Restate of the Union
Well, I wasn't going to post anything about the State of the Union, but I've got too much banging around in my head not to.
If I had to describe the speech in one word, it would be "weak." The overwhelming feeling I got from the clips and analysis I heard this morning and my reading the text is that this is a president who has lost the nation and lost whatever slim hold he had on the reins of government, and in his inability to do what the people want has rendered himself unnecessary. In the hands of a better leader or even a better speaker this could have been an opportunity to restart, acknowledge that he has heard what the people have said, and to then actually do something about it. As it is, we heard nothing new, nothing inspiring, nothing revolutionary, and mostly things that were frustratingly old and tired.
On the economy:
He wants to balance the budget. Um, there was this guy who kinda did that a few years back already. And I'm pretty sure that a big part of the reason it isn't balanced right now is due to an ill-advised war with a country who posed no immediate threat to us.
He wants to expose earmarks in legislation. Wait, didn't I hear that the new Democratic congress was going to do that?
He wants to save Social Security and Medicare/aid. Bully. So do the rest of us. You've had 6 years. Anything to show for that?
On education:
No Child Left Behind part deux (pronounced "duh"). How do they keep getting away with calling this program a success?
Shortly after it passed I had the opportunity to sit in on a teachers' meeting at an inner city school in academic emergency. The principal laid it out for the teachers: over the next few years they had to show a certain percentage increase each year in the number of students passing standardized tests or they would lose funding. That means that if they didn't meet those increases in one year, the next year they would have an even bigger percentage to meet. The teachers looked morose.
Here are dedicated people getting paid a pittance to struggle with kids who have no support at home to study or learn, and who come with a wide variety of social and psychological problems that must be dealt with before any teaching can begin. Telling them that the scores have to increase does nothing. What were they doing before you told them that? Sitting on their hands? Please.
And where does the money go that isn't going to these schools that can't measure up? Into charter schools that all too frequently don't have the facilities or the community presence of the public schools, which then have to close because enrollment is falling because they don't have the money to offer the programs that kept kids there in the first place. The entire primary education system in this country is badly broken, and it will take more than testing to fix it.
On health care:
Again, what the hell good are tax breaks supposed to do? The system is broken. Putting more money into taxpayer hands at the expense of a government that can't afford it does nothing to change the fact that health insurance is too damn expensive. A big part of the reason it's so expensive is that people who don't have insurance go to expensive emergency rooms for primary care. Hmm.... how to fix that.... I've got it! Universal Health Care!
On immigration:
Okay, this one is a big bugbear for me. I've always firmly believed that the free market really is working in this case. The reason there are so many immigrants coming here illegally is because there are jobs for them that no one here right now wants. They're really not stealing our jobs. Even if they were paid fair wages, those jobs would still be there for them. In fact, many of them are earning fair wages already. I finally figured out why this is after hearing an article on NPR a little while ago (although I drew a different conclusion than was presented).
People who are already here in America had the advantages that we all enjoy. If by the time they enter the workforce they don't have a good job, it's because there's something else wrong with them or their work ethic. So the people with a good work ethic have good jobs, and the few people with a poor work ethic don't want the crap jobs. So then you have an immigrant who doesn't have the education or experience for a good job, but he has work ethic out the wazoo. He'll take that crap job so his kids might be able to get advantages of living in America and get the good jobs.
This is what America was built on people! So what should we do? Throw open the borders! No "temporary worker" second-class citizen crap. Ellis Island for the 21st century! If someone wants to come here and be productive, let him! Not only that, but then you'll know that if someone's sneaking across the border he's up to no good, instead of trying to figure out if he's a terrorist or a farmhand.
On energy:
Ethanol, ethanol, ethanol. Cripes. The corn lobby hard at work again. Ethanol is not the solution to our energy problems. In fact no alternative fuel is. The number one solution is conservation. We have the means to massively reduce our energy consumption just by building more efficient machines. Why is no one preaching that? And rather than saying that we're going to produce 35 billion gallons of alternative fuel, why not just throw open the doors to research and let the market decide what will work best?
