of the Cold War assumes new
responsibilities in a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom,
but threatened still by ancient hatreds and new plagues. Raised in
unrivalled prosperity, we inherit an economy that is still the world's
strongest, but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages,
increasing inequality, and deep divisions among *our own* people.

When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to uphold,
news travelled slowly across the land by horseback, and across the
ocean by boat. Now the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast
instantaneously to billions around the world. Communications and
commerce are global. Investment is mobile. Technology is almost magical,
and ambition for a better life is now universal.

We earn our livelihood in America today in peaceful competition with
people all across the Earth. Profound and powerful forces are shaking
and remaking our world, and the *urgent* question of our time is whether
we can make change our friend and not our enemy. This new world has
already enriched the lives of *millions* of Americans who are able to
compete and win in it. But when most people are working harder for less,
when others cannot work at all, when the cost of health care devastates
families and threatens to bankrupt our enterprises, great and small;
when the fear of crime robs law abiding citizens of their freedom; and
when millions of poor children cannot even imagine the lives we are
calling them to lead, we have not made change our friend.

We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps, but we have
not done so. Instead we have drifted, and that drifting has eroded our
resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence. Though our
challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. Americans have ever been
a restless, questing, hopeful people, and we must bring to our task
today the vision and will of those who came before us. From our
Revolution to the Civil War, to the Great Depression, to the Civil
Rights movement, our people have always mustered the determination to
construct from these crises the pillars of our history. Thomas Jefferson
believed that to preserve the very foundations of our nation we would
need dramatic change from time to time. Well, my fellow Americans, this
is OUR time. Let us embrace it.

Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of
our *own* renewal. There is nothing *wrong* with America that c