 |
||||||
|
|
Those who now call for an end to dissent, moreover, seem not to understand what this country is all about. For debate and dissent are the very heart of the American process. We have followed the wisdom of Greece: "All things are to be examined and brought into question. There is no limit set to thought." For debate is all we have to prevent past errors from leading us down the road to disaster. How else is error to be corrected, if not by the informed reason of dissent? Every dictatorship has ultimately strangled in the web of repression it wove for its people, making mistakes that could not be corrected because criticism was prohibited. A second purpose of debate is to give voice and recognition to those without the power to be heard. There are millions of Americans living in hidden places, whose faces and names we never know. But I have seen children starving in Mississippi, idling their lives away in the ghetto, living without hope or future amid the despair on Indian reservations, with no jobs and little hope. I have seen proud men in the hills of Appalachia, who wish only to work in dignity-but the mines are closed, and the jobs are gone and no one, neither industry or labor or government, has cared enough to help. Those conditions will change, those children will live, only if we dissent. So I dissent, and I know you do too. A third reason for dissent is not because it is comforting, but because it is not-because it sharply reminds us of our basic ideals and true purpose. Only broad and fundamental dissent will allow us to confront-not only material poverty-but poverty of satisfaction that afflicts us all. So if we are uneasy about our country today, perhaps it is because we are truer to our principles than we realize, because we know that our happiness will come not from goods we have, but from the good we do together. We say with Camus: "I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.". So I come here today, to this great university, to ask our help-not for me-for your country and for the future of your world. You are the people, as President Kennedy said, who have "the least ties to the present and the greatest ties to the future." I urge you to learn the harsh facts that lurk behind the mask of official illusion with which we have concealed our true circumstances, even from ourselves. Our county is in danger: Not just from foreign enemies; but above all, form our own misguided policies, and what they can do to this country. There is a contest, not for the rule of America, but for the heart of America. In these next eight months, we are going to decide what this country will stand for, and what kind of men we are. So I ask for your help, in the cities and homes of this state, in the towns and farms, contributing your concern and action, warning of the danger of what we are doing, and the promise of what we can do. I ask you, as tens of thousands of young men and women are doing all over this land, to organize yourselves, and then to go forth and work for new policies-work to change our direction-and thus restore our place at the point of moral leadership, in our country, in our own hearts, and all around the world |
|||||
 |
||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
When we are
told to forego all dissent and division, we must ask: Who is it
that is truly dividing the country? It is not those who call for
change; it is those who make present policy who divide our country;
those who bear the responsibility for our present course; those
who have removed themselves from the American tradition, from the
enduring and generous impulses that are the soul of the nation.