奥巴马2008年竞选总统之前在美联社年度午宴上的演讲：梦想源于希望（中英）
I know I kept a lot of you guys busy this weekend with the comments I made last week. Some of you might even be a little bitter about that.
我知道，因为我上周的一些评论，使你们很多人这周非常忙碌。你们其中的一 些人甚至为此感到有些痛苦。
As I said yesterday, I regret some of the words I chose, partly because the way that these remarks have been interpreted have offended some people and partly because they have served as one more distraction from the critical debate that we must have in this election.
正如我昨天所说，我很后悔用了一些不太恰当的词，部分原因是这些评论被解 读成了冒犯一些人的话，还有部分原因是有人认为我发表评论的目的是为了把注意 力从这个在竞选必须存在的重要的辩论上转移开来。
I’m a person of deep faith, and my religion has sustained me through a lot in my life. I even gave a speech on faith before I ever started running for President where I said that Democrats, “make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people’s lives.” I also represent a state with a large number of hunters and sportsmen, and I understand how important these traditions are to families in Illinois and all across America. And, contrary to what my poor word choices may have implied or my opponents have suggested. I，ve never believed that these traditions or people’s faith has anything to do with how much money they have.
我是一个有着虔诚信仰的人，我的宗教信仰使我承受住了人生中的很多事情。 我甚至在开始竞选总统之前就发表了一篇关于信仰的演讲，我在其中说，“民主党 人，如果我们不能意识到信仰在人们生活中的强大力量，那么我们就犯了一个大 错。”我也代表着一个拥有大量猎手和运动员的州，我明白这些传统对于伊利诺斯州以及全美国家庭的重要性。与我那些不适当的表达所暗含的或者我的反对者所建 议的相反，我认为这些传统或者人们的信仰与他们拥有多少财富无关。
But I will never walk away from the larger point that I was trying to make in the past. For the last several decades，people in small towns and cities and rural areas all across this country have seen globalization change the rules of the game on them. When I began my career as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, I saw what happens when the local steel mill shuts its doors and moves overseas. You don't just lose the jobs in the mills，you start losing jobs and businesses throughout the community. The streets are emptier. The schools suffer.
但我永远不会回避我过去试图要表明的主要观点。在过去的几十年里，全美各 个小镇、小城或者乡村的人们都看到了全球化改变了他们的生活方式。当我在芝加 哥南部开始担任社区组织者的时候，我看到了当地的钢铁厂关闭并移往海外时所发 生的情景。不仅是钢铁厂的工作机会没有了，整个社区里的工作机会和商业活动都 开始减少。街道变得更冷清了，学校也受到了重创。
I saw it during my campaign for the Senate in Illinois when I'd talk to union guys who had worked at the local Maytag plant for twenty, thirty years before being laid off at fifty-five years old when it picked up and moved to Mexico; and they had no idea what they're going to do without the paycheck or the pension that they counted on. One man didn’t even know if he'd be able to afford the liver transplant his son needed now that his health care was gone.
当我竞选伊利诺伊州参议员时，我与工会的一些人交谈过。他们为当地的美泰 格工厂工作了二三十年，却因为工厂迁至墨西哥而被迫在55岁的时候被解雇。他们 不知道在失去了赖以生存的薪水和养老金之后该怎么办。一个男人甚至不知道当他 失去了健康保险之后，他是否还能支付得起他的儿子肝移植所需的费用。
I've heard these stories almost every day during this campaign, whether it was in Iowa or Ohio or Pennsylvania. And the people I’ve met have also told me that every year, in every election, politicians come to their towns, and they tell them what they want to hear, and they make big promises, and then they go back to Washington when the campaign’s over, and nothing changes. There's no plan to address the downside of globalization. We don’t do anything about the skyrocketing cost of health care or college or those disappearing pensions. Instead of fighting to replace jobs that aren’t coming back, Washington ends up fighting over the latest distraction of the week.
在这次竞选中，我几乎每天都能听到这样的故事，不论是在爱荷华州、俄亥俄 州还是宾夕法尼亚州。我所遇到的人们都告诉我，每一年，每次选举，政治家们都会去他们的城镇，他们会把他们的要求告诉那些政治家们，那些政治家会对他们作 出大大的承诺，然而当竞选结束政治家们回到华盛顿之后，一切都没有改变。他们 没有制订计划去解决全球化的负面影响。面对着健康保健费用、大学费用的飞涨和 那些消失的养老金，他们无动于衷。华盛顿方面没有努力弥补那些失去的工作，而 是在为最近一周里的混乱而争吵。
And after years and years and years of this，a lot of people in this country have become cynical about what government can do to improve their lives. They are angry and frustrated with their leaders for not listening to them； for not fighting for them; for not always telling them the truth. And yes, they are bitter about that.
在经历了一年又一年这样的情况之后，很多国民都开始怀疑，他们的政府到底 能为提高他们的生活水平做些什么。人们都为领导们没有听取他们的意见，没有为 他们而奋斗以及很少告诉他们事实的真相而感到非常苦恼和沮丧。是的，他们对此 感到很痛苦。
Now, Senator McCain and the Republicans in Washington are already looking ahead to the fall and have decided that they plan on using my comments to argue that I'm out of touch with what’s going on in the lives of working Americans. I don’t blame them for this—that’s the nature of our political culture, if I had to carry the banner for eigjit years of George Bush’s failures, Fd be looking for something else to talk about too.
