Obama Changes the Narrative
The president provided an optimistic view of government power
Like every successful speech of its kind, Obama's message resonated on more than one level. So while he conceded little ground to the right, the president nevertheless sought to draw his adversaries—and even more so the independent voters who temporarily sided with them—into the American story he told.
The meaning of that narrative could scarcely have been clearer. Obama articulated a vision of the nation's future shaped by an idealistic view of our past, in which government encourages growth, opportunity and the pursuit of happiness by an inventive and industrious people. If that isn't the whole history of America, it is certainly an appealing theme—and one that contrasts powerfully with the partisan negativity and apocalyptic pessimism voiced by the Republicans.
Gently but persuasively, the president suggested that the electoral turn toward the Republicans last November was a mistake, and began to explain why.
The problems that we confront as a developed nation in an era of new and rising powers, he said, extend well beyond deficits and debt. While those fiscal issues certainly pose a real threat to our future prosperity, so do the deficits in our educational system, our physical infrastructure, our scientific research and our broadband capacity. If we focus solely on the fiscal deficit—and insist on reducing it by mindless, ruinous budgetary policies—then America will be set firmly on the path of national decline.
Therefore, Obama said, we must find ways to finance the essential investments that will equip Americans to participate successfully in the global economy, from high-speed rail to renewable energy to decently compensated teachers. Much of his plea for modernization fell on deaf ears among the Republican congressional majority, of course, whose leading intellects don't necessarily accept the scientific consensus on climate change and nurture grudging doubts about evolution.
Paul
Ryan Didn’t Offer Solutions
The
president cannot expect the Republicans to move his agenda forward during the
next two years, but he can start to demonstrate why their own agenda is empty
and stagnant.
In that
task, he was amply assisted by the (two!) sourly partisan and negative
rejoinders to his speech from the other side. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.),
the Tea Party diva, repeated the same stale talking points that always issue
from her mouth when she isn't inventing fables about our history. Rep. Paul
Ryan (R-Wis.), the new House budget chairman, failed again to indicate how his
party will restore fiscal balance—let alone how it intends to address the
central questions of education, science, technology and infrastructure.
With grace
and openness, Obama invited the Republicans to engage those issues, as well as
the more immediate debates over health care, taxes and the budget. He reminded
them and the public that Democrats stand for fiscal equity. He urged the
nation's millionaires to give up their obscene tax breaks and set forth a deal
to close loopholes and lower rates if every corporation pays its share of
taxes. He explicitly rejected cutbacks that would fall most heavily on the most
vulnerable and offered a spending freeze far less destructive than that
proposed by the Republicans.
If the true
state of the union is more perilous than Obama dared to admit, he certainly
began to describe the real challenges before us—and by implication, the
obstacles that can only be removed at the next election.
© 2011 Creators.com
I thought both speeches were fine.
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To say that Paul Ryan didn’t offer any solutions is a lie; he is one of the only republicans with solutions. Some people might not like them, but they are solutions that address the deficit.
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Can we get a picture from the State of the Union from 2011? I dont' think Pelosi is the speaker anymore. Â
I thought Obama's speech was pretty good, but a bit of a sell-out toward the right (just a bit). Paul Ryan, being a Wisconsin boy, probably is supported by Wisconnites on that fact alone (like Packer fan way of thinking). I still heard a lot of democrat slamming in his speech, but that is par for the course on Wisconsin.
Okay, we have the Baby Boom generation. It's not really that they were that numerous compared to other generations, but when all it takes is a few percentage points to win an election, it matters!
These boomers were once young liberals, protesting against the vietnam war, fighting the conservative "establishment", and hugging trees and saving endangered animals, not to mention enjoying the sexual freedom of "the Pill". They also had the vote at age 18, while many were in (liberal) college, some to avoid the draft, some to get an education (dreaming of the space race?)
Then these boomers had to get out and get a job, and raise kids of their own. These boomers eventually became conservative, when hit upside the head with the reality of cold, hard cash. Now these boomers are trying to figure out how to get a comfortable, financially secure retirement. Hence the politics we see.
You see the corner we are backed into? Not enough time to "change the world" anymore, we are just tryng to manage the end-game of our own lives, and new goals have taken us into a different direction.
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Back in the 2008 primary, the Dem vote was split into the Hillary camp, coming from the working class, survived-without-college (or despite of college) way of thinking, and the Obama camp, coming from the middle-class, "enlightened and college-educated" crowd. The McCain supporting crowd did not have that split over whether education was needed or not.
The big problem with Obama's push for "Math and Science" is this... Being this kind of "book-smart" is not cool! Math and Science won't make you filthy rich, Nobel Prize fame is meaningless compared to an Oscar, Grammy, or SuperBowl ring, and it won't stop the bully or thug from beating you down on his turf.
Look at Healthcare. The big hoot and holler isn't about wanting it for all, it's about how to pay for enough to cover everybody. How can all the 90% of the people who make less than $15/hour be taken care of by providers being paid double, triple, or much more? Average Joe doesn't like to work more than 40 hours per week, but when healthcare is needed, there happens to be 168 hours in the week to cover, sacred holidays included!
And you expect all of us to get a good Math and Science education when there are so few teachers even capable of that? And we want those teachers to be paid like a pizza delivery person, no pension or benefits? Everybody else who has to "serve" us must do it for less than we make, right? It's bad enough teaching the "3 R's" successfully, Science (which includes Evolution and the Environment) is not part of the 3 R's, never was. One of those R's is 'Rithmetic, but the "math" Obama refers to is way beyond memorizing your flash cards, way beyond decimals and fractions, too! You might even claim it is beyond "normal" human comprehension, and 90% of the people will agree with you.
Yet, Obama is right. If America can't get the production edge on the global economy through a lower paycheck for its masses of consumers, then we need to work on talent, skills, and knowledge beyond those schools in China and India, beyond even Europe.
I include "socialist", high-paid Europe because of this... Look at how many of our high-tech manufacturing firms have been bought out by European companies. When your factory buys new equipment, does it have an American brand-name on it? Probably not.