Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech

Barack Obama has been sworn in as the 44th US president. Here is his inauguration speech in full.





My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and co-operation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.
At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we, the people, have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents. So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights. 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.



On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. 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.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labour, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and travelled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and ploughed the hard earth.



For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

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.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.



The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - that a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.



Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the spectre of a warming planet. We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.



To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honour them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the fire-fighter’s courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.



Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.

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. This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have travelled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

Obama Nation

Barack Obama has triumphed despite the snide undertone of smear campaigns and the racism which dare not speak its name with the innuendo “He is not like us...” “He is not really an American” “He is a secret Muslim.” Good on Colin Powell who was so annoyed by the negative smear campaign against Obama that he ringingly endorsed him whilst respecting his old friend John McCain;

"I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities - and we have to take that into account - as well as his substance - he has both style and substance - he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president," said Powell in his sweeping endorsement. "I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming into the world -- onto the world stage, onto the American stage -- and for that reason I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama."

But Powell said he found the implicit religious bigotry troubling and tellingly remarked "He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, 'What if he is [a Muslim]?' Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?"

The cheer leader for the smear campaign was Jerome Corsi who received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972 and has written many books and articles, including, Unfit for Command: “Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry”. This was the discredited smear against John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election by the Republican Front Organisation, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. John Kerry it must be remembered, despite his privileged background, served his country in Vietnam, was decorated for bravery and had three purple hearts, unlike George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who when they had a choice didn’t fight for their country. Given his previous form Jerome Corsi parades his “Ph.D.” on the front of his book ”Obama Nation” as if this makes the shallow smear by association contents more believable. In this attempted political hatchet job he tries to show why the alleged “extreme leftism of an Obama presidency would leave the United States weakened, diminished and divided, why Obama must be defeated - and how he can be.” Luckily the American People saw through this warmed up partisan pap masquerading as analysis and Jerome Corsi, Ph.D. or no Ph.D., is now a discredited busted flush.



After Barack Obama's historic victory, one of the greatest taboos in American politics has been put to rest. Almost 400 years after the first African slaves were transported to Jamestown, Virginia, the United States at last has a black president. When Barack Obama takes the oath of office in January, he should say a heartfelt thanks to the pioneers who led the way in the aftermath of the US Civil War.

For it was not until the 1860s, with the exhausted, slave-holding Southern states beaten and occupied by Union troops, that the first great wave of black politicians swept into Washington. Liberated from slavery by Abraham Lincoln, Southern blacks enthusiastically chose other blacks to represent them, sending a total of 17 black senators and representatives to Congress during the "Reconstruction" years of the late 1860s and 1870s.

Tragically, Reconstruction was a false dawn. When Northern troops pulled out of the South after 1876, the old white landowners reasserted their power. Blacks were steadily stripped of the vote, and the last black US congressman finished his term in 1901.



It took the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to restore the vote to millions of Southern blacks. But although civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson dominated the headlines, few were elected to Congress. They preferred to work on the streets than in Washington - and so, even today, Obama is only the fifth black senator in history.

It's hard to see what this will mean for the world yet. Obama himself has written: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." Is there any better symbol of how the American Revolution can correct itself than the realisation that the first 16 Presidents of the US could have owned the 44th President as a piece of property?

However before we get too excited we need to remind ourselves that the United States is still riddled with racist outcomes which President Obama will need to tackle. To give just one example: the American Civil Liberties Union found in 2006 that although the races use drugs at the same rate, black Americans – who comprise 12 per cent of the population – make up 74 per cent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. Obama could very easily have slipped into this vortex when, as a young man, he occasionally snorted coke. If he had been arrested and jailed for it like one in five black men, he wouldn't be President; he wouldn't even be able to vote. This election shows a desire by American people to move beyond the sterile stupidities of racism, but it is the middle of the story, not the end. Obama and Black Americans have had to work against “voter suppression laws” which are a disgrace to democracy in states such as Tennessee and Kentucky which work to disenfranchise Black voters. And then there is the great distortion and fetish at the heart of America’s Criminal Justice system – the desire to devote huge resources so America can kill mainly Black and Hispanic prisoners after poor trials, poor defence and poor jurisprudence to ensure it is up there with China, Iran and Saudi Arabia as a State Killer. (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/stay-granted-for-troy-davis.html )



But Obama’s world view will be more complex? A man with a background among the colonised has never before become the head of the world's largest empire. Obama's grandfather was detained in a British Guantanamo for six months during the bloody occupation of Kenya. As a child, Obama watched helpless as the CIA armed and funded the crazed dictator Suharto to commit mass murder of civilians. Yet how much has this informed Obama's policies, as a pragmatic politician working within a system riddled with undemocratic pressures? He certainly disagrees with many of the vicious extremes of Bush, from Iraq to torture. His plans for a massive investment in renewable energy to wean the US slowly off its addiction to oil will have transformed the country's foreign policy, ending its need for the Saudi tyranny and bursts of war in Mesopotamia. (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/britain-in-iraq.html )

