VII: The Hope Pope and his Trilateral Money Machine 277
we stand on, people who battled, not just on behalf of African-Americans but on behalf of all of
America; that battled for America’s soul, that shed blood , that endured taunts and torment and
in some cases gave — torment and in some cases gave the full measure of their devotion. Like
Moses, they challenged Pharaoh, the princes, powers who said that some are atop and others are
at the bottom, and that’s how it’s always going to be. I’m here because somebody marched. I’m
here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants. I thank the Moses
generation; but we’ve got to remember, now, that Joshua still had a job to do. As great as Moses
was, despite all that he did, leading a people out of bondage, he didn’t cross over the river to see
the Promised Land. God told him your job is done. You’ll see it. You’ll be at the mountain top
and you can see what I’ve promised. What I’ve promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. You
will see that I’ve fulfilled that promise but you won’t go there. We’re going to leave it to the
Joshua generation to make sure it happens. There are still battles that need to be fought; some
rivers that need to be crossed. Like Moses, the task was passed on to those who might not have
been as deserving, might not have been as courageous, find themselves in front of the risks that
their parents and grandparents and great grandparents had taken. That doesn’t mean that they
don’t still have a burden to shoulder, that they don’t have some responsibilities. The previous
generation, the Moses generation, pointed the way. They took us 90% of the way there. We still
got that 10% in order to cross over to the other side. So the question, I guess, that I have today
is what’s called of us in this Joshua generation? What do we do in order to fulfill that legacy; to
fulfill the obligations and the debt that we owe to those who allowed us to be here today? Now,
I don’t think we could ever fully repay that debt. Moses told the Joshua generation; don’t forget
where you came from. I worry sometimes, that the Joshua generation in its success forgets
where it came from. Thinks it doesn’t have to make as many sacrifices. Thinks that the very
height of ambition is to make as much money as you can, to drive the biggest car and have the
biggest house and wear a Rolex watch and get your own private jet, get some of that Oprah
money. And I think that’s a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with making money, but if you
know your history, then you know that there is a certain poverty of ambition involved in simply
striving just for money. Materialism alone will not fulfill the possibilities of your existence.
You have to fill that with something else. You have to fill it with the golden rule. You’ve got to
fill it with thinking about others. And if we know our history, then we will understand that that
is the highest mark of service. Second thing that the Joshua generation needs to understand is
that the principles of equality that were set forth and were battled for have to be fought each and
every day. It is not a one-time thing. I was remarking at the unity breakfast on the fact that the
single most significant concern that this Justice Department under this administration has had
with respect to discrimination has to do with affirmative action. That they have basically spent
all their time worrying about colleges and universities around the country that are given a little
break to young African-Americans and Hispanics to make sure that they can go to college,
too.^125
Obama is doubtless familiar with the Strauss-Howe theory of generations, which his campaign
uses for profiling his dupes and gulls among generation Xers and the younger set.^126 If so, Obama
has misread Strauss and Howe, since he and his ilk do not have the characteristics of a modern
Joshua, but rather must be classed among the worshipers of the golden calf, the faction that gave
Moses so much trouble as he attempted to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. Obama’s ritual
acknowledgment of the foundation-funded racist provocateur Jeremiah Wright — a figure not of
austerity, but sybaritic hedonism — and the Ford Foundation grant recipient Otis Moss III only
make his membership in the golden calf congregation unmistakable for all. This was also the
occasion when Obama attempted to convince the Selma audience that he had been conceived by his