Presidential address: The alamo

Today, March 6, is one of the most important days in our history. On this day in 1836 about one hundred and fifty Americans died fighting for freedom on a piece of property that was not theirs, as they sought to claim Texas from a nation that did not have the ambition to settle and deveolop that territory.

Many people think the battle at the Alamo was just another attempt by the United States or American citizens to steal land that belonged to someone else. They feel that the Texans lusted for a fight, that they were hypocrites for believing in slavery while fighting for freedom.

All these points might be true. But there is something important to remember: the Texans had everything to gain economically if they won, but if they lost, and they knew they would lose, they would have died fighting for freedom and against injustice.

These men had faith in freedom, faith in America, faith in each other. They had faith in destiny, faith in justice and faith in several hundred other Texans and Americans who never showed up to help them. These men kept their faith, knowing they were fighting for something greater than themselves.

It is hard for today’s Americans to think that a bunch of drunks, wife leavers and vagabonds would die for something greater than themselves. But they are heroes.

They are heroes because they did more than run away from their problems and responsibilities. If they had no intention of paying their debts or sending the family out when they got rich in Texas, the fact that they died so others could come to Texas and get rich, or at least start a better life, redeemed them.

My fellow citizens, Western Civilization is founded upon redemption and freedom. Most of the men at the Alamo abused their freedom, but made up for it when they put their future money where their mouths were and died for it.

In America today, we too have abused our freedom. We have gotten fat and sassy. But unlike the men at the Alamo, our arrogance has not tranmsformed into courage.

We need faith in each other to rise to the ocassion to fight our own battle as the chips are down, to redeem ourselves from our acceptance of the tyranny my predecessors have imposed.

Now, a moment of silence, for the men who died at the Alamo.

Presidential address: Martin Luther King Day

On this gray day in Washington and throughout much of the nation, it is my duty to talk about Martin Luther King. Dr. King’s career began ten years after World War II, when America saved itself and the West from Fascism, Nazism and the Japanese military state.

We were ecstatic.

We percieved ourselves to be the shining light of freedom, but Dr. King made it clear that millions of Americans were not free, that America could not and would not shine until these people were free.

He led. He hoped and prayed America into a stormy and bright future. He felt pain and death were worth the essential price black Americans would and should pay to free themselves and to create a free nation for their children.

Dr. King loved America. He ached to be part of the promise he had been denied as a black man.

He was claiming his American citizenship, his right and sacred duty to stick up for others and himself. He was claiming his black manhood while refusing to hate his white brothers.

He loved the promise of America so much, all he wanted was his white brothers to be men, to let him be so he and them could glory in the freedom America brags about but had been stifled for so many since the birth of our nation.

Dr. King, he lived the ideals of our independence. The ideals are the goodness of God and the necessity of freedom.

He referred to them as a majectic sense of values. They were values black America exemplified in its struggle to be free, for black Americans had to be majestic or America would not be majestic if black freedom came violently.

We wonder today how King could have had such faith in God and America and peace after all that black Americans had been through and were going through. We must remember that most Americans of his age and older were not cynical. They had lived through the depression, fought in World War II and World War I, got beaten in labor strikes and were beaten by police and rednecks for being black.

What kept them optimistic and hopeful was their religious beliefs and their belief in America. Religion is about God. America is about work.

Americans believed that here work will make you free. In other countries without America’s promise of the future, work makes you a slave.

Dr. King had the old school work ethic. He could not have had his faith or his drive without it.

Somewhere America lost its work ethic. Not our drive. Our work ethic.

Work was no longer something you prayed to God to do well. Success was no longer pursued with a request to God to be satisfied with a humble home and a simple marriage.

Dr. King could talk about and live non-violence because as hatefilled as our country was, there was still an acknowledgement of the necessity of simplicity and humbleness. He believed this simplicity and humbleness could be tapped into by his philosophies of peace and non-violence, that America could redeem itself from its racism.

He felt that black Americans could rise to the ocassion by being simply and humbly committed to non-violence and love. He felt that the simpleness and humbleness of so many white Americans in their interactions with white people could be directed toward their black brothers and sisters because of the godly and American example of black people.

A lot of people think that Dr. King’s dream failed. We can look at statistics and say yes, the dream failed. But if the dream has failed it’s because America is arrogant and because black America squandered its real pride for false pride.

When he talked about non-violence King was not merely being poetic. He said that non-violence means no self-destruction.

Look at the destruction black America has done to itself since Dr. King lost the struggle among black activists to influence black youth. Young blacks were encouraged to be dishonest, disrespectful, profane, violent.

