I remember those days, when we were all fired up and inspired by Mario Cuomo’s 1984 speech, and we all thought he ought to run for president. Here’s that speech:
Wonderful, isn’t it? Still true. Truer than ever. We need a president, and a congress, and a Supreme Court driven by that vision. And there seemed to be quite a few election cycles where many of us hoped that Cuomo would step forward and lead by that ideal.
He kept turning us down. And now he’s given us a final rebuff.
19 years after becoming an atheist, and I still sometimes reflexively want to say “R.I.P.”
My condolences to his family and friends.
Great guy. Too bad the apple fell so far from the tree.
If only the current crops of Democrats weren’t a bunch of spineless chickens.
Tony
All R.I.P. means is ‘rest in peace’. Is that so non-atheistic? (Personally I think it’s just a nice sentiment.) Anyway. :P
May there be someone to step up in his place, with the same passion and intelligence.
Condolences to his family and friends.
I wish his son was anything like him.
It is a nice sentiment, but it relies on the presupposition that there is something that remains of us after death to “rest”, i.e., a soul. So on those grounds it’s a little problematic.
Well that’s a first…. a speech by a US politician that brought tears to my eyes. Being a Brit I’d never heard of him before but that was wonderful. Condolences to those that loved him.
It’s so rare nowadays here in the UK to hear conviction politicians. We used to have them; Foot, Benn, Thatcher even. But now we have three clones all fighting for the “middle ground” (just today Ed Balls is making a virtue out of it) … Fuck the middle ground. Fuck focus groups. Fuck polls. I want ideas. Ideas and visions that I can consider and vote for or against.
God I hate Tony Blair.
Did he just say “God bless you” at the end of his speech? Much of the rhetoric he used seems to be out of MLKs repertoire. too. Can it be, he was a Christian?
re @9:
IDK, maybe he just says that to “be nice” to all the Christians, he knows, who are listening to him. I do that too, often, just to “blend in”, to keep from “raisin a ruckus” about my atheistic attitudes. Also like the standard response to hearing a sneeze, “ga-bleshu”, it’s just reflexive, no need to analyze it word by word.
.
but maybe I give this guy too much leeway, not having listened to that speech up there. IDK. bowing out now…
1984. REAGAN. he would have said “God Bless You” even if he were slaughtering babies for Satan.
that was, and mostly still IS, the politics.