This is a time of great change in the world but America's always been a pillar of strength and a beacon of hope to peoples around the globe and that's what it must continue to be.
The crisis [the Great Depression] discovered a great man in Franklin Roosevelt...None too soon he has carried America forward to the second stage of democratic realization. His New Deal involves such collective controls of the national business that it would be absurd to call it anything but socialism, were it not for a prejudice lingering on from the old individualist days against that word...Both Roosevelt and Stalin were attempting to produce a huge, modern, scientifically organized, socialist state, the one out of a warning crisis and the other out of a chaos.
You want to buy cars and houses and castles, all of that's on you and how America has systematized your mind to be into materialism. Hip-hop ain't got nothing to do with that. I'm glad that anybody making money has picked themselves up - I just want them to give some of it back to the community.
The historic glory of America lies in the fact that it is the one nation that was founded like a church. That is, it was founded on a faith that was not merely summed up after it had exited, but was defined before it existed.
The extraordinary thing is not that people in a lifetime turn out worse or better than we had prophesied; particularly in America that is to be expected. The extraordinary thing is how people keep their levels, fulfill their promises, seem actually buoyed up by an inevitable destiny.
If America is truly Israels greatest ally, we should not be asking it to put its citizens and future at risk by forcing the establishment of a hostile Palestinian state as the only option.
There's also consumer debt, the credit card debt that burdens many of the working families in America. Yes, we talk about national debt, and we're paying a lot down. But you're fixing to hear me tell you part of the remedy for people who have got a lot of credit card debt is to make sure people get some of their own money back.
We want our children to live in an America that isn't burdened by debt, that isn't weakened by inequality, that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.
The truth is that America has been closely divided politically for quite some time. That was reflected in some of the challenges I had with the Republican Congress.
I mean, in terms of alternatives, some people have suggested for example that why don't we - why isn't America doing what Berkshire Hathaway is doing? Why isn't that a better deal for America?