0:00:01.076,0:00:07.309
June 29, 2016.

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My dear fellow citizen,

0:00:10.966,0:00:12.685
I write to you today,

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to you who have lost in this era.

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At this moment, in our common life

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when the world is full of breaking

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and spite

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and fear,

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I address this letter

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simply to you,

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even though we both know

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there are many of you

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behind this you,

0:00:43.386,0:00:46.852
and many of me behind this I.

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I write to you because at present,

0:00:53.586,0:00:59.565
this quaking world we share scares me.

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I gather it scares you too.

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Some of what we fear, I suspect,

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we fear in common.

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But much of what we fear

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seems to be each other.

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You fear the world I want to live in,

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and I fear your visions in turn.

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Do you know that feeling you get[br]when you know it's going to storm

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before it storms?

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Do you also feel that now,

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fellow citizen?

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That malaise and worry

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that some who know

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feel reminds them of the 1930s?

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Perhaps you don't,

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because our fears of each other

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are not in sync.

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In this round, I sense[br]that your fears of me,

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of the world that I have insisted[br]is right for us both,

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has gathered over a generation.

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It took time for your fears[br]to trigger my fears,

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not least because at first,[br]I never thought I needed to fear you.

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I heard you,

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but did not listen,

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all these years when you said

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that this amazing new world

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wasn't amazing for you,

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for many of you,

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across the industrialized world,

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that the open, liquid world I relished,

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of people and goods and technologies

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flowing freely, going where they pleased,

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globally,

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was not, for you, an emancipation.

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I have walked through your towns

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and, while looking, failed to see.

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I did notice in Stephenville, Texas,

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that the town square was dominated

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by one lawyer's office after another

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because of all the people[br]rotating in and out of the prison.

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I did notice the barren shops

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in Wagner, South Dakota,

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and the VFW gathering hole

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that stood in mockery

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of a community's dream to endure.

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I did notice

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at the Lancaster, Pennsylvania Walmart,

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that far too many people

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in their 20s and 30s

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looked a decade or two from death,

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with patchy, flared up skin,

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and thinning, stringy hair,

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and browning, ground-down teeth,

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and a lostness in their eyes.

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I did notice that the young people[br]I encountered in Paris,

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in Florence, in Barcelona, had degrees

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but no place to take them,

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living on internships[br]well into their 30s,

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their lives prevented from launching

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because of an economy[br]that creates wealth, just not jobs.

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I did notice the news about[br]those parts of London

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becoming ghost quarters

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where the global super-rich

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turn fishy money into empty apartments

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and price lifelong residents of a city,[br]young couples starting out,

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out of their own home.

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And I heard that the fabric of your life

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was tearing.

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You used to be able to count on work,

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and now you couldn't.

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You used to be able[br]to nourish your children,

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and guarantee that they would climb

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a little bit further in life than you had,

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and now you couldn't.

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You used to be made to feel dignity[br]in your work, and now you didn't.

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It used to be normal for people like you[br]to own a home, and now it wasn't.

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I cannot say

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I didn't know these things,

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but I was distracted

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creating a future in which[br]we could live on Mars

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even as you struggled down here on Earth.

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I was distracted

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innovating immortality

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even as many of you began to live[br]shorter lives than your parents had.

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I heard all of these things,[br]but I didn't listen.

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I looked

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but didn't see.

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I read, didn't understand.

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I paid attention only when you

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began to vote and shout,

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and when your voting and shouting,[br]when the substance of it

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began to threaten me.

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I listened only when you moved

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toward shattering continental unions

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and electing vulgar demagogues.

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Only then did your pain

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because of interest to me.

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I know that feeling hurt

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is often prologue to dealing hurt.

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I wonder now

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if you would be less eager to deal it

0:07:05.629,0:07:07.592
if I had stood with you

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when you merely felt it.

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I ask myself

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why I didn't stand with you then.

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One reason is that I became entranced

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by the gurus of change,

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became a worshipper of the religion[br]of the new for novelty's sake,

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and of globalization and open borders

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and kaleidoscopic diversity.

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Once change became my totalizing faith,

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I could be blind.

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I could fail to see change's consequences.

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I could overlook the importance

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of roots, traditions, rituals, stability,

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and belonging.

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And the more fundamentalist I became

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in my worship of change

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and openness,

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the more I drove you[br]towards the other polarity,

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to cling, to freeze,

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to close, to belong.

