Say what you want, President Obama has the numbers! I am a staunch critic of his foreign policy although ending the useless wars was no mistake there but for the rest, cash and markets back him up. These almost across the board good results allowed for a clear discourse, firm on left-wing ideas and assured in tone : the president announced automatic veto on Iran negotiations, financial markets regulations, health care or immigration rewrites of his politics. In that sense and with the usual oratory skills of the man, it was a good speech. Not a great speech mind you but then again, we can’t expect these to come every year for the life of the Nation.
The proposals that came along were also clear classics of the genre preferred by the Democrats like free community college ( not a bad idea if the colleges are good ) and investment in infrastructure. The touching examples of ordinary citizens invited to back the discourse ( although statistically insignificant ) were there with the usual pump and circumstances, still it was merely a good speech.
After the listing of accomplishments, came the more difficult part of pointing out the remaining work ( to be accomplished with a Congressional minority for the White House ).
A bit of ideology opened things up : “Share in, provide to”, how subtle a remake of from each according to ability , to each according to need with all replacing each. Pseudo-Marx ( Karl not Groucho in the Congress, who would have thought? Which by the way is already the case in all federal and state contexts through taxes and government work. Still, the socialist does shine through.
But on the biggest point, that proved a weapon against the GOP as subtle as the “madeover” motto. Things like maternity leave : What a shame! America, last of the great countries? America unable to provide what Mexico, Chile or Estonia and Portugal can? And sick days for all, how evident! John Boehner ( nor GOP in general ) doesn’t get up for sick leave days? Is he so rich he doesn’t care, a robot or just a member of Congress who’s absence from the (non-)job is irrelevant to the nation anyway? I lost a job for a sick day once in my life myself though gladly having no kid back then, so Mr Congress Leader : That was utterly disgracious and sort of a non-clapping embodiment of how the rich have no clue what the poor endure … or possibly of how they were there for the first generation-ers and now want it evened out by the suffering of those that follow.
Well let me say this : when I wish for better conditions, when I call for them, I want those gains to apply to all, even to those I don’t know that will come later, for ALL. I’m not clamoring for my suffering to be paid back but for it to be eradicated, period. Maybe that universal value of good is what your party has lost, dear Republicans. It does not speak for all Americans anymore, it has lost the basic principle of the Constitution : universality, which explains why it bickers on the wording instead.
And right after came one more example : Equal Pay. I am sorry but even as a male with more than its share of bad experiences with women, until this is resolved, I’ll consider government to be dysfunctional, hurtful to the citizens and nation and an apologist of sexism, period.
Closing tax loopholes for the rich individuals or corporations is one more of these simple ideas. If your poor are say 35% of the country, then a third of the citizenry provides little or nothing. If you add “ structural tax evasion” to the mix, the richer 20% do not contribute as they should leaving the Middle Class to do the job, leaving by numbers less than half the nation providing? Equality my donkey!
You want equality? How about a flat rate of 25% taxes for all? With an appropriate minimum wage, this solves everything. The poor will be in the same situation as before, not a cent earned but 25% of Warren Buffet’s personal yearly income or any corporations revenues is huge. Exxon alone, in second place in earnings, would bring 105 Billion dollars or half the trust tax loophole estimated by the President. Oh! There is an excellent argument that this would cut the competitiveness of US firms on the world market. I can’t help wonder about the competitiveness of living US citizens then : Is that of no importance?
The important conclusion here is not Right or Left proper but simply that when a system favors the means over the objectives, it is wrong, period. Which may explain why bipartisanism falters when tasked with hard choices.
To boot, there were numerous things to reproach the President too. Next time you hear such a speech, note if the timespans vary for instance. Not in the sense of historical markers of course ( _since WWI_ ) those usually being a tool to link the present politics or results thereof and by way of their “author” to the historic grandeur of the nation; those can be found in all addresses of worth be they democratic or dictatorial. What you want to check for are the 4 to 8 to 12 ( due to election rhythms in America; may vary elsewhere ) discrepancies. Yesterday, the whole range was present, from 1999 even before the historic starting point of the “turn of the century“ on opening through 2001 ( 9/11 ), 2003 ( Iraq ),2004 ( over a decade ) … then 2008 ( 7 years ago and by numeral ), 2009 (6 years ago ), 2010 ( past 5 years ) etc
A while later, to boost his pacific *cough, drone strikes cough* diplomacy, Barack Obama shamelessly belittled Vladimir Putin and tried to show the Ukraine fiasco as a success. Except that from the Video put up by the White House we see this on the right as he gloats :
That little tidbit I encircled for the reader is Crimea, the peninsula now lost to Ukraine for keeps as it is a part of Russia by act of the Kremlin! It should not be in that same aqua light green color and possibly neither should the Eastern part of the mainland.
And the next slide says the US “leads” a coalition of 31 countries in sanctions. About which, A- America partially caused the problem by acting unilaterally to dissociate Ukraine from Russia for years* and its representative cursing “F..k the EU!” make the leadership all relative outside Washington and B- the sanctions cost more, much more per capita to the European nations close to Ukraine and Russia ( say Germany? ) than to the USA. Coupled with the above pictorial one, this lie again authorizes me to say that your foreign policy is limit non-existent. You either played your friends or altogether failed in that crisis, Mr President, neither of which is moral ground to face the Nation, I’m sorry to say. Good thing for you, in that regard, your legacy on Cuba that you mentioned next is more secure from critic.
The President went on to present Climate Change again despite the well known opinion ( read belief ) of the opposition on it. That alone is about as essential as foreign policy but immediately veered to another fib when he mentioned constraining drones use : yes the policies reduced the number of unsafe attacks and thus collateral damage but at the same time made regular use of them perennial. Each attack on a different target is sort of a mini war in itself and perceived as such by the countries where they occur. And it calls in question whether or not Congress should approve each use ( not each strike ) individually. So that it remains uncertain if presenting thus to an opposition-led Congress was a good idea.
Immediately going inclusive with anti-semitism, Muslims and the likes was a better one to enter the senatorial, in the old Roman sense, hope and future conclusion. Sadly, this was a miss-mash of shifting from race to Washingtonian politics back to same-sex issues and gun sprees that never concluded on any of these. If only for those last 10+ minutes, this year’s State of the Union was merely a good speech, not a great one. At least they allowed John Boehner 3 occasions to dispel the impression he might be one of these magnificent statues that abound at the Capitol.
About which, sincerely, I wish the Congresspeople would chose between stoic, impassive listening and canned applause à la TV sitcom. For the first half, the Democrats stood every time the President made a complete sentence. For the whole thing, Republicans sulked stone-faced as if in detention on Saturday morning. Neither showed wits; both showed that the next two years may be long ones at the helm of the State, maybe that the Union well, is sort of a like a pre-divorce for rich couples : things are breaking apart politely smoothed by interest. For that fear only, good speech yes but still C+,B- only.
Tay.
Source : Video and text :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1421782837&x-yt-cl=84359240&v=cse5cCGuHmE#t=10
* In this case, according to schematic explanation years admittedly means : before Obama took office.
Definitive Lapse of Reason 