He had challenged young black men to look into their souls, to proclaim themselves free, to find their manhood. Today that challenge applies to all Americans.

We need to look into our souls and ask why we have such low standards, as a country and as individuals. We need to ask if we are willing to demand change from our government and business as well as from ourselves.

We are perishing. We do not love ourselves or each other. We do not love America, otherwise we would not be cynical and arrogant.

It is tragic what has happened to black America, but that is no reason for the dream to die.

It is time for Americans to cultivate something that will attract and produce a great leader. Simplicity could be one thing. Not being greedy could be another. Honesty. An unshakeable faith in God.

An unshakeable faith that we have great beauty and goodness in us that came from God. This could be our truth we desperately want to bring out, as desperately as black Americans wanted to be free from white oppression.

My fellow Americans, you are not free. It will take great will power to begin to free the nation.

We can begin by not spending so much money. We can begin by not deluding ourselves that we deserve prosperity. We can begin by not allowing the media to tell us we do not have enough stuff, but need more.

This is easy. What is not easy is getting beyond defeating our selfishness to defeating the selfishness of those who love you to be afraid, who spy on you, who want to know everything about you.

These people control a large part of the government. They want to arrest anybody for any reason. Dr. King would understand this.

All the cameras and the satellites spying on you are playing the role of God. They see everything like God. But unlike God, there is not love behind them. Only evil eyes.

You wil not be rewarded for behaving well. You might be punished for no reason. If you do a good deed, you might be arrested because your act is threatening.

As time passes, hopefully you will grow to hate our surveillance technology to the extent black Americans hated slavery and Jim Crow. The more positive you force yourself to appear when questioned by authorities, the more you will understand slavery and the more you will appreciate Dr. King’s struggle: How to turn a phony smile into a respectful refusal.

The nation will require courage to do this. Like Dr. King and the civil rights activists, you will get beaten and arrested.

Like them, you have to be courageous – sticking up for your rights, the rights of your fellow Americans and the rights of future Americans.

Are you sick of being afraid? Do you want to trust yourself and your neighbor? Do you want to feel beautiful and good and see beauty and goodness in your fellow Americans?

I too have a dream. I dream that America will regain its soul, that a great group of leaders will rise out of the ashes of our consumerism and camera by camera, computer by computer lead Americans in the risky business of dismantling our police state, no matter what the price.

The President Speaks: Department of Peace – Christmas

At this special time of the year when we’ve taken a truce from fighting out of respect for our various religions, I would like to talk with you about peace. It is something we long for. But human frailty being what it is, the world always seems to be at war.

Wars are not always just or sensible. We Americans have certainly waged war for the wrong reasons, and should have helped rebellions against regimes we claimed to have been a threat to us, the world or a region.

While we wish for peace, we must face the fact that as long as there are people and large populations, war is going to be a reality. We can only hope that a war is not fought here, and that America from now on only fights a just war.

We must maintain a strong defense. This does not mean that we should continue to spend as much on the military as we do.

I am trying to persuade Congress to reduce the military budget by half. With our money, our scientific and technological knowledge and our business skill we can rise to the occasion if we need to.

By reducing our military spending we will tell the world that we are not as agressive as we used to be. We will also tell the world that the United States cannot protect every nation, that they must build up as we are backing down.

When we back down we will not be cowards but realists. We will be acknowledging that we should not be lusting for war and instilling fear and suspicion in our citizens like we have been.

Peace though, is something we can only hope for. We must be ready to fight as military personnel, but also as citizens. We have to have the skill and confidence to kill if we have to, but this skill and confidence will be tempered by good will, self-restraint and constant self-examination which as you well know, have not been American characteristics for some time.

We can learn from the Indians we conquered. Though they were violent they had sane and peaceful societies. They could be officers and they could be gentlemen. There is an inner peace in being able to do both.

We have no such balance. Those who are violent are not interested in inner peace. Those who seek inner peace are offended by the thought of beating up somebody who assaults them.

Many people have contacted me. They have begged for a department of peace, saying a department of peace will show America’s good will and set a good example for children.

Such a belief is dangerous and naive. It is dangerous because the argument assumes children have no awareness of good and evil, that somehow evil is put in the minds of children. But good can only exist if evil exists or an awareness of the potential for evil exists.

If we develop a department of peace it will be taken over by people who do not allow boys to swear, fist fight or play football.Our society will become even more insane than it is now.

All the people who want to protect us from violence will be creating a nation of psychopaths. The nation of psychopaths will need to be policed by a greater number of officers with greater power to impose themselves on people. This will add another layer of restraint to an already insane society and remove us further from peace.

