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刘慈欣英语演讲稿
Ladies and Gentleman,
Good evening!
It’s my great honor to receive the Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society. Thank you.
This award is a reward for imagination. Imagination is a capability that should have exclusive belonged to God but we, as human beings, luckily have this too. It is far beyond our imagination to grasp the meaning of the existence of imagination. A historian used to say that the main reason why human beings have been able to surpass other species on earth and to build civilizations is that we are able to create something in our heads that does not exist in reality. In the future, when artificial intelligence becomes smarter than us, imagination may be the only advantage we have over AI.
Science fiction is a literary genre based on imagination. And the first sci-fi works that impressed me were those by Arthur C. Clarke. Together with Jules Verne and George Wells, Arthur Clarke was among the first Western modern sci-fi writers to enter China. In the early 1980s, the two novels 20xx: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous With Rama were published in my country. At that time, the Cultural Revolution just ended. While the old life and faith had collapsed, the new ones had not yet been established. Like other young people, I felt lost during that period. These two books, for the first time, however, brought my imagination to life. My mind opened up like it has never before. I felt like a narrow stream finally embracing the sea.
At midnight when I finished reading 20xx: A Space Odyssey, I walked out of the house and stared at the starry sky. I was able to see the galaxy, thanks to the unpolluted sky of China back then. That night, I noticed that the starry sky looked nothing like before. For the first time in my life, I was awed by the magnitude and mystery of our universe, the feeling which you only get facing religion. Later on, the novel Rendezvous With Rama stunned me by showing how imagination could build a lifelike, fantastic world. It was Arthur Clarke who opened up this world of feelings to me, and who paved my way to become a sci-fi writer.
Today, more than 30 years later, it gradually dawns on me that people like me, who were born in the 1960s in China, are probably the luckiest people in human history. No generation is like us, no generation has been able to witness such tremendous changes in the world around us. The world we are living in today is completely different from that of our childhood. And such changes are taking place with even greater speed.
China is a highly futuristic country. It is true that the future of China may be full of challenges and risks, but never has this country been so attractive like today. This reality provides fertile soil for the growth of science fiction, and it is enjoying unprecedented attention in the country. As a Chinese sci-fi author, who was born in the 1960s, I’m the luckiest from the luckiest generation.
I started writing sci-fi because I looked for a way to escape the dull life, and to reach out, with imagination, to the mysterious time and space that I could never truly reach. But then I realized that the world around me became more and more like science fiction, and this process is speeding up. Future is like pouring rain. It reaches us even before we have time to open the umbrella. Meanwhile, when sci-fi becomes reality, it loses all its magic, and that frustrates me. Sci-fi will soon become part of our lives. The only thing I can do, is to push my imagination further to even more distant time and space to hunt for the mysteries of sci-fi. As a sci-fi author, I think my job is to write things down before they get really boring.
This being said, the world is moving in the direction opposite to Clarke’s predictions. In 20xx: A Space Odyssey, in the year of 20xx, which has already passed, human beings have built magnificent cities in space, and established permanent colonies on the moon, and huge nuclear-powered spacecraft have sailed to Saturn. However, today, in 20xx, the walk on the moon has become a distant memory. And the furthest reach of our manned space flights is just as long as the two-hour mileage of a high-speed train passing through my city.
At the same time, information technology is developing at an unimaginable speed. The entire world is connected via the internet and people have gradually lost their interest in space, as they find themselves increasingly comfortable in the space created by IT. Instead of an exploration of the real space, which is full of difficulties, people now just prefer to experiencing virtual space through VR. Just like someone said, “You promised me an ocean of stars, but you actually gave me Facebook.”
This reality is also reflected in science fiction. Arthur Clarke’s magnificent imagination about space has gradually faded away. People stopped looking at starry skies. In the sci-fi works today, there are more imagination about how we live in cyber utopia or dystopia. Writers focus more on various problems we encounter in reality. The imagination of science fiction is abandoning the vastness and profoundness that Arthur Clarke once opened up, instead people are now embracing the narrowness and introversion of cyberpunk.
