Marc Ash writes: "Last night's 2012 State of the Union address was most significant in that President Obama was kind enough to send fairly clear signals about where he intends to go. We have a road map. So that's a start."
President Barack Obama greets Speaker of the House Rep. John Boehner prior to delivering the 2012 State of the Union address on Capitol Hill, 01/24/12. (photo: Getty Images)
Obama's Words
25 January 12
Reader Supported News | Perspective
ast night's 2012 State of the Union address was most significant in that President Obama was kind enough to send fairly clear signals about where he intends to go. We have a road map. So that's a start.
If you were looking for social responsibility, Obama's comments on labor, trade, taxes, regulation of financial institutions, consumer protection, and education were on point rhetorically. Be aware that every time he said to the members of Congress, "If you send me a bill ... I will sign it," that statement incorporates the word "if," so that may not qualify as a plan of action.
The "other" side of Obama, however, was in attendance as well, and that President Obama appeared to drag some pretty substantial compromises with him to the podium.
Trouble on the Environmental Front
In the face of real community concern about allowing Hydraulic Fracturing, commonly known as "fracking," as a method for extracting natural gas, Obama seemed remarkably detached. He touted natural-gas extraction as the greatest thing since the Hoover Dam and pointed to a 100-year supply as justification.
Yes, he also touched on "green themes," renewable energy, fuel efficiency and all of that. But the environmentally responsible remarks were overshadowed by Obama's enthusiastic embrace of natural gas exploration "on public lands." That might easily equate to fracking in the nation's national parks and most cherished wild places.
Obama addressed environmental concerns about fracking only in a non-specific reference to mandating that energy companies involved in gas exploration be forced to "disclose the chemicals they use." Such information could be useful in constructing an epitaph for the North American ecosystem, but it's a poor substitute for protecting and conserving.
On the Warpath?
Big concern were Obama's remarks on Iran, both for their gratuitous bravado and conspicuous lack of understanding. Not much daylight there between Bush and Obama's logic, or oratory. Obama's a bit more reserved than his predecessor about initiating large-scale US military intervention in the affairs of other nations - so far - but if he makes the wrong call on Iran nothing he's done to date will matter.
On the whole it kind of sounds like he means well, but he's trying to please all the members of Congress all the time.
So much for Obama the realist.
Marc Ash was formerly the founder and Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Comments
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We need sane policy, based upon rebuilding and creating a living nature, and not policy based on the rape and pillage of nature for short sighted and short term $ profits.
Yes, WE can, so lets. Anything less than a total overhaul, and soon, is just racing into ecological disaster.
Personal note to President Obama: BE a president and ACT on those promises, as you say you will. Or...just get out of the way, because we don't have time for the nonsense. And we all will remember what you promised to pass if it crosses your desk. It is your DUTY as a president to follow through: to speak and act with utmost honesty, to work hard to protect the people you SERVE.
Will the real Obama PLEASE stand up?
As soon as one side is completely happy and the other side isn't, you know the country is in deep trouble.
The other thing we've been given is perfect assurance that Mr, Obama is NOT going to oppose or in any way slight Big Oil -- and is not encouraging Congress to do so, either. He seems to have weighed his choices and decided to give, a little, by threatening Big Finance -- but threat does not necessarily mean action, in Obama History.
Not meaning to be grouchy or cynical, it just don't seem like there was any more substance to last night's oration than the usual Obama Medicine Show pitches. Just a little more fervent, maybe -- it IS an election year....
Yes it is election year so yes we expect the closet to open and all the creatures to come out.
But at least he had some good ratios, fractions and numbers to possibly have those tottering to start questioning, yeah what are we gonna do with the money from Military, yea we do need better roads. I road with Republicans today who liked what they heard so he needs pressure...from everyone or perhaps he will continue like others knowing nobody does anything about anything. What do you do?
Obama has proven time and time again that he is neither a man of his word nor a man of the people.
