Howard Dean spoke to the National Baptist Comvention today in Miami. He said the words that needed to be said about the situation in New Orleans.
“The question, 40 and 50 years after Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, is: `How could this still be happening in America?’ ” Dean said, later adding: “We have not swept poverty away in this nation. We have simply swept it under the rug.”
He went on to say that Republicans were more interested in repealing the inheritance tax for the wealthiest Americans than hurricane relief. The estimated $750 billion cost of the tax cut, he said, would be better spent rebuilding the battered Gulf Coast.
He then had several more powerful quotes.
Yet he repeatedly sought to lay claim to the so-called “morals” issue that some pollsters suggested cost Democrats the presidency in 2000. Moral issues, the new Democratic chief said, should apply to poverty and universal health insurance – not abortion and gay marriage – two issues with which some conservative black clergy side with the GOP.
“The moral choices in America are not about hot-button social issues that get everybody mad,” Dean said. “Moral choices are about making sure that folks don’t drown at a nursing home before they can get evacuated.”
Dean didn’t outright criticize the pace of federal recovery efforts – as other Democrats did Wednesday with vehemence – but he suggested that GOP priorities have made a bad situation worse.
“Americans deserve better from their leaders,” he said in remarks prepared for delivery.”
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/12584462.htm
Bravo!
When the heck will voters figure out the difference between real Democratic morals, and fake Republican ones?
First off, all sides have to agree man has free will. Man can choose to do the moral thing without the prodding of the govt.
Now, if your so immoral you need the govt to run your spiritual life, how the hell can you call yourself a Christian?
Christ shared the gospels through teaching and example, not through lobbying Ceasar to have the Centurians…
Damn Republican pharisees. Damn clergy who can’t see the difference, and can’t do their own jobs of spreading the faith without aid of govt.
Thanks, floridagal.
I haven’t “heard” Howard’s voice in a while. The only time the MSM quotes him is when they can take something out of context and sensationalize it.
The way he is able to combine competence, power and compassion truly inspires me.
I still find myself wishing he was president.
Moral issues, the new Democratic chief said, should apply to poverty and universal health insurance – not abortion and gay marriage – two issues with which some conservative black clergy side with the GOP.
“The moral choices in America are not about hot-button social issues that get everybody mad,” Dean said. “Moral choices are about making sure that folks don’t drown at a nursing home before they can get evacuated.”
This is why I love Howard Dean. He speaks the obvious, glaring, damning truth when noone else has the balls to.
For republicans and social conservatives ‘morality’ would be forcing the women raped at the NO Dome to carry the consequences of that rape to term and deny those same women the ability to feed and clothe herself or the actual living child. For social conservatives the ‘moral’ statement would be rationalizing the horrific situation along the Gulf Coast by seeing it as punishment for homosexuals in NO and a fetus in the shape of the hurricane eye. If this is ‘faith’ I want nothing to do with it.
If the Democratic leadership cannot grasp that they are confronted with a genuine moral issue in our societies treatment of the poor then we need to find a different leadership. And today the Senate Republicans are trying to cut funding for food stamps.