In the interest of fairness, let me start by saying that I voted for President Obama, and i don't regret that i did. I haven't been entirely pleased with the course of his administration, and probably wouldn't vote for him again if i were given a better option (which it doesn't look like i will).
Let me also give the republicans some kudos here. One thing that really bugs me about the state of the union address in recent years has been the tendency of the senators of the party of the president to give everything that he says a standing ovation while the other party sits and looks dour. It's the same this year, but a lot of the time, although the republicans remain seated, they at least applaud a lot of these statements, which is more than the democrats did for Bush during his state of the union addresses. I still don't like it. Applause is fine, but i wish that they would stay seated to cut the running time of the address by ten or fifteen minutes.
As i type this, the speech is about ten minutes in, and so far what i've heard is a lot of the same kind of tough talk that we heard from during the 2008 election, which has, so far, turned out to be empty and meaningless. A lot of times, these issues that he talks tough on, like making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share of taxes, come to nothing. The president basically folds like a house of cards, like he did on health care.
I will say that i was glad to hear him mention Master Lock, and their plans to increase their American manufacturing base. He also talked about increasing taxes on companies that outsource and decreasing taxes on companies that remain in America. This is one of the main of his campaign promises that got me to vote for him in the first place, that he has done NOTHING on since he took the oath of office.
I will also say that John Boehner, for whom i have developed a grudging admiration, has found himself nodding at talking points that have become democrat issues, such as keeping American workers employed.
Looking at vice-president Biden, looking positively pasty beside the president and Boehner, with his glow-in-the dark spray-on tan makes me wish again that the president would dump him in his re-election campaign and offer the job to someone who could and would actually exert some authority in the role. A year ago, before his troubles, i would have said Anthony Weiner. Now i think either Corey Booker, or, to be a real ground-breaker, John McCain.
Now the president's talking about something that is long overdue... removing the ability of American students to drop out of school before they are 18. The stipulation was originally put in place during the agricultural times to allow older kids to be more help on the farm. Guess what? We don't NEED that anymore. In order for our economy to be strong now, we need these kids to stay in school, and get an education so that they can compete in a world market. For the record, i also wish that he'd end daylight savings time, which was started to give farmers an extra hour in the morning during planting season and an extra hour in the evening for harvesting. We don't need it anymore. It's also a little like a quote that i read a while back from an Indian chief, whose name i can't remember. He said "Only a white man could think that you can cut a foot from the top of a blanket, sew it on to the bottom of the blanket and think that he has a longer blanket."
"Higher education isn't a luxury, it's a necessity that all American families should be able to afford." Right on, brother.
It was nice to see the president greet Gabrielle Giffords before the address, too. I watched her internet address where she announced her resignation from congress and almost cried at the recovery she has made since she was shot a year ago.
It makes me a little angry, though, to hear the president and other people canonize Steve Jobs. The man only employed a handful of Americans, and the company that built his Ipods and Ipads in China, Foxcom, is one of the worst of the low-grade sweatshops in the world. In the first five months of (i think it was) 2010, ten Foxcon workers committed suicide. As far as i'm concerned, American companies that have their stuff made in a place like that deserve to be run out of business, not praised.
One quick note on a phrase that every president since president Reagan has used at the top of the address... "The state of our union is strong". Bush even said this in 2008, when our economy was falling apart like an American car. What president Obama said, which i admire a great deal, is that "the state of our union is getting stronger".
Now he's calling on AG Holder to start a "financial crime unit" to bust business people who are doing things like the crap that led to the 2008 financial crisis. Good luck, let's see if he actually follows through on this one.
Well, now he's just spouting a bunch of jingoistic nonsense about Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, so i think that he's getting ready to wrap things up. I really start getting bored about this time in the speech every year, with all of the patriotic chest-pounding and "gee, ain't we grand? You should reelect us."
Okay, he wrapped up with the usual "God bless the United States of America". As a Christian, i really wish that ALL politicians, democrats and republicans alike, would quit calling on God to endorse their endeavors.
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Peace.
Randal
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