May Day Speech
American Crisis and Renewal
May 1, 2006, 7:00 p.m.
The Annex, Hillsdale, MI
Hi, my name is Chuck Ream. I am running for Congress in the 7th Congressional District of Michigan. I was born a few miles west of here in Three Rivers. I grew up in southern Michigan but did a lot of world travel since my dad worked for the international division for Ford. I graduated from Western Michigan, got two more degrees in Ann Arbor, and taught Kindergarten in Monroe for 33 years. I quit the job I loved only because I saw my country twisted until I could hardly recognize it. I saw us spending more on prisons than colleges. I saw a future where my innocent little ones could be blown to bits in professional armies fighting for oil. I saw all the support systems of nature being destroyed.
I have been elected five times as a trustee of Scio Township in Washtenaw County. I have served on various boards and commissions and helped make Washtenaw into Michigan's leader in land preservation. I ran winning campaigns to preserve valuable land, to defend the budget of the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s road patrol, and to try to help sick people have the right to use Medical Marijuana (Cannabis). None of my opponents are successful community activists or have ever been elected officials.
I chose MAY DAY as the moment to begin my campaign because MAYDAY is the international distress signal for a life threatening emergency, for grave and imminent danger. MAY DAY is a workers’ holiday – and American workers face major economic distress. MAY DAY means spring is here – and it is time for our nation to have a fresh rebirth, a renewal of hope and American values.
2006 is such a critical election year, America must “snap out of it”. We must reject the spell of fear that freezes us in place and prevents us from solving big problems. Never have we faced such a wide range of critical problems. Never have we had such poor leadership.
______________________________________________________________________
George W. Bush was out jogging one morning and noticed a little boy sitting on the curb with a box. He was curious, so he stopped and asked “What’s in the box kid?”
The little boy said, “They’re kittens, brand new kittens”
Bush says, “What kind of kittens are they?”
“Republicans”, the child says.
“Oh that’s cute”, said Bush, and ran off.
A couple of days later the president was out with his buddy Dick Cheney and he saw the same boy with a box just ahead.
George W. said to Dick, “You gotta check this out”, and they both went over to see the boy with the box. George said, “Look at those cute kittens in the box. Hey kid, tell my friend what kind of kittens these are”.
The boy replied, “They’re Democrats”
“Whoa!” said George W. “When I came by here the other day you said they were Republicans. What’s up?
“Well”, the kid said, “Their eyes are open now”
Our nation is in distress. We have a chance for renewal if we reverse direction now. The template for our rebirth can be found within our authentic American documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Our founding fathers knew what they meant. They wrote it clearly. Our country began with infinite promise, as an epic rebirth of the human spirit.
I was deeply affected as a child by the story of the American Revolution. I learned that I had personal freedom as long as I didn’t hurt anyone else. I was glad that it was “self evident” “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. I was proud that our founding fathers demanded an iron clad Bill of Rights. I could see that freedom might live forever if we could separate and equally balance the power of the Congress, the President, and the Judiciary. I knew the separation of church and state would help guarantee freedom and help keep both of them honest. These are the real American values, but our current administration in Washington doesn’t believe this kind of thing anymore.
Our Government exists to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty”.
While still in elementary school my dad started me working politically. When I was ten I stood in front of a Michigan polling place and passed out leaflets for the Eisenhower ticket. Eisenhower used his farewell speech to warn America about the danger of Militarism to democracy and freedom. The victorious WWII commander of all allied forces gave us a warning befitting MAY DAY.
He said that there were “grave implications” in the fact that we now have a permanent arms industry. He says that there is potential for the “Disastrous rise of misplaced power” because of the “Military Industrial Complex”. He said that alert and knowledgeable citizens must compel this Military Industrial Complex to live within “our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together”.
It is our great distress on this MAY DAY that General Eisenhower’s nightmare has materialized. The military Industrial Complex now has an iron grip on America, and profits are up. Our nation is great because of our principles of democracy, personal freedom, liberty, and justice for all, not because we have built the largest war machine and prison system ever seen on earth.
