President Obama:
Mr. President; Mr. Secretary General;
fellow delegates; ladies and gentlemen: As I
address this hall as President for the final
time, let me recount the progress that we've made
these last eight years. From the depths of the
greatest financial crisis of our time, we
coordinated our response to avoid further
catastrophe and return the global economy to growth. We've taken away terrorist
safe havens, strengthened the nonproliferation
regime, resolved the Iranian nuclear issue
through diplomacy. We opened relations with
Cuba, helped Colombia end Latin America's longest
warm, and we welcome a democratically elected
leader of Myanmar to this Assembly. Our assistance is helping
people feed themselves, care for the sick, power
communities across Africa, and promote models of
development rather than dependence. And we have made
international institutions like the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund more representative,
while establishing a framework to protect our
planet from the ravages of climate change. This is important work. It has made a real
difference in the lives of our people. And it could not have
happened had we not worked together. And yet, around the globe
we are seeing the same forces of global
integration that have made us interdependent also
expose deep fault lines in the existing
international order. We see it in the
headlines every day. Around the world, refugees
flow across borders in flight from
brutal conflict. Financial disruptions
continue to weigh upon our workers and entire
communities. Across vast swaths of
the Middle East, basic security, basic order
has broken down. We see too many
governments muzzling journalists, and quashing
dissent, and censoring the flow of information. Terrorist networks use
social media to prey upon the minds of our youth,
endangering open societies and spurring anger against
innocent immigrants and Muslims. Powerful nations contest
the constraints placed on them by international law. This is the paradox that
defines our world today. A quarter century after
the end of the Cold War, the world is by many
measures less violent and more prosperous than
ever before, and yet our societies are filled with
uncertainty, and unease, and strife. Despite enormous progress,
as people lose trust in institutions, governing
becomes more difficult and tensions between nations
become more quick to surface. And so I believe that at
this moment we all face a choice. We can choose to press
forward with a better model of cooperation
and integration. Or we can retreat into a
world sharply divided, and ultimately in conflict,
along age-old lines of nation and tribe and
race and religion. I want to suggest to you
today that we must go forward, and not backward. I believe that as
imperfect as they are, the principles of open
markets and accountable governance, of democracy
and human rights and international law that we
have forged remain the firmest foundation for
human progress in this century. I make this argument
not based on theory or ideology, but on facts --
facts that all too often, we forget in the immediacy
of current events. Here's the most important
fact: The integration of our global economy has
made life better for billions of men, woman, and children. Over the last 25 years,
the number of people living in extreme poverty
has been cut from nearly 40 percent of humanity
to under 10 percent. That's unprecedented. And it's not an
abstraction. It means children have
enough to eat; mothers don't die in childbirth. Meanwhile, cracking the
genetic code promises to cure diseases that have
plagued us for centuries. The Internet can deliver
the entirety of human knowledge to a young girl
in a remote village on a single hand-held device. In medicine and in
manufacturing, in education and
communications, we're experiencing a
transformation of how human beings live on a
scale that recalls the revolutions in
agriculture and industry. And as a result, a person
born today is more likely to be healthy, to live
longer, and to have access to opportunity than at any
time in human history. Moreover, the collapse of
colonialism and communism has allowed more people
than ever before to live with the freedom to
choose their leaders. Despite the real and
troubling areas where freedom appears in
retreat, the fact remains that the number of
democracies around the world has nearly doubled
in the last 25 years. In remote corners of
the world, citizens are demanding respect for the
dignity of all people no matter their gender, or
race, or religion, or disability, or sexual
orientation, and those who deny others dignity
are subject to public reproach. An explosion of social
media has given ordinary people more ways to
express themselves, and has raised people's
expectations for those of us in power. Indeed, our international
order has been so successful that we take
it as a given that great powers no longer fight
world wars; that the end of the Cold War lifted
the shadow of nuclear Armageddon; that the
battlefields of Europe have been replaced by
peaceful union; that China and India remain on a path
of remarkable growth. I say all this not to
whitewash the challenges we face, or to
suggest complacency. Rather, I believe that we
need to acknowledge these achievements in order to
summon the confidence to carry this progress
forward and to make sure that we do not abandon
those very things that have delivered
this progress. In order to move forward,
though, we do have to acknowledge that the
existing path to global integration requires
