| On this President's Day, I cannot help but reflect on what our current President faces. The enormity of what lies before us may seem daunting, yet we as a nation have been through much over the centuries, and though it may take us time to figure things out, we are getting there. Yet how do we do this? My thoughts run to the image of our nation's Senators, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before every session and to President Barack Obama, who gave an inspiring speech in his final address to the United Nations on September 20, 2016, in which a hope for our future found its bedrock in that Pledge, and where he set forth a possible blueprint for the future of our world. [If you can spare 45 minutes or so, it's worth the time. Here is the YouTube URL: https://youtu.be/ji6pl5Vwrvk] |
| Here are some excerpts: |
 "A quarter century after the end of the Cold War, the world is by many measures less violent and more prosperous than ever before, and yet our societies are filled with uncertainty, and unease, and strife...I believe that at this moment we all face a choice. We can choose to press forward with a better model of cooperation and integration. Or we can retreat into a world sharply divided, and ultimately in conflict, along age-old lines of nation and tribe and race and religion. I want to suggest to you today that we must go forward, and not backward." |
| "Today, a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself." |
| "We must reject any forms of fundamentalism, or racism, or a belief in ethnic superiority... Instead we need to embrace the tolerance that results from respect of all human beings." |
 "Now, there’s no easy answer for resolving all these social forces, and we must respect the meaning that people draw from their own traditions... But I do not believe progress is possible if our desire to preserve our identities gives way to an impulse to dehumanize or dominate another group... The world is too small, we are too packed together, for us to be able to resort to those old ways of thinking." "We all have to do better as leaders in tamping down, rather than encouraging, a notion of identity that leads us to diminish others." "Because in the eyes of innocent men and women and children who, through no fault of their own, have had to flee everything that they know, everything that they love, we have to have the empathy to see ourselves." |
 "I have seen that spirit in our young people, who are more educated and more tolerant, and more inclusive and more diverse, and more creative than our generation; who are more empathetic and compassionate towards their fellow human beings than previous generations. And, yes, some of that comes with the idealism of youth. But it also comes with young people’s access to information about other peoples and places -- an understanding unique in human history that their future is bound with the fates of other human beings on the other side of the world." |
| "And in my own life, in this country, and as President, I have learned that our identities do not have to be defined by putting someone else down, but can be enhanced by lifting somebody else up. They don’t have to be defined in opposition to others, but rather by a belief in liberty and equality and justice and fairness." |
| "And the embrace of these principles as universal doesn't weaken my particular pride, my particular love for America -- it strengthens it. My belief that these ideals apply everywhere doesn’t lessen my commitment to help those who look like me, or pray as I do, or pledge allegiance to my flag. But my faith in those principles does force me to expand my moral imagination and to recognize that I can best serve my own people, I can best look after my own daughters, by making sure that my actions seek what is right for all people and all children, and your daughters and your sons." "This is what I believe: that all of us can be co-workers with God. And our leadership, and our governments, and this United Nations should reflect this irreducible truth." |
| Let's move into 2021 with that commitment to everyone, like Obama said, striving to embody our nation's Pledge of Allegiance, "WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!" |
| - David Fuller, NTC Past President |
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