Obama wants to 'create a million young Barack Obamas'
Source: The Guardian
Paul Owen in New York
Sun 25 Mar 2018 21.10 BST Last modified on Sun 25 Mar 2018 21.14 BST
Barack Obama has said he would like to create a million young Barack Obamas to take on the baton of human progress, during a discussion in Japan about his post-presidential life. The single most important thing I could do is to help develop the next generation, he said.
The former US president said his nonprofit the Obama Foundation could create a platform for young, up and coming leaders to exchange information with each other about projects they were working on. If I could do that effectively, then you know I would create a hundred or a thousand o a million young Barack Obamas or Michelle Obamas, Obama told a conference in Tokyo. Or, the next group of people who could take that baton in that relay race that is human progress.
Obama also talked about the potential for young people to bring about change, hailing Saturdays March for our Lives gun-control demonstrations. This was all because of the courage and effort of a handful of 15- and 16-year-olds, who took the responsibility that so often adults had failed to take in trying to find a solution to this problem, and I think thats a testimony to what happens when young people are given opportunities, and I think all institutions have to think about how do we tap into that creativity and that energy and that drive. Because its there. Its just so often we say: Wait your turn.
Obama had also tweeted his support on Saturday, writing: Michelle and I are so inspired by all the young people who made todays marches happen. Keep at it. Youre leading us forward. Nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change. Donald Trump has yet to comment personally on the marches, although the White House praised the demonstrators for exercising their right to free speech.
(snip)
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/25/obama-wants-to-develop-a-million-young-barack-obamas
SunSeeker
(51,367 posts)YvonneCa
(10,117 posts)...with values, integrity and the motivation to lead others to perfect our country. I think that would be great!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Thank you, President Obama! 😃
Canoe52
(2,944 posts)Beartracks
(12,761 posts)The pulpit-preaching, media-consdolidating, Nazi-tolerating right wing sure does hate that indoctrination stuff!
========
grantcart
(53,061 posts)crazycatlady
(4,492 posts)TeamPooka
(24,155 posts)Bleacher Creature
(11,235 posts)Skittles
(152,964 posts)anyone else think he really enjoys sticking it to repukes now?
Fog Off
(16 posts)We need that many to undo the damage we've all stupidly inflicted.
rzemanfl
(29,540 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(48,787 posts)logosoco
(3,208 posts)One of the main ways to get there is to educate people. That is so hard in today's world, when education is so expensive and not always accessible.
It is very obvious the current administration and Repubs. in general do NOT want folks to be educated. Their plans don't work as well when people are thinking or exposed to other ideas. And that is a lot of why education is so expensive and hard for everyone to get.
With repubs. the economy is the only thing. We need to put resources and effort into education and the environment so we can have people growing up and being kind, thinking people like the Obamas.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)in them is conviction. Conviction in their cause and that they can do something about it, the belief that voting matters. Those who've divided and disempowered the electorate in order to defeat us will be working anew on young people.
Notice that this group were completely without partisanship in their speech, the leaders only aligning with Democrats very quietly for the event on the Capitol steps. That was something they did very, very right, bypassing the division and despair evil agents have developed, projecting it entirely as young people working together for a common goal. They spoke often of the need to vote but never of which party to vote for.
What Obama's million need to be able to do is to help others keep their conviction. They'll all be growing up and living amid a storm of lies corrupting belief in our systems and our one progressive party, teaching them there's nothing to believe in, except whichever issues are being used as rings in their noses.
christx30
(6,241 posts)Id settle for *one* to show up on the national stage around 2019.