a course correction. As too often, those
trumpeting the benefits of globalization have ignored
inequality within and among nations; have
ignored the enduring appeal of ethnic and
sectarian identities; have left international
institutions ill-equipped, underfunded,
under-resourced, in order to handle transnational
challenges. And as these real problems
have been neglected, alternative visions of the
world have pressed forward both in the wealthiest
countries and in the poorest: Religious
fundamentalism; the politics of ethnicity, or
tribe, or sect; aggressive nationalism; a crude
populism -- sometimes from the far left, but more
often from the far right -- which seeks to restore
what they believe was a better, simpler age free
of outside contamination. We cannot dismiss
these visions. They are powerful. They reflect
dissatisfaction among too many of our citizens. I do not believe those
visions can deliver security or prosperity
over the long term, but I do believe that these
visions fail to recognize, at a very basic level,
our common humanity. Moreover, I believe that
the acceleration of travel and technology and
telecommunications -- together with a global
economy that depends on a global supply chain --
makes it self-defeating ultimately for those who
seek to reverse this progress. Today, a nation ringed by
walls would only imprison itself. So the answer cannot be a
simple rejection of global integration. Instead, we must work
together to make sure the benefits of such
integration are broadly shared, and that the
disruptions -- economic, political, and cultural
-- that are caused by integration are
squarely addressed. This is not the place
for a detailed policy blueprint, but let me
offer in broad strokes those areas where I
believe we must do better together. It starts with making the
global economy work better for all people and not
just for those at the top. While open markets,
capitalism have raised standards of living around
the globe, globalization combined with rapid
progress and technology has also weakened the
position of workers and their ability to
secure a decent wage. In advanced economies like
my own, unions have been undermined, and many
manufacturing jobs have disappeared. Often, those who benefit
most from globalization have used their political
power to further undermine the position of workers. In developing countries,
labor organizations have often been suppressed, and
the growth of the middle class has been held
back by corruption and underinvestment. Mercantilist policies
pursued by governments with export-driven models
threaten to undermine the consensus that
underpins global trade. And meanwhile, global
capital is too often unaccountable -- nearly $8
trillion stashed away in tax havens, a shadow
banking system that grows beyond the reach of
effective oversight. A world in which one
percent of humanity controls as much wealth as
the other 99 percent will never be stable. I understand that the gaps
between rich and poor are not new, but just as the
child in a slum today can see the skyscraper nearby,
technology now allows any person with a smartphone
to see how the most privileged among us live
and the contrast between their own lives
and others. Expectations rise, then,
faster than governments can deliver, and a
pervasive sense of injustice undermine
people's faith in the system. So how do we fix
this imbalance? We cannot unwind
integration any more than we can stuff technology
back into a box. Nor can we look to failed
models of the past. If we start resorting
to trade wars, market distorting subsidies,
beggar thy neighbor policies, an overreliance
on natural resources instead of innovation --
these approaches will make us poorer, collectively,
and they are more like to lead to conflict. And the stark contrast
between, say, the success of the Republic of Korea
and the wasteland of North Korea shows that central,
planned control of the economy is a dead end. But I do believe there's
another path -- one that fuels growth and
innovation, and offers the clearest route to
individual opportunity and national success. It does not require
succumbing to a soulless capitalism that benefits
only the few, but rather recognizes that economies
are more successful when we close the gap between
rich and poor, and growth is broadly based. And that means respecting
the rights of workers so they can organize into
independent unions and earn a living wage. It means investing in our
people -- their skills, their education, their
capacity to take an idea and turn it
into a business. It means strengthening the
safety net that protects our people from hardship
and allows them to take more risks -- to look for
a new job, or start a new venture. These are the policies
that I've pursued here in the United States, and
with clear results. American businesses have
created now 15 million new jobs. After the recession,
the top one percent of Americans were capturing
more than 90 percent of income growth. But today, that's
down to about half. Last year, poverty in
this country fell at the fastest rate in
nearly 50 years. And with further
investment in infrastructure and early
childhood education and basic research, I'm
confident that such progress will continue. So just as I've pursued
these measures here at home, so has the United
States worked with many nations to curb the
excesses of capitalism -- not to punish wealth, but
to prevent repeated crises that can destroy it. That's why we've worked
with other nations to create higher and clearer