As a sci-fi writer, I have been striving to continue Arthur Clarke’s imagination. I believe that the boundless space is still the best direction and destination for human imagination. I have always written about the magnitude and mysteries of the universe, interstellar expeditions, and the lives and civilizations happening in distant worlds. This remains today, although this may seem childish or even outdated. It says on Arthur Clarke’s epitaph, “He never grew up, but he never stopped growing.”
Many people misunderstand sci-fi as trying to predict the future, but this is not true. It just makes a list of possibilities of what may happen in the future, like displaying a pile of cobblestones for people to see and play with. Science fiction can never tell which scenario of the future will actually become the real future. This is not its job. It’s also beyond its capabilities.
But one thing is certain: in the long run, for all these countless possible futures, any future without space travel is gloomy, no matter how prosperous our own planet becomes.
Sci-fi was writing about the age of digital information and it eventually became true. I now look forward to the time when space travel finally becomes the ordinary. By then, Mars and the asteroid belts will be boring places and countless people are building a home over there. Jupiter and its many satellites will be tourist attractions. The only obstacle preventing people from going there for good, will be the crazy price.
But even at that time, the universe is still unimaginably big that even our wildest imagination fails to catch its edge. And even the closest star remains out of reach. The vast ocean of stars can always carry our infinite imagination.
Thank you all.
马云的全英文演讲稿
Good evening everyone!
大家晚上好!
Dear chancellor Merkel,deputy prime minister Makai,ladies and gentlemen,it’s my great honor to speak in the CeBIT.
尊敬的默克尔总理，马凯副总理，女士们先生们，非常荣幸能够在CeBIT上进行演讲!
I remember 14 years ago,when I first came to Hannover,I try to rent a small booth to sell the Chinese products to the west and to the Europe ,That’s been a long time to looking for the booth,and at that time Hannover was not that prosperious,but the fair was very successful.
厩得20xx年以前，我第一次来到汉诺威时，我们试着租了一个小小的展位来出售中国产品到西方，到欧洲。当时花了很长时间找展位，而汉诺威也远不如现在这么繁荣。
Its difficult to find the booth ,finally,we got a small booth,but very few people found us.
找展位的整个过程很艰难，最后我们终于找到一个很小的位置，但是很少人光顾。
Eight years ago,we came back again,We try to help off the booth to move them online ,help them to sell on the alibaba ,it didnt work,it goes that time ,people think ,the trade fair and online are conflict to each other.
8年前，我们又回来了。我们希望帮助所有的参展者，把他们迁移到网上，帮助他们在阿里巴巴上卖东西——但这也没有成功。因为当时人们觉得在线交易和贸易展会是互相冲突的。
Today I come back again ,The reason that I come back again,is trying to find the important missing part of the Internet business,Internet in the past 20 years,was pretty successful,but one thing that is very strange that I found that very few Internet companies can survive peacefully and healthily for more than 3 years.
狂天我又回来了。我回来的原因，是要找到互联网经济缺失的那重要一部分。过去20xx年，互联网非常成功，但是我发现一个非常奇怪的事情，很少有互联网公司能健康的、平静的活过3年。
That means most of the Internet companies can only have honey days,honey weeks;they don’t even have honey months,what is the problem?Where is the missing part?I strongly believe that the missing part is in Europe.
这意味着大部分互联网公司只有“蜜日”，“蜜周”，他们甚至没有蜜月。问题在哪里?缺了什么?我坚定的相信，缺的那部分，能够在欧洲找到。
What is that ?Whether we like it or not,in the past 20 years,the Internet has larged a huge impact to the human lives,everybody believe that Internet has done great things to the work,and also lot of the traditional business hate the Internet,because they destroyed their business.
