Lowell Neighborhood Debate - June 28th, 2007

Opening Remarks

It's good to be back here on this side of the river, in Pawtucketville, where I lived for a while over on Gershom Ave. I live now off of Gorham Street in the Sacred Heart neighborhood in the Grove, closer to my roots, to Back Central where my family grew up on Lyons Street. For me the neighborhood is not a collection of old buildings and streets but of stories of people, of what has been, what is, and of what can be. And when I walk around its streets I see these, but I see too the changes in the neighborhood. Lowell, after all, is a place of great change, but change itself is neutral and how we choose to shape it depends on our vision both of what has come before and what may come in the future.

Change for the better will not come when new buildings go up, if all the old obstacles remain: to jobs, health care, education, housing and transportation. And change for the better will occur only if it is driven by the people of our neighborhoods. A motto for Lowell was suggested, and I know only what its author was drinking, which read, "Look at Lowell now: From mills to martinis..." Now put aside, for a moment, the folly of comparing a workplace to overpriced gin, and ask yourself is this the Lowell we know and love and want to become? Or is our downtown to become a place so completely foreign to us that it ceases to be Lowell? And what of the neglect of our neighborhoods? The places in which we live, but can hardly work or shop? Who's looking at them now? Who's looking at the neglected neighborhoods all across this district and our nation?

With the same view of development, some here have suggested that we must be looking, through tax breaks, to bring the next Wang to this district, and train our residents for jobs there. But like the mills, the factories and tanneries, Wang came and went and when it folded, it fell into the old story of taking people's pensions and benefits with them. Workers, the people of this district, are the only constant here. So what do we do? Do we throw money at outside corporations, or do we invest here in our people? I say we invest in ourselves, that we fit jobs to our needs and our people and not the other way round, that we give people the best possible education, the best health care, the safest and cleanest environment within our homes and without, and that we let each other around us astound us with our own creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.

Mine is a fundamental difference in philosophy. Many candidates here have talked about their hard work to have risen out of their working-class roots. And while I commend them, you will never hear me make such a claim. I still work, after all. And I will work harder still in Washington for the average salary of a worker in this district and without health insurance until all our fellow citizens are insured. For when I rise, I'll rise not out of the working-classes, but with them, with the people of my neighborhood, my city, of our district and our nation.

Closing Remarks

The financial reporting deadline for Congressional candidates is June 30th, just two days away. No doubt the candidates will all make last-minute pleas for donations, for contributions to their campaigns. I have no such pleas to make, not much to report except that while I do not believe in the need for fundraising or fundraising goals, they were nonetheless met. Some candidates have said they spend over four hours talking on the phone raising money, or more "political speech." My money says those candidates will be no different if they switch offices and hope to keep their seat there. But is this really how you wish your Congressman to spend his time, or waste yours? Is this how you want your Congressman to spend his funds, or waste yours? How much did it cost the candidates to participate in democracy tonight, in the free exchange of ideas? How much to listen to you and answer your questions? I'm not getting a bill for this, am I?

My presence here, our presence here tonight, reminds us from whom all political power is derived. For each of us does have power, it is within our reach if we'd only exercise it. I've seen it in this city, men and women working together, fighting for their neighbors, their fellow workers, for homes and their churches. And the more we use this power, the more power we find is there to use.

I ask of you only what you would ask of yourselves-to continue to serve your communities, to organize and speak and seek us out and speak louder still...by sheer force of will, to put into words and deeds what is needed in our neighborhoods, our district, this nation and the world, so that neither one hundred dollars, nor a thousand dollars, nor even a thousand thousands may keep us quiet and our speech unfree.