The Promise of our fore fathers still remains... we really need Justice for ALL!

As we celebrate our strong nation’s independence, let us all pledge to ensure all our children a more—not less—just land. Let us demand that all our political leaders pledge not to ask children to sacrifice their hopes and health and food and education while asking for no sacrifice from powerful billionaires and corporations who have gained far more than their fair share.

The Pledge - Marian Wright Edelman
President of the Children's Defense Fund

Over this long holiday weekend, children will be gathering in towns and cities around the country ooh-ing and aah-ing over fireworks, marching in parades, proud of their heritage and proudly waving the American flag. Most of them still believe in the promise of America—a promise reflected in so many of the values and ideals that underlie the founding documents of our nation and the Pledge of Allegiance so many of us learned as children and repeated each morning in school.

But today the promise of America’s Pledge of Allegiance is in jeopardy for millions of our nation’s children, and right now many of our elected officials are letting another pledge take precedence. Americans for Tax Reform, the organization headed by Grover Norquist, created the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” twenty-five years ago and now “asks every candidate for elected office on the state and federal level to make a written commitment to their constituents to ‘oppose and vote against tax increases.’” Many of our current Congressional leaders have signed onto this pledge and now seem to believe it is the only pledge they need to honor. They are so determined and dug in they are willing to default on our country’s obligations in order to stick to it—and their loyalty to this no-new-taxes pledge is putting millions of our children and entire nation at risk.

Read The Pledge article by Marian Wright Edelman in it's entirety at the Huffington Post.