克林顿第二次就职演说

1 / 31 克林顿第二次就职演说 January 20, 1993, Inaugural Address of William J. Clinton My fellow citizens : Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal. 今天，我们庆祝振兴美国这件令人感到异常惊奇的事。 This ceremony is held in the depth of winter. But, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring. A spring reborn in the worlds oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America. 尽管这个仪式在隆冬举行，但是，我们所说的话，我们向全世界所显示的面貌，将促使春天的早日来临。春天重新降临到这个世界上最古 老的民主国家，它给我们带来了重新塑造美国的构想和勇气。 When our founders boldly declared Americas independence to the world and our purposes to the Almighty, they knew that America, to endure, would have to change. Not change for changes sake, but change to preserve Americas ideals; life, liberty, the pursuit 2 / 31 of happiness. Though we march to the music of our time, our mission is timeless. Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be an American. 当我们的缔造者们大胆地向全世界宣布美国的独立，向上帝宣布我们的目的时，他们知道，美国要长久地存在下去，就必须改革 。我们不是为改革而改革，而是为了保持美国的理想 生活、自由和追求幸福。虽然我们伴随着时代的乐曲前进，我们的使命却是永恒的。每一代美国人都必须明确作为一个美国人意味着什么。 On behalf of our nation, I salute my predecessor, President Bush, for his half-century of service to America. And I thank the millions of men and women whose steadfastness and sacrifice triumphed over Depression, fascism and Communism. 我的前任布什总统为美国服务了半个世纪，在此，我代表我们的国家向他致以崇高的敬意。 Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War assumes new responsibilities in a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom but threatened still by ancient hatreds and new plagues. 我还要向千百万人民表示感谢，他们以坚定的信念3 / 31 和牺牲战胜了经济萧条、法西斯主义。今天，在冷战的阴影下成长起来的一代人在世界上已肩负起新的责任。这个世界虽然沐浴在自由的阳光下，但仍然面临着旧的仇恨和新的灾祸的威胁。 Raised in uivaled prosperity, we inherit an economy that is still the worlds strongest, but is weakened by business failures, stagnant wages, increasing inequality, and deep divisions among our people. 我们在无与伦比的繁荣中成长，继承了一个仍然是世界上最强大经济，但是，商业失败、工资停滞、不平等加剧，以及我们自己的人民四分五裂，削弱了这个经济。 When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to uphold, news traveled slowly across the land by horseback and across the ocean by boat. Now, the sights and sounds of this ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to billions around the world. 当乔治华盛顿第一次发出我刚才宣誓信守的誓言时，消息缓慢地通 过骑马传遍大陆和乘船漂洋过海。而今，这个仪式的情景和声音可以立即向全世界数十亿人广播。 Communications and commerce are global; investment is mobile; technology is almost magical; and 4 / 31 ambition for a better life is now universal. We earn our livelihood in peaceful competition with people all across the earth. 通讯和商业是全球性的，投资是流动性的，技术几乎是神秘的，而要求改善生活的强烈愿望是全世界人民共同的。今天，我们美国人是和全世界人民在和平竞争中谋求我们的生计。 Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world, and the urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy. 各种根深蒂固和强大的势力正在动摇和重新塑造我们的世界。我们时代迫切需要解决的问题是，我们能否使改革成为我们的朋友，而不是我们的敌人。 This new world has already eiched the lives of millions of Americans who are able to compete and win in it. But when most people are working harder for less; when others cannot work at all; when the cost of health care devastates families and threatens to bankrupt many of our enterprises, great and small; when fear of crime robs law-abiding citizens of their freedom; and when millions of poor children cannot even imagine 5 / 31 the lives we are calling them to lead, we have not made change our friend. 尽管这个新的世界已经使千百万能够在其中竞争并取胜的美国人富裕起来了，但是，在大多数人更加拼命地工作而收入却在减少的时候，在还有人根本找不到工作的时候，在卫生保健费用使许多人倾家荡产、使大大小小的企业行将倒闭的时候，在恐惧犯罪而使奉公守法的公民丧失自由的时候，在千百万贫困儿童甚至难以想象我们正召唤他们去过的那种生活的时候，我们却还没有使改革成为我们的朋友。 We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps. But we have not done so. Instead, we have drifted, and that drifting has eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our confidence. 我们知道，我们必须正视严酷的现实并且采取有力的措施，但是，我们没有这样做。相反，我们所奉行的是放任自流的政策，这种政策已经削弱了我们的力量，破坏了我们的经济，动摇了我们的信心。 Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. And Americans have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people. We must bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came before us. 6 / 31 虽然我们的挑战是可畏的，但我们的力量也是可畏的。美国人民从来就是一个不甘寂寞、勇于探索和充满希望的人民。我们必须使我们今天的 任务体现我们前人的远见和意志。 From our revolution, the Civil War, to the Great Depression to the civil rights movement, our people have always mustered the determination to construct from these crises the pillars of our history. 从美国革命到南北战争，到大萧条，到民权运动，我们的人民 总是下定决心，从这些危机中摆脱出来去建立我们历史的支柱。 Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of our nation, we would need dramatic change from time to time. Well, my fellow citizens, this is our time. Let us embrace it. 托马斯杰斐逊认为，要保持我们国家的基础，我们就需要不时地进行改革。同胞们，这是我们的时代，让我们去拥抱它。 Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. 7 / 31 我们的民主制度不仅要为全世界所仰慕，还必须成为我们自我振兴的发动机。 美国完全有能力自己解救自己。 And so today, we pledge an end to the era of deadlock and drift; a new season of American renewal has begun. To renew America, we must be bold. We must do what no generation has had to do before. We must invest more in our own people, in their jobs, in their future, and at the same time cut our massive debt. And we must do so in a world in which we must compete for every opportunity. It will not be easy; it will require sacrifice. But it can be done, and done fairly, not choosing sacrifice for its own sake, but for our own sake. We must provide for our nation the way a family provides for its children. 因此，今天我们决心结束这个僵持停顿和放任自流的时代。一个振兴美国的新时代已经到来。要振兴美国，我们必须有足够的勇气和胆量。我们必须对自己的人民 对他们的工作和对他们的未来 增加投资，同时削减我们的巨额债务。在一个我们必须靠竞争才能获得每个机会的世界上，我们一定要这样做。虽然，这不是一件轻而易举的事，它需要作出牺牲。但是，我们能够做到，而且能够做得很好。8 / 31 我们不是为了牺牲而牺牲，而是为我们自己的利益而牺牲。我们必须像一个家庭抚育它的孩子那样抚育我们的国家。 Our Founders saw themselves in the light of posterity. We can do no less. Anyone who has ever watched a childs eyes wander into sleep knows what posterity is. Posterity is the world to come; the world for whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and to whom we bear sacred responsibility. We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all and demand responsibility from all. 我们的缔造者们是从子孙后代的角度来审视他们自己的行为。我们也必须这样做。任何曾经注意过孩子的双眼朦胧进入梦乡的人，都知道后代是什么。后代是未来的世界。为了他们，我们满怀理想。从他们那里，我们借用了这块地球，对他们，我们负有神圣的责任。我们必须尽美国之所能：向所有人提供更多的机会，要求所有人承担更多的责任。 It is time to break the bad habit of expecting something for nothing, from our government or from each other. Let us all take more responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our communities and our country. To renew America, we must revitalize 9 / 31 our democracy. 现在，已经到了该破除那种只望政府或别人给予，而自己不愿付出的坏习惯的时候了。让我们大家都担负起更多的责任，不光是为我们自己和我们 的家庭，而且是我们的社会和我们的国家。为振兴美国，我们必须给我们的民主制度带来新的活力。 This beautiful capital, like every capital since the dawn of civilization, is often a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way. 这个美丽的首都，就像文明出现以来的所有首都一样，往往是一个搞阴谋诡计和勾心斗角的地方。达官贵族们玩弄权术、争名夺利，随时都在担心谁进谁出、谁升谁降，忘记了那些用辛勤和汗水把我们送到这里，并为我们承担费用的人。 Americans deserve better, and in this city today, there are people who want to do better. And so I say to all of us here, let us resolve to reform our politics, so that power and privilege no longer shout down the 10 / 31 voice of the people. Let us put aside personal advantage so that we can feel the pain and see the promise of America. Let us resolve to make our government a place for what Franklin Roosevelt called bold, persistent experimentation, a government for our tomorrows, not our yesterdays. Let us give this capital back to the people to whom it belongs. 美国人应当生活得更好。今天，在这座城市里，人们希望把事情办得更好。所以，我要向在场的诸位说，让我们下定决心改革我们的政治，使人民的呼声不再被权力和特权所压倒。让我们抛开个人利益，这样，我们便能感受到美国的痛苦，也看到美国的希望。让我们下定决心，使我们的政府成为一个富兰克林罗斯福所说的，进行“大胆而持久的实验”的地方，即是说，成为一个着眼于未来，而不是留恋过去的政府。让我们把这个首都还给她所属的人民。 To renew America, we must meet challenges abroad as well at home. There is no longer division between what is foreign and what is domestic; the world economy, the world environment, the world AIDS crisis, the world arms race; they affect us all. 为了振兴美国，我们必须迎接来自国内、 国外的种种挑战。在什么是国外和什么是国内之间已不再有明确的界11 / 31 线。全球经济、全球环境、全球艾滋病危机和全球军备竞赛，这一切影响着所有的人。 Today, as an old order passes, the new world is more free but less stable. Communisms collapse has called forth old animosities and new dangers. Clearly America must continue to lead the world we did so much to make. 今天，随着旧秩序被打破，新的世界更加自由，但又更加不稳定。共产主义的崩溃激起了旧的仇恨和新的危险。显然，美国必须继续领导这个我们曾经付出巨大努力而创造的世界。 