As I was contemplating this speech I heard a lady on a talk show who stopped me cold. In one sentence she summed up the Republican plot to strengthen their aristocracy of wealth and destroy what is great about the USA. She said, “They are just manipulating the masses through fear so they can take all the money”.
Isn’t it clear that nothing could ever come here from the outside to destroy our nation? Our strength is unparalleled in history. Osama’s stated strategy is to make us bankrupt ourselves. Our freedom can only be destroyed from within, and the Republicans are trying hard. Spy networks within the US have been set up not only by the National Security Administration, but by the FBI, and now by the Defense Department.
Dick Cheney and Karl Rove have laid out the Republican strategy. It will again be fear and threat and endless war. They say unless we elect Republicans and give up our rights we will be toast, our bodies will end up in a smoldering ruin, Osama will get your momma. James Madison, “Father of the Constitution”, said “War is the true nurse of executive aggrandizement … The means of defense against foreign danger have always been the instruments of tyranny at home”.
Republicans push fear so hard because that is all they have to offer. They have no plan to help the American people with their daily lives.
We can now see that it is MAYDAY for Americans in Iraq and that Bush lied all along, that we have totally unacceptable budget and trade deficits, that the middle class is being destroyed as our jobs are outsourced, that our health care system is in shambles and needs complete restructuring, that our basic system of checks and balances is being trashed by an imperial president, that Bush lied about his surveillance of American citizens, he has destroyed the moral image of America in the world with torture, kidnapping, secret prisons and civilian deaths, he ignores global warming and demolished over 400 important environmental regulations, unilaterally broken most of the major treaties the US has signed, shamelessly mixed church and state, and repeatedly appointed incompetent campaign contributors to vitally important positions.
Question: Does he really have to receive oral sex to be impeached? If elected, I will sponsor a motion to impeach – for repeated lying to the American people.
The only way the Bush/Cheney team can keep your eye off that much distress is to run a protection racket. They tell us that terrorists “lurk” everywhere and Democrats won’t protect us. If we are obedient and forget all our “lesser” concerns our hero George will keep us alive. The terms of their protection involve a complete takeover of power by the executive branch of government and a constant transfer of wealth to the rich.
The strategy of governing through fear and war usually works. It has been known for centuries. The thoughts of Julius Caesar, Hitler’s propaganda team, and the Rove/Cheney gang are almost identical. Benjamin Franklin spoke real American values when he said “Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither”.
9/11 didn’t force our nation into war. 9/11 is a horrible terrorist crime, and requires a total focus on finding and terminating the perpetrators. President Bush and Osama bin Laden actually work together perfectly, each benefiting from the actions of the other. Has President Bush made a single move since 9/11 that is not exactly what Osama desired? Osama wanted 9/11 to touch off a religious war, so we gave him his wish in Iraq. Osama’s main message is that Islam is under attack from the west. American actions give legitimacy to his “jihad”, help raise money, provide more new recruits than he knows what to do with, and guarantee that terrorism will never end. Terrorism has multiplied!
The “Bushites” push “war” to cover incompetence. Bush received many warnings that attacks were coming from al Qaeda, he didn’t read them or didn’t pay attention. He had no reaction to the Aug 6, 2000 “Presidential Daily Brief” which was titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within US”. A specific warning “indicated patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings”. When he heard this, George W. Bush went out to play golf. CIA Director George Tenet has said “The system was blinking red”. “Darkside Dick” Cheney had been put in charge of the Counterterrorism Task Force – but they never held a meeting before the attacks.
Fighting terrorism somehow morphed into the needless Iraq war, causing grave and imminent danger to our troops. The USA reaps what it has sown in the Middle East. Our CIA destroyed popular governments in both Iraq and Iran. When Saddam began to lose his war with Iran, Donald Rumsfeld was sent to help him. US companies sold Saddam the ingredients to make poison gas. The CIA also recruited, trained, and armed both al Qaeda and the Taliban (so they could fight the Russians).
