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- From: bing@jazz.concert.net (Carter E. Bing)
- Subject: Clinton Speaks to AA Baptist
- Message-ID: <1992Sep15.172040.15294@rock.concert.net>
- Sender: news@rock.concert.net
- Organization: MCNC Center for Communications -- CONCERT Network
- Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 17:20:40 GMT
- Lines: 608
-
-
-
- REMARKS BY GOVERNOR BILL CLINTON
- SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
- GEORGIA DOME
- ATLANTA, GA
- SEPTEMBER 9, 1992
-
-
- Well, that song might be like Jerusalem. It's all
- downhill from here.
-
- Dr. Richardson, thank you for that wonderful
- introduction, and I thank the choir and the
- soloists for that stirring introduction. I thank
- Dr. Jemison for inviting me here, and I'm glad to
- see him again. Usually we see each other when I'm
- in Louisiana 'cause it's a short trip down from
- Arkansas.
-
- I'm glad to be here with all your general officers
- and with Reverend Jesse
- Jackson and with all the rest of you. I can't help
- saying a special word of
- thanks to two groups of your members. First to all
- the people here from my home state of Arkansas.
- Would you raise your hands, at least? Stand up
- there. Let us see you.
-
- We're well represented in this crowd here.
-
- I want to thank Reverend P.J. James and Reverend
- O.C. Jones and all the others from my state who've
- been so good to me for so many years. The other
- day we had a meeting of ministers in our state
- about this campaign and your church was well
- represented, not only by those from Arkansas but by
- Reverend Odell Jones from Detroit, who's really
- from Arkansas, and Reverend Amos Brown from San
- Francisco and Reverend Clay Evans and Reverend E.J.
- Jones from Chicago, Reverend Kenneth Wayland from
- Memphis.
-
- I appreciate all of them coming all the way to
- Arkansas to visit about the future of this country.
- Ladies and gentlemen, since I have been the nominee
- of the Democratic Party I have tried to reach out
- to all Americans. I have had the privilege of
- appearing before the Congressional Black Caucus,
- the National Association of Black Journalists, the
- Urban League, the NAACP, the National Bar
- Association and even the AME Church. You'll forgive
- me that, won't you?
-
- But I had an amazing experience on Labor Day, which
- I hope will point us the way to a better future.
- On Labor Day I was with an African American mayor,
- Emmanual Clever in Kansas City, and then with an
- African American mayor, Dwight Tillory in
- Cincinnati. And guess what? Most of the folks who
- voted them in were white.
-
- They made a decision that they were going to vote
- for the best people on the ticket. I had a
- heart-breaking trip to Florida, which was also
- heart-lifting, after Hurricane Andrew. And I went
- down to Florida City and soon as I got off the
- airplane, the little predominantly African-American
- town that was totally wiped out, and the mayor and
- I were walking through the city and we came across
- a big husky burly white guy who had come all the
- way from Michigan with a truckload of stuff for the
- folks there, and two of his buddies. They just
- loaded up the truck and drove down there, and he
- was so proud of himself he didn't know what to do,
- and there was an African-American lady standing
- next to him who had been wiped out by this storm
- and she looked at him and she looked at me, and she
- said ``You know, it was nearly, nearly worth losing
- my home to find out how we can work together--but
- it's too bad it took a hurricane to prove it.''
-
- Today I was in Clayton Country, Georgia, and I
- thought again of something Reverend Jackson used to
- say. I went to a real welfare reform project today
- called Peach, which is a good name if you're in
- Georgia, and it stands for a whole bunch of good
- things that basically say we're going to take
- people on welfare and give them education and
- training and help to support their children and
- give them the capacity to move to work, and then
- they will.
-
- And in Clayton County, Georgia, 70 percent of the
- people on welfare are white. The other day I was
- in Spokane, Washington, and I met with about 18
- people who had been asked to meet alone without me
- three days before and review the economic plan I
- had put before the American people. These people
- came from five different racial and ethnic groups;
- they were men and women; there were Democrats and
- independents and people that thought they were for
- Ross Perot while he was in the race, and
- Republicans. They were all over the map. And I
- could tell they were having a big time with one
- another when I got there.
