While working on my latest painting (an Edward Hopperesque rendition of a seedy beach motel near where I live, the Sea Breeze), I listened on the radio to Barack Obama’s latest oratorical performance – his February 24th “State of the Union (Economy)” address to Congress. Obama is the first US president in my lifetime that I can stand to listen to for extended periods of time without wanting to regurgitate. I was too young and air headed to be interested in politics when JFK was around. Bill Clinton was smart enough. He could to reel off data and policy and complex thoughts without notes and all, but I always felt like he was a patent opportunist setting his sails to the prevailing political winds, what with all of his ‘triangulation’ and Republican-Lite domestic policies and ‘aggro’ international endeavors like bombing Belgrade (even as the real Republicans abhorred him for stealing their thunder as they rushed ever further to the right.) The rest of them I positively hated hearing speak, especially the so-called “Great Communicator” himself, Ronald Reagan. His phony avuncular grandfatherly style always left me cold, and the implications of his message left me angry and fearful. Richard Nixon used false sentiment and the usual patriotic treacle to cover his serious pathological addiction to power. Jimmy Carter was simply a disappointment with his good intentions and inept implementation; was this the best we could do after the crashing and burning of the Republican Party under Nixon? Of course, after eight long years of W. Bush’s bumbling torment of the English language trying to explain away his disastrous policies ineptly using intellectually dishonest constructs (and outright lies) cobbled together by of his stable of hack speechwriters, anyone would sound like Abraham Lincoln or Clarence Darrow. So Obama has it made in that regard. He is an excellent speaker with something of substance to say - and a program that I more or less agree with. Like a good college instructor, he his both interesting and informative.
But with things the way they are Barack Obama had his work cut out for him. His speech last week had to provide both necessary balm to a nation that is reeling from a quintuple whammy - and provide hope. Americans are being knocked silly by at least five interrelated shocks to their systems. First we have a plunge in material well-being like none I have seen in my lifetime. Virtually the entire middle and upper middle class is now suddenly poorer as the value of their primary asset, their house, continues to sink like a rock. Secondly, personal and family nest eggs are broken and running out of the cartons and all over the counter top as their stock market investments and the value of their 401Ks continues in free fall. The third factor is the profound loss of confidence in the very (de)regulatory establishment, itself. The government allowed the entire banking system to implode due to an appalling instance of greed and collective irresponsibility by Wall Street as they milked vast wealth out of the ever-expanding housing bubble. Now that the bubble has burst, the same fuckers have the supreme audacity to “request” hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to staunch the financial bleeding of their banks and investment houses. Yet despite the grudging largess of the taxpayers for so far 350 billion bucks and counting, the whole thing remains dysfunctional as ever with credit still frozen solid. The financial crisis (now worldwide) acts on the recession like supercharger moving it ever closer to into the category of yes - a Depression. So now, whammy Number Four - millions (billions worldwide) now face unemployment as the downturn feeds on itself and losses mount in more and more industries resulting in evermore workers hitting the bricks. Finally Number Five in this ‘quintuple whammy’ and the basic problem that started it all: foreclosures. Millions are losing their homes due to foreclosures as mortgage payments reset on properties whose values are plummeting. Neighborhoods formerly full of proud homeowners, being a homeowner was the primary element of the so-called American Dream, are now ghost towns. Of course, as in all economic processes it feeds on itself and the emptied housing tracts and neighborhoods lead to ever more of decline in housing values as unsold housing stock accumulates in aggregate.
Into this maelstrom young Mr. Obama has placed himself. His speech Tuesday night will only be remembered if his grandly ambitious plans work out as we all hope it does (except for that fat ass Rush Limbaugh and his Brown Shirt contingent on the far right). Even if we were not in an economic crisis of yet unknown magnitude with so far only hypothetical (and cautious) remedies being proposed and with no one really sure what will actually work, he would be in hot water. So much damage, irrespective of the current economic crisis, was done by Bush and his cabal of Republican Party Neanderthals in Congress, not to mention the neoconservative ideologues who commandeered his foreign policy and drove it over the cliff, Obama would be totally overwhelmed with just the clean up work. But confronting global warming (with renewable energy and capping carbon dioxide emissions,) implementing universal health care, pulling US troops out of Iraq without it descending into chaos (which he would be blamed for), the rubric cube of Afghanistan (potentially more of Viet Nam- type quagmire than even Iraq is,) taking on wasteful military spending, taking on agribusiness and their beloved farm subsidies, reversing Bush tax cuts for the rich and very rich, and somehow miraculously eventually cutting back on the deficit – and all at once. Each of these is a full-on, total immersion kind of issue involving bloody power struggles with very well entrenched, well funded and articulate defenders.
The very fact that he could tie them all together in credible package apprising the American people of their interrelationships is noteworthy and admirable. He was also able to communicate the fact that in this economic crisis when all bets are off, great latitude and opportunity for much needed change exists. It’s like a pinball machine that suddenly pops out several balls at once. An opportunity for a very high score as well as the danger of a very low one (due to serious distraction) both exists simultaneously.
The next year should be very interesting indeed!
