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"On this night I would like to depart from the usual speech demanded on
such occasions when, every four years, we celebrate the process of
democracy. On this night, ladies and gentlemen, I would instead like to
speak about America's children.
While our nation has dutifully kept its gaze fixed on approaching
catastrophes, we have become blind to the catastrophes already upon us. In
this the most economically developed nation in the world, at least nine
million children are uninsured and receive little or no preventive medical
or dental care. This is to say nothing of the millions more undocumented
children in our midst.
Millions of our children live in substandard housing. Millions are
suffering mental and physical malnutrition from chronic hunger and chronic
neglect and abuse. Our infant mortality rate ranks an abysmal 28th
internationally. An astounding one-third of American three year-olds have
not received their complete immunizations. Over the past few years of
difficult economic times, all of these numbers have been growing.
And while our nation obsesses over threats from abroad, every day here at
home our children are facing a barrage of threats to good health.
One-third of American children are now overweight or obese. Under siege,
they are confronted daily by powerful fast food and soft drink industries,
endless junk food advertising, under funded schools selling unhealthful
food and reducing physical education, and a lack of safe and accessible
places to play due to decades of poor community planning.
My fellow Americans, the child is the canary of our societal coal mine,
and I'm here tonight to tell you that the canary is not looking too
healthy right now. From the household level, to the school district and
community levels, and finally to the governmental level our society is
failing to protect the health and welfare of our greatest resource.
Given that the truest measure of a nation's maturity is its ability to
safeguard the hope of a better future for its youngest members, our nation
is showing that it needs to grow up, and quickly.
Tonight, I propose that our advance to maturity will begin when our nation
views social, economic, and political issues almost solely from the
perspective of what is best for our children. Begging your forgiveness, I
take an enormous liberty in modifying the wisdom of the great Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. by a single word: "We must rapidly begin the shift from a
thing-oriented society to a children-oriented society."
Our nation does not really have a money problem, we have a priorities
problem. Our political priorities have long favored the needs of business
while overlooking or dismissing the needs of children, though the two are,
surprisingly, not mutually exclusive.
Our leaders have discovered that mobilizing us against unknown enemies is
more politically useful and requires of us fewer sacrifices than
mobilizing us against the known enemies: hunger, poverty, obesity, AIDS,
abuse, shamefully under funded schools, and the corporate exploitation of
children. These are sadly just a few.
Our nation has a long history of protecting the health and welfare of
children. It is time we do so again. Making children our focal point can
tie us together as nothing else can. On issues as wide-ranging as the
environment, education, energy policy, and foreign affairs, if elected I
vow to frame every decision with the simple question: What is best for our
children?
That is not to say that there will be simple solutions. Compromises and
sacrifices will be required. Just as no single political party offers a
monopoly on solutions, no single party is to blame for letting things get
out of control. Just as the child is blessedly untainted by political
orientation, so should be the means employed in addressing his needs.
Like a "typical" teenager, our nation often behaves as if invincible, and
able to live forever. With maturity, however, comes the realization that
we live forever through our children, and our children's children. With
maturity even childless adults often come to realize that their
immortality rests upon making the world a better place for generations to
follow.
Ladies and gentlemen, children are one-fourth of our population, and all
of our future. Every child we're leaving behind in this great nation of
plenty is, in the final sense, one more wasted opportunity to improve that
future.