In 1997, before taking office, the Bush gang called for the invasion of Iraq. They used 9/11 to “hijack foreign policy” and pull it off. Our own intelligence officials and the UN inspectors on the ground in Iraq found no weapons of mass destruction. Clinton bombed Iraq just to be sure. By 2003 Iraq was a wrecked country; no threat to us.
Five professional plans were drawn up about what to do in postwar Iraq – but the excellent recommendations in these plans were not even read by Bush’s core group. They explained that we would be greeted as liberators on streets strewn with flowers.
Now we are building massive permanent military bases. When will we understand that the Koran makes it the religious duty of all Muslims to fight against any infidel who occupies Islamic land? It is our occupation that gives the insurgency its legitimacy. Things are NOT going to get better until we leave, and no country benefits from endless war. What if some army occupied our country? Would we stop fighting back?
So, how can we find rebirth in the quagmire of Iraq? Get the hell out that’s how! The Iraqi people want us out! 73% of American soldiers say we should be out within twelve months.
Rebirth starts by recognizing reality. The idea that there is a legitimate country called Iraq is false. The British tried to patch together “Iraq” in 1920 from three leftover scraps of the Ottoman Empire. They failed. To provide peace and permit our troops to leave we must allow a three nation solution for Iraq. Borders won’t be easy to define – but peace and stability for Iraq require two things. First, the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites must each have their own police, prisons, and army, so they can feel secure. Second, the Sunnis must be guaranteed a fair share of the oil. Iraq is potentially rich. Within a secure three nation framework they can generate a prosperous rebirth, without having to fear Saddam or each other.
Our incredibly brave fighting men and women in Iraq deserve good leadership. Anthony Zinni, is a four star General who was Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command. He said “In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at minimum true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility, at worst, lying, incompetence, and corruption”. The generals advised against this war – our troops were put into a bloody and impossible situation by a collection of wimps and cowards.
The daddy of our Commander in Chief had George W. put into the National Guard so that he didn’t have to go to Vietnam. George W. showed up when he felt like it. After two years of expensive training as a fighter pilot George was grounded because he missed his physical exam. The Air Force had started drug testing a few months before Bush failed to appear. Our Commander in Chief wasted his costly training because he couldn’t clean himself up long enough to take his pee test.
“Hey, Did you hear that with Bush, old habits die hard? Now whenever the Secret Service knocks on the door he still flushes stuff down the toilet”.
Next comes the frightening Cheney, who guided America to the “dark side” in the “War on Terror”. He got five student deferments and explained that he had “other priorities” during Vietnam; but don’t go hunting with him. Former attorney General John Ashcroft took eight deferments. Tom Delay explained that there was not room in the army for “patriotic folks” like him during the Vietnam War because so many minority young people had joined up to make money and escape the ghetto.
The Republicans claim that national security is their strength. Actually, their incompetence, failure, and hypocrisy lead the USA to weakness. Army Colonel Larry Wilkerson worked on national security for the last three presidents and put together the case for the war against Iraq. He prepared Colin Powell for the UN speech that justified our invasion. Wilkerson now says, “This is really a very inept administration… I think that this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making, and leadership I’ve seen in 50-plus years.” He says that if he voted Republican again “My wife would probably shoot me…This is not a Republican administration,… This is a radical administration”.
The Republican incumbent in the 7th District supports staying in Iraq, possibly for 50 years. Voters want us out.
MAY DAY is the workers holiday, but manufacturing in Michigan is in deep distress. Southern Michigan put the world on wheels. We have been a prosperous powerhouse of manufacturing. We have a skilled and experienced workforce.
Foreign competition threatens all our major manufacturing industries in Michigan. General Motors hourly American workforce is already down to a quarter of what it was in 1985. We are losing the kinds of jobs that have the income and benefits that are necessary to raise a family with a feeling of security.
General Motors and Ford and their suppliers are in grave danger. They may need help for a time. Republican leaders in Washington have vowed not to help out. (See New York Times 4/14/06, “If Detroit Calls, U.S. May Not Replay the Bailout Role”.) Democratic leadership would lend a hand, like the lifeline extended to the Chrysler Corporation a few years ago.
