The Turtle Posthumously
Salutes Paul Wellstone, 1944-2002
Today,
America lost a hero.
Paul
Wellstone died in a plane crash, together with his wife Shiela,
and his daughter Marcia. We feel the stab of this loss, because
Paul was always one of us, walking beside us in protests, leading
us through his words and campaigns. For although Paul had been
a United States Senator for only twelve years, he was an inspiration
all his life. His work as a teacher, at Carleton College in
Northfield, MN, inflamed generations of students and teachers
to fight for justice in America. When he ran for office in 1990,
he was the only challenger to unseat an incumbent. He did this
not through vast campaign contributions, but through the seemingly
forgotten art of grassroots organizing and mobilizing. By talking
to us, by listening to us, by acting for us. Not for him the
choleric negative television campaigns or the big ticket endorsement
instead, he ran his campaign from the back of a schoolbus, saying
'If you want to vote for me, give a dollar.'
When in
the Senate, he fought for the marginalized in U.S. society, for
pensioners' rights, for healthcare for the poor, for the prosecution
of trafficking in women, for a farm bill to protect small farmers
from the predations of agribusiness, for schools in Minnesota,
for the protection of the Arctic from Big Oil. He was the conscience
of an increasingly unconscionable Senate. When the conscience
of the Senate resides in only one man, something is wrong with
our society. Paul knew this "America has disappeared",
he once said. And Paul spent his life trying to get it back.
He lived
the very best of lives, fighting the bravest of fights, putting
into action Langston Hughes's fine words:
