June 27, 2005
Thank you. It's an honor to be here with the hundreds of dedicated librarians who make up the American Library Association. Before we begin, I'd like to say a special hello to ALA member Nancy Gibbs, who is the mother of my communications director, Robert Gibbs. Believe me, I have no idea how the biggest mouth in our office came from a family of two librarians, but we're proud to have him on board and I'm sure you are too.
I'd also like to give a shout-out to my librarians from the Punahou School in Hawaii - Molly Lyman, Joan Kaaua, and Lillian Hiratani. I'd like to offer them an apology too, for all those times I couldn't keep myself out of trouble and ended up sitting in their library on a timeout, trying to cause even more trouble there. Sorry ladies.
It is a pleasure to address you today because of what libraries represent. More than a building that houses books and data, the library has always been a window to a larger world - a place where we've always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward.
And at a time when truth and science are constantly being challenged by political agendas and ideologies; a time where so many refuse to teach evolution in our schools, where fake science is used to beat back attempts to curb global warming or fund life-saving research; libraries remind us that truth isn't about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information. Because even as we're the most religious of people, America's innovative genius has always been preserved because we also have a deep faith in facts.
And so the moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives forever, and for the better. This is an enormous force for good.
So I'm here to gratefully acknowledge the importance of libraries and the work you do. I also want to work with you to insure that libraries continue to be sanctuaries for learning, where we are free to read and consider what we please, without the fear of Big Brother peering menacingly over our shoulders.
Now, some of you might have heard about this speech I gave at the Democratic Convention last summer. It ended up making some news here and there, and one of the lines that people seem to remember was when I said that "We don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States."
What many people don't remember is that for years, librarians are the ones who've been on the frontlines of this fight for privacy and freedom. There have always been dark times in our history where America has strayed from the ideals that make us a great nation. But the question has always been, can we overcome? And you have always been a group of Americans who have answered a resounding "yes" to that question.
When political groups try to censor great works of literature, you're the ones putting Huck Finn and Catcher in the Rye back on the shelves, making sure that our right to free thought and free information is protected. And ever since we've had to worry about our own government looking over our shoulders in the library, you've been there to stand up and speak out on privacy issues. You're full-time defenders of the most fundamental American liberties, and for that, you deserve America's deepest gratitude.
You also deserve our protection. That's why I've been working with Republicans and Democrats to make sure we have a Patriot Act that helps us track down terrorists without trampling on our civil liberties. This is an issue that Washington always tries to make "either-or." Either we protect our people from terror or we protect our most cherished principles. But this kind of choice asks too little of us and assumes too little about America. We can harness new technologies and a new toughness to find terrorists before they strike while still protecting the very freedoms we're fighting for in the first place.
I know that some of you here have been subject to FBI or other law enforcement orders asking for reading records. And so I hope we can pass a provision like the House of Representatives did that would require federal agents to get these kinds of search warrants from a real judge in a real court, just like everyone else does. In the Senate, the bipartisan bill that we're working on, known as the SAFE Act, will prevent the federal government from freely rifling through emails and library records without first obtaining such a warrant. Giving law enforcement the tools they need to investigate suspicious activity is one thing; but doing it without the approval of our judicial system seriously jeopardizes the rights of all Americans and the ideals America stands for.
Now, in addition to the line about federal agents poking around in our libraries, there was also another line in the convention speech that received a lot of attention - a line I'd like to talk more about today. At one point in the speech, I mentioned that the people I've met all across Illinois know that government can't solve all their problems. They know that, quote, "...parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white."
I included this line in the speech because I believe that we have a serious challenge to meet. I believe that if we want to give our children the best possible chance in life; if we want to open doors of opportunity while they're young and teach them the skills they'll need to succeed later on, then one of our greatest responsibilities as citizens, as educators, and as parents is to ensure that every American child can read and read well.
This isn't just another education debate where the answer lies somewhere between more money and less bureaucracy. It's a responsibility that begins at home - one that we need to take on before our kids ever step foot in a classroom; one that we need to carry through well into their teenage years.
That's because literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy we're living in today. Only a few generations ago, it was okay to enter the workforce as a high school dropout who could only read at a third-grade level. Whether it was on a farm or in a factory, you could still hope to find a job that would allow you to pay the bills and raise your family.
But that economy is long gone. As revolutions in technology and communication began breaking down barriers between countries and connecting people all over the world, new jobs and industries that require more skill and knowledge have come to dominate the economy. Whether it's software design or computer engineering or financial analysis, corporations can locate these jobs anywhere there's an internet connection. And so as countries like China and India continue to modernize their economies and educate their children longer and better, the competition American workers face will grow more intense; the necessary skills more demanding.
These new jobs are about what you know and how fast you can learn what you don't know. They require innovative thinking, detailed comprehension, and superior communication.
But before our children can even walk into an interview for one of these jobs; before they can ever fill out an application or earn the required college degree; they have to be able to pick up a book, read it, and understand it. Nothing is more basic; no ability more fundamental.
Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible, from complex word problems and the meaning of our history to scientific discovery and technological proficiency. In a knowledge economy where this kind of learning is necessary for survival, how can we send our kids out into the world if they're only reading at a fourth grade level?
I don't know, but we do. Day after day, year after year.
Right now, one out of every five adults in the United States can't read a simple story to their child. During the last twenty years or so, over ten million Americans reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level.
But these literacy problems start far before high school. In 2000, only 32% of all fourth graders tested as reading proficient. And the story gets worse when you take race and income into consideration. Children from low-income families score 27 points below the average reading level, while students from wealthy families score fifteen points above the average. And while only one in twelve white seventeen-year-olds has the ability to pick up the newspaper and understand the science section, for Hispanics the number jumps to one in fifty; for African Americans it's one in one hundred.
In this new economy, teaching our kids just enough so that they can get through Dick and Jane isn't going to cut it. Over the last ten years, the average literacy required for all American occupations is projected to rise by 14%. It's not enough just to recognize the words on the page anymore - the kind of literacy necessary for 21st century employment requires detailed understanding and complex comprehension. But too many kids simply aren't learning at that level.
And yet, every year we pass more of these kids through school or watch as more dropout. These kids who will pour through the Help Wanted section and cross off job and after job that requires skills they just don't have. And others who will have to take that Help Wanted section, walk it over to someone else, and find the courage to ask, "Will you read this for me?"
We have to change our whole mindset in this country. We're living in a 21st century knowledge economy, but our schools, our homes, and our culture are still based around 20th century expectations. It might seem like we're doing kids a favor by teaching them just enough to count change and read a food label, but in this economy, it's doing them a huge disservice. Instead, we need to start setting high standards and inspirational examples for our children to follow. While there's plenty that can be done to improve our schools and reform education in America, this isn't just an issue where we can turn to the government and ask for help. Reading has to begin at home.
We know that children who start Kindergarten with an awareness of letters and basic language sounds become better readers and face fewer challenges in the years ahead. We also know that the more reading material kids are exposed to at home, the better they score on reading tests throughout their lives. So we need to make investments in family literacy programs and early childhood education so that kids aren't left behind before they even go to school. And we need to get books in our kids' hands early and often.
I know that this is often easier said than done. Parents today still have the toughest job in the world - and no one ever thanks you enough for doing it. You're working longer and harder than ever, juggling job and family responsibilities, and trying to be everywhere at once. When you're home, you might try to get your kids to read, but you're competing with the other byproducts of the technological revolution: video games and DVDs that they just have to have; TVs in every room of the household. Children eight to eighteen now spend three hours a day watching TV, while they only spend 43 minutes reading.
Our kids aren't just seeing these temptations at home - they're everywhere. Whether it's their friends or the people they see on TV or a general culture that glorifies anti-intellectualism, it's too easy for kids today to put down a book and turn their attention elsewhere. And it's too easy for the rest of us to make excuses for it - pretending that putting a baby in front of a DVD is educational, letting a twelve-year-old skip reading as long as he's playing good video games, or substituting dinner in front of the TV for family conversation.
We know that's not what our kids need. We know that's not what's best for them. And so as parents, we need to find the time and the energy to step in and find ways to help our kids love reading. We can read to them, talk to them about what they're reading and make time for this by turning off the TV ourselves.
Libraries can help parents with this. Knowing the constraints we face from busy schedules and a TV culture, we need to think outside the box here - to dream big like we always have in America. Right now, children come home from their first doctor's appointment with an extra bottle of formula. But imagine if they came home with their first library card or their first copy of Goodnight Moon?
What if it was as easy to get a book as it is to rent a DVD or pick up McDonalds? What if instead of a toy in every Happy Meal, there was a book? What if there were portable libraries that rolled through parks and playgrounds like ice cream trucks? Or kiosks in stores where you could borrow books? What if during the summer, when kids often lose much of the reading progress they've made during the year, every child had a list of books they had to read and talk about and an invitation to a summer reading club at the local library?
Libraries have a special role to play in our knowledge economy. Your institution has been and should be the place where parents and kids come to read together and learn together. We should take our kids here more, and we should make sure politicians aren't closing libraries down because they had to spend a few extra bucks on tax cuts instead.
Each of you has a role here too. You can get more kids to walk through your doors by building on the ideas so many of you are already pursuing - book clubs and contests, homework help and advertising your services throughout the community.
In the years ahead, this is our challenge - and this must be our responsibility.
As a librarian or as a parent, every one of you here today can probably remember the look on a child's face after finishing a first book. They turn that last page and stare up at you with those wide eyes, and in that look you find such a sense of accomplishment and pride; of great potential and so much possibility.
And in that moment, there's nothing we want more than to nurture that hope; to make all those possibilities and all those opportunities real for our children; to have the ability to answer the question, "What can I be when I grow up?" with "Anything you want - anything you can dream of."
It's a hope that's as old as the American story itself. From the moment the first immigrants arrived on these shores, generations of parents have worked hard and sacrificed whatever is necessary so that their children could have the same chances they had; or the chances they never had. Because while we could never ensure that our children would be rich or successful; while we could never be positive that they would do better than their parents, America is about making it possible to give them the chance. To give every child the opportunity to try.
Education is still the foundation of this opportunity. And the most basic building block that holds that foundation together is still reading. At the dawn of the 21st century, in a world where knowledge truly is power and literacy is the skill that unlocks the gates of opportunity and success, we all have a responsibility as parents and librarians, educators and citizens, to instill in our children a love of reading so that we can give them the chance to fulfill their dreams. Thank you.
"Literacy and Education in a 21st-Century Economy"
June 25, 2005
Thank you. It's an honor to be here with the hundreds of dedicated librarians who make up the American Library Association. Before we begin, I'd like to say a special hello to ALA member Nancy Gibbs, who is the mother of my communications director, Robert Gibbs. Believe me, I have no idea how the biggest mouth in our office came from a family of two librarians, but we're proud to have him on board and I'm sure you are too.
I'd also like to give a shout-out to my librarians from the Punahou School in Hawaii - Molly Lyman, Joan Kaaua, and Lillian Hiratani. I'd like to offer them an apology too, for all those times I couldn't keep myself out of trouble and ended up sitting in their library on a timeout, trying to cause even more trouble there. Sorry ladies.
It is a pleasure to address you today because of what libraries represent. More than a building that houses books and data, the library has always been a window to a larger world - a place where we've always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward.
And at a time when truth and science are constantly being challenged by political agendas and ideologies; a time where so many refuse to teach evolution in our schools, where fake science is used to beat back attempts to curb global warming or fund life-saving research; libraries remind us that truth isn't about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information. Because even as we're the most religious of people, America's innovative genius has always been preserved because we also have a deep faith in facts.
And so the moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives forever, and for the better. This is an enormous force for good.
So I'm here to gratefully acknowledge the importance of libraries and the work you do. I also want to work with you to insure that libraries continue to be sanctuaries for learning, where we are free to read and consider what we please, without the fear of Big Brother peering menacingly over our shoulders.
Now, some of you might have heard about this speech I gave at the Democratic Convention last summer. It ended up making some news here and there, and one of the lines that people seem to remember was when I said that "We don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States."
What many people don't remember is that for years, librarians are the ones who've been on the frontlines of this fight for privacy and freedom. There have always been dark times in our history where America has strayed from the ideals that make us a great nation. But the question has always been, can we overcome? And you have always been a group of Americans who have answered a resounding "yes" to that question.
When political groups try to censor great works of literature, you're the ones putting Huck Finn and Catcher in the Rye back on the shelves, making sure that our right to free thought and free information is protected. And ever since we've had to worry about our own government looking over our shoulders in the library, you've been there to stand up and speak out on privacy issues. You're full-time defenders of the most fundamental American liberties, and for that, you deserve America's deepest gratitude.
You also deserve our protection. That's why I've been working with Republicans and Democrats to make sure we have a Patriot Act that helps us track down terrorists without trampling on our civil liberties. This is an issue that Washington always tries to make "either-or." Either we protect our people from terror or we protect our most cherished principles. But this kind of choice asks too little of us and assumes too little about America. We can harness new technologies and a new toughness to find terrorists before they strike while still protecting the very freedoms we're fighting for in the first place.
I know that some of you here have been subject to FBI or other law enforcement orders asking for reading records. And so I hope we can pass a provision like the House of Representatives did that would require federal agents to get these kinds of search warrants from a real judge in a real court, just like everyone else does. In the Senate, the bipartisan bill that we're working on, known as the SAFE Act, will prevent the federal government from freely rifling through emails and library records without first obtaining such a warrant. Giving law enforcement the tools they need to investigate suspicious activity is one thing; but doing it without the approval of our judicial system seriously jeopardizes the rights of all Americans and the ideals America stands for.
