The real State of the Union
By Pepe Escobar
US President Barack Obama's State of the Union (SOTU) address was a somewhat surrealist spectacle. Way beyond avalanches of PR spin, the US government for a long time has not exactly done wonders for the public good. So as it advertises itself in front of a dysfunctional US Congress dismissed as repellent by an overwhelming majority of Americans - including, and expanding, on those 76% who are living paycheck to paycheck - what's left is a grand, old Hollywood production.
And Obama, of course, is a decent actor who can deliver a decent speech - certainly better than Ronnie Reagan, whom Gore Vidal used to describe as "the acting president".
The key theme of SOTU 2014 was the appalling income inequality in the US. Call it an appendix of this past week at the World
Economic Forum in Davos - that snowy Vegas for the 0.00001% - in which the Masters of the Universe finally "discovered" inequality. So much inequality, in fact, that 2014 was instantly tagged by the Masters - and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - as the new 1914, all that furiously tweeted to all corporate boardrooms of the liquid modernity elite.
As Obama got into his groove, he proclaimed that Obamacare had won; that he would resort to ruling by executive order to get things done; and that a mixed salad of platitudes and vague proposals/generalities attested to the imminent success of his agenda of improving "opportunity" as the only answer to fighting inequality. Oh yes; and that the American Dream was not in a coma.
in full: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-290114.html
truth2power
(8,219 posts)"...a mixed salad of platitudes and vague proposals/generalities..."
I really don't understand how intelligent people can applaud the pap he was laying on us. <sigh>
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)what a terrible waste of opportunity. So he's gonna unilaterally raise the minimum wage? Here's a clue: Try $14/hr, not $10.10! And while we're at it, what was the 5 year wait for?.
Doc_Technical
(3,526 posts)The ridiculous shouting, yelling, and standing ovations, regardless of who
the President is, is nothing more than a millionaires circle jerk.
These people, with rare exception, care nothing for 95% of the people
of the U.S.A. and care not a whit for 99.99% of the rest of the people
on the planet.