President Obama: The World I Want My Daughters to Grow Up In

[kpete]

President Obama: The World I Want My Daughters to Grow Up In
By Barack Obama
Feb. 3, 2016
Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States.


One of America’s greatest strengths right now is the fact that our young generation—the millennials—is also the biggest, most educated, most diverse and most digitally fluent generation in our history. And one thing my daughters have taught me about their generation is that they’re not going to wait for anyone else to build a better world; they’re just going to go ahead and create that world for themselves.

We can create the circumstances that give them every chance to do that, of course—to make sure they can grow up free from debt and free to make their own choices in a world that’s not beyond their capacity to repair. That’s why my administration has reduced student loan payments to 10% of a borrower’s income, so that young people who choose college aren’t punished for that choice. We’ve reformed our health-care system so that when young people change jobs, go back to school, chase that new idea or start a family of their own, they’ll still have coverage. We led nearly 200 nations to the most ambitious agreement in history to combat climate change.

But my daughters’ generation knew long before Paris that protecting the one planet we’ve got isn’t something that’s up for debate. They knew long before the Supreme Court ruled for marriage equality last June that all love is created equal. They don’t see each of us first and foremost as black or white, Asian or Latino, gay or straight, immigrant or native-born. They view our diversity as a great gift.

In many ways, their generation is already pushing the rest of us toward change.

So for the sake of our future, one thing we have to do, maybe even above all others, is to make sure they grow up knowing that their voices matter, that they have agency in our democracy.

Those of us in positions of power have to set an example with the way we treat each other—not by viewing those who disagree with us as unpatriotic or motivated by malice, but with a willingness to compromise. We have to listen to those with whom we don’t agree.We have to reduce the corrosive influence of money in our politics that makes people feel like the system is rigged. We have to make voting easier, not harder, and modernize it for the way we live now. And we have to encourage our young people to stay active in our public life so that it reflects the goodness and decency and fundamental optimism that they exhibit every day.

The world we want for our kids—one with opportunity and security for our families; one with rising standards of living and a sustainable, peaceful planet; one that’s innovative and inclusive, bold and big-hearted—it’s entirely within our reach. The only constraints on America’s future are the ones we impose on ourselves. That’s always been the case with America—our destiny isn’t decided for us, but by us. And as long as we give our young people every tool and every chance to decide the future for themselves, I have incredible faith in the choices they’ll make.


http://motto.time.com/4199637/barack-obama-daughters/?xid=tcoshare

[roguevalley]

1. They are signing the TPP. That's the world they will live in. Of course, they will

be saved from the destitution and destruction but no one else.

[ErisDiscordia]

4. ^^^THIS^^^

It is hypocrisy that even Hillary wouldn't dare to voice.

[NurseJackie]

2. This is wonderful!

[truedelphi]

9. Unfortunately, it is just words from the great Speechifier.

if he meant it, he would have ensured that in the very important, behind the scenes of the TPP meetings, the US support for this disastrous treaty would be non-existent.

Instead he campaigned for the passage of the TPP. And he had his staff working day and night to try and get it Fast Tracked through Congress.

So while making great speeches, he continues in actions to be the puppet that the Puppet Masters will quid pro quo once he leaves office. The hundreds of millions the Clintons have made in front of Corporate podiums will be as peanuts to the amounts that he and Michelle go on to make.

For sure, his daughters will never suffer anything - when the last rain forest is felled, when the last supply of clean water is fracked into oblivion, the Obama family will still have the monetary wherewithal to continue to thrive.

Unlike the rest of us inside the 99.5%.

[KamaAina]

3. Outstanding ex-President in the making

The bar has, of course, been set by James Earl Carter, Jr.

[pampango]

5. He is right. The younger generation is much further along in the "We are all in this together"

understanding than many of the rest of us.

[Moostache]

6. That encapsulates Obama for me in a nutshell...

Soaring rhetorical genius, dragged to Earth by mind numbing support of things like TPP...an eye and mind for the future, utterly defeated and capitulating to not the fierce urgency of NOW, but the fierce control of cash and influence.

He sounds like Kennedy - RFK or JFK - and acts at times like someone who is afraid of the label "liberal" being hurled at him.

I am so frustrated at the state of race relations in our country, and how they have been allowed to explicitly gnaw on Barrack Obama every single minute of his presidency, so frustrated that I could scream. I have no idea how he maintains his exterior calm under circumstances and treatment and disrespect that would make Ghandi weep tears of rage and resentment.

I accept the fact that maybe I need to own my disappointment more gingerly in the face of the forces that aligned against President Obama from January of 2009 to today...but reading his words, seeing his speeches and then continuing to live in our pathetic reality just hurts. Its a pain of lost opportunity that I've felt before....back in 1998 when the Lewinsky "scandal" broke and the Clinton legacy was sealed as a man unable to control himself bringing down his own legacy and harming the party in ways that became clear only years later...when a chimp was appointed to the position and green lit the single greatest disaster of the 21st century to date by invading Iraq and creating so much death and destruction that reverberates to today.

I now watch Bernie Sanders and "feel the Bern" more intensely than ever because of the Obama presidency. He (President Obama) is a GREAT man. A man of unmatched patience and calm, but one who was attacked mercilessly and constantly and prevented from changing this country in the ways it needs to change.

My hope now is that Obama suffered so that Sanders can prevail. He took it on the chin for us all to lay the groundwork for a true political revolution. He deserves credit for that, even if the disappointment I feel is unfairly laid at his feet.

[Feeling the Bern]

7. A better world, Mr. President? I have a few questions then.

Why do you support TPP?
Why did you extend the Bush tax cuts twice then?
Why did you destroy the public option in the ACA?
Why did you not prosecute war criminals?
Why do you use drones?
Why did you sell out your base for Republicans like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins?
Why didn't you end the Bush era domestic spying programs?
Why did you enhance the war on drugs?
Why did you wait so long to try to demilitarize the policy?
Why didn't you shut down Gitmo?
Why didn't you work to stop university students from having a lifetime of debt?
Why did you push for that God awful Common Core?
Why didn't you fire Arne Duncan when he called teachers in the US "the bottom of the barrel?"
Why did you let Rahm Emmanuel anywhere near your cabinet?

Sorry, Mr. President, but you and I have issues over these things I mentioned above.

[Skittles]

8. he does talk a good game