standards for banking and taxation -- because a
society that asks less of oligarchs than ordinary
citizens will rot from within. That's why we've pushed
for transparency and cooperation in rooting out
corruption, and tracking illicit dollars, because
markets create more jobs when they're fueled by
hard work, and not the capacity to
extort a bribe. That's why we've worked
to reach trade agreements that raise labor standards
and raise environmental standards, as we've done
with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, so that the
benefits are more broadly shared. And just as we benefit
by combatting inequality within our countries, I
believe advanced economies still need to do more to
close the gap between rich and poor nations
around the globe. This is difficult
politically. It's difficult to spend
on foreign assistance. But I do not believe
this is charity. For the small fraction of
what we spent at war in Iraq we could support
institutions so that fragile states don't
collapse in the first place, and invest in
emerging economies that become markets
for our goods. It's not just the right
thing to do, it's the smart thing to do. And that's why we need
to follow through on our efforts to combat
climate change. If we don't act boldly,
the bill that could come due will be mass
migrations, and cities submerged and nations
displaced, and food supplies decimated, and
conflicts born of despair. The Paris Agreement gives
us a framework to act, but only if we scale
up our ambition. And there must be a sense
of urgency about bringing the agreement into force,
and helping poorer countries leapfrog
destructive forms of energy. So, for the wealthiest
countries, a Green Climate Fund should only
be the beginning. We need to invest in
research and provide market incentives to
develop new technologies, and then make these
technologies accessible and affordable for
poorer countries. And only then can we
continue lifting all people up from poverty
without condemning our children to a planet
beyond their capacity to repair. So we need new models for
the global marketplace, models that are inclusive
and sustainable. And in the same way, we
need models of governance that are inclusive and
accountable to ordinary people. I recognize not every
country in this hall is going to follow the same
model of governance. I do not think that
America can -- or should -- impose our system
of government on other countries. But there appears to be
growing contest between authoritarianism and
liberalism right now. And I want everybody to
understand, I am not neutral in that contest. I believe in a liberal
political order -- an order built not just
through elections and representative government,
but also through respect for human rights and civil
society, and independent judiciaries and
the rule of law. I know that some
countries, which now recognize the power of
free markets, still reject the model of
free societies. And perhaps those of us
who have been promoting democracy feel somewhat
discouraged since the end of the Cold War, because
we've learned that liberal democracy will not just
wash across the globe in a single wave. It turns out building
accountable institutions is hard work -- the
work of generations. The gains are
often fragile. Sometimes we take one step
forward and then two steps back. In countries held together
by borders drawn by colonial powers, with
ethnic enclaves and tribal divisions, politics and
elections can sometimes appear to be a
zero-sum game. And so, given the
difficulty in forging true democracy in the face of
these pressures, it's no surprise that some argue
the future favors the strongman, a top-down
model, rather than strong, democratic institutions. But I believe this
thinking is wrong. I believe the road of true
democracy remains the better path. I believe that in the 21st
century, economies can only grow to a certain
point until they need to open up -- because
entrepreneurs need to access information in
order to invent; young people need a global
education in order to thrive; independent media
needs to check the abuses of power. Without this evolution,
ultimately expectations of people will not be met;
suppression and stagnation will set in. And history shows that
strongmen are then left with two paths --
permanent crackdown, which sparks strife at home,
or scapegoating enemies abroad, which
can lead to war. Now, I will admit, my
belief that governments serve the individual, and
not the other way around, is shaped by
America's story. Our nation began with a
promise of freedom that applied only to the few. But because of our
democratic Constitution, because of our Bill of
Rights, because of our ideals, ordinary people
were able to organize, and march, and protest, and
ultimately, those ideals won out -- opened doors
for women and minorities and workers in ways that
made our economy more productive and turned our
diversity into a strength; that gave innovators the
chance to transform every area of human endeavor;
that made it possible for someone like me to be
elected President of the United States. So, yes, my views are
shaped by the specific experiences of America,
but I do not think this story is unique
to America. Look at the transformation
that's taken place in countries as different
as Japan and Chile, Indonesia, Botswana. The countries that have
succeeded are ones in which people feel
they have a stake. In Europe, the progress
of those countries in the former Soviet bloc that
embraced democracy stand in clear contrast to
those that did not. After all, the people of