-
- And when the whole thing was over, I said ``Have
- you enjoyed this?'' and they said ``We've loved
- it,'' and I said, well, what have you enjoyed most
- about it? And they said, we were surprised to find
- out how much we had in common. I say that because
- we all know that our country is in trouble. You
- know from your own life what others read in
- statistics every month. When the Commerce
- Department said last week that income for most
- families dropped $1,100 last year, that was not a
- surprise to you. When they said that poverty was
- exploding and more than one in five American
- children is in poverty today, that was not a
- surprise to you. When the census figures came out
- and said that most Americans are working harder
- today than they were 10 years for less money, that
- wasn't a surprise to you, because most of you and
- most of the people you represent are. Isn't that
- right?
-
- What I say to you today, my fellow Americans, is
- that we are better than that, and we can do better
- than that. And it's going to be different in
- January.
-
- We have an opportunity not only to win a campaign
- but to change this country, not just to get a few
- more votes than our opponents, but to do more to
- change the lives of the American people, to summon
- the American people to a new call of opportunity
- and responsibility and genuine community. And I
- believe the American people are aching for it. I
- think most people have got this deal figured out,
- this trickle-down economics.
-
- I was in Harry Truman's home town on Labor Day, and
- came a big rain and there were thousands of people
- there, and I said: folks, if you'll stand in this
- rain, I will--we've been having trickle-down for 12
- years; surely we can have it for 12 more minutes.
-
- And so we stayed, but not for 12 minutes. I shook
- hands in that crowd for nearly an hour, all of us
- drenched, people getting wet because they wanted to
- change their country.
-
- I know now there is a siren song coming from the
- other side. They're all saying well, they want to
- change America, too. You know, Mr. Kemp was here
- earlier today. I kind of like Mr. Kemp. I confess
- he's got some pretty good ideas, but they just trot
- him out when they get in trouble. They don't pay
- any attention to him when they don't.
-
- The other guys remind me of that great old church
- story about the preacher that thought he'd preached
- the sermon of his life. Everybody was amening him
- to death and when he got to the climax of the
- sermon he said I want everybody who wants to go to
- heaven to stand up right now, and the while
- congregation stood up except one woman that hadn't
- missed a Sunday in 40 years. And he was
- crestfallen and he said Sister Jones, don't you
- want to go to heaven when you die? And she looked
- right up and said oh, Preacher, I thought you were
- trying to get up a load to go right now.
-
- That's the way the other guys are. Two months
- before the election, they've got lots of good ideas
- but they just never want to go right now. It's
- always later when they want to go.
-
- I'll tell you, folks. We've tried it their way for
- 12 years and I don't know about you, but I'm ready
- to go right now.
-
- We need a new direction in this country and I would
- say we need three things. First, we need a
- partnership. We cannot go forward unless we go
- forward together, without regard to race or region
- or income. We need a partnership.
-
- I was stunned when I went to South-Central Los
- Angeles, not after the riots but three years before
- the riots occurred, and I found that they told me
- when you got here, Governor, you're the first
- statewide elected official from any state that's
- ever been down here talking to our community group.
-
- They were not talking to one another. They were not
- working together. We've got to have a partnership.
- We don't have a person to waste. We're going up or
- down together and we'd better start acting like it.
- This election needs to prove that we can have a
- partnership.
-
- All these fine people from my state that say I'm
- from Arkansas, ask me about my governor--ask them
- about our partnership. I would not be standing
- here today if it weren't for the support of the
- African American citizens in my state. I wouldn't
- be here. I wouldn't have been reelected governor
- in 1982.
-
- But after the election was over, that's when the
- partnership began. And you remember this. After
- the election is over, that's when our real
- partnership must begin because we have so much to
- do, so many hills to climb, so many rivers to
- cross, so many obstacles to confront and such a
- clear course we must pursue, it's going to take all
- of us working in the right direction and being a
- part of it. Nobody's smart enough to have all the
- answers, but if we all feel like we're on the same
- train, going in the same direction, we will believe
- we are making it better and then we will.
-
- So the partnership that I seek with you is not one
- for elections and votes. It's one that will go way,
- way beyond that. Ask the folks from my state about
- that. The second thing I want to say is we need a
- plan. And we need a plan not just for the election
- season but one that dominates our every waking
- minute after the election is over. Not just
- something to say to make into a television ad or a
- pretty speech, but something that guides the
- energies and the directions of every member of the
- Cabinet, every member of the White House staff,
- every agency director out there in every state,
- people reaching out to the church, reaching out to
- the community leaders, reaching out to the business
- leaders, reaching out to the educators and saying
- this is where we are going.
