Wednesday, January 25, 2012

State of the Union 2012

Last night, I watched the premier piece of political pageantry in American politics, The State of the Union address.

This version posted by the White House has additional infographics accompanying the speech:



 Some people will inevitably complain about it being just another speech by Obama & his teleprompter that, according to his critics, no President has ever used before. Personally, I think The Long-Legged Mack Daddy has done as well as anyone can be expected to in his position.

The one credit I've always given our previous President, George W. Bush, is that he's the reason I got interested in politics & government affairs as a young adult.

His administration was like a car wreck that I had to watch, in horror. The GOP's policies were horrible overall, and Bush was himself was a continual disaster & embarrassment in the eyes of the world. The real President at the time, Dick Cheney, was widely regarded with the same affection as The Emperor in Star Wars.

NEVER FORGET!!!...


Therefore, it's nice to be able to sit through these State of the Union speeches & not feel like the leader of the country is an inarticulate ignoramus.

Obama's clearly not perfect, but he's a helluva alot better than Bush or any of the current Republican candidates. If anything, he hasn't been forcefully progressive enough. Actually, the points where Obama & his administration are at their worst is where they try to continue the policies of the Bush White House. However, he campaigned as a moderate Democrat (not a liberal) and realistically has to deal with the conservatives in Congress & "The System" in general.

Haters gonna hate, though, so there are people who get sucked into the Fox News & right-wing talk radio (((brain-warp))) who think Obama's a muslim socialist who was born in Kenya & deeply hates America. I read the comments for articles on Fox Nation & Red State with the same sense of morbid curiosity as someone visiting an insane asylum. ...but, hey, all views should be taken into equal consideration, right?
Fair & Balanced™!!!

Obama, like all Presidents, is faced with a tremendous job & there are plenty of decisions to criticize or praise. I generally agree with his articulated vision for the country. If he had a greater degree of cooperation from Congress, the country would be improving at a much faster rate. The alternative is the traditional, disastrous Republican ideology, which is basically the privatization of everything & welfare only for multi-national corporations & the top 1%, sucking up America's wealth.

I'm pretty cynical, but I still think voting is an important civil act. I'll almost certainly be voting for President Obama, regardless of what obscenely rich knucklehead the GOP finally nominates.

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