But the main effect of will be the demise of the Great American Warrior fighting false and meaningless wars – internal wars against Abortion, Gays, Immigrants and Gun Control, and external wars against Drugs, Terror, Muslims and its totally illegal blockade of Cuba which more than anything has kept Cuba as a communist state, albeit one with a health system and hurricane preparedness which puts the US to shame. America needs to rediscover partnership and give and take – it can not continue to be the spoilt child who only thinks of what it wants and then throws a tantrum when the other kids don’t want to play. Obama will also have the tackle the great poison at the heart of American Foreign policy which, surprisingly you might think, did not rear its head in the Election debate, the issue of Middle East “Rogue States.”

You will not be surprised to hear that this doesn’t include the Middle Eastern “rogue state” which has attacked each and every one of its neighbours including destroying the EU funded infrastructure of Gaza, dismembering Lebanon, occupying the sovereign territory of Syria, occupying East Jerusalem and the West Bank which it is settling and applying collective punishment to the civilian population (in defiance of the “quaint” Geneva Conventions), which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and which has developed nuclear weapons. And did I mention that its previous Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, had personally led a terrorist massacre of women and children? During the raid on Qibya, Jordan in 1953, a total of 69 Palestinians were killed and forty-five houses, a school, and a mosque were blown-up. The act was condemned by the US State Department, the UN Security Council, and by Jewish communities worldwide. And the previous Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s father was Quartermaster of the Irgun terrorist organisation (you know the guys who killed both the British and UN Peace Envoys and hanged three British soldiers including a Jewish lad from the East End). Current Prime Minister’s Tzipi Livni’s father was the leader of the Irgun group which carried out the King David Hotel massacre which killed 91 people including 17 Jews. And did I mention that another previous Israeli Prime Minister, Menachim Begin, was the Irgun leader who gave the order? But less of rogue states with terrorist links whose support by the US is entirely contrary to America’s strategic interests. But perhaps Barack might suggest to Israel’s leadership that if it is to survive and prosper it will not do so by military means and it is now a time for change?


Sears Tower from Grant Park, Chicago

Barack Obama’s rally and speech in Grant Park, Chicago on the 5th November inspired more than the American electorate and I am sure, unlike his predecessor after 9/11 he will not squander the goodwill and longing for partnership the rest of the world feels. I spent some time in Chicago in 1982, staying up the road from Grant Park in the wonderful University Club at the corner of Monroe and Michigan and with an office in a law firm high up in Sears Tower, then the highest building in the world so I have some insight into the Chicago he moved to and Chicago law firms which he and Michelle Robinson worked for.

Whatever about “State Street being a Great Street” Chicago was "My Kinda Town" and I came away with an abiding affection for the place. But unlike New York the Windy City was no melting pot. Chicago was the city which bound America together and where it did real business in the products of the Great Plains at the Chicago Mercantile exchange. 22,000 ton “Lakers” ships could come up the St Lawrence and the amazing Great Lakes from the Atlantic Ocean and connect by barge with the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Red and Arkansas Rivers through the wonderfully named “Chicago Navigation and Sanitary Canal.” All railway lines led to Chicago including the great express trains; the “20th Century Limited” from New York, the “Superchief” from Los Angeles and the “Spirit of New Orleans” from the Mississippi Delta.


Downtown Chicago


And from the 1920’s black people and many others fleeing from the failed agri-economies of the southern states, the dustbowl and the Great Depression arrived in Chicago looking for work in the stockyards and abattoirs which once encircled the downtown “Loop.” So Chicago was a black majority city but black people did not exist in the city government which was carved up by the Democratic Party machine under Mayor Richard Daley and others which played to the white ethnic groups who shared the spoils of patronage, the Irish, Poles and Italians. That was until 1983 when Harold Washington united the fractious black groups with Hispanics to redress the balance until, sadly, he died in office of a heart attack in 1987. The lesson of Harold Washington’s campaign was well learnt by the young Barack Obama who has widened the dragnet of inclusion and reaching out to the uncommitted but has done it with an iron discipline and focus. He was, like all successful candidates, indeed lucky, no more so in having George W. Bush as his campaign manager spectacularly arranging a financial collapse and engineering “socialist” solutions which the Wobblies could only have dreamt of! But Obama has made his own luck and I’m sure will capitalise on it, as he said himself in Grant Park;


Harold Washington - Mayor of Chicago 1983 - 1987

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours: "We are not enemies, but friends… though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.

This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: yes, we can.”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/11/government-of-people-by-people.html

Never has the motto of the United States “E Pluribus Unum” had more meaning. And as for Jerome Corsi Ph. D. and his seminal work ”Obama Nation” do rush down to your discount bookstore to snap it up now for 50 cents, as it certainly won’t be reprinted!