-
- And it can't be trickle down. We've tried that for
- 12 years. When we started on the trickle down
- enterprise, which basically says lower taxes on the
- wealthiest Americans and get out of the way, and
- they will do all the rest for us, we started that
- in 1980, when we had the highest wages in the
- world. We're down to 13th and dropping.
-
- You know the Census says that a big increase in the
- number of working poor, people working for a living
- and still poor. You know that wages are going down
- even as people work harder.
-
- There's a sign--on our little bus trip there was a
- guy with a sign in the crowd the other night that
- said I'm not tired and I'm sure not lazy, I'm just
- bushed.
-
- But we don't need another just song for the
- election. We need a plan, a plan that puts people
- first, a plan that says trickle down didn't work;
- we've got a $400 billion deficit, so tax-and-spend
- won't work; we've got to invest and educate,
- cooperate and grow. We've got to create jobs and
- incomes. You think about it.
-
- If in every community that you represent, if people
- had jobs, and if their jobs led to growing incomes,
- and if the free enterprise system reached into the
- inner cities and into the poor rural areas, so that
- everybody had a chance to borrow money to go into
- business, we would have far fewer problems than we
- now have.
-
- And so I have put before the American people a plan
- I call putting people first. It says let's invest
- more money to create jobs here at home. It says we
- don't mind people making money. I want to make a
- lot of millionaires during my term as president,
- but I've got this crazy idea. I'd like for them to
- make it the old-fashioned way by putting the rest
- of America back to work, not by cutting deals or
- moving jobs, but by putting America back to work.
-
- I want to take all this money by which we've been
- cutting defense and spend every dollar of it to put
- it back into the American economy to create jobs
- for the 21st century and transportation and
- communications, and environmental cleanup, and
- putting the people to work where the work is to be
- done, in the cities and in the rural areas all
- across this country, creating jobs where the work
- is to be done for our people.
-
- I want to have a program which includes for the
- first time in a dozen years a real effort to get
- serious about providing affordable housing for
- Americans and putting people to work. I want to
- begin by looking at this vast inventory of
- government housing that is now in the possession of
- the government, all boarded up, not doing anybody
- any good. You've got people sleeping on the streets
- in boarded-up housing in the same block in the
- United States.
-
- We ought to turn some of that housing over to
- cities, to community organizations, and to churches
- who are willing to participate in rehabilitating
- the housing and making it available as affordable
- housing for the homeless, for the elderly, for the
- people in need.
-
-
- What good is that housing doing all boarded up? And
- you could put people to work fixing it up.
-
- We have to recognize that we live in a world where
- what we earn depends on what we can learn. And I
- want everybody to listen to this: That nobody
- running for office can ever promise you to make the
- American economy the way it used to be. You know,
- where you could take one job and hold it for 30
- years and every year it just got a lot better no
- matter--you just kept on doing the same thing and
- you got more for it.
-
- We're living in the world where change is the law
- of life, but because we have responded wrongly to
- it, we have been punished by the changes in the
- world. What I seek is to reward the people who will
- embrace change and make it our friend. And that
- means we've got to educate everybody, I mean
- everybody; everybody.
-
- A lot of these kids don't have a chance today
- because they didn't get an education. It means
- Head Start and other pre-school programs for every
- child who needs it--not just talking about it, but
- doing it. It means smaller classes in those early
- grades, and counselors to help the kids who need
- support and who can't get it at home.
-
- It means the opportunity to have access to
- computers and to labs and to languages. Even if
- you're a poor inner-city kid or a poor kid in a
- rural area, you got to have access to those things,
- too, because your world will be shaped by them just
- the same as if you're in a very wealthy suburban
- school.
-
- It means knowing when you get an education that it
- meets some real standard. And that when the kids
- come out they really know what they're supposed to
- know, and that if they don't you have some way to
- improve it. Because there are no standards today
- and there is no real way of measuring it, we have
- no way to act on that. It means guaranteeing
- everybody who gets out of high school at least two
- years of further education in an apprenticeship
- program so they can get good jobs, not dead-end
- jobs.