Much of our problem stems from our tilted playing field. We let our currency find its true market value, and leave our nation open to foreign marketing and investment. The nations that are taking away our jobs are not open. China and Japan manipulate the value of their currency, so that we start out with one hand tied behind our back. China’s leadership has fixed its currency at about 40% below its real market value. Most Asian nations have unfair trade practices. We cannot allow our jobs to disappear overseas if our competitors have rigged the game! I will support major tariffs on Chinese goods until their currency is allowed to find its market price. I will work to end all the trade agreements that have hurt our American middle class. Health care costs also rig the game against American companies.
The USA must continue to have a strong manufacturing base. Michigan must continue to be the personal transportation capitol of the world. We must be the leaders in implementing alternative fuel technologies. Congress must fund a major research and development laboratory to study the future of personal transportation and it must be located in Southern Michigan. With a level playing field, universal health care, and renewable energy sources, our manufacturers will always be able to compete in the world market - on the basis of productivity, quality, and capacity for innovation.
Quality health care is a basic human right. Every other advanced nation in the world guarantees health care coverage for all of its citizens. Why not us? Americans should be angry and united about demanding universal affordable health care.
When you or a loved one is sick and you know that the care they need would cost you your home or bankrupt your family – that is real distress, a crisis worthy of MAYDAY!
Health care costs are skyrocketing! Employer based health care coverage is disintegrating. Forty six million Americans have no health care coverage – they end up in the emergency room.
“Non clinical” costs eat up nearly a third of the money we spend on “medical care”. The “Wall Street Journal” admits that our health system “has accumulated a massive bureaucracy that simply doesn’t exist in other countries”. One fourth of “health care” workers do nothing but paperwork.
We spend far more on health care than any other country. Japan spends half of what we do to get the best health outcomes. The United States was ranked 37th by the World Health Organization. Our health results are about the same as Costa Rica. People in Cuba live longer than we do. Our infant mortality rates are about twice the rate of Sweden, Finland or Japan. Do we really value mothers and babies only half as much as they do?
Most Americans believe that the reform of Health Care in the USA requires our government to organize a system that will provide universal coverage and control costs. We could choose the best ideas from other countries, or expand Medicare to cover all Americans. The profit motive won’t produce the best health outcomes. Sickness generates money. We need a system that emphasizes public health and preventative medicine. We can’t claim “morality” or “compassion” in the USA until our people have the basic security of affordable health care.
This MAY DAY finds our ecology and energy situations in grave distress. Mother Nature is having nightmares, and they are full of rapacious Republicans. The length of our vision can’t seem to extend beyond quarterly profit reports. The degraded earth we bequeath to our children is even more of a tragedy than the mountain of debt that Republican presidents have hung over their heads.
We are extinguishing other species at an unparalleled rate. Population is out of control. We are losing topsoil. Fresh water sources are drying up, being used up, and being polluted. Ocean warming causes large storms. Higher ocean acidity is killing coral and shellfish. Forests absorb lots of carbon dioxide and produce the oxygen we breathe, yet they are destroyed at nearly a 1% annual rate. Our vehicles and power plants use so much fossil fuel that the climate is warming faster than expected.
Nothing has been done to turn the situation around, but wealthy countries took some important steps forward. Now the Radical Republicans have erased most of our small advances. They plan to weaken the Endangered Species Act, they have a “Clear Skies” initiative to allow more air pollution, a “Healthy Forests” initiative to allow more clear cutting, and have repealed more than 400 environmental regulations. Many Americans think that the “rapture” makes it unnecessary to care for the earth, since they will be in heaven.
Congress must act fast to protect the environment. We need to cut “greenhouse gas” emissions by 60 to 80% - not by the 5% mandated by the Kyoto Accords. This can only be accomplished by the fiscal powers of government. We want to encourage income – so income tax should be lowered. Taxes on fossil fuel use should be raised – with subsidies provided for low income people. Subsidies for fossil fuels must be transferred to renewable energy research. We should tax the “windfall” profits of the oil companies to help with the transition to solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, and other forms of renewable energy.
