Five years ago this week, the plane carrying Paul Wellstone and his wife Sheila, their daughter Marcia, and campaign workers crashed on the Iron Range. I can’t help but wonder how the past five years might have been different in Washington if Paul were still there representing the principles he so proudly upheld.
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You don’t find many politicians like Paul Wellstone, in part because he never really started out to be one. His passion was teaching, and his lesson was one of empowerment. He knew that powerful interests would undermine the public good, unless average people knew how to organize to challenge that power— and that’s what he worked to teach, both in the classroom and through hands-on training. For him, being senator wasn’t about ego or money, it was about continuing his mission of empowering average people. Ultimately, Wellstone’s message was an intensely hopeful one.
Read Wellstone’s voice sadly missed in a spineless Congress
by Marshall Helmberger
Timberjay newspapers: Ely, Tower and Cook/Orr MN ~ October 25, 2007
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Five years ago today a plane carrying Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, their daughter, and five other people crashed into the woods in northeastern Minnesota. All eight were killed, and Minnesota politics was thrown into chaos just days before the election. Since Wellstone’s death he’s been remembered in big and small ways.
Read Five Years After His Death, Wellstone Still Inspires
by Mark Zdechlik
Minnesota Public Radio ~ October 25, 2007
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Paul Wellstone quotes:
Never separate the life you live from the words you speak.
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A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people’s lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.
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If we don’t fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don’t really stand for them.
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The future will not belong to those who sit on the sidelines. The future will not belong to the cynics. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
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Sometimes, the only realists are the dreamers.