-
- It means opening the doors of college to every
- American. Do you know the college drop-out rate is
- more than twice the high school drop-out rate
- because the price of college is going up so fast.
- And there has been no response until election year
- from the other side. But from the day I began this
- campaign, I said if you'll vote for me I want to
- establish a national trust fund out of which any
- American can borrow the money to go to college and
- then pay it back either as a percentage of their
- income after they go to work or, even better, by
- being part of a Peace Corps here at home to rebuild
- America: pay your college loan off by working for
- two years as a teacher or a nurse or a police
- officer or in a housing program or for the elderly
- or to keep kids out of trouble, to rebuild the
- community street by street.
-
- You think about it. We could educate a whole
- generation of Americans, pay for it, solve a lot of
- our problems. It would be the best money we ever
- spent, and it would be a very small portion of a
- very big budget. There are those who say we can't
- afford it. I say we cannot afford not to do it.
-
- And, finally, let me say that we cannot do these
- things and your government cannot take these
- initiatives unless at last, at last, we follow the
- lead of the other advanced nations of the world and
- provide basic affordable health care to all
- Americans, and control the costs of the health care
- system we have.
-
- Eighty percent of all the strikes in America are
- over health care benefits now, not over wages.
- Every year more small businesses go broke trying to
- pay for health care, and others stop covering their
- people, leaving them full of anxiety, subject to
- pain, and when they do get sick they get care
- anyway and the cost gets passed on to the rest of
- us.
-
- Every year the governments' budgets all over
- America face bankruptcy because of the rising cost
- of health care, and we are spending 30 percent more
- of our income than anybody else and getting less
- for it, because we're spending more on insurance,
- on regulation, on paperwork, on drugs, on
- unnecessary equipment, on procedures that don't
- have to be done, and because we don't provide what
- we need more of, which is primary and preventive
- health care for people in the inner cities and in
- rural areas in this country. We have too much of
- same things and too little of others. So we spend
- more and we get sicker.
-
- And none of this will change unless you vote to
- change the presidency. We'll never get a national
- health care strategy without a new administration
- in Washington.
-
- So we need a plan.
-
- And the third thing we need is a passion for
- progress and for community. We need an America
- that stands up for human rights and independence
- here at home and around the world, in South Africa,
- in Haiti, in Somalia as well as in Bosnia and the
- former Soviet Union and in Latin America--all over
- the world.
-
- The end of the Cold War gives us the freedom to
- stand up for our values, and we ought to do it,
- here at home and around the world. We've got to
- have a passion for progress. People got to believe
- that tomorrow will be better than today if they
- work hard and play by the rules.
-
- And to do it we've got to have a passion for our
- national community, the notion that we are going up
- or down together. I urge you to think on these
- things, and to realize that in the next 55 days the
- character and the vision, and the will of the
- American people will be severely tested.
-
- While we represent, Al Gore and I, and all of you
- who support us, the future, a change, a difference,
- a chance to get America going again and bring
- America back again.
-
- And the other side represents the same old thing
- except worse; but they are very good at raising the
- fears of the American people, are they not? They
- always tell us why we cannot do something. You
- know, I say well, let's have a health care system
- that has the best of our system, choose your
- doctor, and keep the private health care system and
- keep what's good about it, but let's save money.
- The Germans do it. They say we can't, and if you
- try you'll mess it up worse.
-
- I say don't you think you ought to be able to get a
- little time off when there's a baby born or a sick
- parent, without losing your job? 72, not just the
- richest countries, 72 nations in the world give
- that right to their workers, including all of our
- major competitors. The other side says, oh, we
- can't do that. They're the ``we can't'' side and
- we're the``we can'' side.
-
- They're going to say from now till November 3rd
- things could be worse, and we're going to say
- things can get better. They're going to say
- everything in the wide world to say why you
- shouldn't support change. But let me tell you this:
- you think of it now. We are here in Atlanta,
- Martin Luther King's home, the home of the heart
- and soul of the civil rights movement. The home of
- a great mayor and friend of mine who should be in
- our prayers because he is recuperating from open
- heart surgery. You think about it.
