pipelines, violins, politicians, and love...

Anyone else find Obama’s SOTU mostly really good to listen to this year? I mean except for the saber rattling and nationalistic hoopla that seems to be mandatory for Western leaders? The man and his handlers have a gift for hearing the tone of the zeitgeist, even if I don’t really believe for a second that his banker friends will be letting him do much about any of that social equity and taxation of the rich stuff. He at least makes it sound like it would be a cool thing to see him doing.

MOXNews shared an OWS perspective too. Sort of.

Here in Canada, we have no charismatic leadership, sincere or not. We just have lying, cheating, heartless bastards that are about as exciting as dead fish. I hear what you're thinking, but really, I'm being kind. Our PM can’t even bring himself to tell us that he plans on completely gutting the social safety net that our country has been lauded for over the last fifty years; he goes to Davos and an economic summit, as far away as possible from the citizens he’s supposed to serve, to do it. I swear, this is karma for laughing at the US-ians for electing Dubya…

Obama: Drilling, nuclear and what might actually help.

I have little doubt who is benefitting from Obama’s plans to expand drilling in NA waters and start building nuclear plants. Could somebody get the prez a pair of knee pads?

With all of this supposed commitment to greening the American power grid, why turn to more oil and start up the nuclear crap again when there’s so much potential available power from geothermal with no GH emissions post-construction? Make the NA auto industry retool with all that bailout money and start putting out electric cars using an infrastructure like Mr. Agassi’s (see below).

Think of all of the R&D and infrastructure development involved with this. Think of all the jobs it would create. Think of all those battery patents the big three have been buying up for the last three decades! They could finally put them to use!

‘Free advice is worth the price.’ Robert Half (part deux)

Dear Mr. Obama,

Whew, you’ve been one busy beaver (in Canada that’s not dirty) this week: The SOTU, dangling the spending freeze, then this latest, the question and answer period in the dragon’s den. Er, I men, the congressional GOP room. It made for some exciting television unless you include the media coverage. (Couldn’t we just outlaw big media? They suck.) I managed to avoid most of the infotainment coverage however, and stayed with online feeds as much as possible. I visited my mom yesterday and she had CNN on, but I managed to escape with only a slight hemorrhage behind one eyeball and felt gratified by the knowledge that I’d squeaked out of a really close call.

Although I know you didn’t read my last missive, I think we were on the same wavelength on a few points. In the spirit of bi-partisan ship, even if I don’t qualify for that dynamic on account of my Canadian-ness, I thought I’d write another note to let you know how it all went down in my eyes, and to offer some more free advice. This also allows me to re-use a quote, which I love doing – it always makes me feel cheap and dirty in a sexy kind of way…

Anyway, in regards to the SOTU, I have to say that you almost lost me. The first half of the speech was so… so… motivating, but in an anti-motivating, ‘I’m listening to a speech intended for ten-year olds’ kind of way. And all of those disingenuous and fallacious standing ovations by a bunch of middle-aged corrupt men and women? Blech… It made my teeth hurt a bit in the way gorging on Halloween candy does. I was ready to rush myself to the hospital at one point to demand a shot of insulin. Instead, I said just about this very thing on the Whitehouse FB page and felt immediately better.

That desperate act allowed me to hang on for the second half of the speech which was, I’ve got to say, much better. When you started calling them out, each group, one by one, and instead of cheers garnered mutters and grumbles, then you had me. The looks on the faces of the Joint Chiefs and the Supreme Court made me feel giddy. And when you finally got around to threatening all of their corrupt asses by targeting the lobbyist system? That was beautiful, man, just beautiful. Like I said in my last letter, I think you’ll know that you’re getting somewhere when they all hate you utterly.

And the GOP question and answer session? Well, the Whitehouse blurb called your performance “inspiring”, but my impression fell a bit short of that. Gutsy, for sure, and very adequate. You did a hell of a job there, no doubt. I’ll be inspired when you do the same thing, just as publically, with the DNC representatives. When you call “your team” to the carpet just as directly and vociferously, then I’ll really be impressed. One of the CNN pundits suggested this very thing, in fact, but said that you should do it behind closed doors “obviously”. Not obviously, not at all. Make it public. Be a real leader and expect, nay demand, more of those on your side of the room than of those in opposition to you by ideological default.

Which brings me to today’s free (and worth every penny, dammit) advice.

I think you need to go much, much farther. Frankly, while the SOTU touched on a few nerves, you stopped shy of where I’d have enjoyed seeing you go. Too much wiggle room, my friend, too much. Same with dressing down only one side of the room in the Q&A: Not far enough by far. Thus, my advice to you, the thing that, I think, would make you an instant icon and the adored leader of the majority of the country, is the following:

Go independent. I’ll say it again: Cut your ties to the DNC and go independent.

No, seriously, I’m not kidding. It was the independent voters that elected you after all, so drop this façade of partisanship altogether and send the congress and senate a real message. You’ve been so politic in the way you’ve criticized the DNC and I think that you have to drop the gloves with them the way you’ve been willing to with the GOP. I think that, as much as I know that it might be political suicide, you should give the American population a sure sign that you are beholden to no one other than them, so take all of the red and blue ties out of your closet. Go with some really cool colors or, for serious occasions (they all seem to be serious ones these days), try some nice gray ones. And that’s only if you absolutely have to wear one because, like I suggested last time, those of us that think the system is a joke hate ties anyway.

