On August 15, Howard Dean gave a speech to the Iron Workers International Convention, and it was aired on C-SPAN. I was able to record most of it, and have posted the first part of the transcript here. What I share below is the conclusion of that speech.
Alert readers will notice that this photo does not show Howard Dean at the Iron Workers’ Convention. It’s from a rally in Columbus, Ohio in 2004. But I really wanted to include a picture. 😉 (And it does show him giving a speech.)
So we are going to take this country back to the direction where everybody matters. We’ve talked about the deficits and the misadventures in foreign policy, and the Republicans wanting to run on fear. And we’ve had enough of fear, and we’ve had enough of corruption in this country. This time we’re going to stand up for who we are. For positive idears. For a new direction for America.
But, the greatest damage that the Republicans and this president have done to America is not the war in Iraq, it’s not the enormous deficit, it’s not the incompetence with which they responded to Katrina. The most damage that this Republican administration has done to us, is they’ve divided us. They’ve turned us into “us” and “those people”. There are no “those people”–they’re just Americans. They are working Americans of every size, shape, and color. They’re just Americans.
The biggest mistake this president has made out of a long litany of mistakes, is that he fundamentally turned his back on anybody who disagreed with him. Now, when I was governor, I used to say, publicly and loudly, that everybody was my boss. If you were a conservative Republican and you’d voted against me, you were still my boss, because you participated in the process, and some of your taxpayer money went to pay my salary and the salary of the administration.
To have a president who goes to a town meeting and exclude anybody who has a bumper sticker or who has given any money to a Democrat, anybody who might disagree with him, is a president of only half the nation. We need a president and a party that believes in everybody. That believes that everybody’s got something good to say, regardless of whether they’re a Republican or a Democrat, or a conservative or a liberal–that we’re all in this together again.
And so the most important new direction that America can take, is not only a strong defense backed by telling the truth, and American jobs that will stay here in America, and to fix the healthcare mess and to stop the war on the middle class. The most important new direction that we can lead in, is a new direction which includes everybody, including those people who did not agree with us. The fact of the matter is, the greatest times for America have been those times when we’re all in it together.
And this time, we really are going to take back this country for the people who built it, and that is you. Thanks very much. (Applause).
and he does say “idears” too.
I always leave in that “r” when I transcribe. 😉
…
Taking a page from Howard Dean, and borrowing one of his favorite expressions, “No, thank you Howard Dean!”
And, by the way, if anyone would like to wish my husband a belated happy birthday, you can do so here
http://bmgbiz.net/demetrius.html
He will, after all, be getting a belated cake. 😉
Thanks Renee, I just finished reading Dean’s book “You Have The Power: How to take back our country and restore democracy in America.” It is an inspiring and sensible summary of recent history. I would recommend it to anyone who has been down on the Democratic party.
The way I see it is that just as there is a fight going an underground between the “neo-cons” and the “realists” in the Republican Party, there is an underground fight going on between Dean and the DCCC/DSCC/DLC in the Democratic Party. I want to do all I can to make sure Dean “wins” that one. The outcome is likely to determine whether I continue to call myself a Democrat.
“The most important new direction that we can lead in, is a new direction which includes everybody, including those people who did not agree with us.”
Howard. Does that include?
“According to federal statistics gathered by the Sentencing Project, only 13 percent of monthly drug users of all illegal drugs–defined as those who use a drug at least once a month on a regular basis–are black, about their proportion of the population. But 37 percent of drug-offense arrests are black; 53 percent of convictions are black; and 67 percent of all people imprisoned for drug offenses are black. Adding in Latinos, about 22 percent of all monthly drug users are black or Latino, but 80 percent of people in prison for drug offenses are black or Latino. Even in presumptively liberal New York State, 92 percent of all inmates who are there for drug offenses are black or Latino.” Drug Busts=Jim Crow by Ira Glasser
I’ll bet not.
Almost a year ago, in an act of extreme frustration over the Katrina debacle, I e-mailed our President and told him in no uncertain terms, that he might be considered the President of the United States, but I would never consider him my President. Obviously that was totally unnecessary. He has never aspired to be my President. Thank you Governor Dean for setting the record straight.