[Peace-discuss] Cynicism, clichés and a call for austerity

[C. G. Estabrook]

"Obama did not propose using a penny of government funds to actually hire a worker."

	Obama’s State of the Union Address:
	Cynicism, clichés and a call for austerity
	By Barry Grey
	28 January 2010

Over many decades, the annual State of the Union Address, nominally the occasion 
for the president to give an accounting to the American people, has acquired an 
entirely ritualistic character. The joint session of Congress to which the 
speech is delivered is scripted in every detail. The event has long since become 
a calculated exercise in cynicism and deceit.

President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union speech, delivered Wednesday 
night, was no different. The main aim of this address was to find a rhetorical 
bridge between the packaging of Obama as the candidate of “change” and “hope,” 
and the reality of his presidency, which has been unswervingly devoted to the 
defense of privilege.

The political and moral character of both the speech and the speaker was summed 
up in the fact that the catastrophe in Haiti, which has cost 200,000 lives and 
counting, did not merit a mention until one hour and five minutes into the 
address. Even then, the monumental tragedy was cited only as an occasion for 
gratuitous self-congratulation and yet one more invocation of the “American spirit.”

More than one year after an economic disaster that has ravaged the lives of 
millions of Americans and hundreds of millions of people around the world, no 
explanation was offered, only clichés. These included the now standard 
wrist-slaps of “irresponsible” bankers, who are never named and never called to 
account.

It was as if the bonanza for Wall Street and disaster for workers of the past 
year was the result of an accident or cosmic forces, and not the outcome of 
conscious policies set into motion for the sole purpose of protecting the 
personal wealth of a handful of multi-millionaires and billionaires. “If there 
is one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans,” Obama declared, “it’s 
that we all hated the bank bailout.”

Amidst the banalities and lies, the contradictions in the speech were glaring. 
The president who called Wednesday for “reforms” to rein in the bankers has 
stuffed his administration with Wall Street insiders.

The speech featured endless invocations of the “American people” from the 
representative of a political system that has excluded the people from any 
participation in the political life of the country or any say in the policies of 
the government.

For the most part, the petty measures to aid the “middle class” listed in the 
speech were put there to serve as sound-bites. Obama and everyone else in the 
chamber knew they had little chance of being enacted.

Obama made no attempt to explain why his previous proposals—above all, his plan 
to slash health benefits for millions of people in the guise of health care 
“reform”—had aroused mass opposition.

The speech was replete with pleas for bipartisanship. Even within the framework 
of bourgeois politics, Obama’s deference to the Republican right was 
extraordinary. Less than 15 months after the electorate decisively repudiated 
the party of George Bush and handed the Democrats the White House and large 
majorities in the House and Senate, Obama did not dare denounce the minority 
party for seeking to block every one of his initiatives.

The greatest lie of all was the pretense that Obama and the assembled 
congressmen and Washington dignitaries had any connection to the broad masses of 
the American people. Obama indulged repeatedly in the inevitable, sickening 
device of naming towns—Elkhart, Indiana; Allentown, Pennsylvania—that have been 
devastated by the policies of successive administrations, including his own, to 
show how deeply he identified with the common people.

All the time, seated behind him were Vice President Joseph Biden, his bejeweled 
watch flashing when the camera lights hit it, and Speaker of the House Nancy 
Pelosi, wearing one of her designer suits and her omnipresent string of pearls 
and sporting her perfectly coiffed hairdo.

The substantive policies that Obama advanced represented a continuation and 
deepening of his right-wing agenda. In the name of creating jobs and improving 
the lot of the people, Obama called for a three-year freeze on social spending, 
while ruling out any reduction in the gargantuan budgets for war and “homeland 
security.”

This is a mere down payment for the more serious task of gutting core social 
programs—Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. To begin that job, Obama 
announced the establishment of a bipartisan commission to propose spending cuts 
and taxes on consumption.

To show that he had gotten the message sent by voters in Massachusetts, who 
handed the Democrats a humiliating defeat in this month’s special Senate 
election, Obama declared that “jobs must be our number one focus in 2010.” This 
was immediately followed by the line that got the most enthusiastic response 
from his audience: “Now, the true engine of job creation in this country will 
always be America’s businesses.”

Obama proceeded to outline a series of tax cuts and windfalls for business that 
comprise the bulk of his so-called jobs program—$30 billion for community banks, 
tax credits for small businesses that hire new workers, the elimination of 
capital gains taxes on small business investment, tax incentives for companies 
that invest in new plants and equipment.

The enthusiasm in the chamber swelled when Obama added to this list special 
incentives for the nuclear power, coal and biofuels industries and waivers for 
offshore drilling by the oil giants.

The enthusiasm waned when he said he would not extend Bush’s tax cuts for those 
earning more than $250,000 a year, which includes virtually all of the 
politicians and officials who were present.

Under conditions where over 15 million workers are officially unemployed—3.9 
million more than when Obama took office—where nearly one in five are 
underemployed, and homelessness, hunger and poverty are rapidly rising, Obama 
did not propose using a penny of government funds to actually hire a worker.

On foreign policy, Obama touted his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, hinted 
at retaliation against Washington’s trade rivals, and issued threats against 
Iran and North Korea.

On full display was the utter contempt for the intelligence of the American 
people felt by Obama and the entire political establishment, as if somehow the 
implications of their policies and the realities of American society can be 
evaded by means of rhetorical tricks...

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