Now, in addition to the line about federal agents poking around in our libraries, there was also another line in the convention speech that received a lot of attention - a line I'd like to talk more about today. At one point in the speech, I mentioned that the people I've met all across Illinois know that government can't solve all their problems. They know that, quote, "...parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white."
I included this line in the speech because I believe that we have a serious challenge to meet. I believe that if we want to give our children the best possible chance in life; if we want to open doors of opportunity while they're young and teach them the skills they'll need to succeed later on, then one of our greatest responsibilities as citizens, as educators, and as parents is to ensure that every American child can read and read well.
This isn't just another education debate where the answer lies somewhere between more money and less bureaucracy. It's a responsibility that begins at home - one that we need to take on before our kids ever step foot in a classroom; one that we need to carry through well into their teenage years.
That's because literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy we're living in today. Only a few generations ago, it was okay to enter the workforce as a high school dropout who could only read at a third-grade level. Whether it was on a farm or in a factory, you could still hope to find a job that would allow you to pay the bills and raise your family.
But that economy is long gone. As revolutions in technology and communication began breaking down barriers between countries and connecting people all over the world, new jobs and industries that require more skill and knowledge have come to dominate the economy. Whether it's software design or computer engineering or financial analysis, corporations can locate these jobs anywhere there's an internet connection. And so as countries like China and India continue to modernize their economies and educate their children longer and better, the competition American workers face will grow more intense; the necessary skills more demanding.
These new jobs are about what you know and how fast you can learn what you don't know. They require innovative thinking, detailed comprehension, and superior communication.
But before our children can even walk into an interview for one of these jobs; before they can ever fill out an application or earn the required college degree; they have to be able to pick up a book, read it, and understand it. Nothing is more basic; no ability more fundamental.
Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible, from complex word problems and the meaning of our history to scientific discovery and technological proficiency. In a knowledge economy where this kind of learning is necessary for survival, how can we send our kids out into the world if they're only reading at a fourth grade level?
I don't know, but we do. Day after day, year after year.
Right now, one out of every five adults in the United States can't read a simple story to their child. During the last twenty years or so, over ten million Americans reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level.
But these literacy problems start far before high school. In 2000, only 32% of all fourth graders tested as reading proficient. And the story gets worse when you take race and income into consideration. Children from low-income families score 27 points below the average reading level, while students from wealthy families score fifteen points above the average. And while only one in twelve white seventeen-year-olds has the ability to pick up the newspaper and understand the science section, for Hispanics the number jumps to one in fifty; for African Americans it's one in one hundred.
In this new economy, teaching our kids just enough so that they can get through Dick and Jane isn't going to cut it. Over the last ten years, the average literacy required for all American occupations is projected to rise by 14%. It's not enough just to recognize the words on the page anymore - the kind of literacy necessary for 21st century employment requires detailed understanding and complex comprehension. But too many kids simply aren't learning at that level.
And yet, every year we pass more of these kids through school or watch as more dropout. These kids who will pour through the Help Wanted section and cross off job and after job that requires skills they just don't have. And others who will have to take that Help Wanted section, walk it over to someone else, and find the courage to ask, "Will you read this for me?"
We have to change our whole mindset in this country. We're living in a 21st century knowledge economy, but our schools, our homes, and our culture are still based around 20th century expectations. It might seem like we're doing kids a favor by teaching them just enough to count change and read a food label, but in this economy, it's doing them a huge disservice. Instead, we need to start setting high standards and inspirational examples for our children to follow. While there's plenty that can be done to improve our schools and reform education in America, this isn't just an issue where we can turn to the government and ask for help. Reading has to begin at home.
We know that children who start Kindergarten with an awareness of letters and basic language sounds become better readers and face fewer challenges in the years ahead. We also know that the more reading material kids are exposed to at home, the better they score on reading tests throughout their lives. So we need to make investments in family literacy programs and early childhood education so that kids aren't left behind before they even go to school. And we need to get books in our kids' hands early and often.
I know that this is often easier said than done. Parents today still have the toughest job in the world - and no one ever thanks you enough for doing it. You're working longer and harder than ever, juggling job and family responsibilities, and trying to be everywhere at once. When you're home, you might try to get your kids to read, but you're competing with the other byproducts of the technological revolution: video games and DVDs that they just have to have; TVs in every room of the household. Children eight to eighteen now spend three hours a day watching TV, while they only spend 43 minutes reading.
Our kids aren't just seeing these temptations at home - they're everywhere. Whether it's their friends or the people they see on TV or a general culture that glorifies anti-intellectualism, it's too easy for kids today to put down a book and turn their attention elsewhere. And it's too easy for the rest of us to make excuses for it - pretending that putting a baby in front of a DVD is educational, letting a twelve-year-old skip reading as long as he's playing good video games, or substituting dinner in front of the TV for family conversation.
We know that's not what our kids need. We know that's not what's best for them. And so as parents, we need to find the time and the energy to step in and find ways to help our kids love reading. We can read to them, talk to them about what they're reading and make time for this by turning off the TV ourselves.
Libraries can help parents with this. Knowing the constraints we face from busy schedules and a TV culture, we need to think outside the box here - to dream big like we always have in America. Right now, children come home from their first doctor's appointment with an extra bottle of formula. But imagine if they came home with their first library card or their first copy of Goodnight Moon?
What if it was as easy to get a book as it is to rent a DVD or pick up McDonalds? What if instead of a toy in every Happy Meal, there was a book? What if there were portable libraries that rolled through parks and playgrounds like ice cream trucks? Or kiosks in stores where you could borrow books? What if during the summer, when kids often lose much of the reading progress they've made during the year, every child had a list of books they had to read and talk about and an invitation to a summer reading club at the local library?
Libraries have a special role to play in our knowledge economy. Your institution has been and should be the place where parents and kids come to read together and learn together. We should take our kids here more, and we should make sure politicians aren't closing libraries down because they had to spend a few extra bucks on tax cuts instead.
Each of you has a role here too. You can get more kids to walk through your doors by building on the ideas so many of you are already pursuing - book clubs and contests, homework help and advertising your services throughout the community. In the years ahead, this is our challenge - and this must be our responsibility.
As a librarian or as a parent, every one of you here today can probably remember the look on a child's face after finishing a first book. They turn that last page and stare up at you with those wide eyes, and in that look you find such a sense of accomplishment and pride; of great potential and so much possibility.
And in that moment, there's nothing we want more than to nurture that hope; to make all those possibilities and all those opportunities real for our children; to have the ability to answer the question, "What can I be when I grow up?" with "Anything you want - anything you can dream of."
It's a hope that's as old as the American story itself. From the moment the first immigrants arrived on these shores, generations of parents have worked hard and sacrificed whatever is necessary so that their children could have the same chances they had; or the chances they never had. Because while we could never ensure that our children would be rich or successful; while we could never be positive that they would do better than their parents, America is about making it possible to give them the chance. To give every child the opportunity to try.
Education is still the foundation of this opportunity. And the most basic building block that holds that foundation together is still reading. At the dawn of the 21st century, in a world where knowledge truly is power and literacy is the skill that unlocks the gates of opportunity and success, we all have a responsibility as parents and librarians, educators and citizens, to instill in our children a love of reading so that we can give them the chance to fulfill their dreams. Thank you.
Thank you. It's an honor to be here with the hundreds of dedicated librarians who make up the American Library Association. Before we begin, I'd like to say a special hello to ALA member Nancy Gibbs, who is the mother of my communications director, Robert Gibbs. Believe me, I have no idea how the biggest mouth in our office came from a family of two librarians, but we're proud to have him on board and I'm sure you are too.
I'd also like to give a shout-out to my librarians from the Punahou School in Hawaii - Molly Lyman, Joan Kaaua, and Lillian Hiratani. I'd like to offer them an apology too, for all those times I couldn't keep myself out of trouble and ended up sitting in their library on a timeout, trying to cause even more trouble there. Sorry ladies.
It is a pleasure to address you today because of what libraries represent. More than a building that houses books and data, the library has always been a window to a larger world - a place where we've always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts that help move the American story forward.
And at a time when truth and science are constantly being challenged by political agendas and ideologies; a time where so many refuse to teach evolution in our schools, where fake science is used to beat back attempts to curb global warming or fund life-saving research; libraries remind us that truth isn't about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information. Because even as we're the most religious of people, America's innovative genius has always been preserved because we also have a deep faith in facts.
And so the moment we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold into a library, we've changed their lives forever, and for the better. This is an enormous force for good.
So I'm here to gratefully acknowledge the importance of libraries and the work you do. I also want to work with you to insure that libraries continue to be sanctuaries for learning, where we are free to read and consider what we please, without the fear of Big Brother peering menacingly over our shoulders.
Now, some of you might have heard about this speech I gave at the Democratic Convention last summer. It ended up making some news here and there, and one of the lines that people seem to remember was when I said that "We don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States."
What many people don't remember is that for years, librarians are the ones who've been on the frontlines of this fight for privacy and freedom. There have always been dark times in our history where America has strayed from the ideals that make us a great nation. But the question has always been, can we overcome? And you have always been a group of Americans who have answered a resounding "yes" to that question.
When political groups try to censor great works of literature, you're the ones putting Huck Finn and Catcher in the Rye back on the shelves, making sure that our right to free thought and free information is protected. And ever since we've had to worry about our own government looking over our shoulders in the library, you've been there to stand up and speak out on privacy issues. You're full-time defenders of the most fundamental American liberties, and for that, you deserve America's deepest gratitude.
You also deserve our protection. That's why I've been working with Republicans and Democrats to make sure we have a Patriot Act that helps us track down terrorists without trampling on our civil liberties. This is an issue that Washington always tries to make "either-or." Either we protect our people from terror or we protect our most cherished principles. But this kind of choice asks too little of us and assumes too little about America. We can harness new technologies and a new toughness to find terrorists before they strike while still protecting the very freedoms we're fighting for in the first place.
I know that some of you here have been subject to FBI or other law enforcement orders asking for reading records. And so I hope we can pass a provision like the House of Representatives did that would require federal agents to get these kinds of search warrants from a real judge in a real court, just like everyone else does. In the Senate, the bipartisan bill that we're working on, known as the SAFE Act, will prevent the federal government from freely rifling through emails and library records without first obtaining such a warrant. Giving law enforcement the tools they need to investigate suspicious activity is one thing; but doing it without the approval of our judicial system seriously jeopardizes the rights of all Americans and the ideals America stands for.
Now, in addition to the line about federal agents poking around in our libraries, there was also another line in the convention speech that received a lot of attention - a line I'd like to talk more about today. At one point in the speech, I mentioned that the people I've met all across Illinois know that government can't solve all their problems. They know that, quote, "...parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white."
I included this line in the speech because I believe that we have a serious challenge to meet. I believe that if we want to give our children the best possible chance in life; if we want to open doors of opportunity while they're young and teach them the skills they'll need to succeed later on, then one of our greatest responsibilities as citizens, as educators, and as parents is to ensure that every American child can read and read well.
This isn't just another education debate where the answer lies somewhere between more money and less bureaucracy. It's a responsibility that begins at home - one that we need to take on before our kids ever step foot in a classroom; one that we need to carry through well into their teenage years.
That's because literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy we're living in today. Only a few generations ago, it was okay to enter the workforce as a high school dropout who could only read at a third-grade level. Whether it was on a farm or in a factory, you could still hope to find a job that would allow you to pay the bills and raise your family.
But that economy is long gone. As revolutions in technology and communication began breaking down barriers between countries and connecting people all over the world, new jobs and industries that require more skill and knowledge have come to dominate the economy. Whether it's software design or computer engineering or financial analysis, corporations can locate these jobs anywhere there's an internet connection. And so as countries like China and India continue to modernize their economies and educate their children longer and better, the competition American workers face will grow more intense; the necessary skills more demanding.
These new jobs are about what you know and how fast you can learn what you don't know. They require innovative thinking, detailed comprehension, and superior communication.
But before our children can even walk into an interview for one of these jobs; before they can ever fill out an application or earn the required college degree; they have to be able to pick up a book, read it, and understand it. Nothing is more basic; no ability more fundamental.
Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible, from complex word problems and the meaning of our history to scientific discovery and technological proficiency. In a knowledge economy where this kind of learning is necessary for survival, how can we send our kids out into the world if they're only reading at a fourth grade level?
I don't know, but we do. Day after day, year after year.
Right now, one out of every five adults in the United States can't read a simple story to their child. During the last twenty years or so, over ten million Americans reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level.
But these literacy problems start far before high school. In 2000, only 32% of all fourth graders tested as reading proficient. And the story gets worse when you take race and income into consideration. Children from low-income families score 27 points below the average reading level, while students from wealthy families score fifteen points above the average. And while only one in twelve white seventeen-year-olds has the ability to pick up the newspaper and understand the science section, for Hispanics the number jumps to one in fifty; for African Americans it's one in one hundred.
In this new economy, teaching our kids just enough so that they can get through Dick and Jane isn't going to cut it. Over the last ten years, the average literacy required for all American occupations is projected to rise by 14%. It's not enough just to recognize the words on the page anymore - the kind of literacy necessary for 21st century employment requires detailed understanding and complex comprehension. But too many kids simply aren't learning at that level.
And yet, every year we pass more of these kids through school or watch as more dropout. These kids who will pour through the Help Wanted section and cross off job and after job that requires skills they just don't have. And others who will have to take that Help Wanted section, walk it over to someone else, and find the courage to ask, "Will you read this for me?"