On terrorism:
The problem here is the same problem we've had since 2001. We never should have dignified this with the word "war." That just completely plays into the terrorists' delusions. "Yippee! I'm at war with America!"
Yes, we should have attacked Afghanistan. There were government supported training camps there. But once we had gotten rid of those, all efforts should have gone into finding and stopping the criminals who ran those camps. When did we stop looking for Bin Laden?
Terrorism is fought with careful detective work and collaboration with other governments around the world. It is not fought on a battlefield. One would have thought that Vietnam had taught us that.
Two other points: First, the terrorist events that he listed as having been stopped were averted without warrantless wiretapping, internment at Guantanamo Bay, any provision of the Patriot Act, or troops in Iraq. Second, how does he get away with quoting Zarqawi? Not only does it give more press to a dead terrorist, but it's a logical fallacy!
On Iraq:
Okay, he all but admits that Iraq is in a civil war, then says we're going to win? What does winning mean? At this point, the only way to "win" in Iraq would be to take sides and put down one side or the other. They're not going to suddenly come to terms, sit down, and sing Kumbayah. So if we took sides that would then piss off one half or the other of the Arab world, some of whom have a stranglehold on oil, others of whom may have nukes soon.
Oh, this is just wonderful, ain't it?
Getting out of Iraq would not increase global terrorism. They're too busy fighting each other to come after us. And any terrorists that might try to operate out of Iraq can and should be stopped through the means mentioned above: good detective work and collaboration with our allies. All our troops are doing in Iraq other than being targets is training the Iraqis how to kill each other more efficiently.
So now what do we do? The overwhelming message of this speech is that this president is a lame duck. This president is more of a lame duck than any 6-year president we've had in recent memory. He is irrelevant. So what we do is rev up the congress. Let them know that we're counting on them to take the action the president is unable or unwilling to take. The first 100 hours looked pretty good. What are you going to do with the next 1000?
If I had to describe the speech in one word, it would be "weak." The overwhelming feeling I got from the clips and analysis I heard this morning and my reading the text is that this is a president who has lost the nation and lost whatever slim hold he had on the reins of government, and in his inability to do what the people want has rendered himself unnecessary. In the hands of a better leader or even a better speaker this could have been an opportunity to restart, acknowledge that he has heard what the people have said, and to then actually do something about it. As it is, we heard nothing new, nothing inspiring, nothing revolutionary, and mostly things that were frustratingly old and tired.
On the economy:
He wants to balance the budget. Um, there was this guy who kinda did that a few years back already. And I'm pretty sure that a big part of the reason it isn't balanced right now is due to an ill-advised war with a country who posed no immediate threat to us.
He wants to expose earmarks in legislation. Wait, didn't I hear that the new Democratic congress was going to do that?
He wants to save Social Security and Medicare/aid. Bully. So do the rest of us. You've had 6 years. Anything to show for that?
On education:
No Child Left Behind part deux (pronounced "duh"). How do they keep getting away with calling this program a success?Shortly after it passed I had the opportunity to sit in on a teachers' meeting at an inner city school in academic emergency. The principal laid it out for the teachers: over the next few years they had to show a certain percentage increase each year in the number of students passing standardized tests or they would lose funding. That means that if they didn't meet those increases in one year, the next year they would have an even bigger percentage to meet. The teachers looked morose.
Here are dedicated people getting paid a pittance to struggle with kids who have no support at home to study or learn, and who come with a wide variety of social and psychological problems that must be dealt with before any teaching can begin. Telling them that the scores have to increase does nothing. What were they doing before you told them that? Sitting on their hands? Please.
And where does the money go that isn't going to these schools that can't measure up? Into charter schools that all too frequently don't have the facilities or the community presence of the public schools, which then have to close because enrollment is falling because they don't have the money to offer the programs that kept kids there in the first place. The entire primary education system in this country is badly broken, and it will take more than testing to fix it.
On health care:
Again, what the hell good are tax breaks supposed to do? The system is broken. Putting more money into taxpayer hands at the expense of a government that can't afford it does nothing to change the fact that health insurance is too damn expensive. A big part of the reason it's so expensive is that people who don't have insurance go to expensive emergency rooms for primary care. Hmm.... how to fix that.... I've got it! Universal Health Care!
