A Call to Service: on Principles & Values
Redeem promise for a better America for our children
I am a child of the greatest generation of Americans and therefore a member of the most fortunate generation of Americans. Like my parents, I have always hopes and often assumed that my own children will have more opportunities in life than
I had and will live in a country and in a world where such opportunities are more widely shared and more deeply rooted than at any time in the past. I am running for president in no small part to redeem that promise for the America to come.
While we are living today in the most extraordinary and powerful nation no earth, I believe not only that America's best days are still to come but that our best work is yet to be done. We have the capacity to lift the life of our own land as well as
lead the world to a safer and more hopeful future. But doing so will require equal measures of strength, vision, and resolve, embodied in a leadership that grasps both the breadth of our potential and the great legacy of our past.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 1
Bush broke his three biggest campaign promises
My case is based on 3 big promises Bush made in 2000, then subsequently abandoned. - First, he pledged to "change the tone" in Washington-to reach out to Democrats & all Americans and overcome the partisan bitterness of the late 1990s. But since
then the president has done the very opposite, presiding over the most partisan administration I have experienced.
- Second, Bush pledged frequently to temper the harsh ideology of his party with a "compassionate conservatism." [But Bush's approach has
been] a rhetoric of compassion and concern accompanied by policies that are compassionate primarily toward the most comfortable members of our society.
- Bush pledged many times to usher in a "responsibility era," to exercise brave leadership whatever
the political costs. He has reneged by refusing to deal with global climate change, the impending crisis in retirement programs, the culture of corporate corruption, our vulnerability to energy blackmail, [and many other dangers.].
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 10-13
Campaign built around a call to service
No matter what issue I address, my underlying message will be the same:It's time to renew a sense of common purpose. My presidential campaign will be built around the ideas of shared endeavor, national service, intergenerational obligation,
and activism aimed at overcoming partisan and personal rivalries to meet the demands of a decisive, even fateful, era. That's why I've titled the book A Call to Service. I hear that call, and I believe most Americans are ready to hear it as well.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 13
Raised Catholic, but family history includes Jews
As fate would have it, I learned a new personal lesson about diversity and the American mosaic late last year. Anticipating my candidacy, the Boston Globe looked into my family history. Among other things, the paper discovered one hundred years ago,
my paternal grandfather was an American Jew named Fritz Kohn, who changed his name to Kerry and converted to Catholicism shortly before immigrating to Massachusetts.
I didn't know this because my grandfather died when my father was just five years old-a reminder of how much so much of America's history is buried. One thing that hasn't changed for me as a result of this revelation is my Catholic heritage.
I am a believing and practicing Catholic. And being an American Catholic at this particular moment in history has three particular implications for my own point of view as a candidate for the presidency.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 23-4
Persecuted Catholics rely on church-state separation
Catholics have always been a minority in this country, and we have sometimes suffered persecution. To a larger extent than Catholics elsewhere, we have supported and relied upon the constitutional principle of separation of church and state to guarantee
our right to worship and our liberty of conscience. That tradition, strongly advanced by John Kennedy in his quest to become our first Catholic president, helped make religious affiliation a non-issue in American politics. It should stay that way
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 24