We have to change our whole mindset in this country. We're living in a 21st century knowledge economy, but our schools, our homes, and our culture are still based around 20th century expectations. It might seem like we're doing kids a favor by teaching them just enough to count change and read a food label, but in this economy, it's doing them a huge disservice. Instead, we need to start setting high standards and inspirational examples for our children to follow. While there's plenty that can be done to improve our schools and reform education in America, this isn't just an issue where we can turn to the government and ask for help. Reading has to begin at home.
We know that children who start Kindergarten with an awareness of letters and basic language sounds become better readers and face fewer challenges in the years ahead. We also know that the more reading material kids are exposed to at home, the better they score on reading tests throughout their lives. So we need to make investments in family literacy programs and early childhood education so that kids aren't left behind before they even go to school. And we need to get books in our kids' hands early and often.
I know that this is often easier said than done. Parents today still have the toughest job in the world - and no one ever thanks you enough for doing it. You're working longer and harder than ever, juggling job and family responsibilities, and trying to be everywhere at once. When you're home, you might try to get your kids to read, but you're competing with the other byproducts of the technological revolution: video games and DVDs that they just have to have; TVs in every room of the household. Children eight to eighteen now spend three hours a day watching TV, while they only spend 43 minutes reading.
Our kids aren't just seeing these temptations at home - they're everywhere. Whether it's their friends or the people they see on TV or a general culture that glorifies anti-intellectualism, it's too easy for kids today to put down a book and turn their attention elsewhere. And it's too easy for the rest of us to make excuses for it - pretending that putting a baby in front of a DVD is educational, letting a twelve-year-old skip reading as long as he's playing good video games, or substituting dinner in front of the TV for family conversation.
We know that's not what our kids need. We know that's not what's best for them. And so as parents, we need to find the time and the energy to step in and find ways to help our kids love reading. We can read to them, talk to them about what they're reading and make time for this by turning off the TV ourselves.
Libraries can help parents with this. Knowing the constraints we face from busy schedules and a TV culture, we need to think outside the box here - to dream big like we always have in America. Right now, children come home from their first doctor's appointment with an extra bottle of formula. But imagine if they came home with their first library card or their first copy of Goodnight Moon?
What if it was as easy to get a book as it is to rent a DVD or pick up McDonalds? What if instead of a toy in every Happy Meal, there was a book? What if there were portable libraries that rolled through parks and playgrounds like ice cream trucks? Or kiosks in stores where you could borrow books? What if during the summer, when kids often lose much of the reading progress they've made during the year, every child had a list of books they had to read and talk about and an invitation to a summer reading club at the local library?
Libraries have a special role to play in our knowledge economy. Your institution has been and should be the place where parents and kids come to read together and learn together. We should take our kids here more, and we should make sure politicians aren't closing libraries down because they had to spend a few extra bucks on tax cuts instead.
Each of you has a role here too. You can get more kids to walk through your doors by building on the ideas so many of you are already pursuing - book clubs and contests, homework help and advertising your services throughout the community. In the years ahead, this is our challenge - and this must be our responsibility.
As a librarian or as a parent, every one of you here today can probably remember the look on a child's face after finishing a first book. They turn that last page and stare up at you with those wide eyes, and in that look you find such a sense of accomplishment and pride; of great potential and so much possibility.
And in that moment, there's nothing we want more than to nurture that hope; to make all those possibilities and all those opportunities real for our children; to have the ability to answer the question, "What can I be when I grow up?" with "Anything you want - anything you can dream of."
It's a hope that's as old as the American story itself. From the moment the first immigrants arrived on these shores, generations of parents have worked hard and sacrificed whatever is necessary so that their children could have the same chances they had; or the chances they never had. Because while we could never ensure that our children would be rich or successful; while we could never be positive that they would do better than their parents, America is about making it possible to give them the chance. To give every child the opportunity to try.
Education is still the foundation of this opportunity. And the most basic building block that holds that foundation together is still reading. At the dawn of the 21st century, in a world where knowledge truly is power and literacy is the skill that unlocks the gates of opportunity and success, we all have a responsibility as parents and librarians, educators and citizens, to instill in our children a love of reading so that we can give them the chance to fulfill their dreams. Thank you.
Remarks of U.S. Senator Barack Obama Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill and the Avian Flu
July 18, 2005
Mr. President, I rise today in support of H.R. 2057, the Foreign Operations Appropriation Bill. I'd also like to highlight one aspect of the bill.
Since coming to the Senate six months ago, one of the foreign policy and health issues I have focused on relates to the avian flu. I am pleased that this bill includes $10 million to combat the spread of this potential pandemic, adding to the $25 million that the Senate provided in the supplemental appropriations bill in April.
I thank the managers of this bill, Senators McConnell and Leahy, and their staffs for working with me on this important issue. I know that Senator McConnell has a longstanding interest in Southeast Asia, and Senator Leahy has always been a champion of international health issues, making the avian flu something I know they both care deeply about.
In the last few weeks, scientists have reported that a deadlier version of the avian flu has now spread to migrant birds that could carry the disease out of Asia and across the world.
While it may not seem that threatening to many Americans at first, this bird flu could easily transform into a human flu. And if it does, it could be one of the deadliest flus mankind has ever known - even worse than the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 675,000 Americans and 50 million worldwide.
Already, there have been 108 human cases of avian flu, resulting in 54 deaths. And while the virus has not yet mutated into a full-blown human flu, recent developments suggest it might be heading in that direction. In recent months, the virus has been detected in mammals that have never previously been infected, including tigers, leopards and cats. A few weeks ago, the World Health Organization reported that avian flu strains in Vietnam are lasting longer and spreading to more humans. And according to government officials, a few cases of human-to-human spread have already occurred.
Every day, there are new reports about the increasing dangers of the avian flu. Last month, it was revealed that Chinese farmers have tried to suppress outbreaks of the avian flu by using human antiviral drugs on infected animals. As a result, one strain of the virus has become resistant to these drugs, thus making the drugs ineffective in protecting humans against a possible pandemic. And just this week, researchers found that ducks infected with the virus were contagious for up to 17 days, causing the animals to become - in the researchers' words - "medical Trojan horses" for transmitting the disease to humans.
Simply put, the world is not ready for a potential outbreak of this deadly flu. In fact, we aren't even close.
There is no known vaccine for the avian flu, and producing one could take months once an outbreak occurs. And while the World Health Organization recommends that every nation stockpiles enough flu treatment to treat a quarter of its population, the United States has only ordered enough to treat less than 1% of ours.
We can't just stand by and hope that this virus doesn't reach our shores when it only takes hours to travel from one side of the world to the other. It's time for America to lead the world in taking decisive action to prevent a potential global tragedy.
We should start by doing what we can to fight the virus while it's still mainly in Southeast Asia. That's why I fought for and obtained $25 million for prevention efforts by the CDC, the Agency for International Development, the Health and Human Services Department, and other agencies. And that's why I requested another $10 million in this bill.
In addition, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved language that I offered directing President Bush to form a senior-level task force to devise an international strategy to deal with the avian flu and coordinate policy among our government agencies. I hope that the Bush administration forms this task force immediately without waiting for legislation to be passed.
Yet, these are only modest first steps. International health experts believe that Southeast Asia will be an epicenter of influenza for decades. That's why we need to create a permanent framework for curtailing the spread of future infectious diseases - a framework that would increase international disease surveillance, response capacity and public education and coordination, especially in Southeast Asia.
But we must also prepare our own country in the event that a global pandemic reaches America. That's why I recently introduced the AVIAN Act, which helps make sure that Americans are protected from a possible outbreak of the avian flu.
When the threat is this real, we should be increasing research into possible flu vaccines, and we should be ordering enough doses of flu treatment to cover the recommended 25% of our population - just like England and other Western countries have done.
We should also ensure that our Health and Human Services department and state governments put in place a plan as to how they would address a potential flu pandemic, including the purchasing and distributing of vaccines. A year after a draft of a federal plan was published, a final version has yet to be finalized. We shouldn't have to wait any longer, because the avian flu certainly won't.
We are extremely fortunate that so far, the avian flu has not been found in the United States. But in an age when you can board planes in Bangkok or Hong Kong and arrive in Chicago, Burlington or Louisville in hours, we must face the reality that these exotic killer diseases are not isolated health problems half a world away, but direct and immediate threats to security and prosperity here at home.
Again, I thank Senators McConnell and Leahy for including this important funding in the supplemental appropriations bill and now including additional funding in this bill. And I thank the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Lugar, for his leadership on this issue
I ask unanimous consent that several articles and editorials about the avian flu be included in the record. Thank you, and I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I rise today in support of H.R. 2057, the Foreign Operations Appropriation Bill. I'd also like to highlight one aspect of the bill.
Since coming to the Senate six months ago, one of the foreign policy and health issues I have focused on relates to the avian flu. I am pleased that this bill includes $10 million to combat the spread of this potential pandemic, adding to the $25 million that the Senate provided in the supplemental appropriations bill in April.
I thank the managers of this bill, Senators McConnell and Leahy, and their staffs for working with me on this important issue. I know that Senator McConnell has a longstanding interest in Southeast Asia, and Senator Leahy has always been a champion of international health issues, making the avian flu something I know they both care deeply about.
In the last few weeks, scientists have reported that a deadlier version of the avian flu has now spread to migrant birds that could carry the disease out of Asia and across the world.
While it may not seem that threatening to many Americans at first, this bird flu could easily transform into a human flu. And if it does, it could be one of the deadliest flus mankind has ever known - even worse than the 1918 flu pandemic that killed 675,000 Americans and 50 million worldwide.
Already, there have been 108 human cases of avian flu, resulting in 54 deaths. And while the virus has not yet mutated into a full-blown human flu, recent developments suggest it might be heading in that direction. In recent months, the virus has been detected in mammals that have never previously been infected, including tigers, leopards and cats. A few weeks ago, the World Health Organization reported that avian flu strains in Vietnam are lasting longer and spreading to more humans. And according to government officials, a few cases of human-to-human spread have already occurred.
Every day, there are new reports about the increasing dangers of the avian flu. Last month, it was revealed that Chinese farmers have tried to suppress outbreaks of the avian flu by using human antiviral drugs on infected animals. As a result, one strain of the virus has become resistant to these drugs, thus making the drugs ineffective in protecting humans against a possible pandemic. And just this week, researchers found that ducks infected with the virus were contagious for up to 17 days, causing the animals to become - in the researchers' words - "medical Trojan horses" for transmitting the disease to humans.
Simply put, the world is not ready for a potential outbreak of this deadly flu. In fact, we aren't even close.
There is no known vaccine for the avian flu, and producing one could take months once an outbreak occurs. And while the World Health Organization recommends that every nation stockpiles enough flu treatment to treat a quarter of its population, the United States has only ordered enough to treat less than 1% of ours.
We can't just stand by and hope that this virus doesn't reach our shores when it only takes hours to travel from one side of the world to the other. It's time for America to lead the world in taking decisive action to prevent a potential global tragedy.
We should start by doing what we can to fight the virus while it's still mainly in Southeast Asia. That's why I fought for and obtained $25 million for prevention efforts by the CDC, the Agency for International Development, the Health and Human Services Department, and other agencies. And that's why I requested another $10 million in this bill.
In addition, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved language that I offered directing President Bush to form a senior-level task force to devise an international strategy to deal with the avian flu and coordinate policy among our government agencies. I hope that the Bush administration forms this task force immediately without waiting for legislation to be passed.
Yet, these are only modest first steps. International health experts believe that Southeast Asia will be an epicenter of influenza for decades. That's why we need to create a permanent framework for curtailing the spread of future infectious diseases - a framework that would increase international disease surveillance, response capacity and public education and coordination, especially in Southeast Asia.
But we must also prepare our own country in the event that a global pandemic reaches America. That's why I recently introduced the AVIAN Act, which helps make sure that Americans are protected from a possible outbreak of the avian flu.
When the threat is this real, we should be increasing research into possible flu vaccines, and we should be ordering enough doses of flu treatment to cover the recommended 25% of our population - just like England and other Western countries have done.
We should also ensure that our Health and Human Services department and state governments put in place a plan as to how they would address a potential flu pandemic, including the purchasing and distributing of vaccines. A year after a draft of a federal plan was published, a final version has yet to be finalized. We shouldn't have to wait any longer, because the avian flu certainly won't.
We are extremely fortunate that so far, the avian flu has not been found in the United States. But in an age when you can board planes in Bangkok or Hong Kong and arrive in Chicago, Burlington or Louisville in hours, we must face the reality that these exotic killer diseases are not isolated health problems half a world away, but direct and immediate threats to security and prosperity here at home.
Again, I thank Senators McConnell and Leahy for including this important funding in the supplemental appropriations bill and now including additional funding in this bill. And I thank the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Lugar, for his leadership on this issue
I ask unanimous consent that several articles and editorials about the avian flu be included in the record. Thank you, and I yield the floor.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama at the Pritzker School of Medicine Commencement
Chicago, Illinois | June 13, 2005
Congratulations! After four long years of endless studying, sleepless nights, and constant stress, who's ready to kick back, relax, and jump head first into their residency?
And who wishes people would stop making that joke? I thought so.
It's an honor to be back here at the University of Chicago. As most of you know, I used to teach over at the law school and my wife Michelle is in charge of community affairs at the hospital, so as a part of the family we're especially proud of you all right now.