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I now see as I didn't before

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that not having the right skin

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or right organ

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is not the only varietal of disadvantage.

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There is a subtler, quieter disadvantage

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in having those privileged traits

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and yet feeling history to be[br]moving away from you,

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that while the past was hospitable[br]to people like you,

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the future will be more hospitable

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to others,

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that the world is growing less familiar,

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less yours day by day.

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A similar thing happened

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with the economy

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that you and I share.

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Just as I cannot and don't wish

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to turn back to the clock[br]on equality and diversity

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and yet must understand

0:09:08.915,0:09:13.569
the sense of loss they can inspire,

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so too I refuse

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and could not if I wished

0:09:18.362,0:09:22.636
turn back the clock on an ever more[br]closely knit, interdependent world,

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and on inventions that won't stop[br]being invented.

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And yet I must understand[br]your experience of these things.

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You have for years been telling me[br]that your experience of these things

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is not as good as my theories forecast.

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Yet before you could finish[br]a complaining sentence

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about the difficulty of living[br]with erratic hours, volatile pay,

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vanishing opportunities,

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about the pain of dropping your children[br]off at 24-hour day care

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to make your 3am shift,

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I shot back at you

0:10:03.003,0:10:04.877
before you could finish your sentence

0:10:04.877,0:10:06.242
my dogma

0:10:06.242,0:10:10.696
about how what you are actually[br]experiencing was flexibility

0:10:10.696,0:10:12.721
and freedom.

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Language is one of the only things

0:10:18.227,0:10:20.940
that we truly share,

0:10:20.940,0:10:24.443
and I sometimes used[br]this joint inheritance

0:10:24.443,0:10:27.880
to obfuscate and deflect

0:10:27.880,0:10:30.281
and justify myself,

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to rebrand what was good for me

0:10:32.386,0:10:35.938
as something appearing good for us both,

0:10:35.938,0:10:40.377
when I threw around terms like[br]the sharing economy

0:10:40.377,0:10:42.348
and disruption

0:10:42.348,0:10:45.821
and global resourcing.

0:10:45.821,0:10:48.216
I see now that what I was really doing

0:10:48.216,0:10:50.341
at times

0:10:50.341,0:10:52.347
was buying your pain

0:10:52.347,0:10:54.498
on the cheap,

0:10:54.498,0:10:56.331
sprucing it up,

0:10:56.331,0:10:58.858
and trying to sell it back to you

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as freedom.

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I have wanted to believe[br]and wanted you to believe

0:11:06.290,0:11:13.822
that the system that has been good to me,[br]that has made my life ever more seamless

0:11:13.822,0:11:18.031
is also the best system for you.

0:11:18.031,0:11:20.365
I have condescended to you

0:11:20.365,0:11:24.854
with the idea that you are voting[br]against your economic interests,

0:11:24.854,0:11:27.271
voting against your interests,

0:11:27.271,0:11:32.894
as if I know your interests.

0:11:32.894,0:11:38.353
That is just my dogmatic[br]economism talking.

0:11:38.353,0:11:40.261
I have a weakness

0:11:40.261,0:11:43.202
for treating people's economic interests

0:11:43.202,0:11:45.522
as their only interest,

0:11:45.522,0:11:48.959
ignoring things like belonging and pride

0:11:48.959,0:11:53.005
and the desire to send a message[br]to those who ignore you.

0:11:53.397,0:11:56.841
So here we are,

0:11:56.841,0:12:01.986
in a scary but not inexplicable moment

0:12:01.986,0:12:04.975
of demagoguery, fracture,

0:12:04.975,0:12:10.106
xenophobia, resentment, and fear,

0:12:10.106,0:12:15.004
and I worry for us both[br]if we continue down this road,

0:12:15.004,0:12:16.863
me not listening,

0:12:16.863,0:12:18.737
you feeling unheard,

0:12:18.737,0:12:22.684
you shouting to get me to listen.

0:12:22.684,0:12:23.175
I worry when each of us is seduced

0:12:23.175,0:12:26.802
by visions of the future

0:12:26.802,0:12:30.329
that have no place for the other.

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If this goes on,

0:12:33.733,0:12:36.627
if this goes on,

0:12:36.627,0:12:39.833
there may be blood.

