They're just words.
Whether you support President Obama, don't support President Obama, love President Obama, loathe President Obama, agree with President Obama, disagree with President Obama... in the end they're just words.
Some good words in there to be sure, but words just the same...
And yet... words can be very powerful things. Words can inspire. Words can bring comfort. Words can bring hope.
Words can also bring pain, fear, and discord.
And while I don't agree with everything President Obama says or does when it comes to his presidential politics, in the end I think that his words paint him as a true patriot. A patriot who is trying his best to inspire, comfort, and bring hope to a desperate nation in difficult times. He believes that the ideals of his administration are the best hope for this country and the citizens who call it home. And even though there are those of us who may disagree with his politics, I think it is a mistake to paint him as anything except a man trying his best to do what he feels is the right thing for our country.
That being said, I am neither inspired, nor comforted, nor given hope by President Obama's State of the Union address this evening.
Because I know... I know... that right after President Obama's speech... and after Representative Paul Ryan's response to his speech... and after wack-job, dumbass, crazy-ass, bat-shit insane Representative Michele Bachmann's response to Paul Ryan's response to President Obama's speech...
... it's back to politics as usual.
Because there is simply too much money to be made on both sides of the political spectrum in keeping pain, fear, and discord alive in this country.
Money that the vast majority of us will never see.
It's not a Republican thing. It's not a Democratic thing. It's not a Liberal thing or a Conservative thing. It's not Right or Left or Blue or Red thing.
It's a money thing.
That used to be a people thing.
And really needs to be a people thing once again.
One day.
Hopefully sooner rather than later.
But those are just words too.
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The “politics as usual” shit depresses me. I’d love to see something different.
You and me both. There are days that I can barely stand to turn on the television or pick up a newspaper.
Yep. I love how “freezing spending” really means “freezing increases in spending.” That’s not an Obama thing; it’s been “politician speak” for years. But only freezing the increases won’t come close to getting us out of debt. There really isn’t any way for us to get out of debt but to ramp up (and it’s already increased quite a bit the past few years) printing of money while the U.S. dollar is still the international standard. And, of course, this will create lots of problems, too.
What I don’t understand is why we won’t look at the smaller countries who have been where we are now and learn from their mistakes such that we “right the ship.” Stopping the 2 wars and freezing increases and cutting out pork projects make us feel better but won’t even come close to making a difference on the total debt. Instead, we’d have to radically cut Social Security and Medicare, which I doubt any politician is willing to do, since the baby boomers are a huge block of votes.
The problem is that people have retired on the promise of the Social Security and Medicare monies they had “earned”… radically cutting either program would create a new class of elderly poor with no money and no way of supporting themselves. That’s a new problem entirely, and I have no idea how it could be solved.
Maybe just let Gen X and Gen Y know that they’ll never get SS, but they have to keep paying to help the old folks. Hell, I don’t expect to ever get it, and I think most of the informed in my generation are of the same mindset. We’ve had 401ks and/or IRAs all of our adult working lives anyway, so we need to be taking care of ourselves (and hopefully, we are).
And that would be smart. Because jerking the rug out from under people who have been getting a quarterly Social Security earnings summary on which they are planning their retirement would be pretty shitty. Whether people are relying on Social Security or not, they should at least have a right to expect what they’re being promised. If the government is over-promising (and they probably are) then they need to stop.
You’re exactly right. I can’t remember which specific part of the speech it was but I looked at my husband and said “That’s never going to happen – there’s too much money at stake. Good goal, but not going to happen.”
And there’s the issue at hand… despite what any politician says, special interest groups with their deep pockets are buying the government. That’s why we have things like government subsidized beef that makes a $16 hamburger cost $2 and the resulting pools of toxic sludge from cow poop is ignored to pollute huge areas of land. And why the oil companies get tax breaks while making billions. And so on, and so on.
I find it vaguely interesting that you described the beef and oil subsidies differently. Both apply to both, of course, and while some people dismiss the profit argument by saying that the increased costs would simply be passed to the consumer, the truth is that the consumer would then make different choices. It is that latter effect that would reduce profits, and rightly so.
Absolutely. And what’s TRULY amazing about eliminating subsidies where meat is concerned is that healthier meat alternatives (both for the body and the environment) would end up being a lot cheaper by comparison.
In the end, anybody who is for small government should want an end to government subsidies shenanigans so we can each decide where we want out money to go. But this is exactly opposite of what I often find. These people only seem to want smaller government WHERE THEY DECIDE IT NEEDS TO BE SMALL. Don’t subsidize health care, but give me my medicare. Don’t support the arts, but give me a cheap hamburger. Make sure I have the freedom to destroy the environment, but dictate that only a man and a woman get to marry. It goes on and on.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad to see people so oblivious and manipulated.
I always make the time to watch the State Of The Union speech and did so again last night. I’m pretty apathetic towards the speech as a whole. Didn’t inspire or annoy. I was left with a feeling of ‘meh’ and then changed the channel. Maybe my interest in politics peaked a couple of years back? Not sure why I didn’t really care about this year’s speech.
Given the ACTUAL state of this Union, I think President Obama did the best that he could. The result was “meh” but that’s about all you can expect.
funny how quickly we equate a financial value to situations these days. There was a time in many of our lives, money would not have been a fleeting thought. But today, we quickly realize “there is to much money at stake.” It’s as if practices like Ford Motor company’s cost/repair analysis that placed financial value on human life over an exploding gas tank recall, has become socially accepted to some degree. We’ve become so use to being screwed by companies and our Government we just…deal with it, to put it nicely.
I agree with you…my day was spent interviewing political officials and have sadly reached my fill of this depressing reality. Truly sad to see those hurt the most from this trend. I just can’t help but think about how destructive this all has been to our nation.
It all comes down to money most every time. The stakes are massively huge, and the people controlling that money will do anything to keep it.
Regardless of the consequences.
I hope it becomes a “people thing” again sometime soon. Largely cuz I ain’t gotz no moniez! 🙁
That’s just about all of us now-a-days. 🙁