If you are interested in a transcript of Barack Obama’s inaugural speech, as it was actually given, you can get a copy at Project Gutenberg. It is Project Gutenberg eBook number 28000. You should also be able to get these files at the PG Preprint Reading Room.
As the last two posts here indicate, the hard work of our forebears is hot on my mind. When Barack Obama conveyed those very same feelings in his inaugural speech, so succinctly and appropriately, the tears I was holding back poured out.
… It has not been the path for the faint hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame, rather it has been the risk takers, the doers, the makers of things, some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long rugged path towards prosperity and freedom. For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and travelled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops, and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip, and plowed the hard earth. For us, they fought, and died, in places like Concord, and Gettysburg, Normandy, and Khe Sanh. Time and again, these men and women struggled and sacrificed until their hands were raw, so that we might live a better life.
Like many, I am cautiously optimistic about what Barack Obama will actually do now that he is president. But right now, I just want to dance and celebrate the fact that, FINALLY AT LONG LAST, a candidate I voted for is President of the USA. Go America!
It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it? I sort of remember it from when Clinton won.
Meaning, I feel it now, sort of remember feeling it long ago.