While America rebuilds at home, we will not shrink from the challenges, nor fail to seize the opportunities, of this new world. Together with our friends and allies, we will work to shape change, lest it engulf us. My fellow citizens: At this last presidential inauguration of the 20th century, let us lift our eyes toward the challenges that await us in the next century. It is our great good fortune that time and chance have put us not only at the edge of a new century, in a new millennium, but on 12 / 31 the edge of a bright new prospect in human affairs - a moment that will define our course, and our character, for decades to come. We must keep our old democracy forever young. Guided by the ancient vision of a promised land, let us set our sights upon a land of new promise. The promise of America was born in the 18th century out of the bold conviction that we are all created equal. It was extended and preserved in the 19th century, when our nation spread across the continent, saved the union, and abolished the awful scourge of slavery. Then, in turmoil and triumph, that promise exploded onto the world stage to make this the American Century. And what a century it has been. America became the world s mightiest industrial power; saved the world from tyranny in two world wars and a long cold war; and time and again, reached out across the globe to millions who, like us, longed for the blessings of liberty. Along the way, Americans produced a great middle class and security in old age; built uivaled centers of learning and opened public schools to all; split the 13 / 31 atom and explored the heavens; invented the computer and the microchip; and deepened the wellspring of justice by making a revolution in civil rights for African Americans and all minorities, and extending the circle of citizenship, opportunity and dignity to women. Now, for the third time, a new century is upon us, and another time to choose. We began the 19th century with a choice, to spread our nation from coast to coast. We began the 20th century with a choice, to harness the Industrial Revolution to our values of free enterprise, conservation, and human decency. Those choices made all the difference. At the dawn of the 21st century a free people must now choose to shape the forces of the Information Age and the global society, to unleash the limitless potential of all our people, and, yes, to form a more perfect union. When last we gathered, our march to this new future seemed less certain than it does today. We vowed then to set a clear course to renew our nation. In these four years, we have been touched by tragedy, exhilarated by challenge, strengthened by achievement. America 14 / 31 stands alone as the world s in “克林顿总统第二次就职演说”版权归作者所有；转载请注明出处 ! dispensable nation. Once again, our economy is the strongest on Earth. Once again, we are building stronger families, thriving communities, better educational opportunities, a cleaner environment. Problems that once seemed destined to deepen now bend to our efforts: our streets are safer and record numbers of our fellow citizens have moved from welfare to work. And once again, we have resolved for our time a great debate over the role of government. Today we can declare: Government is not the problem, and government is not the solution. We - the American people - we are the solution. Our founders understood that well and gave us a democracy strong enough to endure for centuries, flexible enough to face our common challenges and advance our common dreams in each new day. As times change, so government must change. We need a new government for a new century - humble enough not to try to solve all our problems for us, but strong enough to give us the tools to solve our problems 15 / 31 for ourselves; a government that is smaller, lives within its means, and does more with less. Yet where it can stand up for our values and interests in the world, and where it can give Americans the power to make a real difference in their everyday lives, government should do more, not less. The preeminent mission of our new government is to give all Americans an opportunity - not a guarantee, but a real opportunity - to build better lives. Beyond that, my fellow citizens, the future is up to us. Our founders taught us that the preservation of our liberty and our union depends upon responsible citizenship. And we need a new sense of responsibility for a new century. There is work to do, work that government alone cannot do: teaching children to read; hiring people off welfare rolls; coming out from behind locked doors and shuttered windows to help reclaim our streets from drugs and gangs and crime; taking time out of our own lives to serve others. Each and every one of us, in our own way, must assume personal responsibility - not only for ourselves and our 16 / 31 families, but for our neighbors and our nation. Our greatest responsibility is to embrace a new spirit of community for a new century. For