...but I've been looking for video of one of the most prescient speeches I've ever heard. Wonder why I can't find it on YouTube? Maybe because peoples head would explode if they saw it in context of what has happened over the last 30 years. I have found the text though, and if anyone has the video, please post it. Check this out, President Jimmy Carter's 1980 Democratic National Convention Acceptence Speech. Please keep this speech in mind when thinking of how we can change our childrens future for the better if we make a stand now.
"The President is a servant of today, but his true constituency is the future. That's why the election of 1980 is so important.
Some have said it makes no difference who wins this election. They are wrong. This election is a stark choice between two men, two parties, two sharply different pictures of what America is and what the world is, but it's more than that--it's a choice between two futures.
The year 2000 is just less than 20 years away, just four Presidential elections after this one. Children born this year will come of age in the 21st century. The time to shape the world of the year 2000 is now. The decisions of the next few years will set our course, perhaps an irreversible course, and the most important of all choices will be made by the American people at the polls less than 3 months from tonight.
The choice could not be more clear nor the consequences more crucial. In one of the futures we can choose, the future that you and I have been building together, I see security and justice and peace.
I see a future of economic security-security that will come from tapping our own great resources of oil and gas, coal and sunlight, and from building the tools and technology and factories for a revitalized economy based on jobs and stable prices for everyone.
I see a future of justice--the justice of good jobs, decent health care, quality education, a full opportunity for all people regardless of color or language or religion; the simple human justice of equal rights for all men and for all women, guaranteed equal rights at last under the Constitution of the United States of America.
And I see a future of peace--a peace born of wisdom and based on a fairness toward all countries of the world, a peace guaranteed both by American military strength and by American moral strength as well.
That is the future I want for all people, a future of confidence and hope and a good life. It's the future America must choose, and with your help and with your commitment, it is the future America will choose.
But there is another possible future. In that other future I see despair--despair of millions who would struggle for equal opportunity and a better life and struggle alone. And I see surrender--the surrender of our energy future to the merchants of oil, the surrender of our economic future to a bizarre program of massive tax cuts for the rich, service cuts for the poor, and massive inflation for everyone. And I see risk--the risk of international confrontation, the risk of an uncontrollable, unaffordable, and unwinnable nuclear arms race.
No one, Democrat or Republican either, consciously seeks such a future, and I do not claim that my opponent does. But I do question the disturbing commitments and policies already made by him and by those with him who have now captured control of the Republican Party. The consequences of those commitments and policies would drive us down the wrong road. It's up to all of us to make sure America rejects this alarming and even perilous destiny.
The only way to build a better future is to start with the realities of the present. But while we Democrats grapple with the real challenges of a real world, others talk about a world of tinsel and make-believe.
Let's look for a moment at their make-believe world.
In their fantasy America, inner-city people and farm workers and laborers do not exist. Women, like children, are to be seen but not heard. The problems of working women are simply ignored. The elderly do not need Medicare. The young do not need more help in getting a better education. Workers do not require the guarantee of a healthy and a safe place to work. In their fantasy world, all the complex global changes of the world since World War II have never happened. In their fantasy America, all problems have simple solutions--simple and wrong.
It's a make-believe world, a world of good guys and bad guys, where some politicians shoot first and ask questions later. No hard choices, no sacrifice, no tough decisions--it sounds too good to be true, and it is.
The path of fantasy leads to irresponsibility. The path of reality leads to hope and peace. The two paths could not be more different, nor could the futures to which they lead. Let's take a hard look at the consequences of our choice.
You and I have been working toward a more secure future by rebuilding our military strength--steadily, carefully, and responsibly. The Republicans talk about military strength, but they were in office for 8 out of the last 11 years, and in the face of a growing Soviet threat they steadily cut real defense spending by more than a third.
We've reversed the Republican decline in defense. Every year since I've been President we've had real increases in our commitment to a stronger Nation, increases which are prudent and rational. There is no doubt that the United States of America can meet a threat from the Soviet Union. Our modernized strategic forces, a revitalized NATO, the Trident submarine, the Cruise missile, the Rapid Deployment Force--all these guarantee that we will never be second to any nation. Deeds, not words; fact, not fiction. We must and we will continue to build our own defenses. We must and we will continue to seek balanced reductions in nuclear arms.
The new leaders of the Republican Party, in order to close the gap between their rhetoric and their record, have now promised to launch an all-out nuclear arms race. This would negate any further effort to negotiate a strategic arms limitation agreement. There can be no winners in such an arms race, and all the people of the Earth can be the losers.
The Republican nominee advocates abandoning arms control policies which have been important and supported by every Democratic President since Harry, Truman, and also by every Republican President since Dwight D. Eisenhower. This radical and irresponsible course would threaten our security and could put the whole world in peril. You and I must never let this come to pass.
It's simple to call for a new arms race, but when armed aggression threatens world peace, tough-sounding talk like that is not enough. A President must act responsibly.
When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, we moved quickly to take action. I suspended some grain sales to the Soviet Union; I called for draft registration; and I joined wholeheartedly with the Congress and with the U.S. Olympic Committee and led more than 60 other nations in boycotting the big propaganda show in Russia--the Moscow Olympics.
The Republican leader opposed two of these forceful but peaceful actions, and he waffled on the third. But when we asked him what he would do about aggression in Southwest Asia, he suggested blockading Cuba. [Laughter] Even his running mate wouldn't go along with that. He doesn't seem to know what to do with the Russians. He's not sure if he wants to feed them or play with them or fight with them.
As I look back at my first term, I'm grateful that we've had a country for the full 4 years of peace. And that's what we're going to have for the next 4 years-peace.
It's only common sense that if America is to stay secure and at peace, we must encourage others to be peaceful as well." - Jimmy Carter