We're also especially hopeful. With the caliber of talent and amazing dedication represented here today, I found myself thinking that in one of these chairs could sit the researcher who will finally win humanity's long battle against cancer. In one of these chairs could sit the scientist who transforms AIDS from one of the greatest disasters of the 20th century to one of the most curable diseases of the 21st. In one of these chairs could sit the doctor who says "Hey Barack, don't worry about that trick knee - you're just getting old." So that's hopeful too.
But this hope that I have for your class - this faith in our ability to overcome that which threatens to halt the march of human progress - is nothing new. It is as old as our history and as powerful as the idea of America itself. And that's because we've been here before.
Almost eighty years ago, when the University of Chicago's first graduating class sat here ready to collect their diplomas, who would have dared to believe that before the beginning of the next century, we would add thirty years to the average lifespan and witness a 90% drop in the rate of infant death? Who would have dared to believe that with a simple vaccine, we could eliminate a disease that left millions without the ability to walk? That we could transplant a heart or resuscitate one that stopped? That we could unlock the greatest mysteries of life from the most basic building blocks of our existence?
In a time where you were lucky to live past fifty and doomed if you came down with the flu, who would have dared to believe these things?
The people who once sat in your chairs - they did. The doctors and nurses, researchers and scientists who came before. Who grew up believing that in America, the most improbable of all experiments, the place where we continue to defy the odds and write our own history, they could be the ones to improve, extend, and save human life. They could be the healers.
As this new century unfolds, their success and your potential have led us to a moment of unparalleled promise in health and medicine. Just like a century ago, technology and treatments that were once barely imagined are now imminently possible.
Yet, while these are some of tomorrow's biggest potential breakthroughs, they are not today's biggest medical challenge. Today, as we continue to find new ways to live longer and better, the greatest single threat to the health of our nation is not a scarcity of genius or a failure of discovery; it is a lack of collective will to ensure that every single American has access to effective, affordable health care. It is our inability, after years and years of talk and gridlock, to finally do something about the crushing cost of health care in America.
This has long stopped being about a single issue that politicians bring up during an election year. This is now a national crisis.
45 million Americans are uninsured - over 5 million more in the last four years. This isn't just a moral shame, it's an economic disaster that's catching Americans in a vicious cycle. Because the uninsured can't afford health care, they put off seeing a doctor or end up in the ER when they get sick. Then their care is more expensive, and so premiums for all Americans go up - to the tune of $922 a family. Because everyone's premiums go up, more Americans lose their health care.
All the while, costs just keep climbing and climbing. Family premiums are up by nearly 65% over the last five years. Deductibles are up 50%. Co-payments for care and prescriptions are through the roof. From the smallest mom and pop stores to major corporations like GM, businesses who can't afford these rising costs cut back on insurance, workers, or both. States with bigger Medicaid bills and smaller budgets are being forced to choose whether they want their citizens to be unhealthy or uneducated. And over half of all family bankruptcies today are caused by medical bills.
The cost crisis is affecting your profession too. Whether it's Medicaid reimbursements, the rising price of medical malpractice insurance, or having HMOs look over your shoulder, all the hard work and sacrifice you've put in during medical school isn't as rewarding as it once was.
So now, just like generations before, you must dare to believe - not only as tomorrow's physicians, but as tomorrow's parents, workers, business owners, and citizens. You must choose: Will the groundbreaking miracles you discover over the next generation reach only the luckiest few? Or will history look back at this moment as the time when we finally made care available at a cost that won't bring the world's largest economy to its knees?
For you guys, this is about more than just the statistics and the numbers. Part of the philosophy of the Pritzker School of Medicine has always been the recognition that "medicine does not exist in a social vacuum." Living here over the last four years, you've seen this. Surrounding us right now on the south side of Chicago are poor kids sitting in those ERs who could never afford a physical. Children suffering from adult diabetes because parents can't afford to provide the proper nutrition. Worried mothers thumbing through checkbooks, not knowing if they can pay for this month's medicine.
There isn't one person sitting here today who wants to turn a sick patient away because they can't pay. Not one person who wants the cure they discover denied to those whose lives depend on it. Each of you has dedicated yourselves to this calling because where there is a sick person, you want to heal them. Where there is a life in jeopardy, you want to save it.
And so today, when you leave here, it will not only be with great knowledge, but with even greater responsibility. Because if we do nothing about the rising cost of health care, experts believe that in ten years, the number of uninsured will grow to 54 million. And if we do nothing to expand access to the uninsured, costs will keep rising.
But while this is a national crisis, it still isn't part of the national conversation. It's an issue where we haven't seen any leadership over the last four years; an issue that Washington continues to duck. We just spent three entire weeks arguing over the filibuster, but I can count on one hand the number of times we've talked about health care since I was sworn in last January. Yet, when I come back here and talk to families in Illinois, that's all they tell me about.
This isn't just limited to one party either. In part, the fear of reform stems from the experience President Clinton had in the early '90s when he recognized the emerging health care crisis and sought a comprehensive answer. For that, he deserves great credit.
But the resulting political firestorm, fanned by the insurance lobby and other powerful interests who had a stake in maintaining the status quo, badly singed the Clinton Administration.
Since then, health care continues to be fodder for candidates, but quickly recedes into the background when elections come and go.
And with each passing year, the problem grows and the solutions become more difficult.
We cannot turn our heads any longer.
Challenging as it is, fixing the health care system is not an impossible problem to solve. I'm not saying it will be easy, or that all the solutions are right in front of us. We may not be able to build consensus on every detail right away, but where we do agree, we should act now to bring down skyrocketing costs.
One place to start is by bringing the health care system into the 21st century. In our lifetimes, we've seen some of the greatest advances in the history of technology and the sharing of information. Yet, you're about to enter a profession where too much care is still provided with a pen and paper. Where too much information about patients isn't shared between doctors or readily available to them in the first place. And where we still don't have the information to know what care has worked most effectively and efficiently to make patients healthy.
For too many Americans, the time lost as a result of archaic record-keeping has been the margin between life and death.
But embracing 21st century technology is not just about reducing errors and improving the quality of medical care. It's also about cost.
We spend nearly one and a half trillion dollars a year on health care in America. But a quarter of that money - one out of every four dollars - is spent on non-medical costs; most of it bills and paperwork. Nearly every other industry in the world has saved billions on these administrative costs by doing it all online. Every transaction you make at a bank now costs them less than a penny. Even at the Veterans Administration, where it used to cost nine dollars to pull up your medical record, new technology means you can call up the same record on the internet for free.
Yet, because we haven't updated technology in the rest of the health care industry, a single transaction still costs up to twenty-five dollars - not one dime of which goes toward improving the quality of our health care. Doctors are forced to fumble through paperwork and don't have all of the information about each patient at the click of a mouse. Mistakes are easily made and today, patients are given the right kind of care only half of the time. In fact, a recent study showed that medical error alone kills up to 98,000 people a year - that's more than die from AIDS each year. This is due not only to outdated medical technology, but the fact that we don't have a health care system that measures the quality of care patients are provided - that tells us what works, what doesn't, and where mistakes were made.
But by bringing our health care system on-line, we could start improving the quality of care and cutting the cost of it. We could save thousands of lives and save families billions of dollars. Just imagine if every doctor and nurse could sit by a patient's bedside with a laptop and pull up their entire medical history - information from every past doctor they've seen - with the click of a mouse. If every patient had an electronic bracelet that you could scan to find out the exact type and amount of medication they needed so there were no mistakes made. If you could go on-line and monitor a patient's breathing and heart rate while they were home to track their recovery.
We know all of this possible - so what are we waiting for? It's time for this country to start taking on the big challenges and asking the big questions again. Why couldn't we help every health care provider who does business with the federal government that they need to convert their entire system to electronic transactions? Why couldn't we help connect our hospitals so they could share technology and information about what works and what doesn't? This way we could start creating a virtual system of health care in America where knowledge about each individual's health needs and health history is readily available to every single person who provides them care.
And while we're at it, why couldn't we start rewarding the quality of care and the effort to prevent disease instead of only rewarding treatment itself? This way there would be actual incentives to provide good care and it would cut down on wasteful spending on the wrong kind of care. As tomorrow's doctors, you can help here too by making sure that all the drugs you prescribe aren't just the latest pharmaceutical fad, but the cheapest and most effective medicine for your patients.
So why couldn't we do all of this? The answer is, we can. We can bring down the cost of health care in America and insure every American, and your generation can lead the way.
Of course, no one's forcing you to meet these challenges. Each of you has been blessed with extraordinary gifts and talent. And so if you want, you can leave here and focus on your own medical career and your own success, not giving another thought to the plight of the growing millions who can't afford the care you will provide. After all, there is no community service requirement in the real world; and no one's forcing you to care.
But I hope that you do. Not because you have a debt to all of those who helped you get to where you are, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those are less fortunate, although you do have that obligation. You need to take on the challenges that your country is facing because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential.
Looking out at this class of 2005, I think my hope is well-placed. With the field you have chosen, you've already shown how much you care about the lives of others; how strongly you have heard the calling to be healers in this world. Today, I ask you to remember that call always, and to remember how it could include more than the patient sitting in your office. It could also include the patients who can't afford to get there, the ones who aren't being provided the best care, and the general health of all Americans.
When you think about these challenges, I also ask you to remember that in this country, our history of overcoming the seemingly impossible always comes about because individuals who care really can make a difference. America is great because Americans are good.
And as you go forth from here in your own life, you can keep this history alive if you only find the courage to try. Good luck with this journey, and congratulations on all of your achievements. Thank you.
Congratulations! After four long years of endless studying, sleepless nights, and constant stress, who's ready to kick back, relax, and jump head first into their residency?
And who wishes people would stop making that joke? I thought so.
It's an honor to be back here at the University of Chicago. As most of you know, I used to teach over at the law school and my wife Michelle is in charge of community affairs at the hospital, so as a part of the family we're especially proud of you all right now.
We're also especially hopeful. With the caliber of talent and amazing dedication represented here today, I found myself thinking that in one of these chairs could sit the researcher who will finally win humanity's long battle against cancer. In one of these chairs could sit the scientist who transforms AIDS from one of the greatest disasters of the 20th century to one of the most curable diseases of the 21st. In one of these chairs could sit the doctor who says "Hey Barack, don't worry about that trick knee - you're just getting old." So that's hopeful too.
But this hope that I have for your class - this faith in our ability to overcome that which threatens to halt the march of human progress - is nothing new. It is as old as our history and as powerful as the idea of America itself. And that's because we've been here before.
Almost eighty years ago, when the University of Chicago's first graduating class sat here ready to collect their diplomas, who would have dared to believe that before the beginning of the next century, we would add thirty years to the average lifespan and witness a 90% drop in the rate of infant death? Who would have dared to believe that with a simple vaccine, we could eliminate a disease that left millions without the ability to walk? That we could transplant a heart or resuscitate one that stopped? That we could unlock the greatest mysteries of life from the most basic building blocks of our existence?
In a time where you were lucky to live past fifty and doomed if you came down with the flu, who would have dared to believe these things?
The people who once sat in your chairs - they did. The doctors and nurses, researchers and scientists who came before. Who grew up believing that in America, the most improbable of all experiments, the place where we continue to defy the odds and write our own history, they could be the ones to improve, extend, and save human life. They could be the healers.
As this new century unfolds, their success and your potential have led us to a moment of unparalleled promise in health and medicine. Just like a century ago, technology and treatments that were once barely imagined are now imminently possible.
Yet, while these are some of tomorrow's biggest potential breakthroughs, they are not today's biggest medical challenge. Today, as we continue to find new ways to live longer and better, the greatest single threat to the health of our nation is not a scarcity of genius or a failure of discovery; it is a lack of collective will to ensure that every single American has access to effective, affordable health care. It is our inability, after years and years of talk and gridlock, to finally do something about the crushing cost of health care in America.
This has long stopped being about a single issue that politicians bring up during an election year. This is now a national crisis.
45 million Americans are uninsured - over 5 million more in the last four years. This isn't just a moral shame, it's an economic disaster that's catching Americans in a vicious cycle. Because the uninsured can't afford health care, they put off seeing a doctor or end up in the ER when they get sick. Then their care is more expensive, and so premiums for all Americans go up - to the tune of $922 a family. Because everyone's premiums go up, more Americans lose their health care.
All the while, costs just keep climbing and climbing. Family premiums are up by nearly 65% over the last five years. Deductibles are up 50%. Co-payments for care and prescriptions are through the roof. From the smallest mom and pop stores to major corporations like GM, businesses who can't afford these rising costs cut back on insurance, workers, or both. States with bigger Medicaid bills and smaller budgets are being forced to choose whether they want their citizens to be unhealthy or uneducated. And over half of all family bankruptcies today are caused by medical bills.
The cost crisis is affecting your profession too. Whether it's Medicaid reimbursements, the rising price of medical malpractice insurance, or having HMOs look over your shoulder, all the hard work and sacrifice you've put in during medical school isn't as rewarding as it once was.
So now, just like generations before, you must dare to believe - not only as tomorrow's physicians, but as tomorrow's parents, workers, business owners, and citizens. You must choose: Will the groundbreaking miracles you discover over the next generation reach only the luckiest few? Or will history look back at this moment as the time when we finally made care available at a cost that won't bring the world's largest economy to its knees?
For you guys, this is about more than just the statistics and the numbers. Part of the philosophy of the Pritzker School of Medicine has always been the recognition that "medicine does not exist in a social vacuum." Living here over the last four years, you've seen this. Surrounding us right now on the south side of Chicago are poor kids sitting in those ERs who could never afford a physical. Children suffering from adult diabetes because parents can't afford to provide the proper nutrition. Worried mothers thumbing through checkbooks, not knowing if they can pay for this month's medicine.