那是什么?无论你是否喜欢，过去20xx年，互联网对人类社会产生了巨大的影响，每个人都相信互联网为世界做出了伟大的贡献。而许多传统企业讨厌互联网，因为互联网毁掉了他们的生意。
But what the rest is why Internet companies always worry 、worry?You see whether Google,facebook,amazon,eBay and alibaba,all of us worry everyday. So we think that there must be a problem ,and the problem is that we have to find a solution,that how we can be a company can live long and healthy like Mercedes-Benze,Siemens.
但是为什么互联网公司担忧?你看到谷歌，facebook，亚马逊，eBay和阿里巴巴，我们所有的人天天担心。我们觉得这里面一定有问题。我们必须找到一个解决方案，让我们的公司能够像奔驰，西门子一样，活得长久而健康。
If any industry cant live more than 3 years,if all the companies cannot live happily for 3years,this industry will never become the mainstream,this industry can never become the deep economy,So,what we want to do is that how we can find the solution.
如果一个行业不能活的超过3年，如果不是所有的公司能够快乐的生存超过3年，那这个行业永远无法成为主流，这个行业永远不可能深深根植于经济——所以，我们要做什么才能找到解决方案?
The world is changing so fast,most people dont realize what is IT,what is Internet,we’re moving very very fast today to technology.
世界正在快速改变，我们今天的科技发展非常非常迅速，大部分人不知道IT是什么，互联网是什么。
IT technology and digital technology,is not the technology difference,is the differences of the way people think,the way people due with the world.
IT科技和数字科技，这不仅仅是不同的技术，而是人们思考方式的不同，人们对待这个世界方式的不同。
We dont know the world will look like in 30 years,and we dont know what the data will look like ,But we are sure that the whole world in next30 years will be changed.
我们不知道世界30年后会变成什么样，我们不知道数据在30年后会长成什么样——但是我们相信，整个世界在30年后会大大改变。
If the first and the second innovation and technology revolution releaf all liberatethe human strength,the physical strength,this revolution release a liberate the strength of human brain,the brain in innovation.
如果第一次和第二次技术革命释放了人的体力，那这次技术革命释放了人的脑力，脑力在革新。
The future world,we believe we’ll be connected not by oil,notby other things,but by datas. The future world,the business will be C2B notB2C,C2B is consumer to business not business to consumer. Because we willhave a large amount of data,manufacturer must do customerlized things,otherwise manufacturer will be very difficult.
未来的世界，我们将不再由石油驱动，而是由数据驱动;未来的世界，生意将是C2B而不是B2C，用户改变企业，而不是企业向用户出售——因为我们将有大量的数据。制造商必须个性化，否则他们将非常困难。
In the future ,all the manufacturers,they make machine,the machines can not only produce products,the machine must talk,the machine must think ,the machine will not be driven by oil and by electricity,the machine is going to be supported by datas. The future world,the business will no longer focus on the size,business will no longer focus on standardization and power,they will focus on theflexibility,nimbleness(agility),personalized and user friendly.
未来的世界，所有的制造商他们生产的机器，这些机器不仅会生产产品，它们必须说话，它们必须思考。机器不会再由石油和电力驱动，机器由数据来支撑。未来的世界，企业将不再会关注于规模，企业不再会关注于标准化和权力，他们会关注于灵活性，敏捷性，个性化和用户友好。
And I also strongly believe the future world,we are going to have a lot of women leaders ,Because in the future people will not only focus on muscle strength,and they focus on wisdom,they focus on careless and responsibility.
而且我强烈相信，在未来的世界，我们会有很多女性领袖——因为在未来人们将不会只关注在肌肉力量，而会更加重视智慧，重视关怀和责任。
And I think Internet must find the missing part. This missing part is how the clicker and motors can work together,and how we can make sure in the next 30 years the mouse and cement can work together,find a way to make the Internet economy and the real economy to combine ,the Internet company will survive happily for next 30 years.