0:12:39.833,0:12:43.512
There are already hints of this blood,

0:12:43.512,0:12:45.652
a newspaper every day.

0:12:45.652,0:12:47.642
There may be roundups, raids,

0:12:47.642,0:12:52.116
deportations, camps, secessions,

0:12:52.116,0:12:56.095
and no I do not thing that I exaggerate.

0:12:56.095,0:12:58.774
There may be even talk of war

0:12:58.774,0:13:01.385
in places that were certain

0:13:01.385,0:13:03.149
they were done with it.

0:13:04.065,0:13:08.388
There is always the hope of redemption,

0:13:08.388,0:13:10.034
but it will not be a cheap,

0:13:10.034,0:13:13.767
shallow redemption that comes[br]through blather about us all

0:13:13.767,0:13:15.949
being in it together.

0:13:15.949,0:13:18.946
This will take more.

0:13:18.946,0:13:24.733
It will take accepting that we both[br]made choices to be here.

0:13:26.707,0:13:30.620
We create our others.

0:13:30.620,0:13:35.077
As parents, as neighbors, as citizens,

0:13:35.077,0:13:39.499
we witness and sometimes ignore each other

0:13:39.499,0:13:41.913
into being.

0:13:41.913,0:13:45.937
You were not born vengeful.

0:13:45.937,0:13:47.967
I have some role

0:13:47.967,0:13:52.307
in whatever thirst[br]you now feel for revenge,

0:13:52.307,0:13:54.164
and that thirst now tempts me

0:13:54.164,0:13:56.925
to plot ever more elaborate escapes

0:13:56.925,0:13:58.737
from our common life,

0:13:58.737,0:14:00.629
from the schools and neighborhoods

0:14:00.629,0:14:02.346
and airports and amusement parks

0:14:02.346,0:14:05.512
that we used to share.

0:14:05.512,0:14:09.249
We face, then,

0:14:09.249,0:14:11.372
a problem not of these large,

0:14:11.372,0:14:14.861
impersonal forces.

0:14:14.861,0:14:17.359
We face a problem of your and my

0:14:17.359,0:14:19.182
relations.

0:14:20.413,0:14:23.575
We chose ways of relating to each other

0:14:23.575,0:14:25.779
that got us here.

0:14:26.525,0:14:29.297
We can choose ways of relating

0:14:29.297,0:14:31.977
that get us out.

0:14:31.977,0:14:33.883
But there are things we might

0:14:33.883,0:14:38.127
have to let go of, fellow citizen,

0:14:38.127,0:14:43.553
starting with our own cherished[br]versions of reality.

0:14:45.641,0:14:49.587
Imagine if you let go of fantasies

0:14:49.587,0:14:54.159
of a society purged[br]of these or those people.

0:14:54.159,0:14:56.740
Imagine if I let go

0:14:56.740,0:14:58.351
of my habit

0:14:58.351,0:15:01.756
of saving the world behind your back,

0:15:01.756,0:15:03.991
of deliberating on the future

0:15:03.991,0:15:08.644
of your work, your food, your schools,

0:15:08.644,0:15:12.213
in places where you couldn't[br]get past security.

0:15:12.992,0:15:17.968
We can do this only if we first accept

0:15:17.968,0:15:22.505
that we have neglected each other.

0:15:22.505,0:15:26.321
If there is hope to summon

0:15:26.321,0:15:28.713
in this ominous hour,

0:15:28.713,0:15:31.070
it is this.

0:15:31.070,0:15:34.771
We have for too long chased

0:15:34.771,0:15:38.439
various shimmering dreams

0:15:38.439,0:15:40.740
at the cost of attention

0:15:40.740,0:15:44.769
to the foundational dream of each other,

0:15:44.769,0:15:48.288
the dream of tending to each other,

0:15:48.288,0:15:51.067
of unleashing each other's wonders,

0:15:51.067,0:15:54.667
of moving through history together.

0:15:54.667,0:15:57.462
We could dare to commit

0:15:57.462,0:15:59.583
to the dream of each other

0:15:59.583,0:16:01.589
as the thing that matters

0:16:01.589,0:16:05.113
before every neon thing.

0:16:05.113,0:16:07.065
Let us dare.

0:16:07.065,0:16:08.759
Sincerely yours,

0:16:08.759,0:16:10.333
a fellow citizen.

0:16:10.333,0:16:15.993
(Applause)