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Tonight our President Obama had me in tears and yes, maybe something will actually change.
The tone and delivery of this speech, the message and apparent commitment, all so different from what We The People have been seeing in the actual events of the day.
It was the tone, though, that made the difference tonight. Obama wants to be believed and believable. If he has been hobbled by global corporate and domestic privateers to do their bidding, tonight he spoke up, for what it's worth.
He gave us hope that -- even if it ain't The New Deal -- it ain't a done deal.
The humor was a nice touch. A rakish, end of the Baby Boom snarkasm, that has turned Jon Stewart into a major news source for those unfrotunate to grow up after Reagan's propoganda "trajectory" was installed in all MegaCorpMedia. Barack still wants to be the clever guy at the dorm party or the dinner table, who observes and assesses the absurdity of our times with wicked and incisive wit (aka :sarcasm:).
Five years ago, I found DU after Googling to make some sense of the second !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! U.S. stolen presidential election. The criminal bastards were not impeached and the heir apparent to the Corporate States of American went along with the program.
Until tonight.
It can not be overstated that he definitely called them out, on different topics, at different levels. We'll see what is to come of it.
It was nice to hear the tone of a feisty and human president, not a corporate android, giving the American people a reason to believe in our own Myths again, however maligned and misinterpreted they may be.
:patriot:
In the end, it is our ideals, our values, that built America — values that allowed us to forge a nation made up of immigrants from every corner of the globe; values that drive our citizens still. Every day, Americans meet their responsibilities to their families and their employers. Time and again, they lend a hand to their neighbors and give back to their country. They take pride in their labor, and are generous in spirit. These aren't Republican values or Democratic values they're living by; business values or labor values. They are American values.
Unfortunately, too many of our citizens have lost faith that our biggest institutions — our corporations, our media, and yes, our government — still reflect these same values. Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people's doubts grow. Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.
No wonder there's so much cynicism out there.
No wonder there's so much disappointment.
I campaigned on the promise of change — change we can believe in, the slogan went. And right now, I know there are many Americans who aren't sure if they still believe we can change — or at least, that I can deliver it.
But remember this — I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I can do it alone. Democracy in a nation of three hundred million people can be noisy and messy and complicated. And when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy and pointed fingers. That's just how it is.
Those of us in public office can respond to this reality by playing it safe and avoid telling hard truths. We can do what's necessary to keep our poll numbers high, and get through the next election instead of doing what's best for the next generation.
But I also know this: if people had made that decision fifty years ago or one hundred years ago or two hundred years ago, we wouldn't be here tonight. The only reason we are is because generations of Americans were unafraid to do what was hard; to do what was needed even when success was uncertain; to do what it took to keep the dream of this nation alive for their children and grandchildren.
Our administration has had some political setbacks this year, and some of them were deserved. But I wake up every day knowing that they are nothing compared to the setbacks that families all across this country have faced this year. And what keeps me going — what keeps me fighting — is that despite all these setbacks, that spirit of determination and optimism — that fundamental decency that has always been at the core of the American people — lives on.
It lives on in the struggling small business owner who wrote to me of his company, "None of us," he said, "... are willing to consider, even slightly, that we might fail."
It lives on in the woman who said that even though she and her neighbors have felt the pain of recession, "We are strong. We are resilient. We are American."
It lives on in the 8-year old boy in Louisiana, who just sent me his allowance and asked if I would give it to the people of Haiti. And it lives on in all the Americans who've dropped everything to go some place they've never been and pull people they've never known from rubble, prompting chants of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A!" when another life was saved.
The spirit that has sustained this nation for more than two centuries lives on in you, its people.
We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come. A new decade stretches before us. We don't quit. I don't quit. Let's seize this moment — to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.
Thank you. God Bless You. And Goddess Bless the United States of America.
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