我认为，互联网必须找到那个缺失的部分。这个缺失的部分就是鼠标和水泥携手合作，找到一个方法让互联网经济和实体经济能够结合。只有当鼠标和水泥结合时，互联网公司才能活下来，才能开心的活30年。
If that income ,that is what we called D-economy,is not just the digital economy,which I called data economy,and everthing is going to be changed.
如果这个结合实现，那才能被称作D!economy，不仅仅是数字经济，我叫它数据经济，所有的东西都会被改变。
And I also believe that the world will become very beautiful,but also very challenging.
并且我相信这个世界将会因此变得非常美丽，同时也非常富有挑战性。
Apple may not be the future,but Apple tells us what the futurewill look like ,that is something in the machine is moving,that is data.
像苹果这样的公司告诉我们未来的样子是什么样的。有一种东西将会在机器中流动，那就是数据。
We are at a great time of innovation,inspiration,invention and creativity,andI think everyone is working hard,try to realize their dreams.
我们在一个创新，雄心，发明和创意的伟大时代，我相信每个人都在非常努力的工作，实现他们的梦想。
Today you see here ,a real world of workers,truck drivers and game players,and also all these senior people,everybody in the ancient time,nobody can use technology torealize their dreams ,But today,because of datas ,everything becomes true.
狂天我们看到了真实世界的工人，卡车司机和游戏玩家……所有这些人在过去，是不可能利用科技实现他们的梦想的。但今天，数据让一切成真。
But I strongly believe ,it’s not the technology changed the world,it’s the dreams behind the technology that changed the world. If the technology changed the world,Ill never be here,I’m not be trained to be a science and technology experts,I know nothing about computer,and I know very little about the Internet,But I have a strong dream that we want to help small business.
但我强烈的相信，不是科技改变了世界，是科技背后的梦想改变了世界。如果是科技改变了世界，我不会在这儿，我没有被训练成一个科技专家，我对电脑一无所知，我对互联网也了解的不多。但是我有一个强大的梦想，我要帮助中小企业。
So,14 years ago so we come here to sell Chinese products toEurope,that didn’t work.
14 years later ,we try to help the European small businessto China ,to the world by using the Internet,It’s the dreams that drives theworld ,it’s not only the technology.
所以20xx年前我来这里想向欧洲出售中国产品，没有成功。20xx年后我想帮助欧洲企业向中国向世界，通过互联网出售产品。是梦想在驱动这个世界，不仅仅是科技。
So Ladies and gentlemen,lets work hard together,it is a fantasticworld,it is a world belongs to young people,it is a world belongs to the future.
女士们，先生们，让我们共同努力，这是一个精彩的世界，这是一个属于年轻人的世界，这是一个属于未来的世界。
And thank you very very much for listening!
非常感谢各位的聆听。
英文演讲稿 | 奥巴马最后一次国情咨文
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Americans:
Tonight marks the eighth year I’ve come here to report on the State of the Union. And for this final one, I’m going to try to make it shorter. I know some of you are antsy to get back to Iowa.
I also understand that because it’s an election season, expectations for what we’ll achieve this year are low. Still, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the constructive approach you and the other leaders took at the end of last year to pass a budget and make tax cuts permanent for working families. So I hope we can work together this year on bipartisan priorities like criminal justice reform, and helping people who are battling prescription drug abuse. We just might surprise the cynics again.
But tonight, I want to go easy on the traditional list of proposals for the year ahead. Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty, from helping students learn to write computer code to personalizing medical treatments for patients. And I’ll keep pushing for progress on the work that still needs doing. Fixing a broken immigration system. Protecting our kids from gun violence. Equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage. All these things still matter to hardworking families; they are still the right thing to do; and I will not let up until they get done.
But for my final address to this chamber, I don’t want to talk just about the next year. I want to focus on the next five years, ten years, and beyond.
I want to focus on our future.