The argument for a department of peace is also naive. Allow me to explain.

In the middle of the last century America had a Department of War. Following our victories against tyranny the nation realized it had immense power. We lusted for more control of the world. The war department changed its name to the Department of Defense.

Along with the name change came an increase in fear that the federal government and the media instilled in people. By talking fearfully and talking about defense while we really were on offense, the name defense department did not ring any alarms to the public.

For fifty years we have been making war and instilling fear without calling the war department a Department of War. At the beginning of this century the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself to those who love to talk fearfully about defense.

A new department was created. The Department of Homeland Security. Can you imagine the secrecy and ineptitude a Department of Peace will exemplify?

One of the most important things to do to pursue peace is to use accurate language. I have proposed to Congress to rename the defense department to the Department of War. That way we will be honest with ourselves. Whether a war is offensive or defensive it will not have a euphemistic name.

People who call themselves peace activists hardly exemplify the diplomacy and good will implied by peace. What so called peace activists must do is to change their name to anti-war activists. They should not mention peace until they attempt to make peace with themselves and their opponents.

So in closing, the nation has great work to do. The American government must stop imposing itself upon the world.

The American public must stop being selfish and greedy. Until then, our prayers to the Prince of Peace will remain unanswered.

The President Speaks: Thanksgiving

On this fourth Thursday in November we give thanks to God for the comfort and prosperity we in America have. We give thanks to the Pilgrims who took a leap of faith, making a perilous journey to a new continent. We also thank our Founding Fathers who were wise to know the proper time to rebel in order to more fully take advantage of their energeticness.

There are others we must thank – the industrialists who planned our systems of interconnectedness; the relentless laborers whose faith in God, America and property brought their bosses dreams to reality.

To round this off we must thank our civil rights leaders who challenged America to truly be religious, to truly be philosophical, to make our interconnectedness spiritual and our drive something that does not annihilate others.

Our focus should be on God. Without tremendous faith in God America would not have been the beacon of the world for so long and we would not have the wealth we have. America was the shining light of the world politically, economically and religiously no matter the extent of our injustices.

We were a balanced people. But we have come further and further from God. Our national leaders have become corrupt. Business and American citizens have become greedy.

Our religious leaders have made a mockery of religion and have abused their positions. Our injustices are no longer something that one can overlook, for there are so many at the same time in all areas of society.

Our faith remains, but it is a faith in expectations. We no longer have an agreement with God that what is most important is our goodness and our willingness to know when we have enough money, success and comfort.

We were wise and humble. We knew that if we were good and not greedy, and we failed in our financial goals, we would be blessed on earth with our goodness and in heaven with God. We knew that if we were good, not greedy and successful we would be extremely lucky and blessed.

Our good points were so powerful they overshadowed our immense evil. This shows you how great Americans were and how seriously so many Americans took words like honesty, truth and integrity.

Often people criticize the Pilgrims as being puritanical. But they were not.

We are. We do not value people who are humble and live simply. We say they are not realistic.

We have a relentless need for money, property, cars, a young image. When somebody says this insanity has to stop, that person is not listened to.

Our godlessness is far more dangerous than the religious conviction of the Pilgrims and the narrowmindedness of the Puritans. They made tremendous sacrifices and constructed stable communities.

We destroy our communities. Any sacrifice we make when young is to live a selfish life at middle-age when we should be combing talent, energy, sharing and good will.

We must regain our integrity. We must rebel against our last fifty years of greed.

God can help us do this. But we will need strength and wisdom. For when we begin to sacrifice our selfish desires to build communities and enhance our relationships, we will realize how unfree America is, how much we do not trust one another, how afraid we are.

We will be tempted to become frivolous again, not out of greed but out of terror. A greater sacrifice will be needed.

We will need to take risks like the Pilgrims did to attain religious freedom, like the Founding Fathers did to be free of a corrupt government, like our civil rights leaders did to attain freedom in their own country.

We need to regain our souls. We need to attain freedom in our own country. If we have the courage and wisdom to do this we will have something to humbly be thankful for.

Our wisdom can begin now. Let us eat lightly this afternoon, so after thanking God that things are not worse here, we will set out to make America once again the beacon to the world.

The President Speaks: Veterans Day

Here in Washington and throughout the land, we commemorate our million or so soldiers, sailors and marines who perished so we might be free. Even with these horrific numbers, America is lucky. We are not just celebrating our heroes. We are thanking God and them for our good fortune.

One of the great things about America is our faith in God and the principles of our nation, however imperfectly enacted. Another great thing about America is our faith in the future.