现在，参议员麦凯恩和华盛顿的共和党人巳经开始展望秋天，并决定利用我上 次的评论来证明我对美国工人阶级生活的完全不了解。我不会因此责备他们——这 是我们政党文化的本质，如果我要在今后的8年里继续乔治?布什的失败，那么我也 会找其他的话题来谈论。
But I will say this. If John McCain wants to turn this election into a contest about which party is out of touch with the struggles and the hopes of working Americans，that’s a debate Fm happy to have. In fact, I think that’s a debate we have to have. Because I believe that the real insult to the millions of hard-working Americans out there would be a continuation of the economic agenda that has dominated Washington for far too long.
但是我会说，如桌约翰?麦凯恩想要把这次竞选变成一场关于到底哪个党派不了解工人阶级的困难和希望的辩论，那么，这也是我所愿意看到的辩论。事实上， 我认为这是我们需要进行的一场辩论。因为我相信，对几百万辛苦工作的美国人而 言，继续执行那些主导华盛顿很久的经济计划才是对他们真正的侮辱。
I may have made a mistake last week in the words that I chose, but the other party has made a much more damaging mistake in the failed policies theyVe chosen and the bankrupt philosophy they’ve embraced for the last three decades.
我在上周的讲话中可能用到了一些不恰当的词语。但是在过去30年里，其他政 党犯下了一个更严重的错误，他们采取了失败的政策，坚持了错误的理论。
It doesn’t matter if they’re Democrats or Republicans; whether they’re from the smallest towns or the biggest cities; whether they hunt or they don’t hunt; whether they go to church, or temple，or mosque, or not. We may come from different places and have different stories, but we share common hopes, and one very American dream.
不论他们是民主党人还是共和党人；不论他们是来自最小的乡镇还是最大的城 市；不论他们是在追寻梦想还是没有；不论他们是去教堂、寺庙还是清真寺或者都 不去6可能我们来自不同的地方，有着不同的故事，但是我们拥有共同的希望和一 个非凡的美国梦。
That is the dream I am running to help restore in this election. If I get the chance, that is what Fll be talking about from now until November. That is the choice that I，U offer the American people—four more years of what we had for the last eight, or fundamental change in Washington.
这就是我在这次竞选中想要帮助人们去重塑的一个梦想。如果我得到了这个机 会，那它就是我从现在到11月份会一直谈论的内容。也是我会为美国人民所提供的选 择一~是将过去8年所做的事情再继续执行4年，还是给华盛顿带来一次彻底的改变。
People may be bitter about their leaders and the state of our politics, but beneath that, they are hopeful about what’s possible in America. That，s why they leave their homes on their day off, or their jobs after a long day of work, and travel~sometimes for miles, sometimes for hours, sometimes in the bitter cold~to attend a rally or a town hall meeting held by Senator Clinton, or Senator McCain，or myself. Because they believe that we can change things in this country. Because they believe in that dream.
人们可能对他们的领导者和我们的政治状态感到苦恼，但是除此之外，他们 对在美国发生的事情还是充满信心的。这就是为什么他们会在休息日离开他们的家园，或者在一整天的辛苦工作后赶去——有时不远万里，有时耗费数时，有时冒着 严寒——参加参议员克林顿或者参议员麦凯恩或者我所举办的一场集会或者市政厅 会议。因为他们相信我们能改变国家的状况。因为他们对那种梦想深信不疑。
And I know something about that dream. Contrary to current reports, I wasn’t born into a lot of money. I don’t have trust and fund. I wasn，t born into the fame and fortune. I was raised by a single mother with the help my grandparents, who grew up in small-town of Kansas, and went to school on the GI Bill, and bought their home through an FHA loan. My mother had to use food stamps at one point, but she still got her education and she still made sure that through scholarships, I got a chance to go to some of the best schools around, which helped me get into some of the best colleges around, which gave me loans that Michelle and I just finished paying off not bad that many years ago. In other words, my story is a quintessentially American story. It's the same story that has made this country a beacon for the world—a story of struggle and sacrifice on the part of my forebearers and a story overcoming great odds. I carry that story with me each and every day. It’s why I wake up every day and do this, and it's why I continue to hold such hope for the future of a country where the dreams of its people have always been possible. Thank you very much.
我了解那种梦想。与现有的报道不同，我不是出生在一个富有的家庭，我没有 信托基金。我的家庭没有声望，也不富裕。我母亲是在外祖父母的帮助下，一人把 我抚养大的。我的外祖父母是在堪萨斯州的一个小镇上长大的，他们在《士兵福利 法案》的支持下在学校读书，然后通过联邦房屋贷款买了房子。我的母亲曾一度不 得不靠食物券度日，但她仍然接受了教育，并通过奖学金确保了我有机会到附近最 好的学校就读，这些使得我能有机会进人附近最好的大学，并且这所大学给我提供 了贷款——我和米歇尔也是最近才还清了这笔多年前的贷款。也就是说，我的故事 是一个典型的美国故事。它和那些使美国成为这个世界的信号灯的故事一样——个 关于我的祖辈奋斗与牺牲的故事，一个克服巨大困难的故事。我每天都带着这个故 事，这就是我每天醒来做这些事情的原因，这就是我对这个国家的未来抱有希望的 原因，在这里人们的理想总是有可能实现的。非常感谢！
本文地址：http://www.dioenglish.com/writing/speech/15937.html
