Kerry's comments on the Parkland high school kids

[karynnj]

A Washington Post article quotes from an email that John Kerry sent the reporter.

“Every historic moment has its own power, and these young people deserve their own moment,” the former secretary of state told me in an email early this morning. “Many of them have earned the right to be heard through a shared loss that innocents should never experience. Their moral clarity defies politics or partisanship. … These young people have touched the conscience of the country about common sense on guns, and they have the power to make it a voting issue again.”


Kerry became an antiwar activist after volunteering as a Naval officer in Vietnam, an experience that profoundly shaped his worldview and service in the Senate. “They were compelled because they’d seen friends suffer and die for a policy that they thought was a mistake,” he explained, referring to the veterans who became protesters. “Because they’d served, they couldn’t be dismissed by Spiro Agnew and the Nixon White House. The same way, these young people from Parkland and all over the country can’t be written off by mere politicians. Their moral authority is unimpeachable.”

The 74-year-old also sees analogues between the March for Our Lives and the movement to protect the environment, another issue that many view in existential terms. “The environment was written off for a long time as a minor issue,” he writes. “Earth Day 1970 changed all of that when millions filled the streets of America and turned the environment into a voting issue and forced [Richard] Nixon to create the EPA.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/03/26/daily-202-how-the-marches-for-gun-control-are-like-the-protests-against-vietnam/5ab864bb30fb042a378a2e6d/?utm_term=.9adc047b9967

Earlier Kerry had responded to an Emma Gonzales tweet praising her eloquence.

[treestar]

1. If I hear about them being just kids from one more deplorable . . .

Having that experience is going to "age" you in some ways not imaginable to most of us. Plus the environment might matter to people who are going to be alive longer and don't think blowing everything up for religious purposes is a great idea.

[karynnj]

2. I used the word kids with no disrespect meant

They are kids, but they are also awesome activists, articulate, and eloquent. (I do note that Kerry used "young people" , not kids.)

[treestar]

5. That's OK, I didn't mean you just the right-wing idiots

saying their opinions don't matter because they are too young (just kids).

[karynnj]

6. That makes sense

I did see the NRA comment that if they were too young to buy a gun, they were to young to comment on gun policy. It sickens me to see the right and the NRA attacking these students - especially after what they faced. I am stunned at how eloquent, articulate they are and how well they have handled the attacks, staying calm and remembering what their message is. They are awesome.

[John Fante]

3. John Kerry's way with words is vastly underrated. Powerful sentiments, beaufitully stated.

[karynnj]

4. I agree -- and I think that might be why he was covered less than any nominee of a major party in

2004. For years, i was astonished when after he gave a great speech -- for example at Obama's conventions, many would be out on DU saying that they never realized that he could be so good ... and that he should have spoken like that in 2004. As one who watched the 2004 speeches on CSPAN -- as the media tended to cover less than a minute or two -- he was very inspirational.

However, without him as Secretary of State, it is very unlikely that the Paris Accord would have happened -- and that is one thing that Trump has harmed, but can't change the path the rest of the world is on.

I will always feel that for me he was the nominee whose integrity, vision and creativity most impressed me.