Recently my for-profit Uganda start-up Appfrica Labs was funded but that’s just the beginning. Now I have to make that money worth someone’s while! Anyways, here’s pictures of the new office, and the equipment I’ve purchased.
I am happy to share today that Water For People—Uganda has been officially registered with the Uganda NGO Board!
This registration is a major achievement. A team of people began the registration process in March of this year, only to find that the requirements they had been given were not the right ones for an international NGO. We began the process again in May from the Denver office. Because I would not leave for Uganda for another two months, the Executive Director of the Uganda Water and Sanitation NGO Network (UWASNET) agreed to allow their Program Liaison Officer, Alex Mbaguta, work with us on the registration process.
Over the next two months, Kathy Miller and I had regular correspondence with Alex. We gathered the documents that we could gather in Denver, and Alex gathered the pieces that we needed from various offices in Kampala. He helped to arrange a Post Office Box and talked to numerous people in the Ministry of Water to gain their support of our application. Alex also worked with a lawyer, Robert Lubega, to ensure that all of our documents were in order and to put the necessary official face with the registration; we couldn’t turn in the application without Robert’s presence saying that we are a qualified organization.
When finally I arrived to Uganda, Alex, Robert, and I pulled together all of the pieces that we’d collected. We took them to the NGO Board the last week of July, but were turned away saying that we did not have a letter of support from local government that was required, but not was listed on the requirements sheet.
Alex, Robert, and I had the necessary meetings (several letters were needed in order to get the one required by the NGO Board), and returned with a newly completed file on August 1.
The NGO Board was set to meet later in the week, but we were told that their program was already too full and so we’d have to wait until the September meeting. The September meeting was delayed by several weeks, but was finally held on September 26. Although Alex, Robert, and I each visited the office several times in October, it was not until late October that we finally learned that our application had been accepted.
Several visits later, I took our file number to the office on October 24, and Grace at the NGO Board said that our certificate was being signed and to try again the following Tuesday. I was in Malawi that Tuesday, and didn’t get back to the office until today, November 12.
When I was finally seen by the NGO Board staff member who held the certificates, he told me that I was lucky, because the signed certificates from September 26 had only just been delivered yesterday. Three signatures and a photocopy of my passport later, I left the office carrying our certificate of registration!
What does being registered mean? Well, it means that we can finally start to build more substantial relationships with government and potential partners. Before being “official” I found that many people raised their eyebrows at me when I was speaking with them, as though they didn’t believe that we were really going to be able to program in Uganda. I look forward to going back to some of those offices to begin conversations again.
Being registered also means that we can continue with a host of administrative tasks that are very important to our existence in Uganda. Among them are projects like filing for tax-exempt status, purchasing a truck, and opening a bank account. I can also begin to look for an office , hire staff, and enter into agreements with partners.
In essence, being registered means that we have a green light to move forward with all of the exciting work that we have planned for Water For People—Uganda. Hurray!
Written by Sarah in Life, NGO, News, Uganda, water for people, work ~ Comments
I’ve spent a lot of time in Kisumu. For more than two years, Kenyans in Kisumu have been asking me about Barack Obama and if I think that he can be president. Early in his senate term Obama made a visit to Kisumu. Kenyans donned Obama for President t-shirts and bought them up in record time. Shortly thereafter, I made a visit to Kisumu, but by then, t-shirts were hard to come by, and even my colleagues couldn’t find any more.
Yesterday I got an email from one of my CARE Kenya colleagues in Kisumu congratulating me on the election. I also chatted briefly a few Atlantan friends living in Kisumu. Today they are enjoying a public holiday celebrating Obama’s win. But even before the public celebration, people had taken to the streets. Brooks sent the photo below (by Brooks Keene and Shadi Saboori, friends in Kisumu, Kenya).
You can see more of the celebration at Brooks’ blog: Keene Thoughts
I am also pasting below and article about the celebrations in Kisumu. It’s not only an exciting day for America, but also for Kenya.
KISUMU, Kenya | By Jeffrey Gettleman Call it redemption.
This town, in the epicenter of Kenya’s Obamaland — the same area where Barack Obama’s father was from and where some of his cousins, half-brothers and a very gregarious 80-something step-grandmother still live — exploded into cheers when the news broke that Mr. Obama had won the presidency.