Ukraine did not take to the streets because of
some plot imposed from abroad. They took to the streets
because their leadership was for sale and
they had no recourse. They demanded change
because they saw life get better for people in the
Baltics and in Poland, societies that were more
liberal, and democratic, and open than their own. So those of us who believe
in democracy, we need to speak out forcefully,
because both the facts and history, I believe,
are on our side. That doesn't mean
democracies are without flaws. It does mean that the
cure for what ails our democracies is greater
engagement by our citizens -- not less. Yes, in America, there
is too much money in politics; too much
entrenched partisanship; too little participation
by citizens, in part because of a patchwork of
laws that makes it harder to vote. In Europe, a
well-intentioned Brussels often became too isolated
from the normal push and pull of national politics. Too often, in capitals,
decision-makers have forgotten that democracy
needs to be driven by civic engagement from the
bottom up, not governance by experts from
the top down. And so these are real
problems, and as leaders of democratic governments
make the case for democracy abroad, we
better strive harder to set a better
example at home. Moreover, every country
will organize its government informed by
centuries of history, and the circumstances of
geography, and the deeply held beliefs
of its people. So I recognize a
traditional society may value unity and cohesion
more than a diverse country like my own, which
was founded upon what, at the time, was a radical
idea -- the idea of the liberty of individual
human beings endowed with certain God-given rights. But that does not mean
that ordinary people in Asia, or Africa, or the
Middle East somehow prefer arbitrary rule that denies
them a voice in the decisions that can
shape their lives. I believe that
spirit is universal. And if any of you doubt
the universality of that desire, listen to the
voices of young people everywhere who call out
for freedom, and dignity, and the opportunity to
control their own lives. This leads me to the third
thing we need to do: We must reject any forms of
fundamentalism, or racism, or a belief in ethnic
superiority that makes our traditional identities
irreconcilable with modernity. Instead we need to embrace
the tolerance that results from respect of
all human beings. It's a truism that global
integration has led to a collision of cultures;
trade, migration, the Internet, all these things
can challenge and unsettle our most cherished
identities. We see liberal societies
express opposition when women choose to
cover themselves. We see protests responding
to Western newspaper cartoons that caricature
the Prophet Muhammad. In a world that left the
age of empire behind, we see Russia attempting to
recover lost glory through force. Asian powers debate
competing claims of history. And in Europe and the
United States, you see people wrestle with
concerns about immigration and changing demographics,
and suggesting that somehow people who look
different are corrupting the character of
our countries. Now, there's no easy
answer for resolving all these social forces,
and we must respect the meaning that people draw
from their own traditions -- from their religion,
from their ethnicity, from their sense of nationhood. But I do not believe
progress is possible if our desire to preserve our
identities gives way to an impulse to dehumanize or
dominate another group. If our religion leads us
to persecute those of another faith, if we jail
or beat people who are gay, if our traditions
lead us to prevent girls from going to school, if
we discriminate on the basis of race or tribe
or ethnicity, then the fragile bonds of
civilization will fray. The world is too small, we
are too packed together, for us to be able to
resort to those old ways of thinking. We see this mindset in too
many parts of the Middle East. There, so much of the
collapse in order has been fueled because leaders
sought legitimacy not because of policies or
programs but by resorting to persecuting political
opposition, or demonizing other religious sects, by
narrowing the public space to the mosque, where
in too many places perversions of a great
faith were tolerated. These forces built up for
years, and are now at work helping to fuel both
Syria's tragic civil war and the mindless,
medieval menace of ISIL. The mindset of
sectarianism, and extremism, and
bloodletting, and retribution that has been
taking place will not be quickly reversed. And if we are honest,
we understand that no external power is going to
be able to force different religious communities or
ethnic communities to co-exist for long. But I do believe we have
to be honest about the nature of these conflicts,
and our international community must continue to
work with those who seek to build rather
than to destroy. And there is a military
component to that. It means being united and
relentless in destroying networks like ISIL, which
show no respect for human life. But it also means that in
a place like Syria, where there's no ultimate
military victory to be won, we're going to have
to pursue the hard work of diplomacy that aims to
stop the violence, and deliver aid to those in
need, and support those who pursue a political
settlement and can see those who are not like
themselves as worthy of dignity and respect. Across the region's
conflicts, we have to insist that all parties
recognize a common humanity and that nations