We live in a time of extraordinary change – change that’s reshaping the way we live, the way we work, our planet and our place in the world. It’s change that promises amazing medical breakthroughs, but also economic disruptions that strain working families. It promises education for girls in the most remote villages, but also connects terrorists plotting an ocean away. It’s change that can broaden opportunity, or widen inequality. And whether we like it or not, the pace of this change will only accelerate.
America has been through big changes before – wars and depression, the influx of immigrants, workers fighting for a fair deal, and movements to expand civil rights. Each time, there have been those who told us to fear the future; who claimed we could slam the brakes on change, promising to restore past glory if we just got some group or idea that was threatening America under control. And each time, we overcame those fears. We did not, in the words of Lincoln, adhere to the “dogmas of the quiet past.” Instead we thought anew, and acted anew. We made change work for us, always extending America’s promise outward, to the next frontier, to more and more people. And because we did – because we saw opportunity where others saw only peril – we emerged stronger and better than before.
What was true then can be true now. Our unique strengths as a nation – our optimism and work ethic, our spirit of discovery and innovation, our diversity and commitment to the rule of law – these things give us everything we need to ensure prosperity and security for generations to come.
In fact, it’s that spirit that made the progress of these past seven years possible. It’s how we recovered from the worst economic crisis in generations. It’s how we reformed our health care system, and reinvented our energy sector; how we delivered more care and benefits to our troops and veterans, and how we secured the freedom in every state to marry the person we love.
But such progress is not inevitable. It is the result of choices we make together. And we face such choices right now. Will we respond to the changes of our time with fear, turning inward as a nation, and turning against each other as a people? Or will we face the future with confidence in who we are, what we stand for, and the incredible things we can do together?
So let’s talk about the future, and four big questions that we as a country have to answer – regardless of who the next President is, or who controls the next Congress.
First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy?
Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change?
Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?
And finally, how can we make our politics reflect what’s best in us, and not what’s worst?
Let me start with the economy, and a basic fact: the United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world. We’re in the middle of the longest streak of private-sector job creation in history. More than 14 million new jobs; the strongest two years of job growth since the ‘90s; an unemployment rate cut in half. Our auto industry just had its best year ever. Manufacturing has created nearly 900,000 new jobs in the past six years. And we’ve done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters.
Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction. What is true – and the reason that a lot of Americans feel anxious – is that the economy has been changing in profound ways, changes that started long before the Great Recession hit and haven’t let up. Today, technology doesn’t just replace jobs on the assembly line, but any job where work can be automated. Companies in a global economy can locate anywhere, and face tougher competition. As a result, workers have less leverage for a raise. Companies have less loyalty to their communities. And more and more wealth and income is concentrated at the very top.
All these trends have squeezed workers, even when they have jobs; even when the economy is growing. It’s made it harder for a hardworking family to pull itself out of poverty, harder for young people to start on their careers, and tougher for workers to retire when they want to. And although none of these trends are unique to America, they do offend our uniquely American belief that everybody who works hard should get a fair shot.
For the past seven years, our goal has been a growing economy that works better for everybody. We’ve made progress. But we need to make more. And despite all the political arguments we’ve had these past few years, there are some areas where Americans broadly agree.
We agree that real opportunity requires every American to get the education and training they need to land a good-paying job. The bipartisan reform of No Child Left Behind was an important start, and together, we’ve increased early childhood education, lifted high school graduation rates to new highs, and boosted graduates in fields like engineering. In the coming years, we should build on that progress, by providing Pre-K for all, offering every student the hands-on computer science and math classes that make them job-ready on day one, and we should recruit and support more great teachers for our kids.
And we have to make college affordable for every American. Because no hardworking student should be stuck in the red. We’ve already reduced student loan payments to ten percent of a borrower’s income. Now, we’ve actually got to cut the cost of college. Providing two years of community college at no cost for every responsible student is one of the best ways to do that, and I’m going to keep fighting to get that started this year.
