November 10, 2009 04:02 PM UTC

The Denver Democrats Sen Edward Kennedy Dinner

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• by: Ray Springfield

I attended the pre party at the Denver Democrats dinner. In great pain this week from a nuerological disorder, I only stayed through Sen Bennet and Speaker Romanoff’s speeches. I read the text of David Sirota’s speech posted in full on the internet.

Certainly the most poignant line occurred when Sen.Bennet qouted from the eulogy Sen Kennedy gave at his brother Robert’s funeral. Some look at the world and ask why, I look at at world and ask why not. This is a paraphrase, but nevertheless epitomizes what shiould be the Democrats vision. It exemplifies the Obama agenda.

Speaker Romanoff gives a good speech and I certainily congratulate him on a successful career in the legislature. I don’t understand his reasoning for opposing tuition equity on the immigration issue. 12 to 20 million people live in the USA with no rights whatsoever. This travesty reminds me of the Jews in Germany circa 1938 and the Nuremberg laws. A compassionate society will not permit a permanent underclass with no rights. Sen.Morgan Carroll recently mentioned that some immigrants from countries that will not accept extradition do de facto life sentences in federal detention centers. Human trafficking exists in Colorado. Many asians have been brought here to work in prostitutiom rings. These people should not  face life sentences for having been slaves in the first place.

The text of David Sirota’s speech on the surface encourages Democrats to take action. The underlying message I must disagree with.  Mr.Sirota recently  referred to the President’s chief of staff as the President himself. I find this objectionable to the office, and obejctionable to African Americans. His belittling of Democratic victories such as the recent house passage of a health care bill , I find belittles the history ofthe Civil Rights movement as a whole. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 came before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took the efforts of Rosa Parks,  Martin Luther king, Freedom Riders,  President Kennedy, and Pres.  Lyndon Johnson to pass the act of 1964.  Without the act of 1957, which basically only outlawed lynching on a federal level, the act of 1964 would not have come to pass. To belittle victories, and to attack the President and his supporters as sycophants, belittles the American process. Conservatives vote in our republic. The majority backlash in the Reagen/Bush years should serve as a remiinder of that. If Mr.Sirota’s agenda were to be followed, I believe that the party would suffer defeats as significant as Geroge McGovern’s defeat in 1972, and the congressional defeats we sufferred in 1994. Mr. Sirota’s agenda , in my opinion, and his attacks on the adminstration hurt Democratic causes more than the far right wing.

It took the death of a President, Sen Kennedy’s brother, along with the efforts of many people giving their lives to pass both the act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. President Johnson pushed the Kennedy legacy. Mr.Sirota should keep this in mind when he  patronizes Democrats making progress.