ENGLISH SPEECH BARACK OBAMA Yes We Can English Subtitles
Hello, Chicago.
If there is anyone out there who still doubts
that America is a place where all things are
possible, who still
wonders if the dream of our founders is alive
in our time, who still questions the power
of our democracy,
tonight is your answer.
It’s the answer told by lines that stretched
around schools and churches in numbers this
nation has never
seen, by people who waited three hours and
four hours, many for the first time in their
lives, because they
believed that this time must be different,
that their voices could be that difference.
It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich
and poor, Democrat and Republican, black,
white, Hispanic,
Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled
and not disabled.
Americans who sent a message to the
world that we have never been just a collection
of individuals or a collection of red states
and blue states.
We are, and always will be, the United States
of America.
It’s the answer that led those who’ve been
told for so long by so many to be cynical
and fearful and doubtful
about what we can achieve to put their hands
on the arc of history and bend it once more
toward the hope
of a better day.
It’s been a long time coming, but tonight,
because of what we did on this date in this
election at this defining
moment change has come to America.
–
We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements.
Our campaign was not hatched in the halls
of
Washington.
It began in the backyards of Des Moines and
the living rooms of Concord and the front
porches
of Charleston.
It was built by working men and women who
dug into what little savings they had to give
$5
and $10 and $20 to the cause.
© 2018, ENGLISH SPEECHES, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
It grew strength from the young people who
rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy
who left their
homes and their families for jobs that offered
little pay and less sleep.
It drew strength from the not-so-young people
who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat
to knock on
doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions
of Americans who volunteered and organized
and proved
that more than two centuries later a government
of the people, by the people, and for the
people has not
perished from the Earth.
This is your victory.
And I know you didn’t do this just to win
an election.
And I know you didn’t do it for me.
You did it because you understand the enormity
of the task that lies ahead.
For even as we celebrate
tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow
will bring are the greatest of our lifetime
– two wars, a
planet in peril, the worst financial crisis
in a century.
Even as we stand here tonight, we know there
are brave Americans waking up in the deserts
of Iraq and the
mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives
for us.
There are mothers and fathers who will lie
awake after the children fall asleep and wonder
how they’ll make
the mortgage or pay their doctors' bills or
save enough for their child’s college education.
There’s new energy to harness, new jobs to
be created, new schools to build, and threats
to meet, alliances
to repair.
The road ahead will be long.
Our climb will be steep.
We may not get there in one year or even in
one term.
But, America, I have never been more hopeful
than I am tonight that we will get there.
I promise you, we as a people will get there.
There will be setbacks and false starts.
There are many who won’t agree with every
decision or policy I make
as president.
And we know the government can’t solve every
problem.
But I will always be honest with you about
the challenges we face.
I will listen to you, especially when we
disagree.
And, above all, I will ask you to join in
the work of remaking this nation, the only
way it’s been
done in America for 221 years – block by
block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused
hand.
What began 21 months ago in the depths of
winter cannot end on this autumn night.
This victory alone is not the change we seek.
It is only the chance for us to make that
change.
And that
cannot happen if we go back to the way things
were.
It can’t happen without you, without a new
spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism,
of responsibility, where each of us resolves
to pitch in and work
harder and look after not only ourselves but
each other.
Let us remember that, if this financial crisis
taught us anything, it’s that we cannot have
a thriving Wall
Street while Main Street suffers.
In this country, we rise or fall as one nation,
as one people.
Let’s resist the temptation to fall back on
the
same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity
that has poisoned our politics for so long.
Let’s remember that it was a man from this
state who first carried the banner of the
Republican Party to the
White House, a party founded on the values
of self-reliance and individual liberty and
national unity.
Those are values that we all share.
And while the Democratic Party has won a great
victory tonight, we do so
with a measure of humility and determination
to heal the divides that have held back our
progress.
As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided
than ours, we are not enemies but friends.
Though passion may
have strained, it must not break our bonds
of affection.
And to those Americans whose support I have
yet to earn, I may not have won your vote
tonight, but I hear
your voices.
I need your help.
And I will be your president, too.
And to all those watching tonight from beyond
our shores, from parliaments and palaces to
those who are
huddled around radios in the forgotten corners
of the world, our stories are singular, but
our destiny is
shared, and a new dawn of American leadership
is at hand.
To those – to those who would tear the world
down: We will defeat you.
To those who seek peace and
security: We support you.
And to all those who have wondered if America’s
beacon still burns as bright:
Tonight we proved once more that the true
strength of our nation comes not from the
might of our arms or
the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring
power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity,
and
unyielding hope.
That’s the true genius of America: that America
can change.
Our union can be perfected.
What we’ve
already achieved gives us hope for what we
can and must achieve tomorrow.
This election had many firsts and many stories
that will be told for generations.
But one that’s on my mind
tonight’s about a woman who cast her ballot
in Atlanta.
She’s a lot like the millions of others who
stood in
line to make their voice heard in this election
except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is
106 years old.
She was born just a generation past slavery;
a time when there were no cars on the road
or planes in the
sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for
two reasons – because she was a woman and
because of the
color of her skin.
And tonight, I think about all that she’s
seen throughout her century in America – the
heartache and the
hope; the struggle and the progress; the times
we were told that we can’t, and the people
who pressed on
with that American creed: Yes we can.
At a time when women’s voices were silenced
and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see
them stand up
and speak out and reach for the ballot.
Yes, we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and
depression across the land, she saw a nation
conquer fear
itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense
of common purpose.
Yes, we can.
When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny
threatened the world, she was there to witness
a
generation rise to greatness and a democracy
was saved.
Yes, we can.
She was there for the buses in Montgomery,
the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma,
and a preacher
from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall
Overcome.”
Yes, we can.
A man touched down on the moon, a wall came
down in Berlin, a world was connected by our
own science
and imagination.
And this year, in this election, she touched
her finger to a screen, and cast her vote,
because after 106 years
in America, through the best of times and
the darkest of hours, she knows how America
can change.
Yes, we can.
America, we have come so far.
We have seen so much.
But there is so much more to do.
So tonight, let us
ask ourselves – if our children should live
to see the next century; if my daughters should
be so lucky to live
as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will
they see?
What progress will we have made?
This is our chance to answer that call.
This is our moment.
This is our time, to put our people back to
work and open doors of opportunity for our
kids; to restore
prosperity and promote the cause of peace;
to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm
that fundamental
truth, that, out of many, we are one; that
while we breathe, we hope.
And where we are met with cynicism
and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t,
we will respond with that timeless creed that
sums up the
spirit of a people: Yes, we can.