Comparative speeches 101

Nonsense and dribble is expected from the right and they deliver on cue. Such pettiness and snarkiness coming from the left is disheartening, disturbing and quite possibly unjustified.

Around the Blogosphere, in articles and comments, President Obama was criticized by progressives for merely giving a pep talk and for not offering a plan to develop alternative energy sources. This speech was about the oil spill; it was not about recycling or growing our own food.

If he were Abraham Lincoln or Franklin D. Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy, he would have done this or said that, an echo heard throughout cyberspace.

Truth is, most of us have romantic and fanciful notions about the great speeches of Abe, FDR and JFK. We have memorized and recited passages  in school and we have seen the same snippets over and over on David Letterman. But what most of us haven't heard or read are the entire speeches.

Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865

The last paragraph is what many of us had to memorize in school:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and for his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Lincoln offered no plans on how to end the Civil War. The speech was described as "theologically intense." In fact, Lincoln mentioned God six times in this very short speech - four paragraphs in all.

Full text.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's Declaration of War, December 8, 1941

In FDR's brief Declaration of War against Japan, most likely it is the first paragraph that people remember the most.

"Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

Roosevelt did not elaborate on how we were going to win the war, or urge people to buy war bonds or plant Victory Gardens. That would come later. His speech was only slightly longer than Lincoln's. But what he did say in the next to last paragraph was:

"With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God."

God: 1

Full text.

John F. Kennedy, Bay of Pigs Invasion, April 20, 1961

I think it's safe to say that the most famous quote from any of Kennedy's speeches was from his inauguration. The words moved the entire nation - well, at least the Democrats and probably a lot of young people.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

God: 3

Kennedy presented his Bay of Pigs address before the American Society of Newspaper Editors. It is described as a motivational or inspirational speech.

He outlined three lessons that should have been learned from recent events: 1) the forces of communism are not to be underestimated, in Cuba or anywhere else in the world; 2) this Nation, in concert with all the free nations of this hemisphere, must take an ever closer and more realistic look at the menace of external Communist intervention and domination in Cuba; 3) we face a relentless struggle in every corner of the globe that goes far beyond the clash of armies or even nuclear armaments. (His words.)

God: 0

Full text.

John F. Kennedy, Cuban Missile Crisis, October 22, 1962

Kennedy's Cuban Missile Crisis speech was a work of art as were most of his speeches. I think it is safe to say that he had a rare gift - and better writers than any president has had before or since.

Just as Roosevelt accused Japan of planning the attack on Pearl Harbor for a long time and lying about it all that while, Kennedy accused the Soviets of planning and preparing a series of offensive missile sites on the island of Cuba and lying.

The president detailed seven major steps: 1)  put a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba; 2) continue and increase close surveillance of Cuba and its military buildup; 3) to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States; 4) reinforce our base at Guantanamo; 5) call for an immediate meeting of the Organization] of Consultation under the Organization of American States; 6) call for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council; 7) to call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace.

At the end, Kennedy said:

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right; not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved.

God: 1

Full text.

Barack Obama, Gulf Oil Spill, June 15, 2010

I will be the first to say that this wasn't Obama's finest hour - or fifteen minutes. His speech did not measure up to Kennedy's on the Cuban Missile Crisis but it was better than FDR's Declaration of War and even Lincoln's second Inaugural address.

Our country is an old hand at war but this spill is the worst environmental crisis we've ever faced. I'm not sure there's anyone in the White House, or the science and engineering fields, who really knows what to do. Being an arm chair engineer is always easier than being on the team trying to figure out how to get this monster under control. I doubt if the president ever took an engineering course in his life.

I wonder if people truly understand that, "Because there has never been a leak of this size at this depth, stopping it has tested the limits of human technology."

Obama offered a battle plan consisting of three stages: 1) clean up; 2) recovery and restoration of the Gulf Coast region; 3) ensure that a disaster like this does not happen again - "I have established a National Commission to understand the causes of this disaster and offer recommendations on what additional safety and environmental standards we need to put in place."

I wonder if people remembered this statement the next day:
Tomorrow, I will meet with the chairman of BP and inform him that he is to set aside whatever resources are required to compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of his company's recklessness. And this fund will not be controlled by BP. In order to ensure that all legitimate claims are paid out in a fair and timely manner, the account must and will be administered by an independent, third party.

God: 3 

Full text.

1970s: Helen Reddy - I Am Woman

Women have come a long way, Baby. Since the 1970s when Reddy wrote I Am Woman, my sisters have made huge strides in the political and corporate arenas. Yet many battles continue - the fight for equal pay and reproductive rights, the fight to be treated as the victim in rape and spouse abuse. Minority women have an even larger battle.

