1. It wasn’t by accident that the speech was
crafted around a letter from an ordinary family in Minnesota.
2. It wasn’t by accident that he chose the
topics on which he expounded. In
addition to others, he had asked members of his original grass roots
organization, Organizing for America (now Organizing for Action), to submit
topics that were of great concern.
3. It wasn’t by accident that he talked about
choices for the future, because numerous polls of late show what people are
most concerned about: jobs and the economy, the middle class being squeezed,
especially on wages; foreign terrorism, healthcare, education, and immigration
(see www.PollingReport.com for an idea of how they are ranked).
In his SOTU speech President
Obama said it’s up to us to choose who we want to be in the next 15 years, and
then said that we must focus on values, like:
§
"restoring
the link between work and opportunity," which means, I think, that middle-class
economics should not mean that we are penalized with austerity measures and
vindictive cuts in rights and jobs and benefits, but that rewards for hard work must include
things like tax credits for day care and pension protection and expansion of
benefits like health care and free community college tuition.
§
“thinking
higher than one pipeline” is a notable retort to how Republicans think we can
save the economy, but grasping at temporary jobs could result in great harm and
no gains, as would inevitable oil spills, dependence on oil that is all going
overseas, and damage to the aquifer and farm land of residents in states like
Nebraska.
§
staying
“ahead of the curve” in that, for instance, by the end of the decade two out of
every three jobs will require a college degree.
§
it
matters how we see the world and how the world views us. We cannot lead with bluster and military
might alone, but must combine military strength with diplomacy and broad-based
coalitions of nations. We must return to
using war as “a last resort,” he declared.
And then, the
President raised perhaps the most important question that we must address in
the next 15 years of this century: “how
can we better reflect America’s values?”
1. We must realize that we are being led astray by the Tea
Party crowd and their passive henchmen in the leadership and rank
and file of the Republican Party. Where
are the voices of supposedly more moderate Republicans, like Congressman Richard
Hanna? Unfortunately, their silence and
their capitulation to the empty but dangerous rhetoric and ranting of their
Right-wing radical colleagues is appalling.
Our milquetoast of a representative doesn’t even have a voice it appears when it comes to speaking out in a forceful manner on the issues of
the day!
The most we hear from him is probably written by someone else in a
brochure or letter or e-mail, or in a speech before a friendly audience of
like-minded businessmen, with emphasis on both “business” and “men”.
We
deserve better, and we have better potential representatives right here in our
own city and county. It’s time to get
behind one of them and to support a replacement for Richard Hanna in 2016
because Mr. Hanna is not ever going to represent the broad spectrum of people
and challenges in this district. It’s
doubtful that he can even articulate the five most important issues that people
across our nation cite when polled by professional pollsters. He’s out-of-touch, out of ideas, out-of-town,
and out-to-lunch when it comes to planning for the future, or even for the
present.
For
instance, where does he stand on middle-class economics? He’s against it! He voted about 50 times against healthcare
reform and wants to repeal the coverage of millions of people. He votes “Yea” on every Paul Ryan budget that
lowers taxes on the rich, takes opportunities and programs away from the poor
and middle class, and ignores the imminent danger of climate change while
always supporting out-moded weapons and disastrous private contracts for the
military. Moreover, Hanna supports lowering taxes on corporations and on capital gains, and he supports the NRA at every turn, winning their support in the last election.
He
has voted against, or ignored, a minimum wage raise, equal pay for equal work, a
comprehensive immigration policy, the Obama jobs bill, and infrastructure
repair, although he did vote last year for the Jobs for America Act which did
everything imaginable except create jobs.
For one, it attacked health care coverage again, changing mandatory
employer plan coverage for those who work 30 hours per week by raising it to 40
hours per week!
To
his credit, he does support a woman’s right to choose, and is the only Republican
to vote against his Party on anti-abortion bills for the last two years! He has also voted against a provision
supporting companies that want to refuse to offer contraception as part of
their employee health plan.
He
does support farmers. Unfortunately by
voting for last year’s Farm Bill, he also supported a huge reduction in food
stamps that many middle class families and veterans needed to get them through
the Great Recession. His "YES" vote thereby supported subsidies to huge farming and food
manufacturing conglomerates who put dangerous additives in our food and who
want to replace small farmers. That bill
also gave large subsidies to other congressmen and women who own ranches or
cattle, but do not actually operate farms.
Mr.
Hanna, it seems, has great trouble sorting out these complicated issues;
instead he says one thing and often does another when he votes for Ryan budgets
or Farm bills or other legislation that contain conflicting provisions. He seems unable to simply stand on principle
and vote against bills that contain provisions that are harmful to many of his
constituents. In fact, Mr. Hanna does
not seem to speak-out on real issues of the day in any concerted manner. Perhaps Mr. Hanna has already retired from this
job; let us be sure to make that retirement permanent in 2016.
(Just so you know: in the 2014 general election,
running unopposed, Mr. Hanna still could not get a quarter of the total actual
voters to cast a vote for him. In fact,
counting write-ins of other names and blank ballots for his office, Hanna had
slightly over 26% of voters in his district who chose not to vote for
him! That is a substantial total from
which to launch an opposing campaign!)
2. We must become activists. We must get behind
the President and truly progressive Democrats and support their agenda over the
next two years and communicate
about our values, our principles and the facts of the great accomplishments of
this administration.
· Act upon our convictions and principles and support our President in his fourth-quarter surge to put into place a foundation for change that can influence the next 15 years.
· This
means actually making phone calls to Congress, joining an activist
organization, writing letters-to-the-editor, posting on Twitter, Facebook or
Instagram; it actually means joining a demonstration or an advocacy group.