Of course, a great education isn’t all we need in this new economy. We also need benefits and protections that provide a basic measure of security. After all, it’s not much of a stretch to say that some of the only people in America who are going to work the same job, in the same place, with a health and retirement package, for 30 years, are sitting in this chamber. For everyone else, especially folks in their forties and fifties, saving for retirement or bouncing back from job loss has gotten a lot tougher. Americans understand that at some point in their careers, they may have to retool and retrain. But they shouldn’t lose what they’ve already worked so hard to build.
That’s why Social Security and Medicare are more important than ever; we shouldn’t weaken them, we should strengthen them. And for Americans short of retirement, basic benefits should be just as mobile as everything else is today. That’s what the Affordable Care Act is all about. It’s about filling the gaps in employer-based care so that when we lose a job, or go back to school, or start that new business, we’ll still have coverage. Nearly eighteen million have gained coverage so far. Health care inflation has slowed. And our businesses have created jobs every single month since it became law.
Now, I’m guessing we won’t agree on health care anytime soon. But there should be other ways both parties can improve economic security. Say a hardworking American loses his job – we shouldn’t just make sure he can get unemployment insurance; we should make sure that program encourages him to retrain for a business that’s ready to hire him. If that new job doesn’t pay as much, there should be a system of wage insurance in place so that he can still pay his bills. And even if he’s going from job to job, he should still be able to save for retirement and take his savings with him. That’s the way we make the new economy work better for everyone.
I also know Speaker Ryan has talked about his interest in tackling poverty. America is about giving everybody willing to work a hand up, and I’d welcome a serious discussion about strategies we can all support, like expanding tax cuts for low-income workers without kids.
But there are other areas where it’s been more difficult to find agreement over the last seven years – namely what role the government should play in making sure the system’s not rigged in favor of the wealthiest and biggest corporations. And here, the American people have a choice to make.
I believe a thriving private sector is the lifeblood of our economy. I think there are outdated regulations that need to be changed, and there’s red tape that needs to be cut. But after years of record corporate profits, working families won’t get more opportunity or bigger paychecks by letting big banks or big oil or hedge funds make their own rules at the expense of everyone else; or by allowing attacks on collective bargaining to go unanswered. Food Stamp recipients didn’t cause the financial crisis; recklessness on Wall Street did. Immigrants aren’t the reason wages haven’t gone up enough; those decisions are made in the boardrooms that too often put quarterly earnings over long-term returns. It’s sure not the average family watching tonight that avoids paying taxes through offshore accounts. In this new economy, workers and start-ups and small businesses need more of a voice, not less. The rules should work for them. And this year I plan to lift up the many businesses who’ve figured out that doing right by their workers ends up being good for their shareholders, their customers, and their communities, so that we can spread those best practices across America.
In fact, many of our best corporate citizens are also our most creative. This brings me to the second big question we have to answer as a country: how do we reignite that spirit of innovation to meet our biggest challenges?
Sixty years ago, when the Russians beat us into space, we didn’t deny Sputnik was up there. We didn’t argue about the science, or shrink our research and development budget. We built a space program almost overnight, and twelve years later, we were walking on the moon.
That spirit of discovery is in our DNA. We’re Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers and George Washington Carver. We’re Grace Hopper and Katherine Johnson and Sally Ride. We’re every immigrant and entrepreneur from Boston to Austin to Silicon Valley racing to shape a better world. And over the past seven years, we’ve nurtured that spirit.
We’ve protected an open internet, and taken bold new steps to get more students and low-income Americans online. We’ve launched next-generation manufacturing hubs, and online tools that give an entrepreneur everything he or she needs to start a business in a single day.
But we can do so much more. Last year, Vice President Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer. Last month, he worked with this Congress to give scientists at the National Institutes of Health the strongest resources they’ve had in over a decade. Tonight, I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he’s gone to the mat for all of us, on so many issues over the past forty years, I’m putting Joe in charge of Mission Control. For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the family we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.
