Somewhere in America, a hotel housekeeper walks a picket line with her union brothers and sisters fighting for decent health care benefits during the day and works the late-shift at a diner at night so that she and her family can live a decent life and so her boy can go to college and have choices she never had.

And somewhere, a young man folds a college acceptance letter and puts it in his drawer because even with his part-time job and his mother’s second job, he knows he cannot afford to go. It doesn’t have to be that way.

It doesn't have to be this way

Forty years ago, speaking in protest against the war in Vietnam on the eve of its escalation, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King said there comes a time when silence is betrayal. Silence is betrayal.

Somewhere in America, a mother wipes her hand on a dishcloth to go answer a knock on her door and opens it to find an army chaplain and an officer standing there with solemn faces and her boy’s name — her patriotic son who enlisted after September 11 — on their lips. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Somewhere in the world, a five-year-old boy in a refugee camp is bending under the weight of his two-year-old sister. His family massacred, he carries his remaining sister everywhere, and sleeps with his arms wrapped tightly around her, knowing that tomorrow he will have to do the same thing, and again the next day and the day after that because she is all the family he has now. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Stand up for people

Somewhere in America, a father comes home from the second shift and feels a raging fever on the brow of his sleeping daughter as he kisses her goodnight. And now, bone-weary and worried, he cradles that child in his arms at the emergency room, because there is nowhere else for him to go. It doesn’t have to be that way.

And so I ask you, will you stand up for that tired father forced into emergency rooms to get health care for his little girl?

Will you stand up for the brave young boy in the refugee camp?

Will you stand up?

Will you stand up for the working men and women in our labor movement who have to fight for decent working conditions and living wages?

We are not the country of secret surveillance and government behind closed doors.

Will you stand up for the young man who knows that education is his way out of the cycle of poverty — and yet it seems beyond his grasp?

Will you stand up for that hungry eight-year-old girl so she doesn’t give up on her life before it’s even begun?

Will you stand up for all the American families whose loved ones are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Silence is betrayal

Will you stand up? Will you stand up for America? Because if we don’t stand up, who will? If we don’t speak out, who will?

Forty years ago, speaking in protest against the war in Vietnam on the eve of its escalation, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King said there comes a time when silence is betrayal. Silence is betrayal.

That time has come again. We cannot stand silent.

Speak out against the war

The time for half-measures, empty promises and sweet rhetoric is gone. Now is the time for courage, decisiveness and moral leadership.

They have to hear you. Can they hear you?

I believe it is a betrayal not to speak out against the escalation of the war our nation is engaged in today, in Iraq.

It is a betrayal for this President to send more troops into harm’s way when we know it will not succeed in bringing stability to the region.

Action is needed

And it is not right by our silence to enable this President to escalate the war in Iraq. And we must not delude ourselves: Our silence enables this President to escalate the war.

It is a betrayal not to stop the President’s plan when we have the responsibility, the power and the actual tools to prevent it.

Everyone must lead

Being satisfied with non-binding resolutions we know this President will ignore is a betrayal.

It’s time to stand up for the promise of America again — and for the principle that every American matters.

And shutting down debate in the Senate on this issue is worse than a betrayal. It’s an outright denial of the people’s will.

Americans are speaking out. And our leaders must do no less.

Being honest and changing course in Iraq is the first step in restoring America’s ability to provide moral leadership throughout the world. And make no mistake: America must lead. We are the pre-eminent, stabilizing power in the world. If we don’t stand up, who will?

Courage is necessary

This is the time for political courage — not only when it comes to speaking out against Iraq, but also about the challenges we face here at home.

Because, when it comes to 37 million Americans living in poverty, silence is betrayal.

Fight poverty

One in every five children — count them, one in every five American children — lives in poverty, here on the richest nation on the planet.

We don’t have to wait to see if someone keeps the promises of a 2008 campaign. In fact, the transformational change this country needs cannot wait until January 2009.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

The causes of poverty are complex, entrenched, and powerful. And our will to address them and restore the promises of equality and social justice must be just as strong. Are you strong enough?

Will you stand up to end poverty in America? It means addressing education, jobs, health care, housing, predatory lending and personal responsibility. The fight will be long and it will not be easy. Are you ready? Will you use your voice against poverty — or will you stand silent? Stand up. Stand up to eradicate poverty in America.

When it comes to 47 million Americans without health care, silence is betrayal.

Universal health care

The 47 million are silent victims of a health care system gone wrong, where policies are driven by profits, not patient care. We have to stop letting the health insurance companies and the big pharmaceutical concerns decide our nation’s health care policy.

We have to give the silent victims — who stand in line at free clinics and use the expired medicines of friends and neighbors — we have to give them the dignity of universal health care.

And while we’re at it, we have to stop using words like “access to health care” when we know with certainty those words mean something less than universal care. Who are you willing to leave behind without the care he needs? Which family? Which child?

Think universally

It is time to be patriotic about something other than war. It is time to do what you know is right and to speak out against what you know is wrong.

We need a truly universal solution, and we need it now.

Will you stand up for universal health insurance in America?

And it’s time we stood up for an energy policy that’s not dictated by the profit margins of Big Oil — and an environmental policy that’s not promoted by or regulated by polluters. Today, not tomorrow, or in the next decade or in the next generation. Today, our planet is at risk — and here, again, silence is betrayal.

End the silence

So, will you speak out? Will you stand up?

These are the great moral imperatives of our time. And by breaking the silence, we are not breaking faith with our flag or our forefathers or our brave young men and women in uniform. We are keeping faith with America.

We should be better

It is not right by our silence to enable this President to escalate the war in Iraq. Our silence enables this President to escalate the war.

Because we are better than this. We are better than this.

We should be the bright light, the beacon for all the world.

We are not the country of the Superdome in New Orleans after Katrina. We are not the country of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. We are not the country of secret surveillance and government behind closed doors.

Everyone matters

We are Americans, and we’re better than that.

The time for half-measures, empty promises and sweet rhetoric is gone. Now is the time for courage, decisiveness and moral leadership.

It’s time to stand up for the promise of America again — and for the principle that every American matters, no matter where you come from, or what color your skin is, or how much money you have in your pocket.

Stand with our workers

Let’s stand up for the working people whose labor made this country great. America was built by men and women who worked with their hands. And organized labor has fought for

Will you stand up for America? Because if we don’t stand up, who will? If we don’t speak out, who will?

and made better the lives of every working man and woman, by giving them a voice. Labor never stands silent where wrongs need to be righted. Will you stand with them?

It is time we acknowledged that it is organized labor, which has protected the American worker against mistreatment by corporate America. I am proud to stand beside organized labor. Will you stand with them, too? Will you walk with them and march with them?

Action now

We know one thing for sure: It is time to be patriotic about something other than war. It is time to do what you know is right and to speak out against what you know is wrong.

Not tomorrow. Now. Speak out now, take action now.

What are you waiting for?

We don’t have to wait to see if someone keeps the promises of a 2008 campaign. In fact, the transformational change this country needs cannot wait until January 2009.

Tomorrow begins today. And our obligation to act starts right here, right now.