Thousands of people sang, danced, blew whistles, honked horns, hugged, kissed and thumped on drums — all down the same streets where not so long ago huge flames of protest had raged.
“Who needs a passport?” people yelled. “We’re going to America!”
It was sweetness on many levels. A black man in the White House. A half-Kenyan at the helm of the most powerful country on the planet. And a fair election, which Kenyans have learned is nothing to take for granted.
People here stayed up all night, swatting mosquitoes as they watched the election results trickle in on TV sets with fuzzy pictures. The last time this many Kenyans were riveted by an election — their own, in December 2007 — riots erupted after the opposition candidate lost and Kenya’s incumbent president won. Widespread allegations of vote rigging sent tens of thousands of young men into the streets, to loot, burn and kill. Much of Kisumu, usually a relaxed town along the steamy, hippo-infested shores of Lake Victoria, was ravaged.
But on Wednesday, many of the same young men who had been doing the burning, the looting and worse, were all smiles, part of the happy wave of emotion that coursed through Kisumu. Passersby and mini-bus drivers and bicycle taxi men got swept into the streets, where Obama posters, Obama pins and even Obama wall clocks were selling faster than juicy papayas.
“This has restored my faith in democracy,” said Duncan Adel, a computer technician who had been part of the election protests last year.
About an hour away, down a bumpy dirt road, Mr. Obama’s extended Kenyan family held a 1,000-person bash in their ancestral village of Kogelo.
“We’re going to the White House!” they sang.
[Most people in Kisumu are Luo, the ethnic group of the top opposition leader and coincidentally the same ethnic group of Mr. Obama’s father. There is an old joke in Kisumu that a Luo will become president of the United States before becoming president of Kenya. It has indeed come true.]
By mid-morning, the Kenyan government declared Thursday a national holiday. It meant a day off. And surely more partying. View the article here.
Written by Sarah in Africa, Articles, Life, News, Photos ~ Comments
Home for Halloween
By IRSHAD MANJI
Published: October 31, 2008
FOR me and my family, Oct. 31 has always been significant. Not because it’s Halloween, but because that’s the day we arrived as refugees to a free part of the world.
Beginning in August 1972, thousands of Asian entrepreneurs fled the East African country of Uganda after its dictator, Idi Amin, declared us to be bloodsuckers, seized our property and gave us three months to leave or die.
My family and I had only Ugandan passports, so we couldn’t escape to Britain or India like many of our neighbors. We’d been in Africa for two generations; my father and his brothers owned a car dealership in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. We didn’t know where to go, but we knew we couldn’t stay: Amin viciously enforced his 90-day deadline.
By the final week of October, the nations that would otherwise accept Ugandan exiles had exceeded their quotas. My family heard that Sweden and Canada might make room for a few more, and so out of desperation my mother, my sisters and I flew to Montreal, with Dad to follow. We had no guarantee that Canada would admit us.
We also had no guarantee that we’d meet an extraordinary immigration agent. But on Halloween 1972, we did.
Though the middle-aged woman had doubtless been dealing with a flood of Ugandan refugees, and though burnout could have led her to turn us back or indifferently wave us through, she chose to talk with a harried mother shepherding three girls under age 7. “Why do you want to live in Montreal?” the agent asked, en français.
My mother, who grew up in the Belgian Congo, mercifully could respond in French. “Why do we want to live in Montreal?” Mum repeated, buying a few seconds to think. “Well, Montreal begins with the letter ‘M,’ and our family’s name begins with the letter ‘M,’ so maybe God believes we will fit nicely together.”
Sensing my mother’s fear, the immigration agent assured her that this wasn’t an interrogation. “It’s just that I’m looking at your daughters,” she explained, “and I realize that they’re all dressed for tropical weather. Madame Manji, have you ever seen snow?”
Terrified at the prospect of being booted out, my mother blurted out, “No, but I can’t wait to!”
“Then you’ve come to the right country,” the agent assured Mum. “With your permission, however, I’d like to send you and your children to Canada’s version of a mild climate.” Several stamps of the paperwork later, we boarded a plane to Vancouver, where I learned to make peace with rain.