On immigration:
Okay, this one is a big bugbear for me. I've always firmly believed that the free market really is working in this case. The reason there are so many immigrants coming here illegally is because there are jobs for them that no one here right now wants. They're really not stealing our jobs. Even if they were paid fair wages, those jobs would still be there for them. In fact, many of them are earning fair wages already. I finally figured out why this is after hearing an article on NPR a little while ago (although I drew a different conclusion than was presented).People who are already here in America had the advantages that we all enjoy. If by the time they enter the workforce they don't have a good job, it's because there's something else wrong with them or their work ethic. So the people with a good work ethic have good jobs, and the few people with a poor work ethic don't want the crap jobs. So then you have an immigrant who doesn't have the education or experience for a good job, but he has work ethic out the wazoo. He'll take that crap job so his kids might be able to get advantages of living in America and get the good jobs.
This is what America was built on people! So what should we do? Throw open the borders! No "temporary worker" second-class citizen crap. Ellis Island for the 21st century! If someone wants to come here and be productive, let him! Not only that, but then you'll know that if someone's sneaking across the border he's up to no good, instead of trying to figure out if he's a terrorist or a farmhand.
On energy:
Ethanol, ethanol, ethanol. Cripes. The corn lobby hard at work again. Ethanol is not the solution to our energy problems. In fact no alternative fuel is. The number one solution is conservation. We have the means to massively reduce our energy consumption just by building more efficient machines. Why is no one preaching that? And rather than saying that we're going to produce 35 billion gallons of alternative fuel, why not just throw open the doors to research and let the market decide what will work best?On terrorism:
The problem here is the same problem we've had since 2001. We never should have dignified this with the word "war." That just completely plays into the terrorists' delusions. "Yippee! I'm at war with America!"
Yes, we should have attacked Afghanistan. There were government supported training camps there. But once we had gotten rid of those, all efforts should have gone into finding and stopping the criminals who ran those camps. When did we stop looking for Bin Laden?
Terrorism is fought with careful detective work and collaboration with other governments around the world. It is not fought on a battlefield. One would have thought that Vietnam had taught us that.
Two other points: First, the terrorist events that he listed as having been stopped were averted without warrantless wiretapping, internment at Guantanamo Bay, any provision of the Patriot Act, or troops in Iraq. Second, how does he get away with quoting Zarqawi? Not only does it give more press to a dead terrorist, but it's a logical fallacy!
On Iraq:
Okay, he all but admits that Iraq is in a civil war, then says we're going to win? What does winning mean? At this point, the only way to "win" in Iraq would be to take sides and put down one side or the other. They're not going to suddenly come to terms, sit down, and sing Kumbayah. So if we took sides that would then piss off one half or the other of the Arab world, some of whom have a stranglehold on oil, others of whom may have nukes soon.Oh, this is just wonderful, ain't it?
Getting out of Iraq would not increase global terrorism. They're too busy fighting each other to come after us. And any terrorists that might try to operate out of Iraq can and should be stopped through the means mentioned above: good detective work and collaboration with our allies. All our troops are doing in Iraq other than being targets is training the Iraqis how to kill each other more efficiently.
So now what do we do? The overwhelming message of this speech is that this president is a lame duck. This president is more of a lame duck than any 6-year president we've had in recent memory. He is irrelevant. So what we do is rev up the congress. Let them know that we're counting on them to take the action the president is unable or unwilling to take. The first 100 hours looked pretty good. What are you going to do with the next 1000?
Comments
Don't even get me started on the politics of my youth and why I've changed. I don't wanna hear it.
The president says "Blah," and the entire Republican side of the aisle stands up and applauds. Democrats on the other side sit and look menacingly at the president.
I feel sorry for the freshman congressmen who want to applaud at different times from their peers but they can already see their party leaders at the other end of the room eying them while drawing a finger across their throat. Party solidarity is good, I suppose, but I elected my congressman to be MY voice, not to be part of the majority or minority leader's voice.