Craig Ferguson quote: “I think in our desire to create a better America, we have to have civilized debate in this country and not just yelling.”

“We do have challenges with racial bias -- in our communities, in our criminal justice system, in our society -- the legacy of slavery and segregation. But the fact that we have open debates within America’s own democracy is what allows us to get better.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, Remarks to the People of Cuba (March 2016)
Context: We do have challenges with racial bias -- in our communities, in our criminal justice system, in our society -- the legacy of slavery and segregation. But the fact that we have open debates within America’s own democracy is what allows us to get better. In 1959, the year that my father moved to America, it was illegal for him to marry my mother, who was white, in many American states. When I first started school, we were still struggling to desegregate schools across the American South. But people organized; they protested; they debated these issues; they challenged government officials. And because of those protests, and because of those debates, and because of popular mobilization, I’m able to stand here today as an African-American and as President of the United States. That was because of the freedoms that were afforded in the United States that we were able to bring about change.

“I went to sleep with the hope that made America famous.
I had the kind of a dream that maybe they're still trying to teach in school.
Of the America that made America famous…and
Of the people who just might understand
That how together yes we can
Create a country better than
The one we have made of this land,
We have a choice to make each man
who dares to dream, reaching out his hand
A prophet or just a crazy God damn
Dreamer of a fool.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

What Made America Famous?
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

“Because for all the back and forth of Washington, we have to remember that this debate is about something bigger. It’s about who we are as a country, and who we want to be for future generations.
Are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system where workers who pick our fruit and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law? Or are we a nation that gives them a chance to make amends, take responsibility, and give their kids a better future?
Are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms? Or are we a nation that values families, and works together to keep them together?
Are we a nation that educates the world’s best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us? Or are we a nation that encourages them to stay and create jobs here, create businesses here, create industries right here in America?
That’s what this debate is all about. We need more than politics as usual when it comes to immigration. We need reasoned, thoughtful, compassionate debate that focuses on our hopes, not our fears.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Address to the Nation on Immigration (November 2014)

“The people in our country and in America and in all West European countries, they have to gorge and guzzle so that they don't even start to think about the fact that we have something to do with Vietnam or what it might be about, OK?”

Gudrun Ensslin (1940–1977) German terrorist

Audiovisions: cinema and television as entr'actes in history By Siegfried Zielinski http://books.google.com/books?id=Rw5FzPcwaPkC&lpg=PA215&dq=gudrun%20ensslin&as_brr=1&pg=PA215#v=onepage&q=gudrun%20ensslin&f=false

“Since the China virus, we have created --- a record in the history of our country -- 11.4 million jobs over just a short period of months.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2020s, 2020, October

“I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found. And this belief, which mounts now to the catharsis of knowledge and conviction, is for me — and I think for all of us — not only our own hope, but America's everlasting, living dream. I think the life which we have fashioned in America, and which has fashioned us — the forms we made, the cells that grew, the honeycomb that was created — was self-destructive in its nature, and must be destroyed. I think these forms are dying, and must die, just as I know that America and the people in it are deathless, undiscovered, and immortal, and must live.”

Thomas Wolfe book You Can't Go Home Again

Book VII, Ch. 48: Credo
You Can't Go Home Again (1940)

“The whole tendency of civilization is…towards the multiplication of the collective functions of society. The ever growing complications of civilization create for us new services which have to be undertaken by the State, and create for us an expansion of the existing services. I am of the opinion that the State should increasingly assume the position of the reserve employer of labour. I am very sorry we have not got the railways of this country in our hands. We may do something better with the canals, and we are all agreed that the State must increasingly and earnestly concern itself with the care of the sick and aged, and, above all, of the children.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 154
Early career years (1898–1929)

“You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time -- not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)
Context: My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction. And we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service. But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty or an immigrant realizes her dream. My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride. They are the words of citizens and they represent our greatest hope. You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time -- not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.

“I owe a lot to the opportunities I have had. I think we have a great country, and the day that all people of all races have equal opportunity to be useful to their community, we're going to have a better country.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Tech, Pirates Share Man of Year Honors; Jaycees Cite Carnegie Chief Dr. Stever, Give Clemente Sports, Lawrence Awards" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=5L4bAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XU8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7479%2C2960572 by Robert Johnson, in The Pittsburgh Press (Tuesday, January 24, 1967), p. 20
Other, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1967</big>

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“I think in our desire to create a better America, we have to have civilized debate in this country and not just yelling.”

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