Obama: Unyielding spirit defines Americans

July 4, 3:21 PMPortland Progressive ExaminerMichael Stone

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President Barack Obama

On U.S. Independence Day, President Barack Obama, in a gifted oratory, proclaimed "Unyielding spirit is what defines us as Americans." President Obama is calling on Americans to remember the spirit of the nation's founders, and to embrace his domestic initiatives. The President urged support for his plans to reform U.S. education, health care and energy policies.

President Obama, in his weekly address, asked Americans to remember the sacrifices and achievements of the men who voted for Independence more than two hundred years ago:

"We are not a people who fear the future. We are a people who make it. And on this July 4th, we need to summon that spirit once more. We need to summon the same spirit that inhabited Independence Hall 233 years ago today."

"We are called to remember how unlikely it was that our American experiment would succeed at all; that a small band of patriots would declare independence from a powerful empire; and that they would form, in the new world, what the old world had never known - a government of, by and for the people," he said.

The President said the same "unyielding spirit" will be required to deal with three pressing national problems:

Education: "Build schools that prepare every child in America to out-compete any worker in the world."

Health Care: Overhaul a health care system "that is imposing crushing costs on families, businesses, large and small, and state and federal budgets."

Clean Energy: Creating "the profitable kind of (clean) energy so that we can end our dependence on foreign oil and reclaim America's future."

The President chastised "naysayers", obstructionist Republicans and weak-kneed Democrats. To the party of "no" President Obama said:

"We, as a people, did not get here by standing pat in a time of change. We did not get here by doing what was easy. That is not how a cluster of 13 colonies became the United States of America."

Americans, hold your heads up high, and be proud to be an American once again. We at last have a competent and compassionate president in the White House, a man of intelligence and integrity, an elegant representative to the hopes and aspirations that define the greatness of our nation.