When American soldiers fight, they do not fight for a king, a leader, a crown or a government. They fight for their love of liberty, the glory of the future and to retain goodness in the world that would die if America were to fall.

What will make the future glorious is when we have perfected the ideal of liberty, that everyone can walk the streets without fear of being arrested, spied upon or looked at suspiciously. We have to fight that battle mainly at home.

But the ideals of liberty, freedom, privacy, free speech, equality, opportunity and innocence until guilt is proven no matter how much they are threatened and weakened here, are such powerful ideas that most of the world still fears them and will do anything to stop them from thriving.

Our soldiers have been brave. This is to be expected, for there have always been gallant soldiers. The good guys and bad guys have both been brave fighting to preserve their country or to destroy someone else’s, to prevent themselves from becoming slaves or to take slaves home with them, to save their family or bring glory to their king.

So often people glorify war. The reason is that war allows young men to devote themselves to a cause greater than themselves.

A cause greater than oneself is a noble goal. But usually the cause which people die for is organized by selfish people.

These selfish people have young truth seekers and young men longing to be needed dying for a group that is not greater than them, nor willing to sacrifice for others. Any pain or inconvenience the initiators of war willingly bring on themselves is done with the expectation that they will attain more power no matter how many people die or suffer.

In World War II, two of the countries received ghastly losses. One country’s government was supposedly in service to the people. But the people were actually enslaved to their leader.

The other country’s people loyally served a dictator because they thought he would restore glory and prosperity to their ancient culture.

In America we do not fight for the president. Americans fight for the ideals embedded in our constitution. Our government exists to make sure Americans never have their rights taken from them.

The recent leaders of our nation have behaved like tyrants. At best they have sent young men to die for a mistaken cause. At worst they have sent our young men to die to satisfy the egos of the president and his cabinet and advisors.

These actions relate to what I said earlier about our biggest battle for freedom being at home. This struggle is greater the more the government lusts for war.

When a government lusts for war, that means war is not necessary. It means the need for secrecy that is essential in a defensive war is concocted, increased and abused in a war of selfishness.

All these actions lead to fear. There is the fear that is instilled when an enemy is claimed to be more dangerous than it is.

There is the fear of criticizing the proponents of an unjust war, for people fear what might be done to them if they complain. There is the fear of each other too. We cannot help but fear each other when the world is demonized and the government lies and demands the right to be secretive.

What does all this mean? It means we lose civil liberties. It means we lose the freedom that comes with trust, good will and confidence.

It means the future looks anything but glorious. And it means the goodness that has been essential to America has gone.

When we celebrate our heroes today, we must realize that there is no foreign threat to the United States. The threat to America comes from politicians, business leaders, professors and attorneys.

The war that must be fought is here against your government. Americans need to risk their career, property, love and bodies to free America. What I am saying is that parents and grandparents have to risk jail or death for their kids and grandchildren.

This is scary.

Americans do not look like a free proud people. We look frightened and timid.

America needs to rise above this fear. American citizens need to demand the end of the surveillance state, of guilt until innocence is proven.

You must make my fellow politicians and bureaucrats and business leaders terrified of you and your lust for freedom. Now you are afraid of them.

For those with a religious or philosophical bent, who believe in noble causes, in something greater than oneself, this is your challenge. It is an opportunity of a lifetime far greater than the challenge of a young soldier fighting for a cause and leaders he does not understand.

You Americans at mid-career, at your peak, enjoying your wisdom and retirement. You understand. This is a cause greater than yourself.

God wants people to be free. In no other country is God and freedom intertwined like here.

America is being sabotaged. If you do not rise up then our soldiers, sailors and marines will have died in vain.

The President Speaks: Art and the government

I want to thank everybody for inviting me here this evening. I have always loved art and am very aware of the influence it has upon people.

I am also aware of the arguments art raises in society. What qualfies as art I do not know. Like so many Americans I feel I know art when I see it. Also, like so many Americans I am concerned about who decides what is art and what role the federal government has in subsidizing art and artists.

If we allow artists to determine what art is, anything passes as art. If we allow traditionalists to determine what it is, hardly anything contemporary will pass as art.

What every one agrees upon is that art can be very powerful. It can change opinions. It can change habits. It can be mainly a diversion – which might be good for busy people, but bad for someone who needs to be focused.

What I hope everyone can agree on is the right of every American to create, buy, look at and talk about any art that they want to. But this is not the case, even without government funding.

Yet is is government funding for the arts that is the reason you invited me to speak tonight. What is the federal government’s role?

