འ་ནས*
QUILHAS VI
VAU
assumptions and old policies, trying to prop up yesterday's status quo, filing to confront our new challenges. I have agreed with Presid Bush on a number of foreign policy issues, but I do not believe he has a complete vision of this new era. In a world of
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change, security flows from initiative, not from inertia. Next week the Republicans will gather in Houston to nominate Mr. Bush and to praise his record. Will they paint a partisan portrait of the past or render a vision of the future that we Americans
can build together?
In their campaign, the Republicans have already tried to claim sole credit for the victory, of freedom in the United States and the Cold War, and they suggest that, in their second term, they will finally bring to domestic policy the same energy and expertise marked by foreign policy in their first term. This argument misreads both history and current events. The notion that the Republicans won the Cold War alone reminds me of the rooster who took credit for the dawn. The truth is (applause) the truth
is that, from Truman to Kennedy to Carter, Democrats as well as Republican presidents have held firm against the expansion of communism. From Richard Russell to "Scoop" Jackson to Sam Nunn and Les Aspin, Democratic leaders in Congress have helped build the finest defense forces in the history of the world. We must never forget that, in the end, communism rotted from the inside out with heroes both famous and unknown leading the way.
Even more flawed is the Republican claim that, just as they changed their world in their first term, they can now change America in their second - or fourth. We must understand that foreign and domestic policy are now two sides of the same coin. If we're not strong at home, we cannot be strong abroad, and if we can't compete in the global economy, we will surely pay for it here at home. The same president who refused to make changes as American wages fell from first to thirteenth in the world, as our productivity lagged badly behind other nations, was slow to recognize changes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the same administration that has so far done nothing for 10 million Americans unemployed and more than two-third of our work force whose wages are now lower in real terms than they were 10 years ago, stood by as courageous Chinese students were attacked with tanks in Tiananmen Square. (Applause.)
A preference for the established order over constructive change give an enormous advantage in the world in which live to the high-wage, high-investment, high-grow nations in Europe and Asia with which we must inevitably compete for the futures for every man and woman, every boy and girl in the United States of America. Global change is inexorable and can work to our advantage or to our disadvantage, depending on what we do.
No one understands the opportunities and the hazards of change better than the people of California [who] must surely understand
thom todav
Věny
toetamante
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