There isn't one person sitting here today who wants to turn a sick patient away because they can't pay. Not one person who wants the cure they discover denied to those whose lives depend on it. Each of you has dedicated yourselves to this calling because where there is a sick person, you want to heal them. Where there is a life in jeopardy, you want to save it.
And so today, when you leave here, it will not only be with great knowledge, but with even greater responsibility. Because if we do nothing about the rising cost of health care, experts believe that in ten years, the number of uninsured will grow to 54 million. And if we do nothing to expand access to the uninsured, costs will keep rising.
But while this is a national crisis, it still isn't part of the national conversation. It's an issue where we haven't seen any leadership over the last four years; an issue that Washington continues to duck. We just spent three entire weeks arguing over the filibuster, but I can count on one hand the number of times we've talked about health care since I was sworn in last January. Yet, when I come back here and talk to families in Illinois, that's all they tell me about.
This isn't just limited to one party either. In part, the fear of reform stems from the experience President Clinton had in the early '90s when he recognized the emerging health care crisis and sought a comprehensive answer. For that, he deserves great credit.
But the resulting political firestorm, fanned by the insurance lobby and other powerful interests who had a stake in maintaining the status quo, badly singed the Clinton Administration.
Since then, health care continues to be fodder for candidates, but quickly recedes into the background when elections come and go.
And with each passing year, the problem grows and the solutions become more difficult.
We cannot turn our heads any longer.
Challenging as it is, fixing the health care system is not an impossible problem to solve. I'm not saying it will be easy, or that all the solutions are right in front of us. We may not be able to build consensus on every detail right away, but where we do agree, we should act now to bring down skyrocketing costs.
One place to start is by bringing the health care system into the 21st century. In our lifetimes, we've seen some of the greatest advances in the history of technology and the sharing of information. Yet, you're about to enter a profession where too much care is still provided with a pen and paper. Where too much information about patients isn't shared between doctors or readily available to them in the first place. And where we still don't have the information to know what care has worked most effectively and efficiently to make patients healthy.
For too many Americans, the time lost as a result of archaic record-keeping has been the margin between life and death.
But embracing 21st century technology is not just about reducing errors and improving the quality of medical care. It's also about cost.
We spend nearly one and a half trillion dollars a year on health care in America. But a quarter of that money - one out of every four dollars - is spent on non-medical costs; most of it bills and paperwork. Nearly every other industry in the world has saved billions on these administrative costs by doing it all online. Every transaction you make at a bank now costs them less than a penny. Even at the Veterans Administration, where it used to cost nine dollars to pull up your medical record, new technology means you can call up the same record on the internet for free.
Yet, because we haven't updated technology in the rest of the health care industry, a single transaction still costs up to twenty-five dollars - not one dime of which goes toward improving the quality of our health care. Doctors are forced to fumble through paperwork and don't have all of the information about each patient at the click of a mouse. Mistakes are easily made and today, patients are given the right kind of care only half of the time. In fact, a recent study showed that medical error alone kills up to 98,000 people a year - that's more than die from AIDS each year. This is due not only to outdated medical technology, but the fact that we don't have a health care system that measures the quality of care patients are provided - that tells us what works, what doesn't, and where mistakes were made.
But by bringing our health care system on-line, we could start improving the quality of care and cutting the cost of it. We could save thousands of lives and save families billions of dollars. Just imagine if every doctor and nurse could sit by a patient's bedside with a laptop and pull up their entire medical history - information from every past doctor they've seen - with the click of a mouse. If every patient had an electronic bracelet that you could scan to find out the exact type and amount of medication they needed so there were no mistakes made. If you could go on-line and monitor a patient's breathing and heart rate while they were home to track their recovery.
We know all of this possible - so what are we waiting for? It's time for this country to start taking on the big challenges and asking the big questions again. Why couldn't we help every health care provider who does business with the federal government that they need to convert their entire system to electronic transactions? Why couldn't we help connect our hospitals so they could share technology and information about what works and what doesn't? This way we could start creating a virtual system of health care in America where knowledge about each individual's health needs and health history is readily available to every single person who provides them care.
And while we're at it, why couldn't we start rewarding the quality of care and the effort to prevent disease instead of only rewarding treatment itself? This way there would be actual incentives to provide good care and it would cut down on wasteful spending on the wrong kind of care. As tomorrow's doctors, you can help here too by making sure that all the drugs you prescribe aren't just the latest pharmaceutical fad, but the cheapest and most effective medicine for your patients.
So why couldn't we do all of this? The answer is, we can. We can bring down the cost of health care in America and insure every American, and your generation can lead the way.
Of course, no one's forcing you to meet these challenges. Each of you has been blessed with extraordinary gifts and talent. And so if you want, you can leave here and focus on your own medical career and your own success, not giving another thought to the plight of the growing millions who can't afford the care you will provide. After all, there is no community service requirement in the real world; and no one's forcing you to care.
But I hope that you do. Not because you have a debt to all of those who helped you get to where you are, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those are less fortunate, although you do have that obligation. You need to take on the challenges that your country is facing because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential.
Looking out at this class of 2005, I think my hope is well-placed. With the field you have chosen, you've already shown how much you care about the lives of others; how strongly you have heard the calling to be healers in this world. Today, I ask you to remember that call always, and to remember how it could include more than the patient sitting in your office. It could also include the patients who can't afford to get there, the ones who aren't being provided the best care, and the general health of all Americans.
When you think about these challenges, I also ask you to remember that in this country, our history of overcoming the seemingly impossible always comes about because individuals who care really can make a difference. America is great because Americans are good.
And as you go forth from here in your own life, you can keep this history alive if you only find the courage to try. Good luck with this journey, and congratulations on all of your achievements. Thank you.
Remarks of U.S. Senator Barack Obama on the nomination of Justice Janice Rogers Brown
June 08, 2005
I thank the Chair.
I rise today to speak on the nomination of California Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, let me begin by saying that the last thing I would like to be spending my time on right now is talking about judges.
I am sure that is true for many in this Chamber. I know that I certainly do not hear about filibusters and judges when I go back to Illinois and hold townhall meetings with people across the State. What I hear about are veterans who are concerned about their disability payments and families who are talking about how high gas prices were or how difficult it is to pay for college. And so I think this argument we have been having over the last several weeks about judicial nominations has been an enormous distraction from some of the work that is most important to the American people.
Moreover, I am not so naive as to think that speaking to an empty Chamber for the benefit of C-SPAN is somehow going to change people's minds or people's votes. I recognize that most of my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, are fairly locked into their positions. I do not expect the President to appoint many judges of my liking. One of the things I have told some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle is that there is only one sure way to make sure Democrats are able to block what they consider to be bad judges, and that is to win elections.
And yet I feel compelled to rise on this issue to express, in the strongest terms, my opposition to the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the DC Circuit.
I think it is important for the American people to know just what it is we are getting. After the Supreme Court, as my esteemed colleague from Wisconsin just stated, the DC Circuit is widely viewed as the second highest court in the land. Three of our current Supreme Court Justices came directly from this court. Under its jurisdiction fall laws relating to all sorts of Federal agencies and regulations. This is a special court. It has jurisdiction that other appeals courts do not have. The judges on this court are entrusted with the power to make decisions affecting the health of the environment, the amount of money we allow in politics, the right of workers to bargain for fair wages and find freedom from discrimination, and the Social Security that our seniors will receive. It is because of this power that we deserve to give the American people a qualified judicial nominee to serve on the DC Circuit.
Now, the test for a qualified judicial nominee is not simply whether they are intelligent. Some of us who attended law school or are in business know there are a lot of real smart people out there whom you would not put in charge of stuff. The test of whether a judge is qualified to be a judge is not their intelligence. It is their judgment.
The test of a qualified judicial nominee is also not whether that person has their own political views. Every jurist surely does. The test is whether he or she can effectively subordinate their views in order to decide each case on the facts and the merits alone. That is what keeps our judiciary independent in America. That is what our Founders intended.
Unfortunately, as has been stated repeatedly on this floor, in almost every legal decision that she has made and every political speech that she has given, Justice Brown has shown she is not simply a judge with very strong political views, she is a political activist who happens to be a judge. It is a pretty easy observation to make when you look at her judicial decisions. While some judges tend to favor an activist interpretation of the law and others tend to believe in a restrained interpretation of the law providing great deference to the legislature, Justice Brown tends to favor whatever interpretation leads her to the very same ideological conclusions every single time.
So when it comes to laws protecting a woman's right to choose or a worker's right to organize, she will claim that the laws that the legislature passed should be interpreted narrowly. Yet when it comes to laws protecting corporations and private property, she has decided that those laws should be interpreted broadly. When the rights of the vulnerable are at stake, then she believes the majority has the right to do whatever it wants. When the minority happens to be the minority of people who have privilege and wealth, then suddenly she is countermajoritarian and thinks it is very important to constrain the will of the majority.
Let me just give you a couple examples. In a case reviewing California's parental notification law, Justice Brown criticized the California Supreme Court decision overturning that law, saying that the court should have remained "tentative, recognizing the primacy of legislative prerogatives." She has also repeatedly tried to overturn the fact that California law recognizes Tameny claims, a line of cases that establishes that an employer does not have an unfettered right to fire an employee, but that the right has limits according to fundamental public policy. She says judicial restraint is critical. She claims that public policy is "a function first and foremost reserved to the legislature."
So on these cases dealing with a woman's right to choose, worker protections, punitive damages, or discrimination, she wants the judge to stay out of the legislative decisionmaking process. But Justice Brown doesn't always want the courts to exercise restraint and defer to the legislature. When Justice Brown wanted to limit the ability of juries to punish companies that engage in severe discrimination, a fellow judge on the California Supreme Court accused her of engaging in "judicial law making." Instead of denying it, Justice Brown defended her judicial activism. She called it creativity. This is what she said: "All judges make law. It is arrogance, carelessness and a lack of candor that constitute impermissible judicial practice, not creativity."
Justice Brown has also gone out of her way to use her position in the courts to advocate for increased protections for property owners. In a case about a developer that wanted to break a city rent control law, Justice Brown dismissed the fact that a majority of the city's voters had approved of that law and thought that the case should be an exception to the philosophy of narrow judicial review. Justice Brown believed that this case was one in which "some degree of judicial scrutiny... is appropriate." Which is it, Justice Brown? In some cases you think we should defer to the legislature and in some cases, apparently, you think it is appropriate for judges to make law. What seems to distinguish these two types of cases is who the plaintiff is, who the claimant is.
If the claimant is powerful -- if they are a property owner, for example -- then she is willing to use any tool in her judicial arsenal to make sure the outcome is one they like. If it is a worker or a minority claiming discrimination, then she is nowhere to be found.
Judicial decisions ultimately have to be based on evidence and on fact. They have to be based on precedent and on law. When you bend and twist all of these to cramp them into a conclusion you have already made -- a conclusion that is based on your own personal ideology -- you do a disservice to the ideal of an independent judiciary and to the American people who count on an independent judiciary.
Because of this tendency, and because of her record, it seems as if Justice Brown's mission is not blind justice but political activism. The only thing that seems to be consistent about her overarching judicial philosophy in an unyielding belief in an unfettered free market and a willingness to consistently side with the powerful over the powerless.
Let's look at some of her speeches outside of the courtroom. In speech after speech, she touts herself as a true conservative who believes that safety nets -- such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, and health care -- have "cut away the very foundation upon which the Constitution rests."
Justice Brown believes, as has already been stated in the Chamber, that the New Deal, which helped save our country and get it back on its feet after the Great Depression, was a triumph of our very own "Socialist revolution." She has equated altruism with communism. She equates even the most modest efforts to level life's playing field with somehow inhibiting our liberty.
For those who pay attention to legal argument, one of the things that is most troubling is Justice Brown's approval of the Lochner era of the Supreme Court. In the Lochner case, and in a whole series of cases prior to Lochner being overturned, the Supreme Court consistently overturned basic measures like minimum wage laws, child labor safety laws, and rights to organize, deeming those laws as somehow violating a constitutional right to private property. The basic argument in Lochner was you can't regulate the free market because it is going to constrain people's use of their private property. Keep in mind that that same judicial philosophy was the underpinning of Dred Scott, the ruling that overturned the Missouri Compromise and said that it was unconstitutional to forbid slavery from being imported into the free States.
That same judicial philosophy essentially stopped every effort by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to overcome the enormous distress and suffering that occurred during the Great Depression. It was ultimately overturned because Justices, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, realized that if Supreme Court Justices can overturn any economic regulation -- Social Security, minimum wage, basic zoning laws, and so forth -- then they would be usurping the rights of a democratically constituted legislature. Suddenly they would be elevated to the point where they were in charge as opposed to democracy being in charge.
Justice Brown, from her speeches, at least, seems to think overturning Lochner was a mistake. She believes the Supreme Court should be able to overturn minimum wage laws. She thinks we should live in a country where the Federal Government cannot enforce the most basic regulations of transparency in our security markets, that we cannot maintain regulations that ensure our food is safe and the drugs that are sold to us have been tested. It means, according to Justice Brown, that local governments or municipalities cannot enforce basic zoning regulations that relieve traffic, no matter how much damage it may be doing a particular community.
What is most ironic about this is that what Justice Brown is calling for is precisely the type of judicial activism that conservatives have been railing against for the last 50 years.