end proxy wars that fuel disorder. Because until basic
questions are answered about how communities
co-exist, the embers of extremism will continue
to burn, countless human beings will suffer -- most
of all in that region -- but extremism will
continue to be exported overseas. And the world is too small
for us to simply be able to build a wall and
prevent it from affecting our own societies. And what is true in the
Middle East is true for all of us. Surely, religious
traditions can be honored and upheld while teaching
young people science and math, rather than
intolerance. Surely, we can sustain our
unique traditions while giving women their full
and rightful role in the politics and
economics of a nation. Surely, we can rally our
nations to solidarity while recognizing equal
treatment for all communities -- whether
it's a religious minority in Myanmar, or an ethnic
minority in Burundi, or a racial minority right here
in the United States. And surely, Israelis and
Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians
reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy
of Israel, but Israel recognizes that it cannot
permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land. We all have to do better
as leaders in tamping down, rather than
encouraging, a notion of identity that leads
us to diminish others. And this leads me to the
fourth and final thing we need to do, and that is
sustain our commitment to international cooperation
rooted in the rights and responsibilities
of nations. As President of the United
States, I know that for most of human history,
power has not been unipolar. The end of the Cold War
may have led too many to forget this truth. I've noticed as President
that at times, both America's adversaries and
some of our allies believe that all problems
were either caused by Washington or could be
solved by Washington -- and perhaps too many in
Washington believed that as well. (laughter) But I believe America has
been a rare superpower in human history insofar as
it has been willing to think beyond narrow
self-interest; that while we've made our share of
mistakes over these last 25 years -- and I've
acknowledged some -- we have strived, sometimes at
great sacrifice, to align better our actions
with our ideals. And as a consequence, I
believe we have been a force for good. We have secured allies. We've acted to protect
the vulnerable. We supported human rights
and welcomed scrutiny of our own actions. We've bound our power to
international laws and institutions. When we've made mistakes,
we've tried to acknowledge them. We have worked to roll
back poverty and hunger and disease beyond our
borders, not just within our borders. I'm proud of that. But I also know that we
can't do this alone. And I believe that
if we're to meet the challenges of this
century, we are all going to have to do more to
build up international capacity. We cannot escape the
prospect of nuclear war unless we all commit to
stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and
pursuing a world without them. When Iran agrees to accept
constraints on its nuclear program that enhances
global security and enhances Iran's ability to
work with other nations. On the other hand, when
North Korea tests a bomb that endangers all of us. And any country that
breaks this basic bargain must face consequences. And those nations with
these weapons, like the United States, have a
unique responsibility to pursue the path of
reducing our stockpiles, and reaffirming basic
norms like the commitment to never test them again. We can't combat a disease
like Zika that recognizes no borders -- mosquitos
don't respect walls -- unless we make permanent
the same urgency that we brought to bear against
Ebola -- by strengthening our own systems of public
health, by investing in cures and rolling back the
root causes of disease, and helping poorer
countries develop a public health infrastructure. We can only eliminate
extreme poverty if the sustainable development
goals that we have set are more than words on paper. Human ingenuity now gives
us the capacity to feed the hungry and give all of
our children -- including our girls -- the education
that is the foundation for opportunity in our world. But we have to put our
money where our mouths are. And we can only realize
the promise of this institution's founding --
to replace the ravages of war with cooperation -- if
powerful nations like my own accept constraints. Sometimes I'm criticized
in my own country for professing a belief in
international norms and multilateral institutions. But I am convinced that in
the long run, giving up some freedom of action --
not giving up our ability to protect ourselves or
pursue our core interests, but binding ourselves to
international rules over the long term --
enhances our security. And I think that's
not just true for us. If Russia continues to
interfere in the affairs of its neighbors, it may
be popular at home, it may fuel nationalist fervor
for a time, but over time it is also going to
diminish its stature and make its borders
less secure. In the South China Sea,
a peaceful resolution of disputes offered by law
will mean far greater stability than the
militarization of a few rocks and reefs. We are all stakeholders in
this international system, and it calls upon all
of us to invest in the success of institutions
to which we belong. And the good news is, is
that many nations have shown what kind of
progress is possible when we make those commitments. Consider what we've
accomplished here over the past few years. Together, we mobilized
