SOTU

First, an update on a previous post.  I heard yesterday that another country, Norway I believe, is giving a course to male Muslim immigrants on how to behave toward Western women, that is, women aren't there to be groped, sexually assaulted, and raped.

The State of the Union.  For one, I'm glad it's the last one Obama will give.  He doesn't give out-and-out, bold-faced lies like, say, Joseph Goebbels.  There's enough of the truth, but just a little bit, so that people accept what he says.  That our economy is "strong" must be a joke to millions of Americans. For many (I won't deny that), times are better than in the recent past.  But the unemployment rate is so much lower only because so many jobs have been eliminated.  People can't work if there aren't jobs.  Other than petrol, prices are very high; at least in this neck of the woods they are.  And of course the US has the mightiest military in the world.  But who's really afraid of it when the C-in-C uses it so timidly and, usually, only to foster political support or deflect criticism?  Note on the day Obama made this claim, US sailors were snatched by our recent good buddies, the Iranians--and we thanked Iran for returning them!?!?!?  In a not-so-vague reference to Ted Cruz, Obama criticized "carpet bombing of civilians" in the war against ISIS.  Well, Cruz didn't say to carpet bomb civilians, but ISIS and if civilians were casualties that's deplorable, but it's also war.  Should we not have fought back with bombs vs Germany and Japan in WW2?

How great that Congressman Steve King walked out of the SOTU, just before it began.  I heard this earlier today and then was sent an e-mail about it.  He just couldn't listen to any more, couldn't take any more.  Specifically, I guess, he loathed the hypocrisy of Obama's empty chair.  I don't think I need to re-explain that, that some lives matter and some don't depending on one's political persuasion and/or party.  If more people acted like this, I know I know, "How rude!," maybe more people's eye's would be opened to the bad things that are occurring.

And what's with the Republicans, that is, the Establishment Republicans?  OK, they are being the Establishment more than Republicans.  I didn't hear all or even most of Nikki Haley's rebuttal of the SOTU, but what I did hear startled me.  First, there wasn't much criticism of Obama and there's a lot of that to be found.  Second, she seemed to repeat Democrat complaint about the Republicans.  I think she said the Dems bear some of the responsibility for what's wrong now, but so do some Republicans--but only some.  I don't think she was very good in hiding who she meant.  Those are the winners from 2010 and 2014 who promised to go to DC to fix things and were met with slamming doors in their faces by the elitist Establishment-types.  Third, why was she more critical of Trump and even Cruz (without naming either) than of Obama?  This, no doubt, is typical Establishment Republican activity.  Are they stupid?  Are they willfully blind?  Are they so darn arrogant?  Do they still not realize why it is that Trump (of all people!) and Cruz are the Republican front-runners so late in the game?  Do they not see the anger and frustration people have for what's been going on and they themselves are targeted as well as the Democrats?

Here's a prediction, if the Establishment Republicans give voters another Establishment candidate for President, the Democrat will win, be it Clinton (and shame on Americans if she's elected; heck, shame on Democrats if she's nominated!) or even Sanders.

Big government, what a fiasco!  More and more is coming out about the Flint water travesty and more and more the finger is being pointed at the incompetence of big government.  Obama?  Snyder?  It doesn't matter, I guess.  When our leaders try to impose their own agendas, esp when the people have let their views be well known, we have big problems.  Perhaps they could take a lesson from Abraham Lincoln, who was able to sway Northern views to accepting abolition in just a couple of short years.

BTW, I came across this quotation from Lincoln in a book by one of my Amherst professors, George Kateb (Modern Political Thought--and I still use some of the notes from his class in my classes!).  I think it, the quote, relates well to what we've seen over the course of the past 40-50 years coming out of Washington, DC--the "bi-partisanship," "reaching across the aisle," "compromise."  I've said this in the past, the other side, through "compromise," gets a little here, a little there, a little here, a little there and, "Poof! Magic!," it has everything it wanted and the other said is left with nothing, while still patting itself on the back for its "bi-partisanship," "reaching across the aisle," "compromise."  Anyway, back to Lincoln, of this he said, "The system of compromise has no end."  He was speaking of slavery, that on some issues, there is no "compromise."

Did you ever hear a parent tell an obnoxious child, "You better stop or you'll get a spanking" or "a time out" or some punishment, but then just keep saying that without ever spanking, giving a "time out"(Boy, I still dislike that......), etc.?  Isn't it frustrating?  Spank him!  Give her the "time out!"  Do something other than threaten!  It reminds me of Obama with Libya, with Syria, with Iran, with Russia, with China.  He continues to draw his "red lines," then when they are crossed, nothing happens.

Speaking of Obama, I read an article in the NY Review of Books or New Yorker or The Atlantic or some other such mag, about a purported review of a book Obama gave, as a student, to another student friend of his.  No, there was nothing cheating about it, nothing dishonest.  But I just don't believe, from what I read in the article, excerpts from Obama's purported analysis of the book, that he wrote it or even thought it.  What I've seen of him over the past 8 to 10 years, I just don't believe those were his analyses.  Maybe they were and I am wrong; I still don't believe it.

I was thinking about the anti-union sentiments in this country today.  OK, maybe some of the anti-unionism is justified.  It still irks me that for merely ratifying the last UAW contract, auto workers got upwards of $9000 in bonuses--each!  I don't blame the workers or even their union reps.  What a lot of people overlook is that unions don't act unilaterally.  Management must approve, say, such bonuses!  But think back to 100 years ago, when workers didn't have unions.  Hundreds, in the steel industry alone!, were killed annually on the job due to unsafe factory conditions--dangerous machines, poor lighting (Hey, it costs money to light the factories!), etc.  How many thousands were injured, maimed for life, with no prospects of ever being able to make a living again?  Think of the money, too.  Let's even go to the 1970s.  Oh, even then we were talking big about how important education is.  But, as usual, we never put our money where our mouths are.  Working at the Rouge, in the foundry, I was making roughly $15,000 a year, including OT.  Straight time was about $10,000.  I left there to teach and my salary was $7,000!  "Yeah, but you have your summers off!"  (Nobody considers that we had to take classes in the summer, paying from our own pockets, from that $7,000.)  Over the years I have been critical of unions, yep, even my own teachers' union.  They've become something other than I'd have wanted them to become.  But, too, without out them, where would workers be today?  Do you really think we could have relied on the monied interests--enterpreneurs, school boards, etc.--to do the right and moral things?  I don't......