Obama, Barack: The Audacity of Hope. Text Publishing Co., 2008. ISBN: 9781921351365
President Barack Obama has sketched a vision of social renewal in the United States. It overlaps very closely in many areas with Catholic and more broadly Christian social thought. In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, he stresses the notions of the common good, of social justice and of equality of opportunity, along with individual responsibility.
Few US presidents have revealed so much before their election about their own personal lives and aspirations for social change as has President Barack Hussein Obama. His Audacity of Hope is an extraordinary account of how he has thought through many of the negative aspects of American public life and policies, especially of race and inequality, and what needs to be done to renew and change America for the better.
This book complements his earlier more personal account of his life and struggles in Dreams of My Father. But it focuses much more on public policy issues. Writing clearly and powerfully, Obama sketches a moral vision of the future, and calls on the US to recommit itself to 'a set of ideals that continue to stir our collective conscience; a common set of values that bind us together despite our differences'.
Obama is of course appalled by past racism, but also by the failure of the Bush Administration to address social inequality and the entrenched poverty of many working class Americans and immigrants. He laments the redistribution of wealth to the financial elites, as well as the reckless adventurism and deceit in the Iraq war.
Americans, he writes, 'are weary of the dead zone that politics has become, in which narrow interests vie for advantage and ideological minorities seek to impose their own versions of absolute truth'.
He writes with passion: 'I am angry about policies that consistently favour the wealthy and powerful over average Americans, and insist that government has an important role in opening up opportunity to all. I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry and global warming.'
Even before the financial meltdown, Obama denounced the 'ethic of greed' and materialism in US culture, and their effects on government, finance and public policy. 'In 1960, the average CEO made 42 times what an average hourly worker took home. By 2005, the ratio was 262 to 1. Between 1971 and 2001, average workers received