You told the GOP representatives that you weren’t an ideologue and I like that. It mirrors much of the “whatever works” rhetoric from your book and I prefer believing that you are serious about that stance, so take that final great big leap and declare it to the country and the world in a tangible way. I’ll even give you a politically expedient out: If you really think that you can win a second term, wait until after the next election. Frankly, considering how massive your bottom-up support was, I can conceive of you running as an independent and winning. Now wouldn’t that be historic?

You keep saying that you want bi-partisan support, cooperation, and a non-partisan attitude, and this way you could really, really show you mean it. You could condemn the whole system then, without any doubt that you consider both sides of the aisle equally complicit in the corruption. You could declare a level of Presidential autonomy that would eliminate any appearance of ideological favoritism or compromise. I’d stand up and cheer. Hell, I’d apply for citizenship (whatever little hope I have that you can really change things down there, it is infinitely larger than the faith I have that Canadian politics can ever be redeemed). I’ll go straight to the border and swear my allegiance to the flag right there, and I hate, hate nationalism (outside of amateur junior hockey) with a passion, so I’m talking about a real sacrifice here.

I know what you’re thinking: It’s too soon; it would eliminate any chance to accomplish anything; I’d lose any momentum I have and betray the responsibility I have to put the public interest first; they aren’t ready for it yet. Excuses, all of them. Well, maybe not, but I keep hoping that you can be to the “last remaining super-power” (who the hell came up with that and how can they ignore China?) what Gorbachev was to the USSR. Break the broken system so much that something new has to be constructed to replace it. Shake ‘em up so bad they can’t go on like they have. Make it impossible to continue down this path of denial and corruption, and possible to actually move forward.

Then you might really change things. Aw hell, that might actually change the world.

Yours sincerely,

Michael

CC. The Whitehouse

‘Free advice is worth the price.’ Robert Half

Dear Barack Obama,

On this, the day of your 2010 State of the Union address, I would like to offer you some free advice regarding your speech.

First and foremost, shoot from the hip. We all know you could talk the garter off of a nun, but speak plainly this time. By all means, exercise your rhetorical skills and impress us, but do so as if you were speaking over coffee or a couple beers. Don’t spin anything or try to dazzle. Frankly, as inspiring as you can be, the shtick is getting a bit old. You need to be heard being sincere, not presidential; plain, not fancy. The people that elected you are pretty plain, you see. They are the moderate, independent middle of everything. They are the disenfranchised that saw in you and your beautiful speeches the possibility of a politician that was not one. Someone who saw what they saw.

So be that guy again. Talk plainly, even coarsely. I myself think that you should swear a few times. You should say ‘bullshit’ at least three times, and one of those should be in a sentence in which you are describing the disingenuous and partisan practices of the Republican Party. You could also call your own party to task while you’re on that topic, maybe throw in an F-bomb when describing how frustrating it was to watch your own party’s congressmen tear apart your health care bill like hyena’s squabbling over a kill, each one taking a nibble to appease one of their big money/no conscience, financial backers, leaving a proposal that is ultimately neutered.

And ‘balls’… use the word ‘balls’. As in: ‘I promise to grow a pair of balls in my second year as your president’. I mean, I truly admire the commitment you have made to non-partisanship, but come on; the GOP will be pouting over their loss for at least another six years, even if things continue as they have been and they reclaim the Whitehouse in three, so offer the olive branch every time and, when they blubber and cry about how unfair it all is, take it back and hit them over the head with it. Perhaps repeated concussions will improve their IQ.

I mean, I know that there isn’t really any difference between the Dems and the Reps, the blue and the red. Pretty much all of the elected officials (oh, please not you too – say it ain’t so) have corporate and special interest hands so far up their asses that they are practically muppets (to muppets everywhere – I apologize for the insult), but we, even those of us who just watch and have no say in US politics, all hoped so hard that you’d be different, that you’d do what you said, walk what you talked. I read your book, read and listened to your speeches and, dammit, I still want to believe that one person can beat the odds, make it all the way up there without completely selling out, and when they have the chance, will actually use it to make a real difference. I want to still believe that.

I want to believe what you said in your book about rising above it all, about throwing the old school out and ushering in a new era in the way politicians can work in service to their country instead of using their country and position in their own service. I thought you might be that guy. Lord knows, plenty of your fellow Americans thought you were that guy too; someone that actually cared more about getting shit done than what the polls said; someone who would sacrifice a second term if that’s what it would take to get the job done. You made them think you really care. Don’t let them down, okay?

So this is your chance to turn it around. Don’t wear a tie (I distrust people that wear ties), and go for that town hall look, only grubbier. Be earnest and sincere and that adorable bit of a geek that you are. Most of all, tell it like it is – no varnish, no illusion, no misdirection – just that facts. And then, after you say it, actually do it this time and damn the torpedoes. Do it not because it’s politically efficacious, but because it’s the right thing to do, because it’s honest and real. Be that guy and they’ll follow you. Right now they can sense the fear and smell the ubiquitous stench of the bullshit. You can’t keep doing that and think there will be a legacy worth leaving behind. Do something that’ll make the bad guys mad, mad enough to take a shot at you, and then you’ll know that at least you’re doing it with gusto.

The fact is, everyone that was so enamored of you back in November of 2008 is still waiting to see the guy in office that they saw in the campaign, and they are eager to follow that guy! So be him again. Start tonight. Take off the gloves and fancy ties and the smart suit jacket and put on a baseball cap and talk to them. They’ll follow if you can be strong enough to lead them. I promise.

And we, the rest of the world, will be hopeful too, if you do and they do, because if someone can actually redeem the US, then there’s definitely hope for everyone else.

Yours sincerely (mostly),

Michael