reputation but actually, to judge how well I have kept that pledge. But whatever my failings in that regard may be or have been, I still say that overall, on matters of morality and principle, what we on the left propose is simply the right thing to do. And we damned well should make a point of saying so.