The road to freedom is the road to peace
Speech on Boston Commons Saturday, September 29, 2001
Thank you.
Freedom is what we walk for today: the freedom to elect candidates who will represent us in the halls of our government, not represent the wealthy special interests whose puppet strings bind and twist our government and our society. We want representatives who don't have to spend all night raising money and all day paying favors. We want people who will listen to us, who will represent us and our needs, our values, and our future.
I know that the Clean Elections Law has been under fire in Massachussets by politicians who would rather fund their campaigns with the same old special interest bribery. But the times have changed, and they had better listen very carefully to what I am about to say.
Much of the soft money that is given to parties by corporations, and which is then filtered down to the campaigns of these politicians, is given by organizations that are increasingly owned by people around the world. It is their asset to give, most certainly, but it is global money, not American money. We can no longer have corporate money in our elections unless we will accept the idea of people from Asia, the Mideast, Europe, China and elsewhere influencing our elections with their money. Let us keep our elections for ourselves, and tell those anti-reform politicians to get with the program --the Clean Elections program, funding it fully with Massachusetts money and nothing else.
More important than the source of the money is the effect of the money. It buys our representatives away from us, at a time when we need them very dearly.
What happens when we lose contol of our own government? What horrors rain down upon us when our government does not represent our values, but instead those of greedy interests who do not vote here and should not influence elections here?
We know what happens because we see it happening to our horror. Extra doses of real democracy and true international justice are the only ways to stop it in the long run.
We walk today for our freedom. But we walk, too, for the peace and justice that comes when our government is in the hands of the people --we the people. The road to freedom is the road to peace.
Thank you