Medical research is critical. We need the same level of commitment when it comes to developing clean energy sources.
Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You’ll be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it.
But even if the planet wasn’t at stake; even if 20xx wasn’t the warmest year on record – until 20xx turned out even hotter – why would we want to pass up the chance for American businesses to produce and sell the energy of the future?
Seven years ago, we made the single biggest investment in clean energy in our history. Here are the results. In fields from Iowa to Texas, wind power is now cheaper than dirtier, conventional power. On rooftops from Arizona to New York, solar is saving Americans tens of millions of dollars a year on their energy bills, and employs more Americans than coal – in jobs that pay better than average. We’re taking steps to give homeowners the freedom to generate and store their own energy – something environmentalists and Tea Partiers have teamed up to support. Meanwhile, we’ve cut our imports of foreign oil by nearly sixty percent, and cut carbon pollution more than any other country on Earth.
Gas under two bucks a gallon ain’t bad, either.
Now we’ve got to accelerate the transition away from dirty energy. Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future – especially in communities that rely on fossil fuels. That’s why I’m going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet. That way, we put money back into those communities and put tens of thousands of Americans to work building a 21st century transportation system.
None of this will happen overnight, and yes, there are plenty of entrenched interests who want to protect the status quo. But the jobs we’ll create, the money we’ll save, and the planet we’ll preserve – that’s the kind of future our kids and grandkids deserve.
Climate change is just one of many issues where our security is linked to the rest of the world. And that’s why the third big question we have to answer is how to keep America safe and strong without either isolating ourselves or trying to nation-build everywhere there’s a problem.
I told you earlier all the talk of America’s economic decline is political hot air. Well, so is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It’s not even close. We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined. Our troops are the finest fighting force in the history of the world. No nation dares to attack us or our allies because they know that’s the path to ruin. Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected to this office, and when it comes to every important international issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead – they call us.
As someone who begins every day with an intelligence briefing, I know this is a dangerous time. But that’s not because of diminished American strength or some looming superpower. In today’s world, we’re threatened less by evil empires and more by failing states. The Middle East is going through a transformation that will play out for a generation, rooted in conflicts that date back millennia. Economic headwinds blow from a Chinese economy in transition. Even as their economy contracts, Russia is pouring resources to prop up Ukraine and Syria – states they see slipping away from their orbit. And the international system we built after World War II is now struggling to keep pace with this new reality.
It’s up to us to help remake that system. And that means we have to set priorities.
Priority number one is protecting the American people and going after terrorist networks. Both al Qaeda and now ISIL pose a direct threat to our people, because in today’s world, even a handful of terrorists who place no value on human life, including their own, can do a lot of damage. They use the Internet to poison the minds of individuals inside our country; they undermine our allies.
But as we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands. Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence. That’s the story ISIL wants to tell; that’s the kind of propaganda they use to recruit. We don’t need to build them up to show that we’re serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world’s largest religions. We just need to call them what they are – killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed.
That’s exactly what we are doing. For more than a year, America has led a coalition of more than 60 countries to cut off ISIL’s financing, disrupt their plots, stop the flow of terrorist fighters, and stamp out their vicious ideology. With nearly 10,000 air strikes, we are taking out their leadership, their oil, their training camps, and their weapons. We are training, arming, and supporting forces who are steadily reclaiming territory in Iraq and Syria.
If this Congress is serious about winning this war, and wants to send a message to our troops and the world, you should finally authorize the use of military force against ISIL. Take a vote. But the American people should know that with or without Congressional action, ISIL will learn the same lessons as terrorists before them. If you doubt America’s commitment – or mine – to see that justice is done, ask Osama bin Laden. Ask the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, who was taken out last year, or the perpetrator of the Benghazi attacks, who sits in a prison cell. When you come after Americans, we go after you. It may take time, but we have long memories, and our reach has no limit.