John Edwards and Our Interconnected, Post-9/11 World

It's a dark, cool fall night in New England, where the diningroom/computer room/throughway to the kitchen/kids art area has finally ceased of all the activity it can handle within its modest 9' x 12' walls. Our family struggles with two small children, one of whom likely has mild autism. As parents our minds agitate over every bill, our souls rejoice over every word our children speak. Trapped in a house that we cannot sell in this current real estate market, we gird ourselves against the here-and-now and focus on the future.

We are like every other family on our block, and all of these families are interconnected with famililes from Great Britain, and Iraq, and North Korea, and Russia, and South Africa. What affects our one family directly affects all of these other families indirectly, and what these far-away families experience directly affects us indirectly.

To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are tied in the inescapable bonds of mutuality.

September is one of the hardest months for me, as it reminds me of younger days when my husband and I were DINKS (double-income no kids). Where was I on 9/11? I was in an up-and-coming, African American suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, working what many would consider a dream job: matching my professional talents with my passion for social justice.

On 9/11, I was on the phone, strong-arming a business executive, using an opening he had left wide-open for me to exploit. I was focused, shutting out the bright blue sky and crisp morning air outside my office so that only he and I existed in this moment in time. In tense negotiations, we were discussing the possibility of his company sponsoring an educational program on nonviolence...

...then the first plane hit.

We couldn't ever pick up that conversation again. It wasn't that we didn't understand its importance, it's just...well, let's say a lot of things went undone after 9/11. Best to put them away, try to hide the sensory memory of the experience.

I eventually left that job and wandered through this world, raising my children, having more conversations with more people about more money and what I would and would not do for them. But always, I carried in the back of my mind the memory of that day, the thick-as-mud irony of my small attempt to spread the message of nonviolence right when the World Trade Center was attacked.

The dark ironies seemed to continue: a cynical use of a national tragedy to play "Democracy dominoes" in the Middle East by attacking Iraq; our national leader declaring "you're either with us or against us" (and giving one the sinking sensation that - in addition to France and Russia - he meant you); a hooded man, arms akimbo, wires dripping off his body as if he was some decorative indoor palm tree in a shopping mall just waiting for the Christmas lights to be turned on.

Martin Luther King viewed the world through the lense of what he termed the "triple evils" of society: racism, poverty and war. It was in the middle of my wandering through my daily life that I encountered this message that gave me hope, that made me think, "Wow. Here's finally a presidential candidate who knew what King was actually talking about":



Being the jaded, research geek that I am, I dug deeper. I found his policies on poverty: http://johnedwards.com/issues/poverty/ and universal health care: http://johnedwards.com/issues/health-care/ . And I started to notice something: this guy's policies were all interconnected. This wasn't politics-by-laundry-list. This was the beginnings of a coherent strategy to take on King's triple evils proactively, to start the process of true justice by using the tools of our sometimes-corrupt-but-still-accountable Democratic system.

Over time, either the policies grew or my knowledge of them did, but I discovered the same consistency in John Edwards' stance on labor: http://johnedwards.com/issues/working-families/ (King, by the way, was an unabashed supporter of unions and organized labor) as well as the environment: http://johnedwards.com/issues/energy/ .

Recently, he's put out a plan to combat terrorism that is the closest I think one can realistically get to protecting our country by not just going after global terrorists structures but also the root causes of terrorism:



All of this has made me very hopeful that maybe, just maybe, we'll have a Presidential candidate that can implement not just King's words, but his policies.

Maybe John Edwards, once elected, would fall short on that. Maybe the realpolitik of Washington would crush his progressive policies and my soaring expectations. If so, he's got one seriously jaded, vocal blogger on his hands.

But I think at least he deserves a chance.

Carter on Edwards: "A Candidate Whom I Really Admire"

Two Southerners, two standard bearers of the Progressive Movement stood side by side in the Georgia heat today and talked about the future.

Jimmy Carter, the man who created a blue print for "ex-Presidents" that has been followed by everyone from Bill Clinton to George Bush, Sr., didn't endorse anyone for President. A man of great political wisdom, he rightly said it was too soon in the race to throw his considerable weight behind any one candidate right now.

But here's what he had to say about John Edwards:

"I can say without equivocation that no one who is running for president has presented anywhere near as comprehensive and accurate a prediction of what our country ought to do in the field of environmental quality, in the field of health care for those who are not presently insured, for those who struggle with poverty...." (http://www.cartercenter.org/homepage.htm l)

Let's stop for a moment and consider the gravitas of this statement. This is a man who as president guided us through our first serious energy crisis. Indeed, as Thom Hartman cites, Carter's April 18, 1977 speech, "...established the strategic petroleum reserve, birthed the modern solar power industry, led to the insulation of millions of American homes, and established America's first national energy policy." (http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0503 -22.htm).

In the area of health care, Carter has a wealth of experience to draw upon. The Carter Center, established by President Carter to continue the work he began in the oval office, is the base of the International Task Force for Disease Eradication (http://www.cartercenter.org/health/itfde /index.html). The Center's health programs have prevented the, "...suffering of millions of people around the world from diseases often ignored by others." (http://www.cartercenter.org/health/index .html). Carter's commitment to global health care, and his holistic approach in looking at how poverty and environment affect health, can be seen in the ways that Edwards approaches the issues of health care and economic justice. And both demonstrate that compassion should be the light that guides us, not just in determining our health care policies, but as an overall philosophy of government to ensure that everyone has a good, decent quality of life.

Although Carter's statement isn't an official endorsement, it is a heart-felt sentiment on John Edwards from one of our nation's most valued statesmen, and one that I hope folks will keep in mind during this primary season.