I want to speak to you tonight about a subject even more serious than energy or inflation. I want to talk to you right now about people's aspirations and national goals.
Confidence in the future has supported everything else public institutions and private enterprises, our own families. Confidence has defined our course and has served as a link between generations.
We've always believed in something called progress. We've always had faith that the days of our children would be better than our own.
Our people are losing that faith. Â As people, we know our past and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world, and that belief have always strengthened us in our purpose.
In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but by what one owns.
But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning.
We have learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the history of our country, a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than that past five years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of American workers is actually dropping and the willingness of Americans to save for the future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world.
As you know there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance but it is the truth. And it is a warning. These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last generation. Years that were filled with shocks and tragedy.
These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed.
Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal Government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our nation's life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our Government has never been so wide. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers, clear leadership, not false claims, and evasiveness, and politics as usual. What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action.
What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support, and without friends.
What can we do? First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other. Faith in our ability to govern ourselves and faith in the future of this nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence in America is now the most important task we face.
We know the strength of America. We are strong, We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence. We are the heirs of generations who survived threats much more powerful and awesome than those that challenge us now.
Our fathers and mothers were strong men and women who shaped the new society during the Great Depression, who fought world wars, and who carved out a new charter of peace for the world. We ourselves are the same Americans who just 10 years ago put a man on the moon.
We are the generation that dedicated our society to the pursuit of human rights and equality.
The right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of the constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path: the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves.
In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, but I will not do it alone. Let your voice be heard. Whenever you have a chance, say something good about our country. With God's help and for the sake of our Nation, it is time for us to join hands in America. Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit. Working together with our common faith we cannot fail.
Thank you
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