We've been on a long, winding road since 1776, a new leg has begun. Hard, hard work is ahead. Too many forces are still arrayed to hold the human heart, mind, hope down. Yet we feel a surge of momentum, a push from the roots, for new growth, for transformation, for liberation on a more inclusive and complete scale.
Those are the grand ideals, the continuing story, the beautiful manifestation of reality that is the emergence of humanity, of the liberation of humanity, of America, the dream of freedom, love, trust, security, creativity; yet right here, right now, we have the struggle closer to our time and place, the immense challenges before us that have become even more immense with the inattention and negligence of those who came immediately before us, challenges we should have no fear to face and overcome.
This is another renaissance in human history in the making, born from the chaotic and ominous conditions facing our nation and world today. We have an explosion in connectivity, information sharing, knowledge, and awareness, developments that have no precedent in the life of humanity, fresh insights into physics, complexity, psychology, and learning, new avenues of political participation and financing resulting in the beginning of actual universal political enfranchisement, reflected in these electoral results tonight.
I want to congratulate Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and their campaign team, and embrace Obama, Biden and their administration to come. In these storied times, with these storied changes, amidst these immense movements in place, time and mind, I am confident that we have leadership that is up to the challenge, that is willing to embrace all the tools that are available for leadership and governance, that will openly and passionately embrace the application of intelligence, honor, reason, and compassion to address the great challenges of today, and the trajectory of these challenges into tomorrow, and to do so with full transparency and accountability to those who have elected them.
And let us not forget there are malignant forces throughout the world operating to injure us, to intimidate us, to commit violence upon us. We must defeat these forces, and without hesitation put them on the retreat, not only with our powers of imagination and positive example, in terms of liberty and freedom, reason and compassion, productivity and wealth creation, but through the rule of law and application of justice, such that there will be no sanctuary for those who would prey upon another, who would commit violence for the achievement of any aim short of imminent self-defense, who would extinguish hope, imagination and creativity in the human heart, because this is our destiny on this long road we've tread, as this torch has been passed, to protect and cultivate that which is most dear to us.
We must also not lose focus on the work we need to do at home, to perfect our union here, to root out corruption and cronyism, to return the government of Americans to Americans, to open the way wider for innovation and entrepreneurialism, to make essential services for the well-being of citizens more widely accessible - health care, education, transportation - and finally get down to the serious task that science and ecology have laid before us, the ultimate task, to be stewards of the earth not only in our time for our generation, but in respectfully considering the generations ahead, the environment and beauty that will be present for our children, and their children, for only as sound ecological citizens will we continue to be gifted the resources to accomplish all the great things we are accustomed to accomplishing, as well as all the great things we can accomplish in the future, some we cannot even imagine, that will be left for our children and their children to dream and realize.
Please forgive me for my indulgence.
Mahalo.