News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Jan. 25, 2013: The revelation that Beyonce Knowles (yes she does have a last name) lip synched her “stirring” (sic) version of the National Anthem at Obama’s Second Inaugural on Monday is a trivial matter in one way but in another it was so characteristic of the entire show to me.
Wild applause and compliments everywhere from the participants and from the media praising something that was not what it appeared to be. The fact is, symbolically, President Barack Obama lip synced his Second Inaugural Address just as much. Same applause!
You aren’t going to read that anywhere else!
Criticism of Obama’s speech that is not coming from the Whacky Right Wing but clearly from the other side of the aisle is not much if any at all. Infact, stand alone on that score. Democrats of every stripe and color and sex lined up after Obama’s speech to try and outdo each other with platitudes about the speech. The media did not want to be outdone so they joined the “competition.”
One Talking Head – who I do not know but I assumed was high on drugs from celebrating the speech – said on the air that Obama’s speech was one of the greatest speeches in all of human history that it was a “speech for the ages.”
Certainly there was a very valuable lesson in Obama’s speech – should you ever be elected President just say the three magic words and much of America will go euphoric orgasmic and beyond. Just say “gay,” say “immigration” and say “environment.” It does not matter what else you do say or don’t say in your Inaugural speech or what you mean in your speech when you use the magic words; just say these three magic words. You don’t have to even propose any action that might relate to any of these issues.
In fact allow me to suggest you use Obama’s speech and you will be greeted with even higher praise if that is possible and Obama could have spared us and given, or you give, the shortest inaugural speech in all of American history. Just go up to the microphone and say: GAY! IMMIGRATION!, ENVIRONMENT! and step away from the microphone. Over 50 percent of the nation and about 90% of the media will go WILD!!
Now having gone to the heart of Obama’s Inaugural Address with so much more precision than anyone else, I want to turn to the “substance” – more precisely lack of substance – of his speech and one phrase that defines the quality of the speech it is not those 3 magic words.
Obama declared in unmistakable words his voice rising for effect …..
WE ARE ALL CREATED EQUAL in America.
America on what planet, in what universe in what time warp????
Come on! Does Barack Obama really believe that nonsense? Worse does the audience that roared with approval as he stood there looking DOWN upon on the Mall, are they equal to him?.
We didn’t have to wait long after the ceremony to get a real taste (sic) of EQUALITY in America. The opulent VIP luncheon for 220 of the Highest Ranking Elite of the Democratic Wing of the “Democratic Republican Party” – America’s Ruling Party – the 3 hour extravaganza that spared no expense – our expense. It was courtesy of the American people and it featured the finest foods and wines that money can buy; but all American of course! And expensive elaborate gifts for everyone in the room. Again all American!!!
While the bands that had come from all across the country to march for the President down Pennsylvania Avenue shivered in the cold, this luncheon farce went on and on for three hours. Then Obama and Biden had to stop to “review the troops” of course before riding, then walking down Pennsylvania Avenue. Then to return to The White House to freshen up before sitting on their thrones in the reviewing stand; and FINALLY, as night descended and the temperature dropped, further all these bands from across the land got to march in the DARK for the Royal Family! SORRY I mean First Family. That was a typo.
Which brings us back to my topic and Obama’s speech …
WE ARE ALL EQUAL in America ….
You want to get to the heart of the issue? Inaugural Day was “just” symbolism!
The fact is, INEQUALITY has never been higher in America and it continues to get worse. How is it possible that Barack Obama does not know this? Is it unfair to compare his statement to Marie Antoinette telling the starving Parisians to “eat cake!”
Obama did not say in his Inaugural speech: “Inequality in America is at a record high and getting worse. We must end this blight during my second administration.”
Obama said: WE ARE ALL EQUAL in America ….
If you aren’t aware of this problem then you must be among the Elite. Lucky you!
Allow me this opportunity to educate you from this recent article by Nobel Prize winning economist, Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, published in The New York Times just days before the Inaugural on January 19, 2013, titled “Inequality Is Holding Back the Recovery.”
Allow me to quote Dr. Stiglitz for you and President Obama …
“Politicians typically talk about rising inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena, when they are in fact intertwined. Inequality stifles, restrains and holds back our growth. When even the free-market-oriented magazine The Economist argues – as it did in a special feature in October – that the magnitude and nature of the country’s inequality represent a serious threat to America, we should know that something has gone horribly wrong. And yet, after four decades of widening inequality and the greatest economic downturn since the Depression, we haven’t done anything about it.”
More …
“Our skyrocketing inequality – so contrary to our meritocratic ideal of America as a place where anyone with hard work and talent can “make it” – means that those who are born to parents of limited means are likely never to live up to their potential. Children in other rich countries like Canada, France, Germany and Sweden have a better chance of doing better than their parents did than American kids have. More than a fifth of our children live in poverty – the second worst of all the advanced economies, putting us behind countries like Bulgaria, Latvia and Greece.”
Tell us yet more Dr. Stiglitz ….
“Our society is squandering its most valuable resource: our young. The dream of a better life that attracted immigrants to our shores is being crushed by an ever-widening chasm of income and wealth. Tocqueville, who in the 1830s found the egalitarian impulse to be the essence of the American character, is rolling in his grave.”
And Obama is clearly not the only one to blame says Dr. Stiglitz …
“The Obama administration does not, of course, bear the sole blame. President George W. Bush’s steep tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and his multitrillion-dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan emptied the piggy bank while exacerbating the great divide. His party’s newfound commitment to fiscal discipline – in the form of insisting on low taxes for the rich while slashing services for the poor – is the height of hypocrisy.”
And lots of others include the other recent Presidents and don’t ever forget Congress!!!
And finally this …
As Mr. Obama’s second term begins, we must all face the fact that our country cannot quickly, meaningfully recover without policies that directly address inequality. What’s needed is a comprehensive response that should include, at least, significant investments in education, a more progressive tax system and a tax on financial speculation.
Sorry, I forgot Dr. Stiglitz’ PUNCH line ….
“While the top 1 percent of income earners took home 93 percent of the growth in incomes in 2010, the households in the middle – who are most likely to spend their incomes rather than save them and who are, in a sense, the true job creators – have lower household incomes, adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1996.”
So should you and I conclude that the President of the United States has NO idea about inequality in America when he says in his Inaugural speech last Monday …..
WE ARE ALL EQUAL in America ….
The other option would be that President Obama was lying to us.
President Obama wouldn’t do that would he and not in his Inaugural Address?
My question is this: which of these two scenarios is scarier?
About The Writer: Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.