The federal government must support art. It must support art because art forces people to feel. Unfortunately, our society is destroying people’s ability and desire to feel.

When people talk about things the government should do to improve the lives of Americans, it is usually health care, raising the minimum wage and funding more education that people mention. Nobody mentions emotions.

We are at an emotional weak point. I know the government should subsidize art programs in public shools and on public television. Our country desperately needs to feel more and deeper feelings.

What should be subsidized? Art created more than fifty years ago. I say this because contemporary art forms are thriving – movies and rap are examples of this. We do not need more of these.

We need to study art from the ancient world and from America’s past which seem so distant. They seem distant because we are distant from history, our past, each other and powerful troubling feelings that challenge us to be silent and motionless.

We need to stir and stew, marvel, ponder and think about what we are seeing, reading and listening to. When we can have a dialogue with ourselves rather than a monologue, we will need others to have a dialogue with.

Now we usually avoid one another. When we speak it is usually a monologue. We are not interested in hearing what someone feels or thinks.

What government subsidy of old and ancient art is implying is that there are other points of view that need to be experienced, if for no other reason than to appreciate the comfort, convenience and casualness of our times.

However our comfort, convenience and casualness make us soft. But the antidote to softness is not a continuation of the reckless speed with which we live and work to make ourselves decadent.

We need to slow down. We need to rejuvenate ourselves. We need people under 25 to be exposed to and challenged by the past so they can revitalize Americans to seek something vastly greater than hedonism, an unusable number of things and an unspendable amount of money.

What will result from this I won’t speculaate. I know though that there is much to be learned from the past.

There are the short simple profound awkward stories at the beginning of the Bible. There is the stillness and fluidity of a sculpture of Buddha and Aftrican busts. There is the eloquence of a song by the European composers. There is the cacophony of color in primitive and peasant art.

America desperately needs more color. One time driving across Washington I saw a word on an underpass sprayed in pink and white. It said TENSE.

The work was quite attractive, very troubling and very accurate. We are indeed tense. Like all great art, this work had tension. The viewer felt this tension – this oasis of art surrounded by tons of ugly concrete.

Obviously the government cannot subsidize art like this because it is illegal. But what is admirable about these type of artists is they take a risk. They might get shot or arrested.

Another thing admirable about these artists is that they work for free. They do not ask for a government subsidy.

They are truly independent spirits, the kind of people America needs to shake us. So artists must ask themselves if they want to be free, if they want to be rebellious.

Are you willing to risk getting fired, going to jail, being laughed at, being unable to marry and have children because you cannot afford to?

Are you willing to have to resort to giving your unsold paintings to friends, to playing music by yourself in the kitchen because you do not have the strength to join a band and travel, to rereading your poems that seldom get published because there are too many poets?

Art is not a way of life in America. Artists must accept their rejection and try not to be bitter as they vow to create better work.

I have faith in art.

Rather than subsidize artists, I seek to help them in two ways. First, a four year college degree will be paid for by the federal government. This will allow young people, as well as older people who desire an education, to expose themselves to the ideas that have shaped the world.

Second, my administration is seeking a government subsidized health plan. Such a plan will allow people to be insured no matter where they work. This will allow artists to seek a job that will best allow them to create their art.

Art is a wonderful thing and a demanding thing. America needs more art.

More importantly, America needs more proud artists willing to pay the price, to set an example for America to turn from its softness.

Thank you.

The President Speaks: Depression

Because of the seriousness of the problem, I feel it necessary to speak during National Depression Week. I also feel that here at the Golden Gate Bridge is an ideal place to talk about depression.

At the western end of our continent is this mighty bridge, a symbol of hope for those heading to the land of opportunity.

People come here knowing the future will be theirs, that mild success in the middle of the country will be a big success here, that failure in the competitive east can be transformed here in the Golden West.

But things don’t always turn out as planned. Trying with all your might doesn’t always bring you success, happiness or love.

For those born on this magnificent West Coast, they expect to have a grand life. But assumptions do not always turn into reality.

It is no wonder then that people committ suicide from this bridge. They came to the end of the continent and failed. They grew up in paradise and failed. Life passed them by so they could not continue anymore.

Failure. It is a big part of our American experience. This is so because our expectations are very high. Whether one physically heads west, success as a result of hard work and big dreams is expected.

But even without a desire to be rich, Americans dream about greater freedom or a stupendous love life or an awesome something. We always want a lot and we always want more.

It is not surprising we are depressed. If our current assumptions continue to be held as the global marketplace creates a greater number of poor people and a greater number of unhappy angry people, America will have more cases of depression and more suicides.

