PICTURE THE FUTURE: OBAMA'S WORDS

 Barack Obama at Clinton Global Initiative, Sept 25, 2008: excerpts

 "Climate change. Poverty. Extremism. Disease. These problems offend our common humanity. They also threaten our common security. You know this. The question is what we do about it.

We’re not going to face these threats of the future by grasping at the ideas of the past. In many cases, we know what we have to do. We talk about the solutions year after year. This must be the time when we choose not to wait any longer. We must marshal the will. We must see that none of these problems can be dealt with in isolation, nor can we deny one and effectively tackle another. That’s why you’ve come to CGI. Because that’s what this moment calls us to do."

"The scale of our challenges may be great. The pace of change may be swift. But we know that it need not be feared. The landscapes of the 21st century are still ours to shape.

We see the potential for progress every time someone starts a job creating new energy, or an idea carries a community out of poverty; we see it every time a girl walks through the doors of a new school, or a boy lives to see another day because he had a simple net around his bed. These are the dreams that we must make our own.

We live in a time when our destinies are shared. But our destinies will be written by us, not for us. Now, it falls to us to get to work."

Full text here

image: Liza Cowan, 2003, ink on paper: Tara Wtih Cherries - Om Mani Padme Hum