Supreme Court Justice Scalia is not somebody with whom I frequently agree. I do not like a lot of his judicial approaches, but at least the guy is consistent. Justice Scalia says that, generally speaking, the legislature has the power to make laws and the judiciary should only interpret the laws that are made or are explicitly in the Constitution. That is not Justice Brown's philosophy. It is simply intellectually dishonest and logically incoherent to suggest that somehow the Constitution recognizes an unlimited right to do what you want with your private property and yet does not recognize a right to privacy that would forbid the Government from intruding in your bedroom. Yet that seems to be the manner in which Justice Brown would interpret our most cherished document.
It would be one thing if these opinions were confined to her political speeches. The fact is she has carried them over into her judicial decisionmaking. That is why the California State Bar Association rated her as "unqualified" to serve on the State's highest court. That is why not one member of the American Bar Association found her to be very qualified to serve on the DC Circuit, and why many members of the bar association found her not qualified at all.
It is also why conservative commentators, such as Andrew Sullivan and George Will, while agreeing with her political philosophy, simply do not see how she can be an effective judge. Here is what Sullivan said:
She does not fit the description of a judge who simply follows the law. If she isn't a "judicial activist," I don't know who would be.
Sullivan added that he is in agreement with some of her conservative views but thinks "she should run for office, not the courts."
Columnist George Will, not known to be a raving liberal, added recently that he believes Justice Brown is out of the mainstream of conservative jurisprudence.
Let me wrap up by making mention of a subtext to this debate. As was true with Clarence Thomas, as was true with Alberto Gonzales, as was true with Condoleezza Rice, my esteemed colleagues on the other side of the aisle have spent a lot of time during this debate discussing Justice Brown's humble beginnings as a child of a sharecropper. They like to point out she was the first African American to serve on the California Supreme Court.
I, too, am an admirer of Justice Brown's rise from modest means, just as I am an admirer of Alberto Gonzales's rise from modest means, just as I am an admirer of Clarence Thomas's rise from modest means, just as I am an admirer of Condoleezza Rice's rise from modest means. I think it is wonderful. We should all be grateful where opportunity has opened the doors of success for Americans of every background.
Moreover, I am not somebody who subscribes to the view that because somebody is a member of a minority group they somehow have to subscribe to a particular ideology or a particular political party. I think it is wonderful that Asian Americans, Latinos, African Americans, and others are represented in all parties and across the political spectrum. When such representation exists, then those groups are less likely to be taken for granted by any political party.
I do not think that because Justice Brown is an African-American woman she has to adhere to a particular political orthodoxy, something that has been suggested by the other side of the aisle. Just as it would be cynical and offensive that Justice Brown be vilified simply for being a Black conservative, it is equally offensive and cynical to suggest that somehow she should get a pass for her outlandish views simply because she is a Black woman.
I hope we have arrived at a point in our country's history where Black folks can be criticized for holding views that are out of the mainstream, just as Whites are criticized when they hold views that are out of the mainstream. I hope we have come to the point where a woman can be criticized for being insensitive to the rights of women, just as men are criticized when they are insensitive to the rights of women.
Unfortunately, Justice Brown's record on privacy and employment discrimination indicates precisely such an insensitivity.
I will give one example. In a case where a group of Latino employees at Avis Rent A Car was subjected to repeated racial slurs in the workplace by another employee, the lower court found that Avis, in allowing this to go on, had created a hostile environment. Justice Brown disagreed with and criticized the decision.
In her opinion, she wrote that racially discriminatory speech in the workplace, even when it rises to the level of illegal race discrimination, is still protected by the first amendment. This was despite U.S. Supreme Court opinions that came to the exact opposite conclusion.
Justice Brown went so far as to suggest that the landmark civil rights law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, could be unconstitutional under the first amendment.
I believe if the American people could truly see what was going on here they would oppose this nomination, not because she is African American, not because she is a woman, but because they fundamentally disagree with a version of America she is trying to create from her position on the bench. It is social Darwinism, a view of America that says there is not a problem that cannot be solved by making sure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It requires no sacrifice on the part of those of us who have won life's lottery and does not consider who our parents were or the education received or the right breaks that came at the right time.
Today, at a time when American families are facing more risk and greater insecurity than they have in recent history, at a time when they have fewer resources and a weaker safety net to protect them against those insecurities, people of all backgrounds in America want a nation where we share life's risks and rewards with each other. And when they make laws that will spread this opportunity to all who are willing to work for it, they expect our judges to uphold those laws, not tear them down because of their political predilections. Republican, Democrat, or anyone in between. Those are the types of judges the American people deserve. Justice Brown is not one of those judges. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this nomination.
I thank the Chair.
I rise today to speak on the nomination of California Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Now, let me begin by saying that the last thing I would like to be spending my time on right now is talking about judges.
I am sure that is true for many in this Chamber. I know that I certainly do not hear about filibusters and judges when I go back to Illinois and hold townhall meetings with people across the State. What I hear about are veterans who are concerned about their disability payments and families who are talking about how high gas prices were or how difficult it is to pay for college. And so I think this argument we have been having over the last several weeks about judicial nominations has been an enormous distraction from some of the work that is most important to the American people.
Moreover, I am not so naive as to think that speaking to an empty Chamber for the benefit of C-SPAN is somehow going to change people's minds or people's votes. I recognize that most of my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, are fairly locked into their positions. I do not expect the President to appoint many judges of my liking. One of the things I have told some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle is that there is only one sure way to make sure Democrats are able to block what they consider to be bad judges, and that is to win elections.
And yet I feel compelled to rise on this issue to express, in the strongest terms, my opposition to the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the DC Circuit.
I think it is important for the American people to know just what it is we are getting. After the Supreme Court, as my esteemed colleague from Wisconsin just stated, the DC Circuit is widely viewed as the second highest court in the land. Three of our current Supreme Court Justices came directly from this court. Under its jurisdiction fall laws relating to all sorts of Federal agencies and regulations. This is a special court. It has jurisdiction that other appeals courts do not have. The judges on this court are entrusted with the power to make decisions affecting the health of the environment, the amount of money we allow in politics, the right of workers to bargain for fair wages and find freedom from discrimination, and the Social Security that our seniors will receive. It is because of this power that we deserve to give the American people a qualified judicial nominee to serve on the DC Circuit.
Now, the test for a qualified judicial nominee is not simply whether they are intelligent. Some of us who attended law school or are in business know there are a lot of real smart people out there whom you would not put in charge of stuff. The test of whether a judge is qualified to be a judge is not their intelligence. It is their judgment.
The test of a qualified judicial nominee is also not whether that person has their own political views. Every jurist surely does. The test is whether he or she can effectively subordinate their views in order to decide each case on the facts and the merits alone. That is what keeps our judiciary independent in America. That is what our Founders intended.
Unfortunately, as has been stated repeatedly on this floor, in almost every legal decision that she has made and every political speech that she has given, Justice Brown has shown she is not simply a judge with very strong political views, she is a political activist who happens to be a judge. It is a pretty easy observation to make when you look at her judicial decisions. While some judges tend to favor an activist interpretation of the law and others tend to believe in a restrained interpretation of the law providing great deference to the legislature, Justice Brown tends to favor whatever interpretation leads her to the very same ideological conclusions every single time.
So when it comes to laws protecting a woman's right to choose or a worker's right to organize, she will claim that the laws that the legislature passed should be interpreted narrowly. Yet when it comes to laws protecting corporations and private property, she has decided that those laws should be interpreted broadly. When the rights of the vulnerable are at stake, then she believes the majority has the right to do whatever it wants. When the minority happens to be the minority of people who have privilege and wealth, then suddenly she is countermajoritarian and thinks it is very important to constrain the will of the majority.
Let me just give you a couple examples. In a case reviewing California's parental notification law, Justice Brown criticized the California Supreme Court decision overturning that law, saying that the court should have remained "tentative, recognizing the primacy of legislative prerogatives." She has also repeatedly tried to overturn the fact that California law recognizes Tameny claims, a line of cases that establishes that an employer does not have an unfettered right to fire an employee, but that the right has limits according to fundamental public policy. She says judicial restraint is critical. She claims that public policy is "a function first and foremost reserved to the legislature."
So on these cases dealing with a woman's right to choose, worker protections, punitive damages, or discrimination, she wants the judge to stay out of the legislative decisionmaking process. But Justice Brown doesn't always want the courts to exercise restraint and defer to the legislature. When Justice Brown wanted to limit the ability of juries to punish companies that engage in severe discrimination, a fellow judge on the California Supreme Court accused her of engaging in "judicial law making." Instead of denying it, Justice Brown defended her judicial activism. She called it creativity. This is what she said: "All judges make law. It is arrogance, carelessness and a lack of candor that constitute impermissible judicial practice, not creativity."
Justice Brown has also gone out of her way to use her position in the courts to advocate for increased protections for property owners. In a case about a developer that wanted to break a city rent control law, Justice Brown dismissed the fact that a majority of the city's voters had approved of that law and thought that the case should be an exception to the philosophy of narrow judicial review. Justice Brown believed that this case was one in which "some degree of judicial scrutiny... is appropriate." Which is it, Justice Brown? In some cases you think we should defer to the legislature and in some cases, apparently, you think it is appropriate for judges to make law. What seems to distinguish these two types of cases is who the plaintiff is, who the claimant is.
If the claimant is powerful -- if they are a property owner, for example -- then she is willing to use any tool in her judicial arsenal to make sure the outcome is one they like. If it is a worker or a minority claiming discrimination, then she is nowhere to be found.
Judicial decisions ultimately have to be based on evidence and on fact. They have to be based on precedent and on law. When you bend and twist all of these to cramp them into a conclusion you have already made -- a conclusion that is based on your own personal ideology -- you do a disservice to the ideal of an independent judiciary and to the American people who count on an independent judiciary.
Because of this tendency, and because of her record, it seems as if Justice Brown's mission is not blind justice but political activism. The only thing that seems to be consistent about her overarching judicial philosophy in an unyielding belief in an unfettered free market and a willingness to consistently side with the powerful over the powerless.
Let's look at some of her speeches outside of the courtroom. In speech after speech, she touts herself as a true conservative who believes that safety nets -- such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, and health care -- have "cut away the very foundation upon which the Constitution rests."
Justice Brown believes, as has already been stated in the Chamber, that the New Deal, which helped save our country and get it back on its feet after the Great Depression, was a triumph of our very own "Socialist revolution." She has equated altruism with communism. She equates even the most modest efforts to level life's playing field with somehow inhibiting our liberty.
For those who pay attention to legal argument, one of the things that is most troubling is Justice Brown's approval of the Lochner era of the Supreme Court. In the Lochner case, and in a whole series of cases prior to Lochner being overturned, the Supreme Court consistently overturned basic measures like minimum wage laws, child labor safety laws, and rights to organize, deeming those laws as somehow violating a constitutional right to private property. The basic argument in Lochner was you can't regulate the free market because it is going to constrain people's use of their private property. Keep in mind that that same judicial philosophy was the underpinning of Dred Scott, the ruling that overturned the Missouri Compromise and said that it was unconstitutional to forbid slavery from being imported into the free States.
That same judicial philosophy essentially stopped every effort by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to overcome the enormous distress and suffering that occurred during the Great Depression. It was ultimately overturned because Justices, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, realized that if Supreme Court Justices can overturn any economic regulation -- Social Security, minimum wage, basic zoning laws, and so forth -- then they would be usurping the rights of a democratically constituted legislature. Suddenly they would be elevated to the point where they were in charge as opposed to democracy being in charge.
Justice Brown, from her speeches, at least, seems to think overturning Lochner was a mistake. She believes the Supreme Court should be able to overturn minimum wage laws. She thinks we should live in a country where the Federal Government cannot enforce the most basic regulations of transparency in our security markets, that we cannot maintain regulations that ensure our food is safe and the drugs that are sold to us have been tested. It means, according to Justice Brown, that local governments or municipalities cannot enforce basic zoning regulations that relieve traffic, no matter how much damage it may be doing a particular community.
What is most ironic about this is that what Justice Brown is calling for is precisely the type of judicial activism that conservatives have been railing against for the last 50 years.
Supreme Court Justice Scalia is not somebody with whom I frequently agree. I do not like a lot of his judicial approaches, but at least the guy is consistent. Justice Scalia says that, generally speaking, the legislature has the power to make laws and the judiciary should only interpret the laws that are made or are explicitly in the Constitution. That is not Justice Brown's philosophy. It is simply intellectually dishonest and logically incoherent to suggest that somehow the Constitution recognizes an unlimited right to do what you want with your private property and yet does not recognize a right to privacy that would forbid the Government from intruding in your bedroom. Yet that seems to be the manner in which Justice Brown would interpret our most cherished document.
It would be one thing if these opinions were confined to her political speeches. The fact is she has carried them over into her judicial decisionmaking. That is why the California State Bar Association rated her as "unqualified" to serve on the State's highest court. That is why not one member of the American Bar Association found her to be very qualified to serve on the DC Circuit, and why many members of the bar association found her not qualified at all.
It is also why conservative commentators, such as Andrew Sullivan and George Will, while agreeing with her political philosophy, simply do not see how she can be an effective judge. Here is what Sullivan said:
She does not fit the description of a judge who simply follows the law. If she isn't a "judicial activist," I don't know who would be.
Sullivan added that he is in agreement with some of her conservative views but thinks "she should run for office, not the courts."
Columnist George Will, not known to be a raving liberal, added recently that he believes Justice Brown is out of the mainstream of conservative jurisprudence.
