http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1957925Part Three: A Tale of Two Cities (Democratic National Convention; 7-16-1984)
"Ten days ago, President Reagan admitted that although some people in this country seemed to be doing well nowadays, others were unhappy, even worried, about themselves, their families, and their futures. The president said that he didn’t understand that fear. He said, ‘Why, this country is a shining city on a hill.’ And the president is right. In many ways we are a shining city on a hill.
"But the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city’s splendor and glory. A shining city is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there’s another city; there’s another part to the shining city; the part where some people can’t pay their mortgages, and most young people can’t afford one, where students can’t afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.
"In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can’t find it. Even worse: there are elderly people who tremble in the basements of houses there. And people who sleep in the streets, in the gutter, where the glitter doesn’t show. There are ghettos where thousands of young people, without a job or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers every day. There is dispair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don’t see, in the places that you don’t visit in your shining city.
"In fact, Mr. President, this is a nation – Mr. President, you ought to know that this nation is more a ‘Tale of Two Cities’ than it is just a ‘Shining City on a Hill’."
Governor Cuomo’s 1984 speech is just as powerful and true today for many, many democrats at the grass roots level. We do not live in the exclusive shining neighborhoods, where the Bush policies may be viewed as mistaken, but where the pain they cause is not felt. We live in that other city, in the surrounding towns, and in the rural areas that Mario Cuomo represents.
When we watch the news, and hear about the latest congressional investment in the war in Iraq, and the drums of war in regard to Iran, we must in good conscience support that most liberal and progressive democratic candidates in the primaries. We demand that our leader, in the spirit of Mario Cuomo, not give a speech that brings crowds to their feet, but rather, deliver a message that brings this nation to its senses.
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Governor Cuomo was/is a real human being, a good speaker who had the sense of authenticity and integrity that John Edwards has (making him "electable" imho). He wrote inspiring speeches and could also speak clearly off the script, from his own brain and thoughts GASP!! imagine that!
During the 1984 campaign is when they gave Reagan his makeover and the "Great Communicator" was finally able to complete a sentence....
Reagan was a complete phony and the fact that HIS phoniness carried on, the fact that HIS invisible robes were accepted by so many for long, is what made the current national state of delusion possible.
"City on a Hill" came from Governor John Winthrop and he may have had something else in mind, something to aspire to, some higher level of commonwealth, rather than a conspicuous consumption raid on the commons and a selling out of every principle this nation stood for.
"It is far, far easier to package lies for mass consumption, than to communicate what is true and important."
The question then and now is:
Why do people fall for it?
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