On the other hand, there is a candidate that understands that the problems on main street stem from wall street, and the money that wall street has used to buy our government. That man is Rocky Anderson, the progressive former mayor of Salt Lake City.
Rocky Anderson supports universal health care as a basic right, supports equal marriage rights for all people, and was able to not only meet the kyoto protocols for Salt Lake City, but to beat them by nearly 50%, and this while dubbya was in office and there was a Republican governor.
Talk is cheap. Rocky Anderson has practical, on the ground experience and will act to restore Justice to our troubled country not just talk about change. We can't change our government until we take it back from corporations. Rocky Anderson is the man for the job.
President Obama has not read the information and it is time he did because we have bad Governors lying to him. Strange because Democratic Gov in East are not going for it. So pressure could be applied by you, I do my part daily for ten years. I have to live with a Red State of Corruption Pollution...Pa.
More and more people all the time are waking up to the fact that this President is all words and no deeds.
No deeds? Take another look.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=7842
How many more times will we watch him read NOTHING WITH ANY PASSION and continue to put up with it? Last night's PERFORMANCE (exactly what it was - or not even that, simply a DRY READING) was incredibly disappointing.
I feel sorry for Obama. He has become less than he was, or less than he could have been. And so the world continues downhill.
To this observer, those words spoke volumes!
I think that Bush the twit pushed me over the edge and have made a point of avoiding it ever since. Nothing against Ob' -just the whole phony business.
'Scuse the deep cynicism and I accept y'r red "Thumbs down" in advance. Just had to say it.
I got don't ask don"t tell and much more. This president did health care, have you read it? It is working.
Quoting
Of course you don't. Most of it doesn't take effect until 2014, thanks to the republicans, and thanks to them, it was created so that insurance companies can still cash in. It does not do nearly enough, but in the right atmosphere, it could be a small beginning that leads to real insurance coverage reform.
AND I suppose almost all of us here are going to vote for O, but I hope it doesn't bother you to see us holding our noses.
This is a story about four groups of people named Everybody, somebody, anybody, and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it.
Everybody was sure Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do
it but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
So which group is OB in, Dems in, GOP.TP in and You? Because we are all in those groups. Get the Point...start doing something.
So what're you gonna do? You say you want a revolution? We're all doing what we can. You go carrying pictures of OWS, it ain't gonna get you laid anyhow...
(All apologies to John Lennon)
GROW UP!!!!
I'm inclined to agree with you and actually like this man superficially as allowed to see. But the means of presentation of what should be a fairly serious occasion, dealing with community-building (or as in recent times, destroying) issues of global consequence and reach instead of a performance carefully stage-managed by the owner media, is my point.
Shakespeare did it much better with deeper conviction, truthfulness and passion:
"That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us -"!
Occupy and solidify en masse -that's all we've got and Ob' will go along if we show him our collective backbones.
That ain't gonna cut it! Politics is about MAKING IT HAPPEN, not sitting back and expecting it all to work out now that you got your guy in there.
When you all become mature enough, we'd love to have you beside us fighting to make this "a more perfect union." (As opposed to "a perfect union"; see the difference?)
Fine, show us how, in the face of how you get access to ANY politician tucked inside their offices inside the beltway, let alone a president who has power-wielding jackasses screaming at him from all sides: line up behind the lobbyists shall we.
Instead of y'r patronizing language for a self-assumed lofty "mature" peak give us some ideas in plain English. forgive me if'n I doctored my post up with a bit of "Henry V" -a little habit of mine to lighten things up but also put them in context from a master of the language who lived a long time ago.
Put up yourself or go back, think a bit and "GROW UP" by presenting some ideas in real time and context, not vague references to what could or might be if----!!
C'm'on. give us the foils man!
Try to have a demonstration exactly where you want it ...not around the corner and down the street...then tell me he is not a dictator. And now thanks to him, you can be thrown in Guantanamo with no access to the courts...he's my hero!
Where was your outrage then?
as for no access to the courts, mostly agree, though there are some caveats to imprisoning US citizens... and the ACLU is on this... .