Let me wrap up by making mention of a subtext to this debate. As was true with Clarence Thomas, as was true with Alberto Gonzales, as was true with Condoleezza Rice, my esteemed colleagues on the other side of the aisle have spent a lot of time during this debate discussing Justice Brown's humble beginnings as a child of a sharecropper. They like to point out she was the first African American to serve on the California Supreme Court.
I, too, am an admirer of Justice Brown's rise from modest means, just as I am an admirer of Alberto Gonzales's rise from modest means, just as I am an admirer of Clarence Thomas's rise from modest means, just as I am an admirer of Condoleezza Rice's rise from modest means. I think it is wonderful. We should all be grateful where opportunity has opened the doors of success for Americans of every background.
Moreover, I am not somebody who subscribes to the view that because somebody is a member of a minority group they somehow have to subscribe to a particular ideology or a particular political party. I think it is wonderful that Asian Americans, Latinos, African Americans, and others are represented in all parties and across the political spectrum. When such representation exists, then those groups are less likely to be taken for granted by any political party.
I do not think that because Justice Brown is an African-American woman she has to adhere to a particular political orthodoxy, something that has been suggested by the other side of the aisle. Just as it would be cynical and offensive that Justice Brown be vilified simply for being a Black conservative, it is equally offensive and cynical to suggest that somehow she should get a pass for her outlandish views simply because she is a Black woman.
I hope we have arrived at a point in our country's history where Black folks can be criticized for holding views that are out of the mainstream, just as Whites are criticized when they hold views that are out of the mainstream. I hope we have come to the point where a woman can be criticized for being insensitive to the rights of women, just as men are criticized when they are insensitive to the rights of women.
Unfortunately, Justice Brown's record on privacy and employment discrimination indicates precisely such an insensitivity.
I will give one example. In a case where a group of Latino employees at Avis Rent A Car was subjected to repeated racial slurs in the workplace by another employee, the lower court found that Avis, in allowing this to go on, had created a hostile environment. Justice Brown disagreed with and criticized the decision.
In her opinion, she wrote that racially discriminatory speech in the workplace, even when it rises to the level of illegal race discrimination, is still protected by the first amendment. This was despite U.S. Supreme Court opinions that came to the exact opposite conclusion.
Justice Brown went so far as to suggest that the landmark civil rights law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, could be unconstitutional under the first amendment.
I believe if the American people could truly see what was going on here they would oppose this nomination, not because she is African American, not because she is a woman, but because they fundamentally disagree with a version of America she is trying to create from her position on the bench. It is social Darwinism, a view of America that says there is not a problem that cannot be solved by making sure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It requires no sacrifice on the part of those of us who have won life's lottery and does not consider who our parents were or the education received or the right breaks that came at the right time.
Today, at a time when American families are facing more risk and greater insecurity than they have in recent history, at a time when they have fewer resources and a weaker safety net to protect them against those insecurities, people of all backgrounds in America want a nation where we share life's risks and rewards with each other. And when they make laws that will spread this opportunity to all who are willing to work for it, they expect our judges to uphold those laws, not tear them down because of their political predilections. Republican, Democrat, or anyone in between. Those are the types of judges the American people deserve. Justice Brown is not one of those judges. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote against this nomination.
Remarks of U.S. Senator Barack Obama at the Knox College Commencement
June 04, 2005
Galesburg, Illinois
Good morning President Taylor, the Board of Trustees, faculty, parents, family, friends, and the Class of 2005. Congratulations on your graduation, and thank you for allowing me the honor to be a part of it.
Well, it's been about six months now since you sent me to Washington as your U.S. Senator. And for those of you muttering under your breath "I didn't send you anywhere," that's ok too - maybe we'll hold a little Pumphandle after the ceremony and I can change your mind for next time.
So far it's been a fascinating journey. Each time I walk onto the Senate floor, I'm reminded of the history, for good and for ill, that has been made there. But there have also been a few surreal moments. For example, I remember the day before I was sworn in, when we decided to hold a press conference in our office. Now, here I am, 99th in seniority - which, I was proud wasn't dead last until I found out that the only reason we aren't 100th is because Illinois is bigger than Colorado. So I'm 99th in seniority, and the reporters are all cramped into our tiny transition office that was somewhere near the Janitor's closet in the basement of the Dirksen Building. It's my first day in the building, I hadn't taken one vote, I hadn't introduced one bill, I hadn't even sat down at my desk, and this very earnest reporter asks:
"Senator Obama, what's your place in history?"
I laughed out loud. Place in history? I thought he was kidding! At that point, I wasn't even sure the other Senators would save me a place at the cool lunch table.
But as I was thinking about what words I could share with this class, about what's next, what's possible, and what opportunities lay ahead, I think it's not a bad question to ask yourselves:
"What will be my place in history?"
In other eras, across distant lands, this is a question that could be answered with relative ease and certainty. As a servant of Rome, you knew you would spend your life forced to build somebody else's Empire. As a peasant in 11th Century China, you knew that no matter how hard you worked, the local warlord might take everything you had - and that famine might come knocking on your door any day. As a subject of King George, you knew that your freedom to worship and speak and build your own life would be ultimately limited by the throne.
And then, America happened.
A place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form "a more perfect union" on this new frontier.
And as people around the world began to hear the tale of the lowly colonists who overthrew an Empire for the sake of an idea, they came. Across the oceans and the ages, they settled in Boston and Charleston, Chicago and St. Louis, Kalamazoo and Galesburg, to try and build their own American Dream. This collective dream moved forward imperfectly - it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us, but by us.
Have we failed at times? Absolutely. Will you occasionally fail when you embark on your own American journey? Surely. But the test is not perfection.
The true test of the American ideal is whether we are able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life's big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams.
We have faced this choice before.
At the end of the Civil War, when farmers and their families began moving into the cities to work in the big factories that were sprouting up all across America, we had to decide: Do we do nothing and allow the captains of industry and robber barons to run roughshod over the economy and workers by competing to see who can pay the lowest wage at the worst working conditions?
Or do we try to make the system work by setting up basic rules for the market, and instituting the first public schools, and busting up monopolies, and letting workers organize into unions?
We chose to act, and we rose together.
When the irrational exuberance of the Roaring Twenties came crashing down with the stock market, we had to decide: do we follow the call of leaders who would do nothing, or the call of a leader who, perhaps because of his physical paralysis, refused to accept political paralysis?
We chose to act - regulating the market, putting people back to work, expanding bargaining rights to include health care and a secure retirement - and together we rose.
When World War II required the most massive homefront mobilization in history and we needed every single American to lend a hand, we had to decide: Do we listen to the skeptics who told us it wasn't possible to produce that many tanks and planes?
Or, did we build Roosevelt's Arsenal of Democracy and grow our economy even further by providing our returning heroes with a chance to go to college and own their own home?
Again, we chose to act, and again, we rose together.
Today, at the beginning of this young century, we have to decide again. But this time, it's your turn to choose.
Here in Galesburg, you know what this new challenge is. You've seen it.
You see it when you drive by the old Maytag plant around lunchtime and no one walks out anymore. I saw it during the campaign when I met the union guys who use to work at the plant and now wonder what they're gonna do at 55-years-old without a pension or health care; when I met the man who's son needs a new liver but doesn't know if he can afford when the kid gets to the top of the transplant list.
It's as if someone changed the rules in the middle of the game and no one bothered to tell these people. And, in reality, the rules have changed.
It started with technology and automation that rendered entire occupations obsolete -when was the last time anybody here stood in line for the bank teller instead of going to the ATM, or talked to a switchboard operator? Then companies like Maytag being able to pick up and move their factories to some Third World country where workers are a lot cheaper than they are in the U.S.
As Tom Friedman points out in his new book, The World Is Flat, over the last decade or so, these forces - technology and globalization - have combined like never before. So that while most of us have been paying attention to how much easier technology has made our lives - sending emails on blackberries, surfing the web on our cell phones, instant messaging with friends across the world - a quiet revolution has been breaking down barriers and connecting the world's economies. Now, businesses not only have the ability to move jobs wherever there's a factory, but wherever there's an internet connection.
Countries like India and China realized this. They understood that now they need not just be a source of cheap labor or cheap exports. They can compete with us on a global scale. The one resource they still needed was a skilled, educated labor force. So they started schooling their kids earlier, longer, and with a greater emphasis on math, science, and technology, until their most talented students realized they don't have to immigrate to America to have a decent life - they can stay right where they are.
The result? China is graduating four times the number of engineers that the United States is graduating. Not only are those Maytag employees competing with Chinese and Indonesian and Mexican workers, now you are too. Today, accounting firms are emailing your tax returns to workers in India who will figure them out and send them back as fast as any worker in Indiana could.
When you lose your luggage in a Boston airport, tracking it down may involve a call to an agent in Bangalore, who will find it by making a phone call to Baltimore. Even the Associated Press has outsourced some of their jobs to writers all over the world who can send in a story with the click of a mouse.
As British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said, in this new economy, "talent is 21st century wealth." If you've got the skills, you've got the education, and you have the opportunity to upgrade and improve both, you'll be able to compete and win anywhere. If not, the fall will be further and harder than ever before.
So what do we do about this? How does America find our way in this new, global economy? What will our place in history be?
Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn't much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government - divvy it up into individual portions, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, education, and so forth.
In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it - Social Darwinism, every man and woman for him or herself. It's a tempting idea, because it doesn't require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say to those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford - tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job - life isn't fair. It let's us say to the child born into poverty - pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes that we will always be the winner in life's lottery, that we will be Donald Trump, or at least that we won't be the chump that he tells: "Your fired!"
But there a problem. It won't work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it has been government research and investment that made the railways and the internet possible. It has been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools - that has allowed all of us to prosper. Our economic dominance has depended on individual initiative and belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we're all in it together and everybody's got a shot at opportunity - that has produced our unrivaled political stability.
And so if we do nothing in the face of globalization, more people will continue to lose their health care. Fewer kids will be able to afford this diploma you're about to receive.
More companies like United won't be able to provide pensions for their employees. And those Maytag workers will be joined in the unemployment line by any worker whose skill can be bought and sold on the global market.
Today, I'm here to tell you what most of you already know. This isn't us. This isn't how our story ends - not in this country. America is a land of big dreamers and big hopes.
It is this hope that has sustained us through revolution and civil war, depression and world war, a struggle for civil and social rights and the brink of nuclear crisis. And it is because of our dreamers that we have emerged from each challenge more united, more prosperous, and more admired than ever before.
So let's dream. Instead of doing nothing or simply defending 20th century solutions, let's imagine what we can do to give every American a fighting chance in the 21st century.
What if we prepared every child in America with the education and skills they need to compete in this new economy? If we made sure college was affordable for everyone who wanted to go? If we walked up to those Maytag workers and told them that there old job wasn't coming back, but that the new jobs will be there because of the serious job re-training and lifelong education that is waiting for them - the sorts of opportunities Knox has created with the strong future scholarship program?
What if no matter where you worked or how many times you switched jobs, you had health care and a pension that stayed with you always, so that each of us had the flexibility to move to a better job or start a new business?
And what if instead of cutting budgets for research and development and science, we fueled the genius and the innovation that will lead to the new jobs and new industries of the future?
Right now, all across America, there are amazing discoveries being made. If we supported these discoveries on a national level, if we committed ourselves to investing in these possibilities, just imagine what it could do for a town like Galesburg. Ten or twenty years down the road, that old Maytag plant could re-open its doors as an Ethanol refinery that turns corn into fuel.
Down the street, a biotechnology research lab could open that's on the cusp of discovering a cure for cancer. And across the way, a new auto company could be busy churning out electric cars. The new jobs created would be filled by American workers trained with new skills and a world-class education.
None of this will come easy. Every one of us will have to work more, read more, train more, think more. We will have to slough off bad habits - like driving gas guzzlers that weaken our ecomony and feed our enemies abroad. Our kids will have to turn off the TV sets and put away the video games and start hitting the books. We will have to reform institutions, like our public schools, that were designed for an earlier time. Republicans will have to recognize our collective responsibilities, even as Democrats recognize that we have to do more than just defend the old programs.
It won't be easy, but it can be done. It can be our future. We have the talent and the resources and the brainpower. But now we need the political will. We need a national commitment.
And we need you.
Now, no one can force you to meet these challenges. If you want, it will be pretty easy for you to leave here today and not give another thought to towns like Galesburg and the challenges they face. There is no community service requirement in the real world; no one's forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and go chasing after the big house, and the nice suits, and all the other things that our money culture says you can buy.
But I hope you don't. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition. It asks to little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own, not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, although you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all of those who helped you get to where you are, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, although you do have that obligation. You need to take on the challenge because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential. And if we're willing to share the risks and the rewards this new century offers, it will be a victory for each of you, and for every American.
You're wondering how you'll do this. The challenges are so big. And it's seems so difficult for one person to make a difference.
But we know it can be done. Because where you're sitting, in this very place, in this town, it's happened before.
Nearly two centuries ago, before civil rights and voting rights, before Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, before all of that, America was stained with the sin of slavery. In the sweltering heat of southern plantations, men and women who looked like me would dream of the day they could escape the life of pain and servitude into which they were sold like cattle. And yet, year after year, as this moral cancer ate away at the American ideals of liberty and equality, the nation was silent.
But its people would not stay silent for long.
One by one, abolitionists emerged to tell their fellow Americans that this would not be our place in history. That this was not the America that had captured the imagination of so many around the world.
