Monday, March 30, 2009

What You Can Do for Your Country





Carolyn WilliamsCarolyn Williams
Department of History
cwilliam@unf.edu


"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
As we watch the government struggle to meet the enormous national and international challenges, we citizens should rise to the call issued by the newly elected president, John F. Kennedy, in 1961. We should be coming up with strategies and creating resources of our own. Of course we at the university have the great advantage. Therefore, I suggest the following. We can create our own think tank where significant research and productive discourse takes place to produce ideas that can be applied to local situations as well as the global sphere. To paraphrase another prominent political Irish Catholic leader from the past, not only are all politics local, but so are the problems, and likewise the solutions. We should enlist in a citizens’ army committed to saving the nation, by making our world a better place.

1 comment:

hthomasx said...

As a former community organizer, I would note that Obama is the first President with a community organizing background. He approaches problems with a grass roots orientation rather than the view from 50,000 feet in the air.

The same community based workers who got him elected are meeting today around the issues of health, clean green jobs, and education. Obama changed the way future candidates for President will run for office. He is now changing administration from the executive branch.
Henry Thomas
PSPA