The “retooling” of the economic system that would be required to make it sustainable would provide millions of good new jobs. Michigan manufacturers must realize that “going green” is the best way to produce green dollar bills.
We need a completely new attitude, a new relationship with the earth.
Even our educational system is in distress. We are falling behind many other countries. The world’s best education must become standard in Michigan, if we are to be competitive. As a kindergarten teacher I know that high quality preschool education is critical.
A more demanding high school curriculum is important. Skilled students should be paid to tutor their peers. Schools must fully integrate computers and information technology. No reform will succeed, however, unless students and parents take personal responsibility to get serious about education.
Our most important educational issue is equal access to higher education for all qualified students. It is critical for our nation’s future that we develop our best brainpower.
Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. We are distressed to see them wasted. Poor people shouldn’t pay taxes and rich people should pay a lot. Before the radical right took over this moral principle was understood as simple justice by Jesus, the founding fathers, and the folks who wrote the first internal revenue act. “Class war” by the rich has shifted the American tax burden onto the backs of wage earners. Payroll taxes made up 23% of our budget in 1970. In 2006, payroll taxes now make up 40% of the budget. Bush’s tax cuts starve the treasury and dump cash onto the wealthy. Americans would rather have education, health care and Social Security than tax cuts.
American and Christian values dictate that the people with money should pay more tax. Jesus said “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more,” (Luke 12:48). Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt said the same thing.
The “rebirth” of our fiscal policy will start by taxing corporations and the wealthy and spending money wisely. Social security could easily be protected for the next century.
Over 60 % of corporations now pay no tax, according to the General Accounting Office. Only 5% of corporations pay more than 5% in taxes. What a rip!
“The Republicans have just one question for the American voter. “Is the rich person you’re working for better off now than they were 4 years ago?”
Our “Drug War” is an American horror story, causing savage distress to millions of families. It has failed – in terms of its stated objectives. It has succeeded in destroying our Bill of Rights, rebuilding racism, corrupting and militarizing our police forces, and creating the largest prison system ever known.
Drug War is used to justify a police state. Do I exaggerate? All of your property, home, vehicles, and accounts can now be take from you by local, state or federal police and sold by them without even accusing you of a crime. They keep the money. Your children can be taken from you for using a natural plant. Your home may legally be broken into, searched, and photographed. You must give up your bodily fluids in order to get a job – when the Constitution protects you against self incrimination. You can legally be convicted of a crime on the basis of testimony from a paid informer who is a criminal paid to lie. You can’t risk having a jury trial since the prosecutor will threaten to lock you up for decades. This is not freedom, it is the American Inquisition – time for a MAYDAY alert.
Heavy drug war enforcement leads to higher rates of drug use, death, disease, crime, and addiction. Legal drugs (tobacco, alcohol, pills) kill 100 times more people than illegal drugs. Drug war is a cultural war against people. There is no “solution” to the drug problem, but we must stop making citizens into criminals and providing unlimited funding for organized crime and terrorists. Our “rebirth” involves greatly reducing the harm and expense that drugs cause in our society by treating drugs as a medical or public health problem, not a criminal issue.
Cannabis (Marijuana) is basically harmless, yet we arrest 750,000 Americans every year for pot. Cannabis should be available for medical use and be taxed and regulated like alcohol for recreational use. When pot was suppressed, the use of hard drugs shot up. It cannot be constitutional to outlaw a natural plant.
In terms of money and morality this Republican administration has brought us a culture of selfishness, corruption and waste that has distressed even loyal Republicans.
Money rules American politics. Regular people know that their own vote doesn’t count for much when powerful interests pump in unlimited funds. Big Money in politics undermines the principle of one person, one voice. It exerts undue influence on who gets elected and how they vote.
The biggest problem is not all the congressmen who get indicted and convicted on corruption charges; it’s the corruption that’s legal. Lobbyists for campaign contributors are now allowed to write the regulations for their industry. The re-write of the Clean Air Act was sold to lobbyists. Americans are disgusted.