·
It means
taking an active interest in issues that affect our lives and making sure that
other people also become aware of what's at stake. It means
volunteering our time and money to aid in making a difference in the direction
this country takes. Everyone can join in
such an effort because it’s a matter of making choices. Do what you can, but above all, don’t opt for
doing nothing. This time is critical. Your future is at stake, and so is the future
of our democracy and of our progressive and populous values.
·
This is
not just about politics; this is about everyday life: how much you pay for food
and transportation; what gets covered in your health insurance; what your son
or daughter is taught in school, and whether or not either of them can afford
to go to college. This is about what
amount of interest you have to pay on credit cards or student loans or on a
mortgage. This is about how your elderly
parent is treated in a nursing home.
It’s more about your quality of life than about the machinations of
“politics” (although if those machinations are not reformed, it will affect
your life). The one thing that you can’t
afford to do is to ignore the fact that the political and economic machinery –
the institutions and operations of government, of business and even of
non-profit enterprises – affect your life every day. If you forfeit your right to protest their
shortcomings and the right to organize to change those systems, you are giving
up your ability to influence your success, your fulfillment, your happiness and
your decision-making. You will have
turned over the power of decision-making and governance to the politicians and
the capitalists and the non-profits and have opted to allow them to control you
while possibly feathering their own existence with perks that you will never
see or experience. You are a citizen,
not a pawn, and as such must stand up and be counted as the foundation of all
of our values and all of our institutions.
“Activism” is not a dirty word; it is the life-blood of our democracy.
3. Look to the future and not to the past. Support investment in the future like
research into cures for diseases, the improvements needed in our schools, the
free tuition at community colleges, the rejuvenation of our infrastructure, the
change to alternative fuels, the challenge of global warming, the use of war as
a last resort, universal health care, universal child care, and universal
access to a free internet.
4. “It’s up to us to choose who we want to be in the next 15
years of this century.” We must choose
progressive change over regressive retreat.
We must choose inclusiveness over elitism. We must choose investment over austerity. We must choose the welfare of people over the
comforting of the richest 1% and the promotion of the powerful. We must choose and support leaders from the
people rather than from the political machinery. We must choose sensible regulation of our
institutions for the good of most of our people and not de-regulation for the
aggrandizement of corporations and wealthy industrialists or inheritors of
wealth.
We
must choose the strengthening of opportunities for the poor to be lifted up to
where they can see a future worth their while; we cannot support any further
put-downs, push-downs, take-downs or injustices perpetrated by our own system
of justice; we must tend to the wrongs of racism, sexism, ageism, xenophobia,
and jingoism and eschew the violence of our culture that puts war above
negotiation and gun toting above the protection of countless innocent
victims.
We
must set an example for the world not alone by words, but by our deeds. Let us choose service and sacrifice for the
world’s welfare above exceptionalism or primacy or military strength and
presence. Let us be known by our
willingness to strengthen people, not by our willingness to fight every battle
or threat that rears its head.
And
finally, let us choose fact over fiction and untruth; let us choose balance
over extremism, and let us choose the right over the expedient or the facile or
the wrong. Let us choose real reform
over the insanity of doing something that has failed time and time again, like
the “trickle-down theory!” Let us make
wise choices in anticipation of a bright future.
5. “We must cherish our civil rights.” That means we must work to protect and expand
the voting franchise in this country. We
cannot allow anti-democracy zealots to take the sacred vote away from
anybody. We need election reform, wider
registration and voting. We have to
expand the rights of minorities to be heard, to be present, to be elected, to be
honored and to be part of the governing structure, in spite of the fact that the
racial divide has been made wider by the policies, the legislation, and the
bigoted language of Republicans toward this President and his Attorney
General.
We
must work to reform our justice system, beginning with the thorny problem of
the fact that the police in this country have no supervision and no checks upon
their behavior. That is contrary to the principles
that underlie many of our Western police agencies, and it is indicative of a
secretive force that is literally out-of-control. We cannot tolerate a police force that
separates itself from the community – it is an act of sheer intolerance. Equal justice for all must be a rallying cry
as we seek to lower our incarceration rate for minorities, especially young
black men. We must find cadres of
indigenous leaders in the Black community especially and support them as
candidates for all kinds of local, county, state and federal offices. In every city, there must be minority
coalitions who demand to be heard on community issues.
6. Work on ways to help middle-class families get ahead and to be secure. The President laid out some options in his
speech: a minimum wage that does not equal poverty level; tax credits to
support universal day care availability; free tuition for community colleges;
precision research into cures for major diseases. But, he has previously laid out other
programs that have been blocked by rabid Right-wing Republicans (and some blue-dog
Democrats). The Caregiver Initiative
that would provide temporary respite care, counseling and referrals for
hard-pressed families trying to care for elderly relatives, is one example. Another is his proposal to require employers
who don’t offer retirement plans to enroll workers in automatic, direct-deposit
Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).
We
must also get behind the call to strengthen the middle class by promoting and
supporting laws that give back to Labor the Right to collective action:
bargaining, striking, and protest. The
Right-wing attacks upon Labor hurt middle class families as much as anything,
since the Labor movement has been one of the major contributors to the inclusion
and success enjoyed by working families in the last century. It is now time to promote the welfare of
working families in this 21st century.
There’s more, of course, but the important point is that we are being called to be “nation builders” once again. Building our nation did not stop in the 1700’s. It is an on-going process. Every generation of Americans gets to make decisions and choices that affect our Republic. It is most effective when more than one generation joins the cause to work together in close collaboration to bring about responsible and progressive change. That is possible right now with Millenials, some Boomers and Post-War activists who are still around. Remember, it’s up to us to choose who and what we want to be! Let’s Get Busy…
