Themes worth repeating

From John Edwards recently:

I think some people really believe that all you have to do to succeed in this country is pull yourself up by your bootstraps and work hard.

Well, I can tell you, I have traveled all over this country and I have been in the places where people's bootstraps are worn to a thread from all the pulling they've been doing. Places where all the hard work in the world hasn't helped to pull them out of poverty—because the system discriminates and opportunity isn't equal. But if we come together and are honest about it, we can change that and build an America that gives every American an equal chance.

This nation needs more empathy. For every loafer there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people trying and trying and just not getting anywhere, and if we ignore that, we not only doom them to lives of poverty and frustration, but we risk a future in which large swaths of people feel no investment in our nation as a whole. Change is long overdue.

(via Medley)