The most presidential lorem ipsum in history.
John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded; so instead of offering tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas, he offers them to companies creating jobs here at home. Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural without its reference to "the judgments of the Lord." Or King's "I Have a Dream" speech without its reference to "all of God's children." Or President Kennedy's Inaugural without the words, "here on Earth, God's work must truly be our own." At each of these junctures, by summoning a higher truth and embracing a universal faith, our leaders inspired ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. It's not consistent with our traditions of justice and fairness. We have to do what we can, knowing it's hard and not swinging from a naive idealism to a bitter defeatism - but rather, accepting the fact that we're not going to solve every problem overnight, but we can still make a difference. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias. The Holy Koran tells us, "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."
But then I asked myself: Are we serving Shamus as well as he is serving us? And then another one. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. Finally, I want to discuss economic development and opportunity.
He was nominally a Muslim since there were a number of Muslims in the village where he was born. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias. Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons.
They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential. They saw that I knew the Scriptures and that many of the values I held and that propelled me in my work were values they shared. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict.
People don't expect government to solve all their problems. People are coming together around a simple truth - that we are all connected, that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.
God bless you.