Obama Tells Holocaust Survivors: My Power Does Has Limits (Video)

President Obama in the Oval Office
President Obama in the Oval Office

 
Last night, President Obama was on hand to receive the USC Shoah Foundation‘s Ambassador of Humanity Award at a gala event to celebrate the foundation’s 20th anniversary. Steven Spielberg organized the Shoah Foundation as a follow-up to “Schindler’s List.” It originally aimed to maintain an audio-visual archive of Holocaust survivors, but has expanded its focus to other genocides as well. Obama used his speech to reflect on what he sees as the limits on what his office can do.

Obama told an audience made up mostly of Holocaust survivors, foundation supporters and students that those in positions of power can’t be the only ones to stop atrocities around the world. He said that every day, he thinks about situations like “young girls in Nigeria or children caught up in the conflict in Syria,” and almost immediately wonders “what levers, what power do we have at any given moment.” It seems to me that Obama was not only speaking his mind, but delivering a backhanded jab at those who have been claiming that the president harbors ambitions of being a dictator–talk which has grown to a fever pitch since the State of the Union address. For those who missed it, this is what Obama actually said in that speech:

“(W)hat I offer tonight is a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class. Some require congressional action, and I’m eager to work with all of you. But America does not stand still, and neither will I. So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Obama then said — rightly — that winding down bigotry and hatred is one thing a president can’t do alone. Rather, it takes people like holocaust survivors and their supporters, since they “empower those of us in positions of power.” And he sounds like he needs that inspiration and then some, since he said that the best path to stopping humanitarian abuses isn’t always clear — not exactly the sentiments of a dictator.


Darrell Lucus.jpg Darrell Lucus is a radical lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.

 

 

 

Edited by DH.

 

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.