ReGeneration Page #8

relates to this child's life

then you have something there.

Last month we had one of

our own Eagan graduates,

Daniel Olsen of the class of 2005,

pass away.

To end this show this week

we present you with 52 servicemen

and women from Minnesota

who have given their lives over seas

so that others may experience

the freedoms we enjoy.

Thank you for joining us today.

It's time for us to look at ourselves

in the mirror.

I think that were going to have

to have another cultural revolution

of a magnitude of the cultural revolution

that we experienced in the 1960s,

but one which is going to return to...

a more modest

or a more disciplined

No, a more sustainable definition

of what freedom is.

Sustainability is to be made

by each of us.

From recycling, to the clothes you buy,

to where you shop, to eat locally.

To being aware of where your dollar

goes and how its used.

It takes everybody

putting in a little effort,

and you might not see the effort

that you put in pay off,

but it will in fact pay off someday

down the road,

because it always has.

The big major issues of humanity

have always been overcome

throughout time through small words

of mouth and through small

ideas that became bigger ones

because they touched

principles and values that we all share.

A year ago in assuming the task

of the Presidency,

I said that few generations

in all history

had been granted the role

of being the great defender of freedom

in its hour of maximum danger.

This is our good fortune.

Cultural revolutions have always

been driven by some sort of a rage

the wells up in people.

And now, in this information age of ours,

we have to find a new kind of rage

and a new kind of movement.

The ecological crisis, the psychological

crisis, and the political crisis.

The three biggest crises that exist

within this human experiment of ours

on planet earth right now,

these are problems that we,

the rich people, have largely created.

We have to face that unflinchingly

and once we've faced that unflinchingly,

that will change us.

We can't talk about addressing the

corruption in people and in the world,

if we ain't addressing

the corruption in ourselves.

You see what I'm saying?

Don't pay attention to these stupid MCs

talking about they're players.

The real players got smart bombs.

You see? And when they wanna play,

its no more game.

That's the real deal.

So if we're gonna do this or

were gonna be doing this,

it ain't worth it if were gonna be up

here talking about

how good we are because

none of us is important

unless we're doing

something that's vital.

Everybody got the same amount

of energy in this room.

But who you gonna give it to?

You gonna give it to BET or MTV or Nike,

or whoever the hell else is vying for it?

And I say this because

nobody else says it,

because we think that we're doing

something, we're revolutionary.

We're suckers,

we're suckers, for real.

We gotta get off of that man.

We come here to these places

and its good to feel good, but

we gotta know that we gotta do more.

We ain't doing nothing.

It's young people like you,

all over the world, dying.

Catching a bullet,

Tiananmen Square dudes.

How many of us could have said that

we would have stood in front of

that tank if it was us?

For real,

think about that. I hope I didn't blow

anybody's vibe or high,

but I had to say it.

It was the most overwhelming

feeling in the world.

You're overwhelmed with joy and fear

all those emotions all at once

are circling through your head.

Having a kid is amazing because

everything that you didn't do

or you didn't do well in life,

you hope that you can teach your kid

to do things just a bit differently.

As a young person

who feels disempowered,

who feels what difference can I make?

We're all making a difference,

regardless.

Celebrate the fact

that we live in a country

where freedom does exist.

What we need to do is to create

an environment, through education,

in which a greater proportion of the

population uses its freedom wisely.

But it's not for me to tell you

how you should define freedom.

But I guess I am enough of a scrooge

to say that if all you think freedom is,

is going out on a Saturday night

and drinking Budweiser

and watching professional

football games.

And then heading down to the mall to buy

yet another pair of athletic shoes,

that somehow you're

missing out on something.

We can do better than that.

No matter how lead you've been,

or you consider yourself to have been, or

how indoctrinated or how trained you are.

Given your moral strength and your

own truth, and your own inspiration,

I think you can make a lot

out of this world,

and help some people along the way.

The information is there

and that's coming from someone

who didn't think it was there,

and through just a little bit

of scratching the surface

come to become more confortable with my

understanding of the world

and the things in the world,

and if I can do that

I feel like anybody can

because I was one of the more cynical,

apathetic people.

I think it is a problem that

people are willing to accept things,

but I don't think to chastise or

challenge the people on it is the answer.

So the key is to get

the information out there,

and hold the truth up against the lie.

It's the history of ordinary people

fighting back against sometimes

insurmountable odds to win

progressive change.

And knowing that history,

knowing that we can make a difference,

I think will motivate that 15 year old

not to simply buy things,

but want to think of themselves

as a socially conscious individual

that wants to change the world

in a way that's not just better for them

but better for everyone.

A famous physicist taught at MIT,

and he'd be asked at the begging

of the course,

"What are you going to

cover this semester?"

And his standard answer was,

"It doesn't matter what we cover,

it matters what we discover."

Discover.

Find out who you are,

find your own path.

In fact, its what plenty of people do.

We've been talking about what

the external system tries to impose,

but it doesn't necessarily succeed.

We are a collective

and we have to work together.

You want to talk about

people who are activists

like Martin Luther King,

he was not one voice.

You don't hear about all the people

that were around him,

helping that movement.

I guess it was eight months after

Katrina, we came down here and saw

the destruction first hand and wanted,

like a lot of people in the world,

wanted to know if there was anything

we could do. How could we help?

And to donate in a way that helps

rebuild the lower ninth ward

was one choice for us

to do something that helped.

I think the whole world was touched

by what happened here.

People like you coming back to rebuild

a community on their own.

One of the great things about it is,

I want to make a correction,

is we're not doing it on our own. We're

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