Political Theater and Double Speak: Obama's State of the Union Address

President Obama's State of the Union Address was chalk-full of theatrical political double speak.  It is important to note that whether or not the President's whimsical flurries of optimistic tones resonated with you, it was all said by a man who recently extended the deplorable policy of tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America, while actually increasing the tax rate on the poorest among us.  Just that simple fact alone ought to make virtually everything this President says be classified as one-hundred percent pure bull crap.

I'm not going to go through his speech line by line, because frankly, I have better things to do with my time, as do you, the reader.  I will simply say that all his rhetoric about education, our "Sputnik moment", our "free enterprise system" being what "drives innovation", and our need to outshine the rest of the world in every conceivable way, is all vacuous rhetoric meant to satiate an under-educated and over-entertained population.  Apparently nobody in the media has the cahones to point out to the President that he's dead wrong about that "free enterprise" statement.  We don't, nor have we ever had, actual freedom of enterprise, and that's by design.  One would have to be a completely sycophantic nincompoop to think that the development of the Internet, the arrival on the Moon, and all other other truly important inventions in the last two hundred years would have been developed if we had a so-called "free enterprise" system.  The fact remains, no matter how hard this President and all others try to hide it, that those things all came about during a time when the government was infinitely more invested in the economy than it is today.  Further, the top tax rate during most of these great accomplishments was well over 75%.  By today's standards, we were basically a socialist country when we went to the moon.

Now, I'm not saying that everything President Obama said last night was bull pucky.  (Why am I using so many Southern colloquialisms today?)  There were plenty of things he said that are not only true, but need to be said.  I am the first person to say that the bully pulpit should often be used to frame the debate in the country.  In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the strongest influence President Obama could have is to raise the rhetoric to a level that is intelligent, relevant, and centered on building up the least among us.  What I am saying though, is that much of what he said is virtually meaningless because none of the things he is proposing or philosophizing about can be accomplished if we are basically beholden to borrowing money from China for the tax relief we give to the wealthiest people on the planet; the yacht sailors and private plane flyers.

It's all political double speak.  It sounds just like what you want to hear from the President (minus a lot of other things we all wish he would address) but has no chance of really affecting those of us who just want to work, pay our bills, go to school, and live our lives free of the constant threat of poverty.  It's political theater on the grandest scale.  I mean, damn!  They even went as far as to wear those ridiculous ribbons "in honor of Gabbie Giffords."  And if that was not enough theater for you, Republicans and Democrats mixed it up and sat next to one another in a "show national solidarity," like they were kinder-gardeners who were sitting boy girl boy girl.  That act took away the ability for the public to see which legislators present were the ones who worship the dollar above all else; usually evident by never clapping for anything that has to do with funding things like education and infrastructure.  I think we can call that theatrical double speak.

I don't know, I guess my point is this:  There is nothing the President can do at this point to convince me that he is truly attempting to rebuild this country, or reform it for the better, until he speaks to the issues of poverty, unfair taxation, ending all wars of occupation, disclosing the budgets for the 16 secretive government agencies, making elections publicly funded, and taking the health care system out of the for-profit market.  A good place to start would be reversing the tax cuts to the wealthy, and increasing the highest tax rate to what it was in the late 1960s, the most prosperous time in American history, if we are judging by household debt, education access, and health care costs.  Is that too much to ask for in the richest country in the world?  I think not.  Not when every single other industrialized country in the world has all those things I mentioned.

The People Versus the Government?

What is more important, personal rights and freedoms, or how the least fortunate among us are treated? I am of course asking this question in the context of government. That is, since it has become blatantly clear as of late that there is a very large portion of the American population that simply do not trust government, one cannot escape the question: If you don't trust government, who do you trust? Yourself? Are you, in your lonesomeness, the only person who can responsibly handle life on this planet? By responsibly, I do mean that all so unpopular concept in America that individuals - even in America - do have some kind of responsibility to attend to the betterment of human kind, to justice, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and so on. So here's my question couched differently: If you are one of those people, perhaps even a Tea Party Patriot, who claims that government is basically nothing more than a noose around the neck of an otherwise productive, smart, responsible, caring people, do you feel that real self-reliance is what you want? If so, what does it look like? Does government have a role at all?

