In The AUDACITY of HOPE, Obama writes:
"And in that place [Lincoln Memorial], I think about America and those who built it. This nation's founders, who somehow rose above petty ambitions and narrow calculations to imagine a nation unfurling across a continent. And those like Lincoln and King, who ultimately laid down their lives in the service of perfecting an imperfect union. And all the faceless, nameless men and women, slaves and soldiers and tailors and butchers, constructing lives for themselves and their children and grandchildren, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, to fill in the landscape of our collective dreams.
"It is that process I wish to be a part of.
"My heart is filled with love for this country."
Today, January 21, Barack Obama will place his hand not only on President Lincoln's bible but also on freedom-rights advocate Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s bible to be sworn in at his official inauguration ceremony.
~Barack Obama (b. August 4, 1961) author of two New York Times Bestsellers: Dreams from My Father, 1995 and The AUDACITY of HOPE, 2006, Random House.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
"The audacity of hope ~
"That was the best of the American spirit, I thought ~ having the audacity to believe despite all the evidence to the contrary that we could restore a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict; the gall to believe that despite personal setbacks, the loss of a job or an illness in the family or a childhood mired in poverty, we had some control ~ and therefore responsibility ~ over our own fate.
"It was that audacity, I thought, that joined us as one people. It was that pervasive spirit of hope that tied my own family's story to the larger American story, and my own story to those of the voters I sought to represent."
Obama thinks about what Benjamin Franklin wrote to his mother, explaining why he had devoted so much of his time to public service: "I would rather have it said, He lived usefully, than, He died rich."
Obama writes, "That's what satisfies me now, I think ~ being useful to my family and the people who elected me, leaving behind a legacy that will make our children's lives more hopeful than our own."
~ BARACK OBAMA, The AUDACITY of HOPE, 2006. THOUGHTS ON RECLAIMING THE AMERICAN DREAM, Random House, Inc..
"That was the best of the American spirit, I thought ~ having the audacity to believe despite all the evidence to the contrary that we could restore a sense of community to a nation torn by conflict; the gall to believe that despite personal setbacks, the loss of a job or an illness in the family or a childhood mired in poverty, we had some control ~ and therefore responsibility ~ over our own fate.
"It was that audacity, I thought, that joined us as one people. It was that pervasive spirit of hope that tied my own family's story to the larger American story, and my own story to those of the voters I sought to represent."
Obama thinks about what Benjamin Franklin wrote to his mother, explaining why he had devoted so much of his time to public service: "I would rather have it said, He lived usefully, than, He died rich."
Obama writes, "That's what satisfies me now, I think ~ being useful to my family and the people who elected me, leaving behind a legacy that will make our children's lives more hopeful than our own."
~ BARACK OBAMA, The AUDACITY of HOPE, 2006. THOUGHTS ON RECLAIMING THE AMERICAN DREAM, Random House, Inc..
It was said that Franklin Roosevelt was, "The best newspaperman who has ever been President of the United States."*
" 'The White House school of journalism,' Raymond Clapper, one of the most distinguished of Washington reporters, labeled the entire operation.
"Every day there were two or three stories coming out of the White House. He intended to make the whole federal government his, make it respond to his whim and vision, he did so, and in that struggle he became this century's prime manipulator of the new and increasingly powerful modern media. Thirty and forty years later, politicians like John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson would study how Franklin Roosevelt had handled the press, it was a textbook course in manipulation.
"In another time he [Roosevelt] might have seemed overbearing, but in the midst of the Depression when the nation had lost its faith, it took comfort in the fact that he was so sure of his destiny and his role. His destiny would become theirs.
"He was the greatest news maker that Washington had ever seen. He came at a time when the society was ready for vast political and economic change, all of it enhancing the power of the President and the federal government, and he accelerated that change. The old order had collapsed, old institutions and old myths had failed; he would create the new order. In the new order, government would enter the everyday existence of almost all its citizens, regulating and adjusting their lives. Under him Washington became the focal point, it determined how people worked, how much they made, what they ate, where they lived."
~ The Powers That Be, David Halberstam, American Journalist, Pulitzer Prize (1934 - 2007)Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.
~* Heywood Broun.
Today, January 20, 2013, Barack Obama will be sworn in for a second term in office as President of the United States of America.
" 'The White House school of journalism,' Raymond Clapper, one of the most distinguished of Washington reporters, labeled the entire operation.
"Every day there were two or three stories coming out of the White House. He intended to make the whole federal government his, make it respond to his whim and vision, he did so, and in that struggle he became this century's prime manipulator of the new and increasingly powerful modern media. Thirty and forty years later, politicians like John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson would study how Franklin Roosevelt had handled the press, it was a textbook course in manipulation.
"In another time he [Roosevelt] might have seemed overbearing, but in the midst of the Depression when the nation had lost its faith, it took comfort in the fact that he was so sure of his destiny and his role. His destiny would become theirs.