some 50,000 additional troops for U.N. peacekeeping, making them
nimble, better equipped, better prepared to
deal with emergencies. Together, we established
an Open Government Partnership so that,
increasingly, transparency empowers more and more
people around the globe. And together, now, we have
to open our hearts and do more to help refugees who
are desperate for a home. We should all welcome
the pledges of increased assistance that have been
made at this General Assembly gathering. I'll be discussing that
more this afternoon. But we have to follow
through, even when the politics are hard. Because in the eyes of
innocent men and women and children who, through no
fault of their own, have had to flee everything
that they know, everything that they love, we have to
have the empathy to see ourselves. We have to imagine what
it would be like for our family, for our children,
if the unspeakable happened to us. And we should all
understand that, ultimately, our world will
be more secure if we are prepared to help those in
need and the nations who are carrying the largest
burden with respect to accommodating
these refugees. There are a lot of nations
right now that are doing the right thing. But many nations --
particularly those blessed with wealth and the
benefits of geography -- that can do more to offer
a hand, even if they also insist that refugees who
come to our countries have to do more to adapt to the
customs and conventions of the communities that are
now providing them a home. Let me conclude by saying
that I recognize history tells a different story
than the one that I've talked about here today. There's a much darker
and more cynical view of history that we can adopt. Human beings are too often
motivated by greed and by power. Big countries for most
of history have pushed smaller ones around. Tribes and ethnic groups
and nation states have very often found it most
convenient to define themselves by what they
hate and not just those ideas that bind
them together. Time and again, human
beings have believed that they finally arrived at a
period of enlightenment only to repeat, then,
cycles of conflict and suffering. Perhaps that's our fate. We have to remember that
the choices of individual human beings led to
repeated world war. But we also have to
remember that the choices of individual human beings
created a United Nations, so that a war like that
would never happen again. Each of us as leaders,
each nation can choose to reject those who appeal
to our worst impulses and embrace those who
appeal to our best. For we have shown that
we can choose a better history. Sitting in a prison cell,
a young Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that,
"Human progress never rolls on the wheels of
inevitability; it comes through the tireless
efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God." And during the course of
these eight years, as I've traveled to many of your
nations, I have seen that spirit in our young
people, who are more educated and more
tolerant, and more inclusive and more
diverse, and more creative than our generation; who
are more empathetic and compassionate towards
their fellow human beings than previous generations. And, yes, some of that
comes with the idealism of youth. But it also comes with
young people's access to information about other
peoples and places -- an understanding unique in
human history that their future is bound with the
fates of other human beings on the other
side of the world. I think of the thousands
of health care workers from around the world
who volunteered to fight Ebola. I remember the young
entrepreneurs I met who are now starting new
businesses in Cuba, the parliamentarians who used
to be just a few years ago political prisoners
in Myanmar. I think of the girls who
have braved taunts or violence just to go to
school in Afghanistan, and the university students
who started programs online to reject the
extremism of organizations like ISIL. I draw strength from
the young Americans -- entrepreneurs, activists,
soldiers, new citizens -- who are remaking our
nation once again, who are unconstrained by
old habits and old conventions, and
unencumbered by what is, but are instead ready to
seize what ought to be. My own family is a made up
of the flesh and blood and traditions and cultures
and faiths from a lot of different parts of the
world -- just as America has been built by
immigrants from every shore. And in my own life in this country, and as President, I have learned
that our identities do not have to be defined by
putting someone else down, but can be enhanced by
lifting somebody else up. They don't have to be
defined in opposition to others, but rather by a
belief in liberty and equality and justice
and fairness. And the embrace of these
principles as universal doesn't weaken my
particular pride, my particular love for
America -- it strengthens it. My belief that these
ideals apply everywhere doesn't lessen my
commitment to help those who look like me, or
pray as I do, or pledge allegiance to my flag. But my faith in those
principles does force me to expand my moral
imagination and to recognize that I can best
serve my own people, I can best look after my own
daughters, by making sure that my actions seek what
is right for all people and all children, and your
daughters and your sons. This is what I believe:
that all of us can be co-workers with God. And our leadership, and
our governments, and this United Nations should
reflect this irreducible truth. Thank you very much. (applause)