Hey, did you know that Bush received a “warm reception” from the Daytona 500 race drivers. Well sure, the drivers had never met anyone who was sponsored by more oil companies than they were…Maybe that was funnier before you last filled your gas tank.
We used to have laws in this country that stopped corporations from corrupting politics. A wealthy man might be thrown in jail or a corporation dissolved if they offered money to a politician (Hartmann, 2004, p 92). The point of our constitution was to allow only the voter, “We the People”, to influence politics, not to have power usurped by military, corporate or religious institutions.
I’ll tell you an honest path toward rebirthing democracy. Nobody should ever be able to give things to an elected officeholder. Nothing! Legislators should be well paid and fully focused on solving problems. A challenger should be able to raise money, and any amount raised by the challenger would immediately be given to the incumbent out of public funds. Nothing should be given to an officeholder by people who want things from them. The only way to clean up politics and restore our citizen’s faith in it is to take the money out of it.
On this MAY DAY millions of American workers are distressed about their Social Security and Pensions. For them, a rebirth of faith in the future will come only when these benefits are fully federally insured, just like a savings account! I will not rest until this is done. Republicans want to cut Social Security and weaken pension rights!
I will try to break up media conglomerates that strangle the voice of average Americans. Newspapers and radio and TV stations must be locally owned independent voices.
I support a farm program that helps low and middle income farmers and protects the land – not one that sends billions to corporate agribusiness.
I support a compassionate immigration policy, but it will be based on controlling our borders and protecting American workers.
American citizens have good reason to be distressed, but we do care about people and the environment. Polls show Americans are strongly in favor of universal health insurance, raising the minimum wage, repealing tax cuts for the rich, and doing “whatever it takes” to protect the environment. Most Americans believe that “off shoring” our jobs is bad for the economy, that the windfall profits of oil companies should be taxed and spent to research alternative fuels, and that before we expand the federal deficit we should cut Pentagon spending or raise taxes.
On international questions Americans support a rebirth of co-operation, not war.
In conclusion, …we will create a healthy national rebirth if we can bring our country together around its best constitutional and traditional values. There can be no freedom if we have endless war; there is no fairness without universal health care, there is no justice if we are not allowed to control own bodies, there is no future if we destroy our environment.
Your grand children may ask you “What did you do to help save America during the ‘dark time’”. I hope you can answer them proudly.
Ben Franklin said, “America’s destiny is not power, but light!”
In order to take control of all branches of government, the Republican Party has created division and hatred among Americans, trying to create heat rather than light. They have gained power through wealth and manipulation of “cultural war”. They frighten or anger people into voting against their own economic best interests, never admitting that economic questions are at the root of many problems.
Patriots won’t vote Republican in 2006. Hard core Republicans who are deeply distressed (and I met so many of them going door to door) should stay home and relax this November. We need to get the rats out of our ship of state.
This election is a referendum on what has been happening to our country. A vote for the Republicans in 2006 is a vote to end the American form of government. It is a free pass for the President to continue to undermine the equal balance of powers between our three branches of government, to usurp the war powers of Congress, and to bankrupt our nation. We cannot reward corruption, incompetence, warmongering, and lies. If the Republicans win again with this FEAR strategy they will think they can get away with anything. It is indeed MAYDAY, and we must act,
If the Republicans stay in control…
American troops will not leave Iraq in our lifetime.
The brutal squeeze on the middle class will continue.
We will never have universal, affordable health care.
There will be no significant help for the American auto industry.
There will never be a balanced budget
Your pension and social security will not be secure
Drug war policy will remain punitive, and
We will never have environmental protection.
Isn’t that too much to sacrifice?
Our early presidents Jefferson and Adams thought all religion boiled down to the
concept “be just and good”. We need to be a wealthy, powerful nation that is “just and good” at home and abroad. Our rebirth will come from helping our people with the basic problems of life and cherishing our natural world. The USA must be “born again” to fulfill the infinite greatness of our original promise!
Please join our campaign! Thank you!
E-mail me at chuckreamforcongress@yahoo.com