I have heard many people, and some very eloquently, argue that government has never done the people any real good. One could probably make a good argument outlining how exactly the government, particularly in America, has really never done anything but make things worse over the long haul. After all, is has never been the American people who started offensive wars in the Middle East, put people in prison for stupid reasons, went against the Constitution in order to take rights away from people who otherwise had them, or lowered the tax on the rich to the lowest it has ever been. All those things, as examples, have been done by the elected - and sometimes appointed - government of the United States of America. The people, by and large, didn't really have a role in those decisions. Or did they?

Sure, government passed those often crazy laws that clearly benefit the rich over the poor, the White over the brown or black, the man over the woman, and the hard lined capitalist over the democratic socialist. But, it is the people who favor the skinny over the fat, the college educated over the poor high school graduates, the money makers over the laborers, the fashionable over the unique, and so on as it goes down the line. The point I am making here is that most of the social decisions that marginalize people who are otherwise equals, have been made as a society. Racism, sexism, elitism, ageism, and all the other "isms" have never really been mandated by the government, yet it is the government that seems to be getting blamed here.

Now, I come back to my question: What is more important to you, your personal freedoms and rights, or making sure the personal freedoms and rights of everyone around you are also had? What if they are brown? What if they are Muslim? What if they are fat? What if they are women instead of men? What if they are really smart but didn't get a college degree? What if they did get a college degree but you didn't? What if they are not as mentally or physically able as you to live a life free of the help of government or some such entity to help?

I'm not going to say I have the answer. To the contrary, there is a piece of me that agrees with both the anarchist and the socialist. I believe there is a role for the government, and it is to do one thing: Work toward the equality of life opportunities for the citizens who elected it, and to not ruin the environment, ecosystems, or foreign people's ways of life in the process. But therein lies the rub, as Shakespeare would say.

I, like so many left wingers and right wingers, have real doubts about the American government every getting it right. Obama is clearly a stooge of the Federal Reserve and the corporations that really run the country, just like every President in history, with the possible exception of John F. Kennedy, who I would argue was assassinated simply because he decided to really govern, to lead the country, as opposed to do the work of his corporate bosses. Our silly voting system makes it all but impossible to have a real debate in this country about truly important issues, and with all the private money involved in elections it's really a miracle that we don't actually get self-admitted Fascists in the White House. And in general, the people of this country feel entirely powerless against the seemingly endless power of the political and corporate elites.

With all that in mind, it is hard for me, as just one radical revolutionary guy, to be optimistic enough to think that Obama or anyone else is ever really going to do what is necessary to take our country back from the corporate oligarchs, unless the people give the leadership a deal it can't refuse. Follow me? Here's the problem though: Most of the people who are out there now, fully ready to engage in revolutionary rebellion; to actually take on the government and make a true statement against how it is run; to break down the machine as we know it, are all right wing extremists who think that we should go back to some kind of law of nature, where everyone just fends for him or herself. I'm not into that. But, I'm not into the status quo either.

In conclusion, let me say that I, like so many, am thoroughly confused, angry, and in need of direction. Who should I be talking to? Are there revolutionaries out there who are NOT right wing corporate sycophants? Are there revolutionaries out there who are willing to die not for their country but for their dignity as human beings? Where is the revolutionary push toward a society that honors freedom and individuality, but ALSO love for one another, acceptance of our differences, and that is as concerned for the least among us as for those who have made it to the proverbial top?

I don't think I'm advocating anything here, but let me just say that a civil war of epic proportions would make more sense, historically and idealistically speaking, than yet another voting cycle of choosing between two really weak, corporately controlled Presidential candidates next time around. Maybe the United States needs to be broken up, I don't know. Maybe we need to usher in the biggest societal breakdown in the history of man, so that we can rebuild ourselves.

Whatever happens, consider me an ally, as long as we are fighting against corporate, capitalistic, religious, or any other form of fascism. It's not about guns. It's not about color. It's not about taxes. It's about human decency, respect for one another, and the idea that we are the only ones who can fix things. There is no President who can do this for us, nor any government. Hmm, maybe I am leaning toward an anti-government stance, at least until we can take down this one and build a better, more just one.