Reducing depression and suicide is essential. We cannot though, because of our market economy and its inherent unhealthiness, eliminate them.

The federal government can do its part. As I have said before, we are working on affordable health insurance for Americans. We are funding drop-in no-questions-asked clinics for those seeking psychological help.

Equally important, maybe more important, are the efforts of my administration to be a much more honest administration than recent administrations and to focus on peace rather than war. It is common sense that dishonesty in government and a belief in unnecessary violence creates ramifications such as a depressed citizenry.

But Americans also have a big role to play in reducing depression and suicide. You must take proper risks. You must not want more than a job that pays well and one nice house in a nice neighborhood. The high expectations of financial success and gratification that advertising and business bombard our nation with must be rejected.

I want my fellow Americans to think for a minute. My recent predeccessors often talked about patriotism while doing little or nothing for the average American. To them patriotism entailed unblinking allegience to disastrous and dishonest government actions.

I ask you to think of patriotism in a different way. I ask you to think what you do to your country when you are greedy, when you want three pieces of property, several vehicles and unlimited freedom to be selfish.

I want you to think of what you do to yourself and your family when you accept the exhortations of the advertising industry to buy more than can make you happy and more than you can afford. People are depressed because they want more than can make them happy and more than they can afford.

I know Americans complain a lot about unjust practices of business. This is a great time for Americans to put their money where their mouth is. Spend a lot less money on people who have gotten rich on your willingness to be unsatisfied.

The real problem is a question: Do Americans want to be happy? Does America want to be satisfied with necessary comforts as it seeks tremendous happiness with an ordinary spouse and ordinary friends?

I hope by the end of my term there is a lot less depression and self-inflicted death in America.

I hope that thirty years from now the suicide barriers on this glorious bridge have come down, because we as a nation have stopped committing spiritual suicide.

The President Speaks: Crime prevention

It is crime prevention week in America. I am sad that so many Americans are victims of crime. I am even sadder that so many families have sons, and to a much lesser extent daughters, who committ violent crimes.

Our law enforcement works diligently to do what it can to arrest criminals. The nation is improving in its ability to prevent crime.

Neighborhood watch groups are a part of this. There are many fine studies of what can and should be done to prevent crime and create fewer criminals.

There are issues though, that usually are not addressed. I will address them.

One is that Congress, as well as state and local politicians, love crime. It is safe to talk about.

It is also easy to talk about because if we have not been a victim of a crime, we know somebody who was, or we know somebody who is or was a criminal or we are enthralled about the crime show we watched last night.

Talking about crime and fearing crime have become two of America’s biggest pastimes. I keep hoping for the day Americans have the pride and confidence to stop emphasizing crime, to stop glorying in the brief sense of power they feel ranting about it.

Politicians prey on your fear, yet as more jails are built and more young men locked up we feel no safer. Our fear increases.

Few Americans are standing up to claim they are sick of being afraid and sick of all our jails and so many young men locked up.

I tell you that as president I know Congress has no intention of doing anything to end crime. Even if Americans loudly opposed the construction of so many prisons, Congress would not budge. We remember NAFTA.

I want you to think about what I say next. Today in America we for the most part, have meaningless lives. Look at our depression, our alcoholism, our promiscuity, our drug addiction, our suicides, our credit card debt, our expressionless faces.

Fear is our bond, our meaning. Crime is the catalyst for our fear.

I ask you: aren’t you sick of being afraid? Aren’t you embarrassed living in fear? A nation cannot be great if it lives in fear of almost everything like we do.

Sure there is crime. Of course you should be cautious. Since politicians have no intention of ending crime, American citizens must take steps to end it.

I do not encourage everyone to go out and buy a gun. I do not oppose it either, for it is an effort to prevent crime and it should be considered an appropriate response.

The things I suggest are not exciting but they will reduce crime. They will also make communities more solid and create trusting fearless Americans.

America needs to stop thinking more is better, that the purpose of life is to shop. How will this stop crime?

There will be fewer items to steal because people buy less. There will be fewer items flaunted, which means there will be less envy and less burglary.

Because there are fewer flashy cars and less flaunted jewelry, there will be less resentment and less bitterness and therefore less robbery and fewer assaults.

This is not rocket science. Americans lust to have criminals incarcerated. We claim they have to be responsible for what they do. But so do you.

Nobody will steal what you don’t have. Your car will not be stolen if you park it in your garage.

Get rid of your junk in the garage. If there are not streets filled with cars, there will be little for criminals to be on the prowl for and to use as cover for their stealing.

