A Speech of Hope

by Rich Aucoin
(November 11, 2006)

America is a nation built on promises; promises made 230 years ago by a group of people who had some noble, if hugely ambitious, goals.

In creating a "more perfect union," our forebears hoped that Americans would work toward making this land a place of individual freedom and equal justice. And to make our work go as smoothly as possible, they also espoused the principles of peace and free trade among nations, understanding that war undermines and erodes the very ideals they'd hoped to establish here.

Looking back, we can see that the road to America has proven to be a long and bumpy one. And we are still not yet there.

As Martin Luther King said in his I Have a Dream speech: "In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir."

It took black Americans a very long time to begin tasting the freedom and equality they'd been promised. And during that agonizing wait, many Americans dared not dream as King one day would. Many probably couldn't have conceived of the day when a Deval Patrick would win an American governorship - in a landslide, no less. Yet, here we are.

The same was true of  women's suffrage. How many American women probably never conceived of the day when their promissory note would be cashed in the year 1920. Yet it was. And now we are about to see our first female Speaker of the House.

So Americans can now say from experience that once-seemingly-impossible change is indeed possible - as long as principled people are willing to persevere against even the longest of odds.

And so with the benefit of this hindsight, we in the antiwar movement can forge ahead. It's our turn to cash in on the promise that was made to us by the Founders: a foreign policy of neutrality and nonintervention. Like blacks and women before us, we have felt hopeless; we have dared not to dream of a sane foreign policy and a federal government that doesn't meddle in the affairs of other peoples and governments....and which doesn't incite retaliation against us. Like blacks, women, gays and other oppressed groups before us, we in the antiwar movement have suffered the slings and arrows of appalling ignorance. And, like them, we, too, shall overcome!

But how? How will we realize OUR dream of peace? How will we dismantle a Military Industrial Complex that is so powerful and so corrupt? How do we get there from here?

Let me tell you a brief story.

In 2002 my good friend Michael Cloud, who ran against John Kerry in that year's U.S. Senate race, gave a speech of hope that I will never forget. In that speech Michael Cloud related a story about having met and chatted with Rosa Parks as a young man. In their conversation, Michael Cloud asked Rosa Parks: "When you were going through all those painful and difficult times in the 1950s and 60s, how did you know that all of your struggles and pain would eventually pay off?"

Rosa Parks responded: "You silly, silly child! I didn't know that we would prevail in the end! None of us knew that! We just kept on putting one foot in front of the other."

So simple, and, yet, so profound.

We likewise don't know whether our work will pay off. We can't say with certainty that our gathering here today will one day be looked back upon as having been a small step toward dismantling the U.S. War Machine. But we do know that if we don't put one foot in front of the other; if we don't stand on our principles and insist on taking what belongs to us, -  if we don't keep our eyes on the prize of peace -  then we can never get home to the real America.

And so it is time for the antiwar movement to Have a Dream. It is time for OUR dream and our promissory note to be cashed.

It is time that we started putting one foot in front of the other.

And the Antiwar League, with members from every corner of the political spectrum, is an exciting step in the right direction. Please walk with us to a peaceful and free America.

*****

Libertarian Rich Aucoin has been active in the small-government movement for over 10 years, working side by side with fellow libertarians and other tax cutters to reduce the size and scope of harmful Big Government. Rich is also a member of Antiwar League. This speech was delivered on Veterans Day at the Antiwar League rally in Roslindale, MA.

email rich:

Read other speeches from the rally.