-
- Where would we be today if in the great crises of
- American history people have said we don't have the
- courage to change; might get worse. Think about
- it. That's what they tried to tell George
- Washington when he said: we've got to get this
- country together, we can't be just 13 states
- running around here all over the place doing our
- own thing, printing our own money, having our own
- armies. We'll never amount to anything; we ought to
- get this country together.
-
- The other side said, hey, it could get worse, don't
- do it, it could get worse. Abraham Lincoln said:
- we can't let this union be torn apart. And then he
- issued the Emancipation Proclamation that said I
- don't care if the Constitution did recognize
- slavery, it was wrong, it was inconsistent with the
- basic value that all men are created equal. The
- other side said, oh, things could get worse.
-
- Franklin Roosevelt running against Herbert Hoover.
- Roosevelt says: The only thing we have to fear is
- fear itself. He's chained to a wheelchair, lifting
- up the country in the depths of the Depression. The
- other side said: things could get worse.
-
- Harry Truman running against Tom Dewey, a man for
- whom Mr. and Mrs. Bush cast their first vote.
-
- And Harry Truman said: the war's over, we've got to
- lead the world to a new era of freedom; we've got
- to stand up to communism; we've got to build a
- middle class here at home with a veteran's
- administration and a farmer's home administration,
- and we've got to put people in their houses and
- give them a chance to get educated. And we
- integrated the military. And everybody ought to
- have a right to health care. That's what Harry
- Truman said over 40 years ago, and old Tom Dewey
- said things could get worse.
-
- This country is the longest-lasting democracy in
- human history because whenever we had to, we sent
- the things-could- get-worse crowd packing--and it's
- time to do it again.
-
- In a race of hope against fear, of change against
- the same old ways, of grabbing for the future
- instead of clinging to the past, sometimes the most
- conservative thing you can do is to change, because
- the only way you can preserve and conserve what you
- care most about is to reach out to the realities
- before you. You know that, everyone of you--you
- know that. And I say to you today, your vote
- counts every bit as much as mine or any other
- American's. You have the power to move this
- country forcefully into the future, you have the
- power to break the deadlock, the division, the
- gridlock in Washington between the Republicans and
- the Democrats, the gridlock imposed by the special
- interests, the gridlock dividing people by race and
- income and region. You can break them. But your
- numbers must be heard.
-
-
- I want to say here publicly what I have already
- said privately to Reverend Jackson, which is I am
- grateful to him for being willing to lead a great
- national effort to register many, many, many more
- voters in the next few days on behalf of the
- national campaign of the Democrats.
-
- No one could do it as he will. But he must find a
- willing ear, and some strong backs and strong
- hands. Just remember, folks, you're fighting in
- the greatest tradition of America--the we-can crowd
- against the we-can't crowd. For all of our flaws
- and imperfections, this has been the greatest
- country in human history and the longest-lasting
- democracy because every time we were challenged, we
- said we can, because every time our existence, our
- character and our values were threatened by what we
- were doing, we had the courage to change-- from
- Washington to Lincoln to Roosevelt to Martin Luther
- King, every time, every step along the way, this
- country somehow found the God-given grace and
- strength to change.
-
- You know, at this Baptist convention I just have to
- say one more thing. Our adversary said there was
- something wrong with the Democrats because our
- platform didn't have G-o-d in it. Well, I got to
- reading it--I don't think my Constitution has G-o-d
- in it, but I sure like it. And we Baptists were
- forged in the conviction that church and state
- should be separated but that we should never take
- God out of our hearts.
-
- And so I tell you, they'll try to wear us down.
- You know what they'll do, the this-can-be-worse
- crowd--it could be worse: they'll try to wear us
- down, and we must not grow weary, we must not grow
- weary. We know we will reap if we don't lose
- heart. And we know if we have God in our hearts
- and we're faithful to our legacy as Americans, we
- think about the future we want for our children and
- grandchildren, then we will have the strength we
- need.
-
- We will do what Isaiah told us to do: ''Mount up
- with wings as eagles,'' run and not grow weary,
- walk and not get tired--and win on November 3rd.
- Thank you, and God bless you all.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- --
- "The oak sleeps in the acorn, the gaint sequoia sleeps in it`s tiny seed,
- the bird waits in the egg and God waits for his unfolding in man."
- Funkadelic bing@concert.net
-