The resistance they met was fierce, and some paid with their lives. But they would not be deterred, and they soon spread out across the country to fight for their cause. One man from New York went west, all the way to the prairies of Illinois to start a colony.
And here in Galesburg, freedom found a home.
Here in Galesburg, the main depot for the Underground Railroad in Illinois, escaped slaves could freely roam the streets and take shelter in people's homes. And when their masters or the police would come for them, the people of this town would help the escape north, some literally carrying them in their arms.
Think about the risks that involved - if they were caught abetting these fugitives, they could have been jailed or lynched. It would have been so easy for these simple towns people to just turn the other way; to go on living their lives in a private peace.
And yet, they carried them. Why?
Perhaps it is because they knew that they were all Americans; that they were all brothers and sisters; and in the end, their own salvation would be forever linked to the salvation of this land they called home.
The same reason that a century later, young men and women your age would take a Freedom Ride down south, to work for the Civil Rights movement. The same reason that black women across the south chose to walk instead of ride the bus after a long days work doing other people's laundry, cleaning other people's kitchens.
Today, on this day of possibility, we stand in the shadow of a lanky, raw-boned man with little formal education who once took the stage at Old Main and told the nation that if anyone did not believe the American principles of freedom and equality were timeless and all-inclusive, they should go rip that page out of the Declaration of Independence.
My hope for all of you is that you leave here today with the will to keep these principles alive in your own life and the life of this country. They will be tested by the challenges of this new century, and at times we may fail to live up to them. But know that you have it within your power to try. That generations who have come before you faced these same fears and uncertainties in their own time. And that though our labor, and God's providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other's burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that distant horizon, and a better day.
Thank you, and congratulations on your graduation.
Galesburg, Illinois
Good morning President Taylor, the Board of Trustees, faculty, parents, family, friends, and the Class of 2005. Congratulations on your graduation, and thank you for allowing me the honor to be a part of it.
Well, it's been about six months now since you sent me to Washington as your U.S. Senator. And for those of you muttering under your breath "I didn't send you anywhere," that's ok too - maybe we'll hold a little Pumphandle after the ceremony and I can change your mind for next time.
So far it's been a fascinating journey. Each time I walk onto the Senate floor, I'm reminded of the history, for good and for ill, that has been made there. But there have also been a few surreal moments. For example, I remember the day before I was sworn in, when we decided to hold a press conference in our office. Now, here I am, 99th in seniority - which, I was proud wasn't dead last until I found out that the only reason we aren't 100th is because Illinois is bigger than Colorado. So I'm 99th in seniority, and the reporters are all cramped into our tiny transition office that was somewhere near the Janitor's closet in the basement of the Dirksen Building. It's my first day in the building, I hadn't taken one vote, I hadn't introduced one bill, I hadn't even sat down at my desk, and this very earnest reporter asks:
"Senator Obama, what's your place in history?"
I laughed out loud. Place in history? I thought he was kidding! At that point, I wasn't even sure the other Senators would save me a place at the cool lunch table.
But as I was thinking about what words I could share with this class, about what's next, what's possible, and what opportunities lay ahead, I think it's not a bad question to ask yourselves:
"What will be my place in history?"
In other eras, across distant lands, this is a question that could be answered with relative ease and certainty. As a servant of Rome, you knew you would spend your life forced to build somebody else's Empire. As a peasant in 11th Century China, you knew that no matter how hard you worked, the local warlord might take everything you had - and that famine might come knocking on your door any day. As a subject of King George, you knew that your freedom to worship and speak and build your own life would be ultimately limited by the throne.
And then, America happened.
A place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form "a more perfect union" on this new frontier.
And as people around the world began to hear the tale of the lowly colonists who overthrew an Empire for the sake of an idea, they came. Across the oceans and the ages, they settled in Boston and Charleston, Chicago and St. Louis, Kalamazoo and Galesburg, to try and build their own American Dream. This collective dream moved forward imperfectly - it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us, but by us.
Have we failed at times? Absolutely. Will you occasionally fail when you embark on your own American journey? Surely. But the test is not perfection.
The true test of the American ideal is whether we are able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life's big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams.
We have faced this choice before.
At the end of the Civil War, when farmers and their families began moving into the cities to work in the big factories that were sprouting up all across America, we had to decide: Do we do nothing and allow the captains of industry and robber barons to run roughshod over the economy and workers by competing to see who can pay the lowest wage at the worst working conditions?
Or do we try to make the system work by setting up basic rules for the market, and instituting the first public schools, and busting up monopolies, and letting workers organize into unions?
We chose to act, and we rose together.
When the irrational exuberance of the Roaring Twenties came crashing down with the stock market, we had to decide: do we follow the call of leaders who would do nothing, or the call of a leader who, perhaps because of his physical paralysis, refused to accept political paralysis?
We chose to act - regulating the market, putting people back to work, expanding bargaining rights to include health care and a secure retirement - and together we rose.
When World War II required the most massive homefront mobilization in history and we needed every single American to lend a hand, we had to decide: Do we listen to the skeptics who told us it wasn't possible to produce that many tanks and planes?
Or, did we build Roosevelt's Arsenal of Democracy and grow our economy even further by providing our returning heroes with a chance to go to college and own their own home?
Again, we chose to act, and again, we rose together.
Today, at the beginning of this young century, we have to decide again. But this time, it's your turn to choose.
Here in Galesburg, you know what this new challenge is. You've seen it.
You see it when you drive by the old Maytag plant around lunchtime and no one walks out anymore. I saw it during the campaign when I met the union guys who use to work at the plant and now wonder what they're gonna do at 55-years-old without a pension or health care; when I met the man who's son needs a new liver but doesn't know if he can afford when the kid gets to the top of the transplant list.
It's as if someone changed the rules in the middle of the game and no one bothered to tell these people. And, in reality, the rules have changed.
It started with technology and automation that rendered entire occupations obsolete -when was the last time anybody here stood in line for the bank teller instead of going to the ATM, or talked to a switchboard operator? Then companies like Maytag being able to pick up and move their factories to some Third World country where workers are a lot cheaper than they are in the U.S.
As Tom Friedman points out in his new book, The World Is Flat, over the last decade or so, these forces - technology and globalization - have combined like never before. So that while most of us have been paying attention to how much easier technology has made our lives - sending emails on blackberries, surfing the web on our cell phones, instant messaging with friends across the world - a quiet revolution has been breaking down barriers and connecting the world's economies. Now, businesses not only have the ability to move jobs wherever there's a factory, but wherever there's an internet connection.
Countries like India and China realized this. They understood that now they need not just be a source of cheap labor or cheap exports. They can compete with us on a global scale. The one resource they still needed was a skilled, educated labor force. So they started schooling their kids earlier, longer, and with a greater emphasis on math, science, and technology, until their most talented students realized they don't have to immigrate to America to have a decent life - they can stay right where they are.
The result? China is graduating four times the number of engineers that the United States is graduating. Not only are those Maytag employees competing with Chinese and Indonesian and Mexican workers, now you are too. Today, accounting firms are emailing your tax returns to workers in India who will figure them out and send them back as fast as any worker in Indiana could.
When you lose your luggage in a Boston airport, tracking it down may involve a call to an agent in Bangalore, who will find it by making a phone call to Baltimore. Even the Associated Press has outsourced some of their jobs to writers all over the world who can send in a story with the click of a mouse.
As British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said, in this new economy, "talent is 21st century wealth." If you've got the skills, you've got the education, and you have the opportunity to upgrade and improve both, you'll be able to compete and win anywhere. If not, the fall will be further and harder than ever before.
So what do we do about this? How does America find our way in this new, global economy? What will our place in history be?
Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn't much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government - divvy it up into individual portions, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, education, and so forth.
In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it - Social Darwinism, every man and woman for him or herself. It's a tempting idea, because it doesn't require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say to those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford - tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job - life isn't fair. It let's us say to the child born into poverty - pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes that we will always be the winner in life's lottery, that we will be Donald Trump, or at least that we won't be the chump that he tells: "Your fired!"
But there a problem. It won't work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it has been government research and investment that made the railways and the internet possible. It has been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools - that has allowed all of us to prosper. Our economic dominance has depended on individual initiative and belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we're all in it together and everybody's got a shot at opportunity - that has produced our unrivaled political stability.
And so if we do nothing in the face of globalization, more people will continue to lose their health care. Fewer kids will be able to afford this diploma you're about to receive.
More companies like United won't be able to provide pensions for their employees. And those Maytag workers will be joined in the unemployment line by any worker whose skill can be bought and sold on the global market.
Today, I'm here to tell you what most of you already know. This isn't us. This isn't how our story ends - not in this country. America is a land of big dreamers and big hopes.
It is this hope that has sustained us through revolution and civil war, depression and world war, a struggle for civil and social rights and the brink of nuclear crisis. And it is because of our dreamers that we have emerged from each challenge more united, more prosperous, and more admired than ever before.
So let's dream. Instead of doing nothing or simply defending 20th century solutions, let's imagine what we can do to give every American a fighting chance in the 21st century.
What if we prepared every child in America with the education and skills they need to compete in this new economy? If we made sure college was affordable for everyone who wanted to go? If we walked up to those Maytag workers and told them that there old job wasn't coming back, but that the new jobs will be there because of the serious job re-training and lifelong education that is waiting for them - the sorts of opportunities Knox has created with the strong future scholarship program?
What if no matter where you worked or how many times you switched jobs, you had health care and a pension that stayed with you always, so that each of us had the flexibility to move to a better job or start a new business?
And what if instead of cutting budgets for research and development and science, we fueled the genius and the innovation that will lead to the new jobs and new industries of the future?
Right now, all across America, there are amazing discoveries being made. If we supported these discoveries on a national level, if we committed ourselves to investing in these possibilities, just imagine what it could do for a town like Galesburg. Ten or twenty years down the road, that old Maytag plant could re-open its doors as an Ethanol refinery that turns corn into fuel.
Down the street, a biotechnology research lab could open that's on the cusp of discovering a cure for cancer. And across the way, a new auto company could be busy churning out electric cars. The new jobs created would be filled by American workers trained with new skills and a world-class education.
None of this will come easy. Every one of us will have to work more, read more, train more, think more. We will have to slough off bad habits - like driving gas guzzlers that weaken our ecomony and feed our enemies abroad. Our kids will have to turn off the TV sets and put away the video games and start hitting the books. We will have to reform institutions, like our public schools, that were designed for an earlier time. Republicans will have to recognize our collective responsibilities, even as Democrats recognize that we have to do more than just defend the old programs.
It won't be easy, but it can be done. It can be our future. We have the talent and the resources and the brainpower. But now we need the political will. We need a national commitment.
And we need you.
Now, no one can force you to meet these challenges. If you want, it will be pretty easy for you to leave here today and not give another thought to towns like Galesburg and the challenges they face. There is no community service requirement in the real world; no one's forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and go chasing after the big house, and the nice suits, and all the other things that our money culture says you can buy.
But I hope you don't. Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a poverty of ambition. It asks to little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own, not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, although you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all of those who helped you get to where you are, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, although you do have that obligation. You need to take on the challenge because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential. And if we're willing to share the risks and the rewards this new century offers, it will be a victory for each of you, and for every American.
You're wondering how you'll do this. The challenges are so big. And it's seems so difficult for one person to make a difference.
But we know it can be done. Because where you're sitting, in this very place, in this town, it's happened before.
Nearly two centuries ago, before civil rights and voting rights, before Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, before all of that, America was stained with the sin of slavery. In the sweltering heat of southern plantations, men and women who looked like me would dream of the day they could escape the life of pain and servitude into which they were sold like cattle. And yet, year after year, as this moral cancer ate away at the American ideals of liberty and equality, the nation was silent.
But its people would not stay silent for long.
One by one, abolitionists emerged to tell their fellow Americans that this would not be our place in history. That this was not the America that had captured the imagination of so many around the world.
The resistance they met was fierce, and some paid with their lives. But they would not be deterred, and they soon spread out across the country to fight for their cause. One man from New York went west, all the way to the prairies of Illinois to start a colony.
And here in Galesburg, freedom found a home.
Here in Galesburg, the main depot for the Underground Railroad in Illinois, escaped slaves could freely roam the streets and take shelter in people's homes. And when their masters or the police would come for them, the people of this town would help the escape north, some literally carrying them in their arms.
Think about the risks that involved - if they were caught abetting these fugitives, they could have been jailed or lynched. It would have been so easy for these simple towns people to just turn the other way; to go on living their lives in a private peace.
And yet, they carried them. Why?
Perhaps it is because they knew that they were all Americans; that they were all brothers and sisters; and in the end, their own salvation would be forever linked to the salvation of this land they called home.
The same reason that a century later, young men and women your age would take a Freedom Ride down south, to work for the Civil Rights movement. The same reason that black women across the south chose to walk instead of ride the bus after a long days work doing other people's laundry, cleaning other people's kitchens.
Today, on this day of possibility, we stand in the shadow of a lanky, raw-boned man with little formal education who once took the stage at Old Main and told the nation that if anyone did not believe the American principles of freedom and equality were timeless and all-inclusive, they should go rip that page out of the Declaration of Independence.
My hope for all of you is that you leave here today with the will to keep these principles alive in your own life and the life of this country. They will be tested by the challenges of this new century, and at times we may fail to live up to them. But know that you have it within your power to try. That generations who have come before you faced these same fears and uncertainties in their own time. And that though our labor, and God's providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other's burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that distant horizon, and a better day.
Thank you, and congratulations on your graduation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe to Speeches
Posts
All Comments
