Patrick as witness: channeling Walt Whitman

I knew Patrick’s speech reminded me of someone …

So, as an American, I am an optimist.  But not a foolish one.  I see clearly the challenges before us.

I see the young talent and jobs leaving our state, driven away by the high cost of housing.

I see the poor in terrible shape, and the middle class one month away from being poor.

I see the heroin in the cities and the oxycotin in the suburbs, destroying families with cold indifference to class and status.

I see the way the public schools too often fail poor kids and the how the cost of public colleges is pushing young people out.

I see the broken roads and bridges, the soaring health care costs, the high property taxes, the violence in our streets.

But I also see the creativity of our universities.

I also see the ingenuity of our industries.

I also see the skill of our hospitals, the inspiration of our artists.

And I see above all the imagination, the compassion and the energy of our people.

I see what we are capable of – not just as a matter of history, but as a matter of character.

And I am asking you to touch that part of our shared legacy, and reach with me for something better.

Whitman:

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
  oppression and shame;

I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
  themselves, remorseful after deeds done;

I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
  neglected, gaunt, desperate;

I see the wife misused by her husband–I see the treacherous seducer
  of young women;

I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
  hid–I see these sights on the earth;

I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny–I see martyrs and
  prisoners;

I observe a famine at sea–I observe the sailors casting lots who
  shall be kill’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;

I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
  laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;

All these–All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out
  upon,

See, hear, and am silent.

More Whitman:

YEARS of the modern! years of the unperform’d!

Your horizon rises–I see it parting away for more august dramas;

I see not America only–I see not only Liberty’s nation, but other

nations preparing;

I see tremendous entrances and exits–I see new combinations–I see

the solidarity of races;

I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s

stage;

(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts

suitable to them closed?)

I see Freedom, completely arm’d, and victorious, and very haughty,

with Law on one side, and Peace on the other,

A stupendous Trio, all issuing forth against the idea of caste; […]

Pretty good speech, huh?

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