他关心什么？那要有一本书才能列完。但是他指出了什么对美国最好，什么对我们大家最好 - 他高瞻远瞩：

8226; 他关注民权-未完成的美国事务。他促成更新了1968年的约翰逊总统选举权法案。并阻止了里根总统在1982年试图瓦解这个法案。他主导并通过了1968年的公平房地产法，为所有人废除歧视通道。
8226; 他关注司法不公，关注的范围跨越国界：他反对南非种族隔离，引导了关押曼德拉监狱外面的非法抗议，他提出禁止美国在南非投资。他成功阻止了向智力的独裁政府皮纳切克出售武器，而这个独裁政府正是由美国扶持的。
8226; 他广泛关注美国滥用权力：他在1967年初为反越战呐喊，称越战是“怪异的暴行”。他极力反对伊拉克战争，这个由愤世嫉俗的谎言导致的战争 - “对这个误导的战争，我投了反对票。而这一票是我从1962年当参议员以来最有价值的一票。”
8226; 他关注平和公证地解决纠纷。他促成了北爱尔兰和平协议成功签署。

他关注社会司法公证，在本土创造机会：

8226; 他支持平等权力修正案。
8226; 他起草了1990年残疾人法案，要求雇主和公共设施为残疾人提供方便。
8226; 他支持合法安全堕胎的权力。
8226; 他和参议员马侃共同发起了2007年移民改革法案，该法案给当前滞留美国的一千两百万或两千万非法移民提供合法身份和走向公民之路。虽然由于共和党阻碍议案，这个法案没有通过，但是他希望他在任时再次提出。
8226; 他倡议建立老年人福利基金 - 把饭端到轮椅上。
8226; 他支持婚姻平等权益。
8226; 他一生致力与公共教育，并寻求支持。
8226; 他负责提高最低工资，支持工会和劳工尊严 - 当学生为哈佛员工呼吁生活费时，他电话告知哈佛校长学生们是正确的。
8226; 从1974年起他致力于全民医疗保险 - 在这方面他是我们的先驱。

出生于富裕的政治世家，他仕途顺利。但是他以自己为起点，逆行而上，他成为他那个时代最伟大的参议员。

直到今天，我们许多人与他志同道合，我们怀念他。我们怀念他的雄辩。我们怀念他的正义公平，同情心和幽默。我们怀念他的博爱。

现在他成为我们历史的一部分 - 他的一生奉献给我们大家。一个值得怀念的一生，一个有价值的一生，一个有理想的一生。而我们要努力实现这个理想。

东部一小镇民主党支部

Edward M. Kennedy in Memoriam

What did he care about? It would take a book to list it all.
But he spoke for what is best in America -- what is best in us
all -- and his vision was broad:

* He cared about civil rights as the still unfinished
business of America. He was instrumental in renewing the
Lyndon Johnson Voting Rights Act in 1968, and in preventing
Ronald Reagan from watering it down in 1982. He was a key
player in passing the Fair Housing Law of 1968 to unlock
the doors of discrimination once and for all.

* He cared about injustice abroad: He opposed South African
apartheid, leading an illegal protest outside the prison
where Nelson Mandela was held, and initiating a ban on
American investments in South Africa. He won a ban on arms
sales to the U.S.-sponsored Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.

* He cared about abuse of American power abroad: He vocally
opposed the war in Vietnam beginning in 1967, calling it a
monstrous outrage. He had the courage to oppose the
cynical lies used to promote the war in Iraq -- My vote
against this misbegotten war is the best vote I have cast
in the United States Senate since I was elected in 1962.

* He cared about peaceful and fair resolutions of conflict.
He played a key role in the success of the Northern Ireland
peace agreement.

* He cared about social justice and fairness and creating
opportunity at home:

** He supported the Equal Rights Amendment.

** He wrote the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act,
requiring employers and public facilities to make
reasonable accommodations for the disabled.

** He supported the right of access to legal and safe
abortions.

** He co-sponsored with Sen. McCain the Immigration Reform
Act of 2007 that would have provided legal status and a
path to citizenship for the 12 to 20 million illegal
immigrants currently in the U.S. The bill failed in
the face of a Republican filibuster, but he had hoped
to bring it up again in the current session.

** He was instrumental in funding Meals on Wheels for the
elderly.

** He was a proponent of marriage equality.

** Throughout his career he focused on public education,
and the need to support it.

** He was responsible for raising the minimum wage, and he
supported unions and the dignity of labor -- when
students were demanding a living wage for Harvard
employees, he called up the then president of Harvard
and told him that the students were right.

** Since 1974 he worked for universal health care -- he
was way ahead of many of us on this.

Born to wealth and a politically influential family, he could
easily have fallen into a shallow get-along/go- along political
career. But he took what he started out with, with all its
contradictory aspects, and became the greatest United States
Senator of his day.

Of *our* day. Many of us are his contemporaries, and we miss
him. We miss his eloquence. We miss his sense of justice and
fairness and compassion and humor. We miss his humanity.

He\'s part of our history now -- his life belongs to us all. A
life to remember. A life of values that we can take as our own.
A life of ideals that we can strive to bring to reality.

Democratic Town Committee