With deference and thanks to Lawrence O'Donnell, the term "liberal" has lost a considerable amount of the tarnish it has worn as a political label in recent history, in no small part because of "the speech" With a proud "socialist" from very rural Vermont now in the race for the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States, I offer the following next version of "the speech" as a part of the political rehab of another much derided and misunderstood political label, "Socialist." I urge every candidate for the Democratic Party to embrace a label which has done a great deal of good for rural America and the rest of the world.
To my way of thinking the best place to deliver this speech would be in front of a Tennessee Valley Authority dam because to this day the TVA is a concrete example of the good work that American socialists have done for rural America. I must confess that the Senator from Vermont would probably be the best person to deliver this speech, but with minor modification any good Democrat should be able to rub the tarnish off that often derided label with this same speech.
"i am proud to be standing before you today, here in the shadow of the hills of Tennessee, near this dam built with the blood, sweat, and toil of hard working Americans during the recovery from the Great Depression. I am most proud to be standing here today because the Tennessee Valley Authority was the brainchild of my fellow American socialists who understood the value of controlling the flooding which plagued this valley, and better still understood the value of bringing affordable electricity to my fellow rural Americans.
Between the Tennessee Valley Authority and the rural electrification program, during the depths of the Great Depression, the socialists in American government who came before me made sure that every American living on a dirt road had the same access to the affordable electricity that millionaires living in Manhattan penthouses enjoyed. When the telephone company was reaping enormous profits and still denying service to those same Americans living on dirt roads because the cost of stringing copper line to those homes would never be profitable, I'm proud that the socialists in American government who came before me implemented a small universal service fee to ensure that the homes on those dirt roads were not left behind by the modern world, and that the phone company had a duty to serve the dirt roads as well as the big cities. I stand before you here today proud that the label my opponents have thrown at my feet like a curse word is a label I have always worn with pride. Once again, I will gladly pick it up from the ground as a proud American socialist and I will wear it with pride. Like those great American socialists who came before me, I also assure you, that I will never let rural America be left behind by the modern world.
I say that to you today, knowing that today, despite the work of the past, rural America is at risk of being left behind by the modern world again, and I won't let that happen. The same electric companies, and the same phone companies, that said they would never turn a profit if they had to incur the expense of running copper lines to the homes on America's dirt roads, yet are making billions of dollars in profits today after having done so, are once again saying that they will never turn a profit if they have to run fiber optic lines to rural American homes for high speed Internet service. We know that these lines will be needed to give people living in the country access to the cutting edge features of the Internet that are being developed right now. I for one, don't believe them when they say that if they are forced to do so, they will never be profitable, and as a proud American socialist, I will make sure that rural America isn't left behind by the modern world by making sure that high speed broadband services are provided not only to the inner cities and the suburbs of America, but also to the people living on the dirt roads in America, but more importantly, as a proud American socialist, I will make sure those dirt roads get paved. I don't know if the next Mark Zuckerberg or Sergei Brin is living on a farm in Montana, in a mansion in Beverly Hills, or in a housing project in Brooklyn, and neither does AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, or any of the other major Internet Service Providers, but I do know that in America, each of those people deserves a fair chance to reach their potential, and I will make sure that happens.
The tradition of socialism in America isn't something new. It started with our nation's founding. Before the telephone, before the telegraph, and before the rail road, the founders spread out amongst the thirteen far flung colonies that became the first thirteen United States understood the importance of communication. The reliability of the pre-revolutionary war postal service was so important to spreading the news and uniting the country that our founders included the post office in our Constitution. From the very beginning of our nation, the socialists in America understood that there were some services so vital to us, and some services that our government could provide more effectively and at a lower cost than private enterprise, that they made sure our government did them. They made sure they did things like the post office, but they didn't stop there. The post office wasn't the only socialist vision our founders had for America.