any one of us to succeed, we must succeed as one America. The challenge of our past remains the challenge of our future - will we be one nation, one people, with one common destiny, or not? Will we all come together, or come apart? The divide of race has been America s constant curse. And each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction are no different. These forces have nearly destro ? The Second Inaugural Address by Bill Clinton January 20, 1997 My fellow citizens : At this last presidential inauguration of the 20th century, let us lift our eyes toward the challenges that await us in the next century. It is our great good fortune that time and chance have put us not only at the edge of a new century, in a new millennium, but on 17 / 31 the edge of a bright new prospect in human affairs, a moment that will define our course, and our character, for decades to come. We must keep our old democracy forever young. Guided by the ancient vision of a promised land, let us set our sights upon a land of new promise. The promise of America was born in the 18th century out of the bold conviction that we are all created equal. It was extended and preserved in the 19th century, when our nation spread across the continent, saved the union, and abolished the awful scourge of slavery. Then, in turmoil and triumph, that promise exploded onto the world stage to make this the American Century. And what a century it has been. America became the worlds mightiest industrial power; saved the world from tyranny in two world wars and a long cold war; and time and again, reached out across the globe to millions who, like us, longed for the blessings of liberty. Along the way, Americans produced a great middle class and security in old age; built uivaled centers 18 / 31 of learning and opened public schools to all; split the atom and explored the heavens; invented the computer and the microchip; and deepened the wellspring of justice by making a revolution in civil rights for African Americans and all minorities, and extending the circle of citizenship, opportunity and dignity to women. Now, for the third time, a new century is upon us, and another time to choose. We began the 19th century with a choice, to spread our nation from coast to coast. We began the 20th century with a choice, to harness the Industrial Revolution to our values of free enterprise, conservation, and human decency. Those choices made all the difference. At the dawn of the 21st century a free people must now choose to shape the forces of the Information Age and the global society, to unleash the limitless potential of all our people, and, yes, to form a more perfect union. When last we gathered, our march to this new future seemed less certain than it does today. We vowed then to set a clear course to renew our nation. In these four years, we have been touched by 19 / 31 tragedy, exhilarated by challenge, strengthened by achievement. America stands alone as the worlds indispensable nation. Once again, our economy is the strongest on Earth. Once again, we are building stronger families, thriving communities, better educational opportunities, a cleaner environment. Problems that once seemed destined to deepen now bend to our efforts: our streets are safer and record numbers of our fellow citizens have moved from welfare to work. And once again, we have resolved for our time a great debate over the role of government. Today we can declare: Government is not the problem, and government is not the solution. We,- the American people, we are the solution. Our founders understood that well and gave us a democracy strong enough to endure for centuries, flexible enough to face our common challenges and advance our common dreams in each new day. As times change, so government must change. We need a new government for a new century - humble enough not to try to solve all our problems for us, but strong enough to give us the tools to solve our problems for 20 / 31 ourselves; a government that is smaller, lives within its means, and does more with less. Yet where it can stand up for our values and interests in the world, and where it can give Americans the power to make a real difference in their everyday lives, government should do more, not less. The preeminent mission of our new government is to give all Americans an opportu