Now that quite a few people have discussed Secretary Gutierrez’s speech, here is what he said in Atlanta. You can form your own opinion as others already have stated here but at least you will have the facts to base them on from his speech.
I was in the GA Dome for his speech but also recorded it from the NASA channel Friday morning. I watched it today and have typed his text for you to read.
I am of course proud of my country and some of what the Secretary said was obviously pro American. He also championed inventions, creativity, innovation and First Robotics. He challenged us to “step it up” and increase our level of innovation and creativity like never before. I believe he was talking to everyone in the audience not just Americans.
Some have mentioned here the Secretary was rude, criticized and bashed other countries in his speech. What I heard didn’t cause me to have that opinion. He was stating his opinion of his adopted country as he was born in Havana, Cuba.
Another has mentioned here that the Secretary said that “America won’t let Indians keep taking their jobs.” Well whatever was said by someone regarding Indians was not said by Secretary Gutierrez.
I myself have been to many other countries, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and at least 5 Canadian provinces ( I just love Canada!). I met with teams from Israel & Brazil last weekend and they were great people. I know that there are great hard working inventive people all over the world not just here at home.
For our gathering, the Secretary may have concentrated his speech on the USA a little much but that is part of his job. He oversees a diverse Cabinet agency with some 38,000 workers focused on promoting American business at home and abroad. He also formulates telecommunications and technology policy, fosters minority business development and promotes economic growth in distressed communities.
I was glad he was able to address the First gathering but understand others if they felt that he was speaking primarily toward Americans. I would hope that others also think as I do, that their countries are the greatest in the world!
Dave
There are likely some punctuation errors and I may have left out a couple of words but this is what was said.
Friday morning, April 28th, 2006 at the Georgia Dome,
John Dudas, Undersecretary of Commerce said about the Hon. Carlos M. Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce: He fled Cuba with his family as a young boy and came to the United States. He learned English from a bellhop in a hotel in Miami. Sold cereal out of the back of a van in Mexico. Worked his way up to become CEO and chairman of the board of one of America’s most successful companies Kellogg’s.
Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce said: I want to thank Dean Kamen and Mayor Franklin and representative Bass for supporting you in what you do and for having the foresight and the vision to know that what you are doing is going to create the future of our country.
Our economy grew once again at a very fast pace just in the first quarter and it confirms once again what we have been saying. That we have the most vibrant, the greatest country, the greatest economy on the face of the earth. There is nothing, nothing like it in the world and there is no developed or industrialized economy that is performing like we are. The reason that we are performing this way and the reason that we have led the world economy for so long, is because of our innovation, it’s because of our creativity, it’s because of our ideas, it has been our ability, our ability to invent new things. If you look back at the history of the last couple of centuries, inventions that have changed the lives of people all over the world, they have been created here in our country. Think about it, the light bulb, the automobile, the airplane, computer software, you can go on and on and on. This has been the country of ideas, the country of innovation, the country of creativity and the country of invention.
What’s happening now is that we have picked up three billion new competitors. Of course we have 3 billion new consumers. We also have to think about it as we have 3 billion new competitors. So whatever we have been doing for the past 20, 50, 100 or 200 years, we have to step it up. We have to grow it, we have to increase the pace, we have to step up our level of innovation, our level of invention, our level of creativity like we have never done before.
In his state of the union address the President called for a national movement to develop a national passion for innovation. A national passion for science, a national passion for math, a national passion for the creation of new things, new ideas and new inventions. A national movement, something that we can all get behind and say we are going to innovate like never before in our history because we are going to become even more than today, the most competitive economy in the world and we’re going to show the world why we are the leaders of the economy today.
So, First is very much leading the way and I can’t tell you how important it is what you are doing here today and how symbolic this is that we are having this session today in the year 2006. This is the future, this is what our future is all about and you are leading the way, you are a great example for citizens all over the country, you are role models of what we want to be as a nation in the future.
So I can’t tell you how much I thank you and on behalf of President Bush, on behalf of Americans all over the country, thank you for your leadership, thank you for what you are doing to make this the greatest country on Earth.
Thank you very much!