Now get out there and vote Democrat.
Via Yale News:
The first thing former Secretary of State John Kerry ’66 did when the Obama administration was over was to join the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., he told a capacity crowd in Yale Law School’s Levinson Auditorium on April 27.
There, he said, he witnessed an “astounding” energy and sense of possibility, and it is one of the reasons he feels optimistic about the future of the United States, despite some grave concerns facing the country. Among these, he noted, are the rapid transformation of the workforce, governmental claims of “alternative facts,” and such global threats to security as extremism, terrorism, climate change, the Syrian war, and North Korea’s nuclear capabilities.
He urged members of his audience — the majority of whom were students — to devote their own energy toward being politically and civically engaged, protesting if necessary, and using their voices and vote to hold government leaders accountable.
Kerry’s talk was the inaugural event of the Kerry Initiative, an interdisciplinary program that the Yale alumnus and statesman will oversee as the Distinguished Fellow for Global Affairs at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Through the initiative, which officially gets underway next fall, Kerry will partner with scholars from across Yale to research and discuss issues of global importance, and will also lead a student seminar and host conversations with global stakeholders to develop new approaches to solving problems.
Before taking questions from the audience, Kerry spoke briefly about a range of topics, including the importance to democracy of individual engagement and commitment. He said that he continues to believe that individuals can and do make a difference in the world.
Pointing to such world events as the “wrenching and horrible” situation in Syria, Kerry said this is hardly the first time that the world has been rocked by large-scale violence and war. His own days as a Yale undergraduate were filled with political crises and strife, he noted, pointing out that the Cuban missile crisis took place in his freshman year; John F. Kennedy was assassinated in his sophomore year; the “Bloody Sunday” demonstration over African American voting rights took place in Selma, Alabama, during his junior year; and in his senior year, Vietnam forced students to decide between going to graduate school, serving in the military, or moving to Canada to avoid the draft.[…]
Iran nuclear deal: “Iran had 12,000 kilograms of enriched nuclear material. It needed to go to another level of enrichment to make a bomb. It had a big infrastructure devoted to that effort. … Now with the deal, {Iran has] a limited stockpile of enriched material of 300 kilograms. For 15 years, we are tracing daily every activity by television cameras and inspections of their centrifuges. We have 130 additional people on the ground in Iran inspecting their facilities.
“Are we better off giving them the 15 years and letting the world see that we’re willing to try to negotiate a reasonable approach to nuclear power and that we’re prepared to have reasonable inspection, or do we want to go bomb them today because we want to bomb them today? I know what I think the answer to that is,” said Kerry. “I think most Americans think we ought be wise and play this out.”
HT: TAH