Thomas Jefferson was the third President of these United States, but his tombstone makes no mention of that fact. As he wished, it does mention that he was the father of the University of Virginia. From the very beginning of our nation Thomas Jefferson had a vision for America to ensure that the people of the United States were the best educated in the world, because he believed that an educated electorate was the best guardian of our democracy. Jefferson and the American socialists who followed him were the first in the world to build a system of free, universal, public education. What is most interesting to me, in examining the history of humanity, is that Jefferson's idea, and the beginning of our system of free, universal public education, was probably THE turning point in human history.
Before America made sure that all of our citizens had an education, the advances in human history, and the history of innovation were few and far between. The ancient Greeks invented not only democracy, but also the steam engine, more than two millennia ago. Unfortunately for the Greeks, so few people understood anything about science, that it faded into history as a novelty. It wasn't until James Watt, a man educated at the University of Glasgow rediscovered the technology, just a year before our nation was born, that a technology which literally transformed our world, was ever put to productive use.
When America made sure that all of our citizens were educated, the level of innovation, improvements in technology, and the conveniences of our world saw exponential growth. The railroads were built, the light bulb was invented, the phonograph, the motion picture, the telegraph, the telephone, manned flight, radio, the multi-stage rocket, space flight, television, satellites, the automobile, computers, robots, suspension bridges, skyscrapers, antibiotics, and someone even got around to inventing sliced bread. If it wasn't for the American socialists who came before me, I doubt many of those innovations would have ever came about. Think about it for a moment, would people who can not read ever need an Internet, let alone a computer? Would anyone who invented those things have ever had a market to sell those things to, without public education? Would a nation filled with people who didn't understand basic math have ever grown enough dreamers, to not only have the vision to go to the moon, but then also have enough people with the technical skills, and scientific minds, necessary to make that happen? So yes, I guess you could say I'm proud to be a part of that long tradition of American socialists who made sure that our dreamers have had the education to literally put a man on the moon.
Along the way, socialism in America helped create a middle class right here, and the ideas of socialized education that we invented, spread around the world. These ideas not only gave so many of our own people the skills they needed to invent much of the technology that makes the world we live in today possible, but the wealth created by the increased productivity those technologies created, lifted millions of people around the world out of poverty, extended lifespans, and generally made life better for a millions of people, both here and around the world. So yes, I'm proud of that history.
But history isn't enough. We can not afford to rest on our laurels. While others have picked up our ideas about free, universal public education and ran with them, in many ways, we have stood still, while others have ran past us. An American high school student who is fluent in German today, might do better to immigrate to Germany to finish their education at a German university, than to stay here in the United States, because in Germany, the people have decided to make a college education, tuition free for everyone accepted to one of their colleges and universities, including immigrants to their country. Why have they done this? The German people have done this because they understand that in our modern world, a world class education for their brightest minds, and the brightest minds from around the world that Germany can attract to their shores, means a brighter future for their country. We cannot afford to let the next Elon Musk head to Germany for school, instead of the United States, but we also can't afford to let Johnny Smith, the ordinary American kid sitting in a class room with the next great idea think to himself that he can't afford get the education he needs to make that idea work because college is unaffordable. We also can't afford to let Johnny's older sister Sue, who is struggling to pay her student loan debt, miss out on the American dream, because no matter how hard she works, she will never be able to pay for the education that allows her to be a productive member of society. We cannot afford to do that, and because of that, as President, I will make sure that our public colleges and universities along with our community colleges are free for all who qualify to attend, and I will make sure that our not-for-profit private universities provide a tuition free education for all of their students, and those that fail to do so, will loose their not-for-profit status, because I am a proud socialist, in the tradition of all those great American socialists who came before me, like Jefferson and Roosevelt.
I only hope that the next time someone throws the label socialist like a curse at the feet of other Americans who believe that there are some things that we as a society do better than any private enterprise, that they too pick that label up, dust it off, and wear it as a badge of honor, because our history, and the history of those nations who have followed our lead, prove that it is a badge of honor."