#file_1# On September 14, 2001, I was standing in this square, behind a makeshift stage with then Lt Gov Townsend. Perhaps some of you were here as well. We gathered that day to share our tears and sense of grief, our anger and sense of outrage. Following the attack on the world on Sept 11th, I put together an interfaith service of prayer, word, and song. One of our elected officials, Mr O’Malley had other ideas and thought that the focus of our gathering ought be the flag. Many had seen the events of September 11th as an attack on America when in truth citizens of 91 nations around the world perished that day, the blood of the whole world was on the hands of a dozen and a half ill guided terrorists. The mayor had, I suppose, a different road map than the one which we had hoped to follow. He had wanted to end the event with the singing of the National Anthem and you can imagine his reaction when one of my colleagues announced an entirely different song. It wasn’t pleasant.

Today, almost two years to the day, we gather in this square to once again share our tears and sense of grief, our anger and sense of outrage. There has been another attack on the world and again, one of our selected officials, Mr. Bush, would have us believe that this is about the flag. Or this is about terrorism. This is about a whole myriad of things. My sisters and brothers, I would suggest to you that these two events are inextricably linked but if you think that they are so for the reasons that Mr. Bush would suggest, then you have not been paying attention. This time our nation cannot claim to be the victim. We are, sadly, the perpetrators and the blood of the innocent dead is on our hands. Almost three thousand innocent people died on September 11th. In the past 5 months, more than twice that number of innocent Iraqi civilans have needlessly perished. For the first time in the history of this mighty nation, we have become the aggressors. Mr Bush took this nation into war against the people of Iraq not to discover the weapons of mass destruction, not to unearth quantities of chemical weapons, not to root out Al Qaeda for none of those things were found or accomplished. What has been foundis an opportunity to add a new line in the portfolio of the friends of Dick Cheney, the people instrumental in the selection of Mr Bush as pseudo President of this land that we love but whose economic politics we detest. What has been accomplished is the lining of the pockets of the Bechtels, the Halliburtons with billions and billions of dollars at the expense of our cities and our working class people. Our foreign policy is being shaped by those who will reap immense profits through political cronyism run rampant.

There was a time when America was looked up to, when we reached out to other smaller, developing nations and offered them what they needed to join us at the table as equal partners. Those days are gone. Now we look at emerging nations as our next opportunity to benefit the heirs of Sam Walton, our next opportunity to close down a union shop here in the United States and to open up a sweatshop somewhere else in the world.

Free trade, my friends, is not fair trade.
No longer can we pretend that the policies of our government which have their focus on the self interests of Ameircan corporations do not affect the lives of millions of innocents around the world. We need not spend millions of dollars abroad looking for dens of unhappy nationals looking for an opportunity to right a wrong. Soon enough, formerly hardworking Americans who have no health care, who have no sufficient employment will sadly begin to take things into their own hands. Thanks to NAFTA, almost ¾ of a million jobs here have been lost in less than ten years. Over 3 million jobs and job opportunities have been lost since the WTO took effect in January of 1995. The industrial landscape of this mighty land will soon begin to look like Sparrows Point but on a much grander scale.

The time has come to win the battle over the politics of self interest and cronyism. The time has come to start electing people to office that will oppose the interests of big business and corporate greed. And if the truth be told we will need to begin at the top and as far as I know there is only one candidate on the horizon who will stand up to the WTO and repeal NAFTA. It is the congressman from Cleveland who stood up to the special interest as the youngest mayor in the country and will stand up to them now.

There is good news and there is bad news. The good news is that I am confident that the tide is turning. Mr Bush went on the television the other night to chat with us about his state of the union, his interpretation of the state of the world. And the result was that his popularity has slipped another 7 points. It is now down to fifty two percent. The bad news is that we American have terribly short memories. There is much hard work to do in the next 14 months to ensure that the moving van will be pulling up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, ready to take George and Laura back to the ranch, once and for all. As much as we are in need of a regime change here at home, we also need to say no to the WTO, we need to say no to NAFTA, we need to say no to the FTAA.

We have our work cut out for us, to be sure. If there is one lesson to be learned from the tragic events of September 11th, 2001 it is this--Margaret Meade was right when she said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I am confident that small groups of equally thoughtful committed people can just as easily change the world for the good. We have out work cut out for ourselves. Let us begin it now. Thank you.