The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama.

5/5 rating. 362 pages.

Book #18 of 2021. Read February 20, 2021.

This is an absolutely amazing book that shows the eloquence, intellect, and deep compassion of Barack.

Written not too long after winning the Illinois Senate seat, this book tells his views of how to lessen the divides in America and to lift up the original ideals of the American Dream. While he admits that this book is less provocative and radical than some of the ways he believes might be best to mend the schisms, I truly can’t believe that any American reading this book wouldn’t agree with 80% or more of what he states. Obviously he has been vilified by conservative media incessantly, but Barack truly only has wanted to improve this country that he loves.

I wish that everyone would read this book and take it to heart. I found so many of his opinions as my own – though written in such beautiful and concise language that most of us can only dream of attaining.

I am torn after reading this book, because it fills me with hope in his talk of dealing with people and caring for individuals by lifting up and improving as many lives as possible. Meanwhile, this man who talks about dignity, caring for others, and wanting to only help has been absolutely dragged through the sewer. If someone like Barack cannot succeed in bringing us together, who can? I hope that someone answers that question soon, and in the meantime, everyone goes and reads this incredible book! It might help the process.

Quotes:

“…a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done.”

“No, what’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics – the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem.”

“In distilled form, though, the explanations of both the right and the left have become mirror images of each other. They are stories of conspiracy, of America being hijacked by an evil cabal. Like all good conspiracy theories, both tales contain just enough truth to satisfy those predisposed to believe in them, without admitting any contradictions that might shake up those assumptions. Their purpose is not to persuade the other side but to keep their bases agitated and assured of the rightness of their respective causes – and lure just enough new adherents to beat the other side into submission.”

“Moreover, whenever I write a letter to a family who has lost a loved one in Iraq, or read an email from a constituent who has dropped out of college because her student aid has been cut, I’m reminded that the actions of those in power have enormous consequences – a price that they themselves almost never have to pay.”

“If we aren’t willing to pay a price for our values, if we aren’t willing to make some sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.”

“Whether we are for or against affirmative action, for or against prayer in schools, we must test out our ideals, vision, and values against the realities of a common life, so that over time they may be refined, discarded, or replaced by new ideals, sharper visions, deeper values.”

“It also means paying teachers what they’re worth. There’s no reason why an experienced, highly qualified, and effective teacher shouldn’t earn $100,000 annually at the peak of his or her career. Highly skilled teachers in such critical fields as math and science – as well as those willing to teach in the toughest urban schools – should be paid even more.”

“A nation that can’t control its energy sources can’t control its future.”

“I simply believe that those of us who have benefited most from this new economy can best afford to shoulder the obligation of ensuring every American child has a chance for the same success.”

“I explained my belief that few women made the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually; that any pregnant women felt the full force of the moral issues involved and wrestled with her conscience when making that heart-wrenching decision; that I feared a ban on abortion would force women to seek unsafe abortions, as they had once done in this country and as they continued to do in countries that prosecute abortion doctors and the women who seek their services. I suggested that perhaps we could agree on ways to reduce the number of women who felt the need to have abortions in the first place.”

“Religion was an expression of human culture, she would explain, not its wellspring, just one of the many ways – and not necessarily the best way – that man attempted to control the unknowable and understand the deeper truths about our lives.”

“She saw mysteries everywhere and took joy in the sheer strangeness of life.”

“Contrary to the claims of many on the Christian right who rail against the separation of church and state, their argument is not with a handful of liberal sixties judges. It is with the drafters of the Bill of Rights and the forebears of today’s evangelical church. Many of the leading lights of the Revolution, most notably Franklin and Jefferson, were deists who – while believing in an Almighty God – questioned not only the dogmas of the Christian church but the central tenets of Christianity itself (including Christ’s divinity). Jefferson and Madison in particular argued for what Jefferson called a ‘wall of separation’ between church and state, as a means of protecting individual liberty in religious belief and practice, guarding the state against sectarian strife, and defending organized religion against the state’s encroachment or undue influence.”

“To say that we are one people is not to suggest that race no longer matters – that the fight for equality has been won, or that the problems that minorities face in this country today are largely self-inflicted.”

“To think clearly about race, then, requires us to see the world on a split screen – to maintain in our sights the kind of America that we want while looking squarely at America as it is, to acknowledge the sins of our past and the challenges of the present without becoming trapped in cynicism or despair.”

“America is big enough to accommodate all their dreams.”

“When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following, and robs terrorists and dictators of the argument that these rules are simply tools of American imperialism.”

“I would rather have it said, He lived usefully, than, He died rich.” – Benjamin Franklin

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