This whole week, I’ve been reflecting on this idea of grace. The grace of the families who lost loved ones. The grace that Reverend Pinckney would pr… - Barack Obama

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort - a sustained effort - to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

We’re here because we believe that humanity can bridge our differences and make better choices, that we can see each other and listen to each other, and imagine each other’s hardships and pain, and that this better future is most likely to happen under democratic systems of government, democracies in which everyone’s dignity is recognized, where the rule of law and human rights are respected by everybody, where people have a voice in how they’re governed, where we all have a stake in maintaining the social order, and where we can disagree with each other, sometimes bitterly, without losing sight of the ties that bind us together. That’s why we’re here. That’s the work you’re doing. And if we’re right, that a renewed commitment to democracy is a key ingredient to solving all our other big challenges. And we have so much more work to do. Because right now, we’re up against a set of economic and technological and cultural trends that are sweeping across the globe, and they’re weakening people’s commitment to democratic values. And they are promoting violence, and domination. And they’re making us blind to each other. And they’re making us cynical about our capacity to work together and govern ourselves.

I wanted to update the American people on what we know about the situation in Japan, what we’re doing to support American citizens and the safety of our own nuclear energy, and how we are helping the Japanese people contain the damage, recover and rebuild.