Do not scoff at this. In an urban culture, even at its most just and confident period, there is going to be stealing and there is going to be violence.

My recommendations decrease injustice and increase confidence. As I said, politicians will do nothing to decrease crime and have no intention to.

America needs to ask itself: does it want to continue to be relentlessly and needlessly acquisitive? Do you want to have motion detectors, burglar alarms and surveillance cameras on your property to protect all the things that do not make you happy? Our security makes us less secure, more fearful, more bitter, more vengeful.

Ours is supposed to be the land of the free. This is still true to a small extent politically – you probably are not going to be arrested. But it is not true psychically or spiritually.

I ask you America. Do you want to be free? Are you willingly to do with a lot less so you can love each other?

In closing, I have been talking to you with the same sense of toughness you have when you rant about crime. Unlike you, I feel no false sense of power and am heartsick there are so many young people in jail.

The President Speaks: Death penalty

I arranged the time this evening to talk with you about the recent murders in various parts of our country. What I want to address is our reaction to these murders.

It is true these crimes are horrible. It is also true that those who committed the murders should be arrested, tried and convicted.

What disturbs me more than the murders is our assumption of guilt until innocence is proven and our lust to give the death penalty to the convicted individuals.

I have often wondered why Americans lust for revenge. It is true that we have usually imposed the death penalty. It is also true our domestic barbarism was balanced by a sense of justice in foreign policy. Following World War II we helped to rebuild Germany and Japan, not gloat on their ruin.

However in recent years America lost its balance. In the seventies we gave up on jail and prison as places to rehabilitate offenders. We have built more prisons. We refuse to give up the death penalty.

When the Twin Towers were destroyed we sought revenge on two countries. We were not content to even the score, but wanted to wreck havoc in those countries that do not have the money and knowledge we have to recover from attacks.

With the aid of Global Positioning Systems and a deceitful concern for children, we sought to socially destroy sex offenders after they served their sentences. Our eagerness for revenge does us no good. What it does is reveal our lack of confidence, good will and faith in the future.

What has traditionally set America apart from China, India, the Middle East and Europe was our faith in the future, our good will, our confidence. It was our Yankee Ingenuity combined with the exuberance of a new nation that made us separate from the old worlds and their ancient fears, hatreds and rivalries.

Unfortunately, we have aged more than our 250 years. We are filled with our own fears, hatreds, rivalries. We are a nation of 250 going on 1000.

Rather than rehabilitate our criminals, punish our enemies only to even the score and roll up our sleeves to find out why we have so many perverts, we have taken the easy road. Like bitter elderly who missed out on their youth, we as a nation wish the worst for others whenever things go badly.

This must end.

In the media there has been a lot of talk about healing. But the healing process, as important as it is to those who are lonely, isolated, betrayed and grieving, has not carried over to the nation’s politics.

We as a nation do not grieve for children without fathers. We are not grieving for all the young men in jail. We have not sought to heal ourselves from our betrayal by the federal government beginning in September of 2001. We have not recognized our lust to punish as an evil that needs to be remedied.

We need to be healed, though we do not want to make the effort to heal ourselves. Fortunately, those few committed to prohibiting the death penalty and ending revenge are some ot the most committed people in America.

With their help, I am trying to persuade Congress to pass a law forbidding the death penalty. It is important to outlaw the death penalty because most of the people who receive it are poor. They could not afford the representation they needed to protect themselves from so serious a sentence.

Another reason to eradicate the death penalty is because too many people who receive it are not guilty.

Without the death penalty, a lot of steam will be taken out of our eagerness for revenge. But that does not heal our ill will and it does not solve the problem of what to do with rapists and murderers.

Justice must be served. We must protect ourselves from the most dangerous and unapologetic criminals. We must also save ourselves from revenge and the feelings of powerlessness that make us seek revenge.

We must seek a just punishment. A just punishment is given in confidence with as much good will as possible. A just punishment is a punishment that seeks to punish and rehabilitate at the same time.

America needs to regain its confidence, to punish and rehabilitate at the same time. America needs to believe in justice once again, to believe in the future once again.

I am pushing for a new punishment to replace the death penalty. I expect my proposal to be laughed at. However, my proposal challenges America to see how seriously it wants real justice.

The proposal is life imprisonment in solitary confinement. That seems punishment enough, however life imprisonment in a traditional setting does not rehabilitate a criminal.

My proposal calls for a setting that will allow a criminal to have a new perspective on the world and himself. Each cell of the lifetime prisoner in solitary confinement will have a view of nature.

