When you hear someone longing for the 'good old days,' take it with a grain of salt. The 'good old days' weren't that great.
Barack Obama
Rutgers University Commencement 2016, 2016
视频从11:37开始——这句语录被说出的那一刻
这句语录背后的故事
Obama's Rutgers speech was structured as five numbered 'points' — and the first took direct aim at nostalgia as a political weapon. He acknowledged that it was 'part of human nature, especially in times of change and uncertainty, to want to look backwards and long for some imaginary past when everything worked, and the economy hummed, and all politicians were wise.' Then he demolished the premise with data. Since his own graduation in 1983: crime rates, teenage pregnancy, and poverty were all down. College education, life expectancy, and minority representation in business and politics were all up. Marriage equality was the law of the land. Globally, the Iron Curtain had fallen, apartheid had ended, polio was virtually eliminated, extreme poverty had been cut drastically. 'The reason America is better is because we didn't look backwards, we didn't fear the future. We seized the future and made it our own.'
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