"Give Us The Truth! Give Us The Truth! Give Us The Truth!"

Today, I have found a new hero. His name is Rocky Anderson and he is the mayor of Salt Lake City.

President Bush, Secretary Rice and Secretary Rumsfeld all came to Salt Lake City today and the mayor gave them an appropriate welcome. He addressed a protest rally, attended by at least 4,000 people.

I wish I could've been there. This is the greatest speech at least since Barack Obama's address to the Democratic National Convention in 2004. And I believe this is the most important speech of any Democrat in the last six years.

He starts his speech by saying the following:

A patriot is a person who loves his or her country.

Who among you loves your country so much that you have come here today to raise your voice out of deep concern for our nation - and for our world?

And who among you loves your country so much that you insist that our nation's leaders tell us the truth?

Let's hear it: "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"

Let no one deny we are patriots. We support our nation's troops. We are grateful to our veterans who have sacrificed so much for our freedoms. We love our country, we hold dear the values upon which our nation was founded, and we are distressed at what our President, his administration, and our Congress are doing to, and in the name of, our great nation.

Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.

Most moving to me was his call to say "no" to a long list of atrocities by the Bush administration:

No more lies, no more hiding of the truth, no more wars that more than triple the value of stock in Dick Cheney's prior employer, Halliburton - and which, as of last September, has increased the value of the Halliburton CEO's stock by $78 million.

We are patriots. We're deeply concerned. And we demand change, now.

No more lies from Condoleezza Rice about whether she and President Bush were advised before 9/11 of the possibility of planes being flown into buildings by terrorists.

No more gross incompetence in the office of the Secretary of Defense.

No more torture of human beings.

No more disregard of the basic human rights enshrined in the Geneva Convention.

No more kidnapping of people and sending them off to secret prisons in nations where we can expect they will be tortured.

No more unconstitutional wiretapping of Americans.

No more proposed amendments to the United States Constitution that would, for the first time, limit fundamental rights and liberties for entire classes of people simply on the basis of sexual orientation.

No more federal land giveaways to developers.

No more increases in mercury emissions from old, dirty, dangerous coal-burning power plants.

No more backroom deals that deprive protection for millions of acres of wild lands.

No more attacks on immigrants who work so hard to build better lives.

No more inaction by Congress on fixing our hypocritical and inconsistent immigration laws and policies.

No more reliance on fiction rather than the science of global warming.

No more manipulation of our media with false propaganda.

No more disastrous cuts in funding for those most in need.

No more federal cuts in community policing and local law enforcement grant programs for our cities.

No more inaction on stopping the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

No more of the Patriot Act.

No more killing.

No more pre-emptive wars.

No more contempt for our long-time allies around the world.

No more dependence on foreign oil.

No more failure to impose increased fuel efficiency standards for automobiles.

No more energy policies developed in secret meetings between Dick Cheney and his energy company cronies.

No more excuses for failing to aggressively cut global warming pollutant emissions.

No more tragically incompetent federal responses to natural disasters.

No more tax cuts for the wealthiest, while the middle class and those who are economically-disadvantaged continue to struggle more and more each year.

No more reckless spending and massive tax cuts, resulting in historic deficits and historic accumulated national debt.

No more purchasing of elections by the wealthiest corporations and individuals in the country.

No more phony, ineffective, inhumane so-called war on drugs.

No more failure to pass an increase in the minimum wage.

No more silence by the American people.

I was just stunned by this speech. And can you believe the length of this list? How many years it will take to undo all the harm caused by Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld & Co.

I urge you to read the entire speech. Mayor Anderson posted it at Daily Kos. If you would like to print it out you can also get the speech at the Mayor's website in pdf.

Why does it take a mayor of Salt Lake City to say all these things? Where are our leaders? Why have they been so silent?

Links:

Salt Lake City Mayor's Office

Wikipedia entry on Rocky Anderson

PS: The next election for mayor is in 2007. Rocky Anderson does not plan to run for a third term. Might as well run for President if you ask me. I'd support him in a heart beat.

Rocky for President!

I like the sound of that!