"The Diminishing Few..."
"In 1980, the average CEO made forty-two times what an average hourly worker took home. By 2005, the ratio was 262 to 1.* Conservative outlets like the Wall Street Journal editorial page try to justify outlandish salaries and stock options as necessary to attract top talent, and suggest the economy actually performs better when America's corporate leaders are fat and happy. But the explosion in CEO pay has had little to do with improved performance. In fact, some of the country's most highly compensated CEOs over the past decade have presided over huge drops in earnings, losses in shareholder value, massive layoffs, and the underfunding of their workers' pension funds."
~ Published in 2006, Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. Crown Publishers/Random House. In his 2013 Inaugural Speech, the U.S. President referred to "the diminishing few."
~ * CBC Peter Mansbridge answers the question how this happened. The National, Monday, January 21.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
Word Watching ~ "Hope"
"[Few] on the partisan landscape can discuss the word 'hope' in a political context and be regarded as the least bit sincere. Obama is such a man, and he proves it by employing a fresh and buoyant vocabulary to scrub away some of the toxins from contemporary political debate. Those polling categories that presume to define the vast chasm between us do not, Obama reminds us, add up to the sum of our concerns or hint at where our hearts otherwise intersect."
~ John Balzar, Los Angeles Times, Review The Audacity of Hope, 2006.
"[Few] on the partisan landscape can discuss the word 'hope' in a political context and be regarded as the least bit sincere. Obama is such a man, and he proves it by employing a fresh and buoyant vocabulary to scrub away some of the toxins from contemporary political debate. Those polling categories that presume to define the vast chasm between us do not, Obama reminds us, add up to the sum of our concerns or hint at where our hearts otherwise intersect."
~ John Balzar, Los Angeles Times, Review The Audacity of Hope, 2006.
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.
"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.
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
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