Some would reduce this immigration agent to a shrewd gatekeeper of cheap labor, carting us off to a city that would get rich from the Asian work ethic. And yet she was more complex than a caricature. Instead of simply unloading us on the local authorities, the agent cared enough to ask what we might need more of — peace, yes, but also fleece. Her small act of empathy bucked an ice-cold system.
As an adult, I’ve come to understand why I’m so blessed to have immigrated to an open society. Here, the individual — and the choices she makes — matter. The agent chose to practice the first lesson of human rights: just because a problem doesn’t affect you personally doesn’t mean it ceases to exist.
Mum tells me that she’s never been able to track down the lovely lady who let us into Canada. Still, she won’t be forgotten. As Madame Manji reminded her girls on Halloween in 2002, “When we touched this soil, we won the lottery of life.”
Idi Amin died in Saudi Arabia a year after that. Friends assumed that I’d be cursing his corpse. No. His hatred introduced my family to the gift of choices.
On Halloween, one can be forgiven for obsessing with murderers, but it’s not Idi Amin who will dominate my thoughts. It’s the immigration agent.
Irshad Manji, the author of “The Trouble With Islam Today,” is the director of the Moral Courage Project at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University.
Written by Sarah in Africa, Articles, Life, News, Uganda ~ Comments
George W. Bush (R) shakes hands with Yoweri Museveni (L) during a bilateral meeting
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — US President George W. Bush praised Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s leadership in working to end African conflicts Tuesday as they met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
“He’s been a very strong leader on a number of fronts. First, he’s been very helpful in solving regional conflicts on the continent of Africa, and I want to thank you for your leadership,” Bush said as they held talks.
The US president also highlighted Uganda’s successes in battling HIV/AIDS and in fighting malaria, notably with US assistance.
Museveni praised the expansion of US aid to Africa under Bush, and thanked him for US steps to help the continent improve its infrastructure and energy and attract much-needed investment.
“This is really the way forward. And President Bush has been tremendous on that. He has actually been a very good friend of Africa and we salute you, our gratitude,” said Museveni.
Written by Sarah in Africa, Articles, News, Uganda ~ Comments
No, it’s not an email forward (although some of those of late have been very funny). This is an article from Uganda’s Sunday Monitor from September 21, 2008. It’s a little insight into both Ugandan commentary on the US elections and a little idea about some Ugandan ideas and values.
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/sunday_life/How_to_be_Sarah_Palin_71837.shtml
1.Who is this woman?
She is a former beauty queen. She came in second in the Miss Alaska contest and in fact won the Miss Congeniality title. But most of us only got to know about her because Senator McCain thinks she is all that. I mean, why else would he choose her to become the potential vice president?
It could be her looks, or it could be what we are about to learn about this wonder woman. She is the Governor of Alaska and as a child, she would sometimes go hunting with her father before school, a thing that she enjoyed so much that would later shape her adult life. She has a strong conviction for doing what is right.
Here, be the judge of this; when her stepmother-in-law decided to run for mayor, Sarah Palin instead supported her opponent. Of course it was not because mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law do not generally get along, but probably because she thought the other person was better suited to run the office. So to be Sarah Palin, you have to be Miss Mary two-goody shoes, you have to dislike your stepmother-in-law, be a politician, and above all, be in the good books of John McCain.
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2. May God’s will prevail
Sarah describes herself as a Bible-believing Christian. And when you hear how many times she alludes to the Bible, you will be convinced that this is true. As a young girl, she headed Christian athletes’ fellowship in school, and every time before a basketball match, she led the team prayer. An outstanding candidate for the Kingdom of God you may say. In fact, she believes that God is responsible for everything. On the topic of Iraq, she asked that people pray for the soldiers and that “there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.” Yes. God has tendencies of sitting in the oval office and deciding to invade countries.
In regards to a proposed natural-gas pipeline she said, “I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built. In keeping with the tradition of the Bible therefore, she is very much against homosexuality, and believes it should be discriminated against.
3. Tree hugger?
Not. To be Sarah Palin, you have to have no love for the environment. Scratch that. You have to absolutely ignore the environment all together. Feel free not to take any time off your busy political schedule to learn anything about the environment. And such attitude will get you thinking like this; that global warming is not caused by human beings. Aliens perhaps? Not that it is surprising, considering she has been chairman of an oil drilling company and her husband works for BP, an oil drilling company. What is that old saying - you can’t bite the hand that feeds you? Right, so to be Ms Palin, you should be clear about which side of your toast is buttered.