Women are still fighting the characterization of our sex as mere pieces of meat. Whole magazines feature illustrations of nude or semi-nude women. TV and billboard ads feature women in suggestive poses with pouty lips and curvaceous bodies.

Maybe this is to be expected in the world of advertising and magazines. After all, boys of all ages will be boys and I suppose playing out their sexual fantasies by looking at girlie pictures should be expected.

But I'm having a hard time accepting this - especially on normally progressive blogs published by supposedly intelligent men who usually write well about the issues of today. Girlie pictures are insulting to most women. You have the right to post such crap. We have the right to change channels - perhaps feeling some disappointment that in this day and age, in this year of 2010, all men seem to be created equal in the world of the meat market.

THE MSM's GUT BRAIN AND OTHER ATROCITIES THAT PASS FOR NEWS ANALYSES

I read Neil Postman's "Entertaining Ourselves to Death" years ago and recommend it to anyone seeking to understand the shallow and the absurd that passes for political punditry on cable and network teevee.

Brian Johnson and Bliss Green write for the blog Postmanisms and have posted a thoughtful and at the same time depressing analysis of how the MSM have shamelessly abandoned any pretense of doing their job of elucidating for the American people the complex issues surrounding the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, we've been given front-row seats to a circus of idiots trying to outdo themselves in irrelevancy and inanity, from Chris Matthews of MSNBC whining about having to hear, more than once, that President Obama's Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu, has a Nobel Prize in physics, to the foolish clowns at FOX News repeating GOP talking points, calling BP's $20 billion fund to compensate those who were financially injured by the spill--calling it a "shakedown."


But I'll let these two talented writers explain it in their own words:


"The phylogeny of Immediacy, Nowness, Hysteria, and Contingent Finality came together this week in a mere 24-hour news cycle (more like 12 hours of real time) that saw President Obama described first as wishy-washy, bland, and listless, and then as a bully enforcer demanding corporate accountability, which would make him the most relaxed “bully” in history. Doris Kearns Goodwin, a respected popular historian, practices the craft of history in situ, because her expertise fools you into thinking her snap judgments have depth. Newsweek‘s Howard Fineman is upset that the President–like an eighteenth-century poet–didn’t have the “fingertip feel,” because after all the President is only a performer, like a reality-show contestant, and his “appearance” is therefore more significant than talking about what he is doing, is not doing, could be doing, or cannot do (i.e. swim down to the well and sit on it, as some critics seem to want). Chris Matthews is bothered that President Obama mentions Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu’s Nobel Prize cred because, well, Chris, in his official TV role of “feeling” for the “ordinary American” believes that that fictional category of person feels condescended to when someone who might actually know more than they do renders a thoughtful opinion.


The staff here at Postmanisms don’t, like the “staff” at TMZ, “hang out” in “cubicles” “casually talking” about stuff they “just happened to see.” Would that our Instant Now media felt any obligation to think before speaking. An analyst’s gutbrain, the educated-person’s version of Beavis and Butt-head mocking videos on MTV, is the only thing TV wants. Let’s face it: serious thought is no fun to watch, and most viewers have been well-trained by the medium to have no patience for extended argument or analysis. At least Roger Ebert always had a longish essay of thoughtful critique behind his thumbs-up/-down. The daily reduction of serious issues (i.e. that a terminal addiction to oil is the only reason the Gulf is going to die) to matters of perception and style (a reflection of the shallowness of the medium itself) turns the entire TV-reported world into the equivalent of TMZ: the world exists only to be paraded in front of us and judged, minute by minute, each judgment final, until the next minute."

Watch this.

The Devil and the Oil Spill

Fox and Palin.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?

Yes, we have people out in the street screaming about tax increases that never were and while Federal income taxes are lower than they've been in 50 years. We have Fox giving air time to the airhead who has taken time out from chanting "drill baby drill" like an over-aged cheerleader for the oil cartel to chastise President Obama for not doing what he in fact is doing and for not knowing how to do what it was BP's responsibility to know how to do and to be able to do. I wonder if she took time to take a shower and change clothes before switching from 'hands off the oil industry' to 'we need government intervention and oversight.'

"Well then what the federal government should have done was accept the assistance of foreign countries, of entrepreneurial Americans that have had the solutions that they wanted presented."

Well, of course that's what the administration is doing. Looking for assistance from countries where drilling is subject to much more oversight and where Fox ranteth not. Perhaps it's time to ask that "gotcha" question once again. So what newspapers and magazines do you read Mrs. Palin? Oh, I see -- you watch Fox.