"He was the greatest news maker that Washington had ever seen. He came at a time when the society was ready for vast political and economic change, all of it enhancing the power of the President and the federal government, and he accelerated that change. The old order had collapsed, old institutions and old myths had failed; he would create the new order. In the new order, government would enter the everyday existence of almost all its citizens, regulating and adjusting their lives. Under him Washington became the focal point, it determined how people worked, how much they made, what they ate, where they lived."
~ The Powers That Be, David Halberstam, American Journalist, Pulitzer Prize (1934 - 2007)Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.
~* Heywood Broun.
Today, January 20, 2013, Barack Obama will be sworn in for a second term in office as President of the United States of America.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
"Lincoln was visibly nervous. He was wearing a new black suit and sporting a neatly clipped beard. . .
"Lincoln unrolled the manuscript of his inaugural address. He put on his steel-rimmed spectacles and faced the sunlit crowd below. Thousands of people jammed the broad square in front of the Capital, waiting to hear the new president speak.
"Four months had passed since Lincoln's election in November. During that time, seven Southern states had left the Union, and four more were about to join them. In February, Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi had been sworn in as president of the Confederate States of America. Now, with the Union collapsing, the defiant South was preparing for war.
"Congressional leaders had tried to find a compromise plan that would hold the Union together. But the Southerners would not budge from their demands."
~ excerpt from Chapter five, Lincoln, A Photobiography, by Russell Freedman.Clarion Books, 1987.
On Monday, January 21, 2013, The 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, will place his hand on the Lincoln bible and be sworn in at his second inauguration.
For a complete list of U.S. presidents, including Name, Term, Vice-Pres., Party, Congress, House Majority & Senate Majority:
http://australianpolitics.com/united-states-of-america/president/list-of-presidents-of-the-united-states
"Lincoln unrolled the manuscript of his inaugural address. He put on his steel-rimmed spectacles and faced the sunlit crowd below. Thousands of people jammed the broad square in front of the Capital, waiting to hear the new president speak.
"Four months had passed since Lincoln's election in November. During that time, seven Southern states had left the Union, and four more were about to join them. In February, Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi had been sworn in as president of the Confederate States of America. Now, with the Union collapsing, the defiant South was preparing for war.
"Congressional leaders had tried to find a compromise plan that would hold the Union together. But the Southerners would not budge from their demands."
~ excerpt from Chapter five, Lincoln, A Photobiography, by Russell Freedman.Clarion Books, 1987.
On Monday, January 21, 2013, The 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama, will place his hand on the Lincoln bible and be sworn in at his second inauguration.
For a complete list of U.S. presidents, including Name, Term, Vice-Pres., Party, Congress, House Majority & Senate Majority:
http://australianpolitics.com/united-states-of-america/president/list-of-presidents-of-the-united-states
Friday, January 18, 2013
Inauguration Day ~ March 4, 1861
"Washington looked like an armed camp. Cavalry and artillery had been clattering through the streets all morning. Troops were everywhere. Rumors of assassination plots, of Southern plans to seize the capital and prevent the inauguration, had put the army on the alert.
Shortly after noon, the carriage bearing President James Buchanan and President-elect Abraham Lincoln bounced over the cobblestones of Pennsylvania Avenue, heading for Capitol Hill. Infantrymen lined the parade route. Army sharpshooters crouched on nearby rooftops. Soldiers surrounded the Capitol building, and plainclothes detectives mingled with the crowds. On a hill overlooking the Capitol, artillerymen manned a line of howitzers and watched for trouble."
Tomorrow: More of Russell Freedman's LINCOLN A PHOTOBIOGRAPHY, Clarion Books, 1987.
"Washington looked like an armed camp. Cavalry and artillery had been clattering through the streets all morning. Troops were everywhere. Rumors of assassination plots, of Southern plans to seize the capital and prevent the inauguration, had put the army on the alert.
Shortly after noon, the carriage bearing President James Buchanan and President-elect Abraham Lincoln bounced over the cobblestones of Pennsylvania Avenue, heading for Capitol Hill. Infantrymen lined the parade route. Army sharpshooters crouched on nearby rooftops. Soldiers surrounded the Capitol building, and plainclothes detectives mingled with the crowds. On a hill overlooking the Capitol, artillerymen manned a line of howitzers and watched for trouble."
Tomorrow: More of Russell Freedman's LINCOLN A PHOTOBIOGRAPHY, Clarion Books, 1987.
Henry D. Thoreau ~
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms."
~ Henry D. Thoreau (Waldon, published in 1854) "Where I lived, and What I lived for."
*Photo source: Wikipedia
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms."
~ Henry D. Thoreau (Waldon, published in 1854) "Where I lived, and What I lived for."
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| H. D. Thoreau Memorial at Waldon* |
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