Fighting For the American Dream

On Dec. 20 of last year, Nataline Sarkisyan was in a California hospital. Nataline was waiting for a liver transplant; the donor was ready, and doctors estimated that she had a good chance of recovery. But Nataline did not get the transplant, because her insurer (Cigna HealthCare) classified this costly but commonly-performed procedure as “experimental” and refused to pay. After an extraordinary outburst of public protest, Cigna reversed its position, but not in time to save Nataline’s life. She died at the age of 17.

Meanwhile, the Cigna Corporation estimates that in 2008 it will earn over $1.15 billion in profit; its Chief Executive Officer, H. Edward Hanway, took home a personal salary of $28.8 million in 2006. That is enough to pay for over 70 liver transplants.

You will forgive me if I do not find this situation particularly conducive to “hope.”

The fact is that today’s America suffers from a serious economic imbalance; decades of untrammeled corporate greed and apathetic conservative government have produced a nation where a small group of wealthy people live in astonishing luxury while everyone else hangs by a shoestring. These elites—insurance companies are just a small example, alongside media barons, oil tycoons, financial wizards, and D.C. power brokers—have taken control of our government and our economy to no one’s benefit but their own, and in the process they are destroying the fabric of American society.

As recently as a few decades ago, it was possible for a median-income American family to live comfortably and securely—but no longer. Today the middle class is rapidly becoming the underclass; working Americans’ incomes are stagnating just as food and fuel prices are soaring. Already millions of people are working two or three jobs, yet are still being forced to choose between feeding their families or heating their homes. (And heaven help you if you need prescription medicine or emergency care.) Is it any wonder that we have a foreclosure crisis? Is it any wonder that consumer debt is rising to unheard-of proportions? Americans are being priced out of their homes, their jobs, their dreams, and their lives. This is unacceptable.

Thankfully, all of the 2008 Democratic presidential candidates understand this problem, to varying degrees. Everyone agrees that we need universal health care, a more progressive tax system, an end to corporate welfare, fair trade, and a renewed commitment to the social safety net. But only one candidate has consistently displayed the commitment and the integrity we need to get us there, to truly fight for the American Dream: That candidate is John Edwards.

John Edwards lived the American Dream; he rose from poverty in a tiny Carolina mill town to become the first person in his family to attend college. In his America, hard work was rewarded and opportunity was there for those who wanted it. But things have changed; today the textile mills of the South are gone, outsourced to Asia, and replaced on the landscape by Wal-Mart Supercenters—stores that sell second-rate merchandise and treat their employees like cattle, yet remain in business anyway because so many Americans can’t afford to shop anywhere else. In too many places today, there are no good jobs and no signs of change; in too many places the American Dream is starting to look more like a mirage. Understandably, this situation makes a man like Senator Edwards upset.

It was practicing law in his home state of North Carolina that John Edwards learned how to fight back, to beat the moneyed interests that are keeping regular Americans down. Remember, in most of the South the union movement is weak, so for working people, the only path to justice often runs through the courtroom. It was there that John Edwards, time and again defeated companies that through negligence or malice were doing harm to regular people.

Now John Edwards is taking his fight nationwide, in what he has called “the cause of my life,” asking Americans to stand up with him and fight back against the moneyed interests which have taken our country hostage.

And it’s happening: In Thursday’s Iowa Caucus, despite being outspent five to one by two celebrity, media-darling candidates, John Edwards was lifted by the support of regular Americans to a strong second, and defeated the so-called “inevitable” candidate, Hillary Clinton. The mandate in Iowa was overwhelmingly for change, a sentiment that is undoubtedly shared by people across the nation.

Given that, the issue we must face now is that while most of the Democratic candidates want change, they differ on how to get there. Some candidates like compromise, believe they can negotiate with those interests that are trying to harm us; some candidates hope that rhetoric and a fuzzy post-partisan “unity” will be enough to see us through. But these attitudes are, at best, naïve; the wealthy and powerful are not simply going to hand their power away, and a president who does not understand that will ultimately just perpetuate the current system. If you want to produce real change in our nation, then, the choice is clear.

John Edwards believes, as I do, that when the American Dream itself is imperiled, compromise is not an option, and that justice for Americans is non-negotiable. As you choose between the candidates, remember that only John Edwards truly has what it takes to defend those ideals, and as president, John Edwards will fight every day to build the America we all deserve to live in.

Markus R. T. Kolic ‘09 is a government concentrator in Mather House. He is chair of Harvard Students for Edwards.