Sunshine will stream into the cell. The windows will be openable in order for the prisoner to hear birds and crickets, to smell scents from the garden. He will be allowed to be alone outside for three hours a day.

Psychologists claim that under such conditions a violent man will have the opportunity to come to terms with himself. He has no opportunity in a standard prison.

It is my hope that as these prisoners live out their life in a beautiful setting, they become filled with peace and beauty that they never had or that they squandered. I hope they ask God, the victim and the family of the victim to forgive them, for now the criminal knows all the peace and beauty he deprived the victim and family of the victim of.

He knows something else too. He knows how much he longs for people. He has this beautiful garden and peaceful cell to sit in, but nobody to talk with. He hears the music of the birds and crickets, but has nobody to dance with. He smell luxurious scents from the garden, but does not smell the scent of perfume and never will.

He might be tortured by his beautiful punishment and go mad. He might be content to live out his days listening to birds. He might not benefit at all from a punishment given in good will, but wish he was dead.

Some men receiving this sentence will eventually be found not guilty then released. Their pain will be immense because they know how much they have missed.

Fortunately they will be healthy. There will be no nightmares from prison. They will be able to start their life again, attempting to bring out and experience the beauty they’ve been overwhelmed by every day.

At the very least, they will realize they received as just a punishment as is possible with an unjust conviction.

There is a possibility to be healed with punishments like this. Such punishments indicate a faith in justice. They show that American ingenuity is returning, that we are recovering the maturity we had for such a short time after World War II.

I ask you my fellow Americans to become strong again. Purge yourself of your weakness and revenge. Show the world we are a nation of great women and great men.

The President Speaks: September 11

It’s our 23rd anniversary of September 11. I stand on this boat looking into the magnificent skyline of the most dynamic and creative city in the world.

From the ashes of terror a wonderful building has risen. It is a monument to freedom, not just for those who died here but for those who get to look at it, and most especially for those who work in it.

America could easiy have built a fortress of mistrust, ill will and arrogance. Thanks to the cosmoplitan vision of New Yorkers, we have a building which oozes confidence and lightness, inviting one to marvel from a distance or to linger outside for hours and feel relaxed.

When I strolled the grounds today I wondered what the deceased would think seeing a free-flowing garden filled with people who have no fear.

I was assured by several of the families that though nobody can know what the victims would think or feel, the families are pleased that the grounds are vibrant and free, that the interior of the building brings one’s spirit to life and that the building’s owner and manager are determined not to have cameras recording everyone and police intimidating everyone.

There’s an inscription in the lobby. It reads We are Americans. We will not live in fear. It disappoints me that the rest of the country does not feel this way.

I dearly wish my countrymen refused to live in fear. I wish too that my countrymen lusted for freedom. I wish my countrymen hated having police, cameras and security guards everywhere.

We need to think about what 9-11 means. It was an attempt to make Americans live in fear. The terrorists knew that the Justice Department would attempt to limit civil liberties and that most people would accept the limitation.

The terrorists were correct. We are afraid. We have no problem living in a police state.

I wish you, my fellow Americans, would become arrogant and belligerent, demanding that the Patriot Act be repealed. I long for 300,000 people marching loudly on Washington for an end to our police state. It would show that all your concern for the victims of 9-11 and your claims about America’s greatness are more than the puffery they have been.

We ceased to be great with the passage of the Patriot Act and the invasion of Iraq. We stopped being great as a government and as a people.

That is why I speak to you today – to inspire you like this skyline and this building inspire me.

This skyline and this building can propel our nation back to greatness, to rise from the ashes of cowardice, conformity, gullibility and the betrayal of our Founding Fathers to be a fearless, intelligent, magnificent people.

This new building I look toward does not lose its appeal when you see it up close or enter. It’s appeal increases. This is rare for buildings.

This building was not constructed to be only a photo-piece. The intention was that the building be substantial, that it have soul, that humans in it and outside it feel vibrant, beautiful, proud, confident; that they increase the size of their soul here, that they begin to feel free and freely speak with accuracy and with meaning.

There is a lightness here that we Americans desperately need. But you have to ask yourselves how badly you want your souls back.

Would you rather risk a violent death because you trusted yourselves and others and felt beautiful, or do you want to continue to live the metaphoric death we’ve been living since October of 2001?

The inscription in the lobby – it does not ignore the potential of evil. It is saying that police states make people live in fear so this building will not be like a war zone. It is also saying we know what could happen but we will take our chances.

It is time for you to stop living in fear, to expect police to do their job of protecting you without assuming you are a criminal.

Rise up my countrymen. I ache to lead a great people.