Of course there was a 4 week delay in waiving the federal Merchant Marine Act of 1920, which mandates that all goods shipped between U.S. ports be transported in U.S.-built, U.S. owned and U.S. manned ships.Of course there was a long delay during which BP didn't tell us how bad it was and that they couldn't have it stopped in short order, but face it, the Grand Old Bastards have so much fun and profit with their daily game of pin the tail on the President, they're even criticizing the pants he wears when talking about the oil spill, unlike the Commander guy with his costumes.

Does it really matter whether the president has apparently made sure that we won't have to pay for this disaster by having BP set aside 20 billion in escrow? No, even that is proof of perfidy, since it will somehow hurt the Louisiana economy and it basically is a socialist plan to redistribute wealth says the irrepressible Bachmann. Win or lose, we lose, if you ask the New Right.

But it appears that God wants no part of this sound and fury and we're going to have to fix it ourselves. If only we only had to battle the Devil and the oil spill here and not the legions of lying idiots.

Republic of Arizona

"Madness is something rare in individuals- but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule."

-Nietzsche-

The people who wrote the US constitution never intended to give citizenship to "aliens" says John Kavanagh, a state representative from Arizona. Yes, of course he's a Republican. He apparently has some cryptic powers allowing him to know just what Jefferson and Madison were thinking about allowing folks to become citizens that isn't reflected in the Constitution, or perhaps it's just another line of Republican bullshit, seeing as we didn't have the kind of immigration laws in the mid 18th century we instituted in the early 20th century. The fact is that the constitution, for from being anti-alien, doesn't really mention immigration requirements or quotas at all.

I don't think Alexander Hamilton, for instance, had to get a green card to become our first Secretary of the Treasury, a bona fide Founding Father, signer of the Constitution, economist, and political philosopher; Aide-de-camp to General George Washington during the Revolutionary War and a leader of nationalist forces calling for a new Constitution. He was a Caribbean immigrant, you know and illegitimate to boot. He just came here for an education, liked the place and stayed and prospered, as so many modern illegals do.

Kavanaugh says the proposed Arizona law denying citizenship to children born here to parents with expired or non existent visas isn't unconstitutional. He's wrong, of course, but whether it is or isn't, the establishment of requirements for citizenship, or for legal presence in the US is a power not granted to Arizona, to establish or to enforce. Article 1, Section 8 reserves the power To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, to the Congress of the United States alone and that one would think, should be that.

Like many politicians, Kavanaugh is good at answering a question that wasn't asked and pretending to have won the contest. Like many self-styled Libertarians, he talks about the constitution and the rule of law a lot, but what he and his ilk seem to want is the power to do as they please to anyone they please without paying any attention to that much abused and often inconvenient document or the nation for which it stands.

Is Libertarianism one of those things, like Christianity and altruism and "pure" capitalism, that are wonderful to contemplate, but don't exist or can't exist in practice? Perhaps some day I'll find one that isn't just using the pose to advance some private motives. Perhaps not.

Fear and loathing in Oklahoma

The Muslims are coming! The Muslims are coming! Some day, anyway -- it could happen, and Oklahoma isn't OK with it. I mean, we really need to trash our secular constitution and make judicial decisions rely on a few selected Jewish commandments palatable to Christian godbothers, but we are simply not going to sleep at night unless we make it illegal for Judges to be swayed by other, illegal religions like Islam; not in Oklahoma.

No, Okies need to "Save our State" and have proposed an amendment to the State constitution making it illegal for judges to reference Sharia or any other international law and as 0.8% of Oklahomans are Muslim, we can't waste any more time in saving the state from the bearded menace. What is needed is a "pre-emptive strike" says State Representative Rex Duncan (Republican of course.) "Court decisions ought to be based on federal law, or state law" says he.

Of course I agree that they should. yet Federal law just might have a problem with the legislature interfering with judicial decisions and process. Beyond that, I think Federal and State laws should be free of any dependence on Christian doctrines as well, but we're talking about Oklahoma here and we're talking about Republicans everywhere and how can we expect even a modest amount of moral or logical consistency?

On Big And Big; The President Speaks From The Oval Office

This afternoon, as we usually do when we're in San Diego, we picked up our little grandson, age 3, at pre-school.  We always have a snack ready to give him as soon as he's buckled into his carseat; today it was grapes--his favorite.  I sit in the backseat with him while my husband drives, and our backseat sessions usually involve learning for him and for me; he learns about what big people think is important and I learn about what's really important.

Today, he was enchanted by a tiny grape among the bigger, juicy ones.  He's learning the language so fast, we can see improvement daily, so I used the opportunity to emphasize new words for small: tiny, little bitty, smaller than.  We also worked on the brand-new concept of middle-sized and categorized each grape accordingly.  I knew this lesson would be a hit, because for about a week or so he's been announcing, after every meal and snack, "I'm getting big and big!  As we worked on comparative sizes, I realized he'd been trying to say that, by eating well, he was getting something that adds big and big--he was saying that he's getting bigger.  When I echoed that term back to him, he nodded firmly...yep, that was what he'd meant all along.  


