By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

(PAI) - President Barack Obama's inaugural address praised the nation's workers, but also laid out stark challenges they - and the country - face as the Illinois Democrat became the nation's 44th chief executive.

And he also made it very clear he intends to end the ideological warfare of the last two decades - warfare that cost workers their rights, their income and, increasingly, their jobs under his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush.

Obama took the oath of office at 12:04 p.m., Jan. 20, before an estimated 1.8 million people stretching from the West Front of the Capitol all the way down the miles of the Mall in Washington to the Lincoln Memorial at its farthest end. Hundreds of thousands more lined Pennsylvania Avenue for his inaugural parade, which included 265 unionists and their own pro-worker float, driven by a Teamster.

"On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled out politics" in past years, stretching back through the Clinton administration, he said.

"In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path of the fainthearted, for those who prefer leisure over work or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor - who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom," he declared.

Obama made it clear in his address that his administration would try to serve those people, and not the rich and influential. And he warned cynics, whom he did not name, that their time has passed.

Not only did Obama again urge the Democratic-run 111th Congress to pass an $825 billion stimulus package to help stave off rising joblessness and state fiscal crises, among other things, but he also served notice that the rich will be regulated in favor of the greater good.

"The question we ask today is not whether government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford and a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is 'yes,' we intend to move forward. Where the answer is 'no,' programs will end," Obama stated.

As for the rich, the GOP's supposed "free-market" economy and the Wall Street denizens whose machinations have led to the second Bush recession - deeper and already, at 13 months, longer than the first - Obama had a stern warning.

"This crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control. The nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous," said the former community organizer who worked with out-of-jobs Steel Workers when the mills were shuttered on Chicago's South Side.

"The success of our economy has depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity, on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart, not out of charity, but because it is our surest route to the common good," he explained. Obama also said "greed and irresponsibility" caused the economic slump.

But Obama also summoned workers, and citizens, to sacrifice for the common good. Early in the speech, he warned the country would finally have to face some hard choices "and unpleasant decisions" in "the task of remaking America." He did not specify what they would be, but he previously said his administration would convene a task force to examine the future funding of the nation's large entitlement programs.

And late in the speech, he praised workers for being willing to sacrifice for the greater good: "It is a kindness to take in the stranger when the levees break," he said, as they did when Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans.

He also cited "the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job" and "the firefighters' courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke" -- as New York Fire Fighters did during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks -- along with "a parent's willingness to nurture a child that finally decides our fate." All workers can help rebuild and change the nation, the president declared.

Union leaders praised the address, and particularly Obama's new direction after eight years of Bush's rule. Change To Win Chair Anna Burger called his inauguration "the beginning of a new movement. Now we must work together to build on this victory to restore the economy, rebuild the middle class and renew the American Dream."

Steel Workers President Leo Gerard, who sat both at the Capitol just in front of Obama but also in the inaugural parade reviewing stand with the new president, was moved "to the verge of tears" for the honor he accepted on behalf of the nation's workers, he told his hometown paper in Sudbury, Ont. Obama is "a real human being who has a real set of values that really connects to ordinary folks," said Gerard. Obama "indicated the old economic order is going to be thrown aside for a new one and we want to be part of helping him to build that new one."