Tuesday, January 20, 2009

And the darkness lifts.


Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

[snip]

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

[snip]

What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.


I'm in.

11 comments:

JD Rhoades said...

Me, too. I keep thinking of a line from Kurt Vonnegut's novel TIMEQUAKE, which is set in the aftermath of a great temporal disaster that has left people nearly helpless with despair and depression. Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut's alter ego character, snaps people out of it by telling them "you were sick, but now you're well, and there's work to do."

EagleEye said...

Funny-
Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience. And though it requires sacrifice, it brings a deeper fulfillment. We find the fullness of life not only in options, but in commitments. And we find that children and community are the commitments that set us free.

Americans are generous and strong and decent, not because we believe in ourselves, but because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves. When this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government program can replace it. When this spirit is present, no wrong can stand against it.

Similar things from Bush 2000, yet I don't recall many in the media (or private for that matter) saying 'Im in'. I suppose it's only cool to support the president if he is one of your own...

David Terrenoire said...

EagleEye,

Since I wasn't blogging then, it's hard to verify exactly how I felt, but you're proably right.

But I don't consider it cool. This isn't high school. This is a judgement of character. Grow up.

When Bush was sworn in 8 years ago, I thought he was a fatuous, incurious, smug son of privilege who had run a thoroughly dishonest campaign and who would be bad for the country.

I had no idea at the time how much I misunderestimated his danger.

David Terrenoire said...

And EadleEye,

If you want to come over here and piss in my campfire, why not have the courtesy to at least wait a day, huh? After what we've been through the last 8 years, even you might hope for something better than the shit we've been given.

Jesus, who wingers are a piece of work.

John McFetridge said...

"On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."

Sounds good to me.

Unknown said...

I was there today. Standing in front of the Washington Monument with a view of the Capital and a Jumbotron. Barack had me at hope. I love that our new President is intelligent, articulate, compassionate, curious... I could go on and on. But, what stands out for me is that he's already setting a vision for this country. He's LEADING us, asking us for sacrifice, asking us to serve and not just telling us to "go shopping". I'm in too.

JD Rhoades said...

Face it: anyone who's still kissing Bush's ass after eight years of him pissing away the goodwill he had after 9/11, damn near running the country into the ground, and turning the promised "permanent Republican Majority" into a rout for his party has some kind of serious brain damage.

Eagle Eye needs help, David.

JD Rhoades said...

[Rush] Limbaugh told his listeners that he was asked by “a major American print publication” to offer a 400-word statement explaining his “hope for the Obama presidency.” He responded:

So I’m thinking of replying to the guy, “Okay, I’ll send you a response, but I don’t need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails.”


I suppose it's only cool to support the president if he is one of your own..

Yeah, EE, I guess so.

EagleEye said...

No, I won't wait a day at all. Same way that those egg throwers didn't wait an hour after Bush's first inauguration.

I've said before that I don't agree with a lot that Bush did. In particular, letting Dumsfeld run my military (and as a result screwed the pooch on Iraq) and failing to even TRY to veto some of the crap budgets getting past.

But it can far from be blamed just on Bush. I blame congress just as much. And I SEVERELY detest the attempt to spend our way out of a spending hole... it's can't happen without killing us economically.

I do need help. I need help understanding how a guy with zero political experience can get voted into office by simply repeating a mantra ad nauseum. But that falls back on the American people.

I liked Clinton, after they managed to actually balance the budget... but after all of his personal issues I think he should have been bounced...

As for telling American's to go shopping, that is pretty shallow. I guess that means we all blame Bush for our personal debt; we were too stupid to know that the intent was to maintain normalcy...

..but since it is bashing Bush, it can mean whatever you want as long as it can be used in a negative light...

As before, I only hope you are as fair to his Holiness should shit hit the fan and his 'stimulus' cause more of a prolonged disaster. I will do the same if it succeeds. After all, time to set aside partisanship right??

JD Rhoades said...

EE (is that you Charlie?): It's a little late to be crying crocodile tears about respect for the President, unless you were also crying about Republican members of Congress referring to Bill Clinton as a "scumbag" or pundits wondering aloud whether it would be better to impeach him or assassinate him. A few bloggers may have said a few things that nasty about Bush, but I don't recall hearing them from someone legitimized by the national media by being invited onto network news shows. This is the wind the Republicans sowed, and now they reap the whirlwind.

Your silence on Limbaugh's bald assertion that he hopes Obama fails is also pretty telling. Bashing Democrats is apparently A-OK in your book, so your complaining about partisanship is also pretty damned hollow.

As for blaming Congress: you're probably right that they share the blame. Both the SIX YEARS of Republican control and the last two of Democrats knuckling under to Republicans because they're afraid someone will call them nasty names or, god forbid, filibuster. Hopefully that's over.

David Terrenoire said...

No, I won't wait a day at all. Same way that those egg throwers didn't wait an hour after Bush's first inauguration.

If you are so blinded by your angry partisanship that you can't see the difference between Bush 2001 and Obama 2009, how they ran their campaigns and how they won their elections, then you've poorly chosen your blog name, Eagle Eye.

Oh, and what Dusty said.