The repulsive obstructionist repugnicans, and the know-nothing tp are no alternatives, and Ron Paul is no libertarian when it comes to govt. regulation of women's bodies etc.
So ... run for congress!!!
I thought it important to repeat the phrase "If you send me a bill, I will sign it" again and again because it illustrates the respective roles of Congress and the President to people who don't understand them. Also, by stating and restating this point, he challenges obstructionist Congress members to quit shirking their responsibilitie s. Finally, he did say that if they continue to do nothing, he would use the power of executive order and recess appointments as much as the constitution allows to get things done. To illustrate, he hailed his new consumer protection chief, Richard Cordoray. So, that's his action plan. It's about time.
Now I know what Rahm Emmanuel was talking about when he called folks like you "retarded". Sheesh!
What is Jersey Shore?
Do you also use words like "retarded"?
I guess you and Rahm must be pals.
Do you also use the "F" word?
That is what Rahm said to our CTU president Karen Lewis.
If you are some kind of political activist I would never follow a person of your caliber.
Don't know about your age, ABen, but I'm 65, old enough to remember quite a few Presidents and administrations . I was in politics, too, for many years. I'm not carping about someone 'not meeting (my) expectations' but about someone lying about nearly everything he once promised. This is NOT the 'obstructionism' of the GOP. For one thing, Obama had a solid majority in both houses for 2 years. For another, the claim that he needed 60 votes in the Senate is a ruse. Presidents have gotten around filibusters for 100 years, even when there was no such thing as cloture. Did the GOP force Obama to extend the outrageous Bush tax cuts? Open your eyes. The truth may be painful but it's better than hanging into your fantasy.
You have no idea how low my expectations were, which Obama failed to meet. It's not that he didn't rise to high execptations; he failed to meet low expectations.
And few, if any, are suggesting that Republicans have done anything but obstructionism. What is offensive are the lengths that Obama has gone to appease that which cannot be appeased enough -- as if it is Obama's agenda is to completely compromise away, or more accurately, obliterate, progressive issues.
Obama failed to defend the most basic progressive principles, after-which his operatives and legions of blind -- Republican-fearing -- supporters, many of whom ridiculed thier Bush-supporting counterparts as mindless, show audacity, not for hope, but, by casting vitriol against those, seemingly kindred spirits, who, rather than accept lofty, but hollow rhetoric and simplistic excuses, stand by principles and base judgement upon actions, in some cases, the lack of action, and failed strategies -- many of which seem to have been failure by design, and aren't frightened into subservience for what is (arguably, although I would argue, not) marginally better.
In other words, save your callow drivel for the choir. I look forward to your carping after the election.
And you should know, that you Opologists had the chance to be the difference earlier -- by supporting a Dem Primary Challenger -- and are to blame for the consequences.
You will continue to vote for the lesser evil in every election in every decade until you are old enough NOT to collect social security because some Democratic president ended it?
To quote William Carlos Williams: The imagination knows all stories before they are told.
You prove my point. It is juvenile to lay all of the ills you point out at this President's feet. He did not commit to do those things you state. He is not perfect. The fact that your expectations (as naive as they are) have not been met does not mean that this President has failed.
Unbelievable. For those on this blog who say the President has not accomplished EVERYTHING you wanted him to in a little over 3 years is the flip side of the infantile Republican argument that the President hasn't "cured" the economy, eliminated joblessness, denuded Iran, and turned water into wine in the last 3 years. Both positions are stupid and immature (although, sadly, all too common in the American psyche--to have it ALL, NOW, AT NO COST)
I repeat: GROW UP! Politics is, unfortunately or not, the art of the possible. That means compromise. Those who are so rigid in their thinking that they are unwilling to compromise will find themselves marginalized and without influence. Stamp your feet all you want children; the President will continue to deal with the adults. And you'll get put to bed early (like you used to be when you acted up!)
READ AND WEEP NRESQ!
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