Did President Obama’s State of The Union Speech Change The Fate of the Union??

January 27th, 2010 - by: danny

STATE OF THE OBAMA, FATE OF THE NATION
HONOR AND LEARN FROM HOWARD ZINN
WORLD SAVED–iPAD IS HERE

The State of the Union oration was classic Obama. It had no resemblance to the text we imagined and perhaps hoped for yesterday. It was positive, upbeat, even humorous at times, designed to charm, show compassion and seduce, It made you want to believe, believe in him, not necessarily in his recommendations. He went after the banks, but without a knockout punch, without really explaining his financial reform package and what’s required to wrestle this behemoth – there was no mention of pervasive financial crimes or the new Consumer Protection Agency.

He seemed most concerned with unifying the Congress, with reclaiming the moral high ground of the center without giving much to the right or the left. As the NY Times put it, “he tried to recapture the magic of the “Yes We Can Campaign” after a year of “no we can’t governing.”

President Obama presented himself as he who doesn’t quit, but was barely self-critical. The Republicans clearly didn’t buy into a kumbaya moment, even as the TV coverage focused on cheering members of his own party, even some who have done their best to undermine and sell out his agenda. His best line was to members of his own party: “Don’t Run For The Hills,” advice he might take himself.

AP noted: “Conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito appeared quite aggravated when Obama attacked the Court for last week’s decisions to overturn past precedents and allow more corporate money in elections. The camera caught Alito mouthing something like “not true” as Obama blasted the decision.” Some Republicans grinned when he appealed to them so earnestly–in the name of the “decency” of the American people. He might have given out some ear wax remover to those in the “party of NO” corner before trying to penetrate their closed and determined minds.

“I forgot he was black for an hour tonight,” said MSNBC’s Chris Mathews out of some well of white guilt. He certainly only barely touched on racial issues with the exception of enforcing civil rights laws or prohibiting discrimination against gays in the military, an issue he will talk with the military about but not order an end to.

He focused on the economy and the need for jobs but his proposed freeze on government spending and $30 billion dollar job plan was very modest. He shilled for the nuclear power industry, backed more money for “clean (sic ) coal,” and offered conservative measures while adopting a more populist and still non-partisan tone.

If you are looking for a fighter, look elsewhere.

He was who he is. He gave a great civics lecture and appealed to the conscience and traditions the history and of of Republicans, which may not exist. He hit all the right notes and inspired continuous applause even as most of the Republicans sat on their hands glowering. In short, nothing really has changed except there has finally been an acknowledgment that millions of Americans are in pain, are hurting, are in need of relief. It was only the loss in MA that forced him to embrace economic populism for the night.

TRANSCRIPT

You wanted to believe because his message did hit on many reasons for overcoming the stalemate and political trench warfare in Washington. It is unlikely that the people who consider him a socialist-communist-fascist-terrorist, etc. will change their views.

His wars will go on. The defense budget will not be cut. The business of America will remain “Business.”

I was happy to hear him say he won’t walk away from health care – calling for a bill of some kind to be passed even as the whole reform process has been reformed out of existence. The public option is gone. The Health option seems to be going. He presented it as an deficit saving measure, not a matter of rights and wrongs.

I want to believe in our country and its leaders but it’s hard if you ever read Howard Zinn’s classic, ‘People’s History of the United States,’ Howard, the People’s Historian, didn’t live long enough to see or comment on the President’s speech from a historical perspective. He died today in Los Angeles at age 87, a great loss to our country, our culture, and the world. He was a friend of mine and his loss is like a body blow. He was not mentioned even though his book on SNCC and civil rights activism helped change this country, making an Obama candidacy possible.

“I can’t think of anyone who had such a powerful and benign influence,” said the linguist and fellow activist Noam Chomsky, a close friend of Zinn’s. “His historical work changed the way millions of people saw the past.”

Reported in a report in the LA Times, “One of Zinn’s last public writings was a brief essay, published last week in The Nation, about the first year of the Obama administration.

“I’ve been searching hard for a highlight,” he wrote, adding that he wasn’t disappointed because he never expected a lot from Obama.

“I think people are dazzled by Obama’s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president – which means, in our time, a dangerous president – unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.”

Truer words were never spoken. I liked Obama’s tone and his music but his message was muted and sadly predictable. It left too many gaps and raised too many questions. That real change I still believe in has not been advanced by it.

• CarolynBaker.net: This is Our Teachable Moment

It’s the end of the affair, and the stale taste of limerence stays on your tongue. You were promised the sun, moon, and stars, and you desperately wanted to believe it was real, especially after the betrayal of your former relationship of eight years. You had considered escaping-riding off into the sunset to another country where he couldn’t find you, or so you hoped. You feared for your children and what he was setting them up for. You feared for yourself in the face of his brutality and intrusiveness into your life. Though you wouldn’t admit it, you secretly prayed for assassination or some elaborate exposure that would take him down.

Then along came Mr. Wonderful with his irresistible smile and infectious inspiration. He wooed you with his charm, that smile, and his engaging discourse-so articulate by comparison with the unintelligible babbling you had put up with for eight years. He cared about you and your children. No longer were you alone; like Martin Luther King, he had a dream-a dream congruent with yours, and the passion you both shared for the dream was hypnotic and felt deeply spiritual. You actually thought that he was a messenger sent from another world to rescue you and take you out of the nightmare. He used transcendent terms like “hope”, “change”, “yes we can.” And not only were you totally surrendered to his embrace, but you begged everyone else to do the same. He’s our only hope, you told them and yourself. You could scarcely contain your ecstasy when they all chose him in the last hours of the eight years you had all excruciatingly endured.

It was a new day, one year ago at this time. Your sighs of relief could not have been longer or deeper. You and your children were now safe at last.

But today, you ponder reflectively the past year, and what you have now come to understand is that the hero you married is a prisoner. You believed him when he told you he was free and at liberty to make the changes he proclaimed. You trusted him, committed yourself to him, and fought for him. And now you discover that he’s betrayed you and that his actions really aren’t that divergent from his predecessor’s. In fact, he is a prisoner of the same forces that terrorized you for the previous eight years. Fooled again. Betrayed. You sink into despair and depression. You talk to your friends-the others who also believed in him. You feel those old and familiar emotions you felt from 2001-2008 that you thought you’d never have to feel again. “What can we do?” you ask. “What are our options?” [More here Ã¢â€ â€™]

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