Sarah Palin also hates the natural environment. She is a life long NRA (National Rifle Association of America) member, kills animals at every chance, and has sued the federal government for putting polar bears on the endangered species list.
4. Family values
She preaches about the sanctity of marriage, the importance of family, and other conservative evangelical Christian philosophies. She stands strong defining marriage as the sole right of a man and woman. Not man and man. Or woman and woman. In 2006, she okayed denying benefits to homosexual couples. In 2008, she vetoed a bill stating that denying rights to gays and lesbians is unconstitutional. Her own underage high school student daughter is pregnant. Out of wedlock. Of course she comes off as a woman of great character for letting her daughter keep the baby. She is after all publicly against abortion. To be Sarah Palin, you have to believe that family values have nothing to do with teenage pregnancy. You should preach family values everywhere except in your own home.
Another saying comes to mind. Charity begins at home Sarah. To be a perfect Sarah Palin, you have to have one description of family; Mother, Father, and heterosexual children.
5. The gun followed the cross
We have seen above that Ms Sarah is a good Christian. Kind of reminds us of another set of Christians. Remember them?
The missionaries? Remember how they introduced God only a few days before introducing us to the machine gun? Well, Sarah takes the teachings of the missionaries ever so seriously. As a result, she is a firm believer in the goodness of the gun. She supports the constitutional right to bear firearms. I bet that gun must have come in handy when she had to hold a gun to her daughter’s boyfriend to marry her after making her pregnant.
Okay, so I am lying, she did not literally hold a gun to the boy’s head, but surely a high school student can’t have been too eager to walk down the isle yet? Anyway, to be Sarah Palin, you have to be a lover of guns. You have to ignore that those things have been known to kill. And there you have it - how to be Sarah Palin 101.
Written by Sarah in Africa, Articles, News, Uganda ~ Comments
My friend Melissa sent this to me today. I haven’t heard anything about it here, but I’ll admit that I haven’t been following local news as closely as I should. It seems to me that mini-skirt distractions on the road wouldn’t be nearly so bad if someone did something to regulate the traffic. But what do I know? And what will I do with all my mini-skirts?
This is sort of fucked up.
Uganda’s ethics and integrity minister Nsaba Buturo is seeking a ban of miniskirts because of the distraction it causes, equating it with nudity:
“What’s wrong with a miniskirt? You can cause an accident because some of our people are weak mentally. . . If you find a naked person you begin to concentrate on the make-up of that person and yet you are driving . . . These days you hardly know who is a mother from a daughter, they are all naked.”
Cause an accident? This reminds me of the typical movie scene where a “hot chick” passes a gentleman who, in his trance o’ lust, walks into a pole or gets hit by a car.
Buturo is seeking to have miniskirt-wearing as punishable by law. Let’s keep in mind this guy also compared the indecency of wearing a skirt with the other “vices” of Ugandan society such as “[t]heft and embezzlement of public funds, sub-standard service delivery, greed, infidelity, prostitution, homosexuality [and] sectarianism…” Sigh.
Oh how I wish we could have seen Obama give this address. We’re still too new here to know where to find people who are watching these things. We’ll have our work cut out for us to figure it out before the debates. The election I’m more optimistic for, because although many Americans still don’t get it, the whole world is watching what is going to happen on November 4.
In the mean time, here is Barack’s speech from the DNC. Moving, as always. He is so good at reminding us what is great about America, and why we fight so hard for it.
http://www.demconvention.com/barack-obama/
Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 08:00 PM
To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this great nation;
With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.
Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest - a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours — Hillary Rodham Clinton. To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.
To the love of my life, our next First Lady, Michelle Obama, and to Sasha and Malia - I love you so much, and I’m so proud of all of you.
Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story - of the briefu nion between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren’t well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America, their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to.
It is that promise that has always set this country apart - that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.
That’s why I stand here tonight. Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women - students and soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors — found the courage to keep it alive.
We meet at one of those defining moments - a moment when our nation is at war, our economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.
Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More of you have cars you can’t afford to drive, credit card bills you can’t afford to pay, and tuition that’s beyond your reach.
These challenges are not all of government’s making. But the failure to respond is a direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush.
America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.
This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement, finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.
This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he’s worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news.
We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes.
Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land - enough! This moment - this election - is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: “Eight is enough.”
Now let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our gratitude and respect. And next week, we’ll also hear about those occasions when he’s broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need.
But the record’s clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time? I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to take a ten percent chance on change.
The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives - on health care and education and the economy - Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made “great progress” under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors - the man who wrote his economic plan - was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a “mental recession,” and that we’ve become, and I quote, “a nation of whiners.”
A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.
Now, I don’t believe that Senator McCain doesn’t care what’s going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn’t know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people’s benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement?
It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care. It’s because John McCain doesn’t get it.
For over two decades, he’s subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy - give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is - you’re on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps - even if you don’t have boots. You’re on your own.
Well it’s time for them to own their failure. It’s time for us to change America.
You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country.
We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage; whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can someday watch your child receive her college diploma. We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was President - when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush.
We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job - an economy that honors the dignity of work.
The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great - a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight.
Because in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton’s Army, and was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.
In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.
When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two decades ago after the local steel plant closed.
And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a woman. She’s the one who taught me about hard work. She’s the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she’s watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.
I don’t know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of the United States.
What is that promise?
It’s a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.
It’s a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.
Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves - protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.
Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who’s willing to work.
That’s the promise of America - the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.
That’s the promise we need to keep. That’s the change we need right now. So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am President.
Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.
Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.
I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.
I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95% of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.
And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.
Washington’s been talking about our oil addiction for the last thirty years, and John McCain has been there for twenty-six of them. In that time, he’s said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.
Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.
As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I’ll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy - wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced.
America, now is not the time for small plans.
Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don’t have that chance. I’ll invest in early childhood education. I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I’ll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American - if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.
Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.
Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent.
Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses; and the time to protect Social Security for future generations.
And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day’s work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.
Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I’ve laid out how I’ll pay for every dime - by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don’t help America grow. But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less - because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy.
And Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America’s promise will require more than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to recover what John F. Kennedy called our “intellectual and moral strength.” Yes, government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that programs alone can’t replace parents; that government can’t turn off the television and make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility for providing the love and guidance their children need.
Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility - that’s the essence of America’s promise.
And just as we keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America’s promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have.
For while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face. When John McCain said we could just “muddle through” in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell - but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.
And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed by the Iraqi government and even the Bush Administration, even after we learned that Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we’re wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.
That’s not the judgment we need. That won’t keep America safe. We need a President who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.
You don’t defeat a terrorist network that operates in eighty countries by occupying Iraq. You don’t protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can’t truly stand up for Georgia when you’ve strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice - but it is not the change we need.
We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don’t tell me that Democrats won’t defend this country. Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans — Democrats and Republicans - have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.
As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm’s way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home.
I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.
These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.
But what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and patriotism.
The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.
So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.
America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can’t just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose - our sense of higher purpose. And that’s what we have to restore.
We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America’s promise - the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.
I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that’s to be expected. Because if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.
You make a big election about small things.
And you know what - it’s worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn’t work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it’s best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.
I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don’t fit the typical pedigree, and I haven’t spent my career in the halls of Washington.
But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s been about you.
For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.
America, this is one of those moments.
I believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming. Because I’ve seen it. Because I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it in Illinois, when we provided health care to more children and moved more families from welfare to work. I’ve seen it in Washington, when we worked across party lines to open up government and hold lobbyists more accountable, to give better care for our veterans and keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.
And I’ve seen it in this campaign. In the young people who voted for the first time, and in those who got involved again after a very long time. In the Republicans who never thought they’d pick up a Democratic ballot, but did. I’ve seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbors who take a stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise.
This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world coming to our shores.
Instead, it is that American spirit - that American promise - that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.
That promise is our greatest inheritance. It’s a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours - a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.
And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.
The men and women who gathered there could’ve heard many things. They could’ve heard words of anger and discord. They could’ve been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.
But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and color, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.
“We cannot walk alone,” the preacher cried. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”
America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.
Thank you, God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.