After liberry books ("you bemember, Gigi: strawberry, blueberry, liberry?"), after making a big tent from quilts and cushions in the living room (illuminated by a slashlight), after his Mommy came to pick him up, my husband and I watched on my laptop as the President spoke from the Oval Office on the Gulf oil spill crisis.  

The speech was, as usual, perfectly delivered and, as usual, we almost entirely approved of it.  We approved of the order in which he brought out his points of emphasis.  We approved of his insistence on third party handling of the funds BP must advance.  We very much approved of the way he clearly stated what we've all been thinking, what's been making us all a little sick with anxiety since we realized that the spill wasn't being contained: this spill has got to be the signal event that breaks our last ounce of denial on climate change and the addiction to fossil fuel that has caused it.  


This is it, America.  There's not another moment to be wasted on denial, fear, and ignorance.  There's not a thought to be spared for the foolishness of leaving this up to someone else, someone more powerful, someone more connected, someone other than me.  I can't pretend for one more minute that things will be okay for my grandson's future..."somehow."  Time's up.


The President reached in and touched us all, conservative and liberal, on our proudest flesh: he invoked our pride in the way we pulled together to win World War II and to put men on the moon.  He said we've got that history to draw on as we try to believe we can  break our oil addiction, rescue our country and our planet,  and recover our beautiful Gulf.  He was stirring and he was right.

Afterward, my husband said that this is bigger than the moon landing, because that only involved a small segment of our population and only one major administrative entity, NASA...although we all certainly enjoyed the glory.  This effort, he pointed out, will take every single one of us.

I would argue that this is bigger than the necessity of winning World War II; there was always hope that mankind could ultimately overcome the worst evil we'd yet encountered as long as mankind, itself, could survive.  This time, that survival is in question.  The President's speech came as close to naming the unnameable as a President should at this juncture.  I knew what he meant, didn't you?

This is bigger than the moon, bigger than the war.  This is big AND big.

VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA

Most of you know that I can’t dwell too long on depressing, negative subjects without trying to find a balance and so I bring you this bit of brightness that recently caught my attention HERE.

“1.6 million more Americans volunteered in 2009 and spent 100 million more hours helping their communities last year.”

That brings the total number of volunteers in 2009 to 63.4 million. This is the biggest increase in a single year since 2003. These numbers only include those volunteers involved in formal organizations and not those who give in other ways.

"People are turning toward problems, rather than away from them,… people want to be part of the solution. They want to make a difference."

This is the kind of example we SHOULD be setting for others and the lesson we should be teaching America’s children; that Americans work together in times of need to give each other a hand up. That we SEE each other and recognize the human being looking back.

If you want to look for volunteer opportunities, here is the link to Volunteer.Org to get you started. A little time, a lot of time, organizations will be happy to get whatever you can give and you'll be part of a group that is over 63 million strong.

That's power!

Spy in the Sky

You expect the smaller government gospel in Texas and Texans will tell you that the damned government should stay out of private matters like dragging gay men to death behind pickup trucks, instituting safety standards for drilling rigs and demanding proper accounting practices from Bush beloved companies like Enron, but there's an alternate logic in Texas; one that has no problem with the government spying on us with unmanned drones. Following us down the road recording our movements and our speed and our destinations, peeking into our back yards. The largest of these things are as big as airliners and the smallest, I'm told, can fly right into your window. Some are remotely operated, some are almost autonomous. They can see in the dark, they know when you're sleeping; they know when you're awake -- well, maybe not, but they know if you've been good or bad.

Of course there's support for patrolling the borders with these machines, which are much cheaper to operate and aren't dangerous to the operators, but they pose a collision hazard to civil aviation and the FAA, pushed by manufacturers, fear-mongering politicians and the government, has been trying to balance the need for aviation safety with the lust for more government surveillance. Texas officials, including Gov. Rick Perry, Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, are so hot to employ drones on the border and who knows where else that they're trying to twist the President's arm. Cornyn, for instance is blocking a Senate confirmation vote on Michael Huerta, Obama's nominee for the No. 2 FAA job, until he gets his way.

Of course there are legitimate uses for drones, but there are legitimate dangers, not all of which concern collisions and the urge to deploy more eyes in the sky; the insistence that we can and must trust the government with another spy tool seems to make liars out of the people making careers out of telling us we can't trust anyone but them.

THE EPITOME OF CRAZY

I thought inciting the violent overthrow of the U.S. government was tantamount to treason. Why isn't this man under arrest for sedition?