June 25-Today, the human species, of which you and I and all of us are members, is presented with perhaps the greatest turning point in human history. A moment of great change-change which will affect the lives of each one of us-stands before us. Greater than you would dare imagine. This is not an exaggeration. It is right in front of us. As this is being written, nations and peoples from every corner of the world are coming together around the vision of a New Paradigm for peace, cooperation and economic development. This already involves more than one-half of the human race. The conditions of life for hundreds of millions of people are being uplifted. Water projects, energy projects, transportation projects, schools, hospitals and other modern facilities are being built all over the world. Despair is being replaced by hope, and people's lives are being changed for the better. The driving force behind this dynamic is the China-created Belt and Road Initiative. Please, don't be stupid enough to fall for the line that "China is trying to take over the world." China is doing precisely what America used to do; it is building great projects. The many, many sovereign nations that have joined with China in these efforts, have done so as partners, not underlings, and these construction projects have created millions of jobs and great opportunities. We, in the United States-as well as the people of Europe-could join this effort. We could begin building too. The door is wide open. Yet, most Americans take little or no notice of any of this. It is as if it didn't exist. Almost no one talks about it. Some might blame this failure to recognize what is right in front of us on the lying news media, others on the dismal state of public education. Others, still, might once again resurrect the overused outrage about "corrupt politicians in Washington." None of this is particularly useful, or even true. The problem is not that "someone out there" is "keeping us in the dark" about these great developments. No one is forcing ignorance and apathy upon us. We are doing it to ourselves. You see, we have a problem. We now have a world situation which is the most hopeful, and with the greatest potential for human advancement, than at any time since the assassination of John F. Kennedy, now 55 years ago. This is actually the greatest moment of your entire lifetime. What transpires in the weeks ahead will affect the future for all of us. It will affect your future, and the future of your children. Yet, the majority of our people do not recognize the existence of this stupendous opportunity.
The problem we are dealing with, the enemy we face, is not in Washington, or London, or Beijing, or Moscow, or in the news media. It is not "out there." It is, as Shakespeare insisted, in ourselves. We have a great enemy, but it is not one that most people recognize. The enemy is our culture. Not someone else's culture: our culture!-that which defines how we think, what we believe, and what we attach our emotions to. Culture is not something "external" to who we are. From the moment we are born, to our last day on earth, we breathe in the spores of this culture. It shapes everything about us; and even if you rebel, and begin to denounce the flagrant degeneracy of what flows from Hollywood or San Francisco, the cultural octopus defines what you think can be done about it. We are all part of the culture, and the axioms of the culture determine how we think about what is possible.