MOVE OVER HILLARY, WE WANT WEBB FOR PRESIDENT!
Everytime I've ever watched the State of the Union, which I started watching during the Clinton years, I always think to myself "If I was in the Congress, I just wouldn't clap or stand the entire time." As if the speech isn't boring enough, people in Congress feel the need to clap and stand every other sentence, depending on what he is saying. Some obnoxious members even whistle, which I found particularly annoying last night. Everytime the Republicans stood to clap I would hear four or five people whistling, as if it was the academy awards or something.
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Despite what your teachers may have told you, the State of the Union is not important and you get virtually nothing out of watching it. Because its the biggest audience the President gets all year, he sugar coats everything and doesn't ever really say anything big. Its a very ceremonial thing and reminds me a lot of the Queen opening Parliament in England. If anyone has ever seen that its quite a spectacle.
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The Queen is all dazzled up like she is back in the 16th century and is taken by a horse drawn carriage to the House of Parliament, where she walks on over to the House of Lords, because she is forbidden by law from stepping into the House of Commons. So when she sits down on her big throne, a representative of hers walks across the hall to the House of Commons where Blair and Gordon and everyone else is hanging out. As soon as the Queen's represenative gets to the room, he has the door loudly slammed in his face (literally) to show that the House of Commons has the power. Then he bangs on the door loudly, invites everyone to the House of Lords, they all go, sit down, and the Queen reads a very long boring speech where every sentence begins with "My parliament will..." and she says things like "My parliament will continue to protect us from terrorists" or "My parliament will seek to simplify the tax code" and everyone claps. Its boring and ceremonial and not of any real importance, just like the State of the Union.
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The Democrat's response though, I thought was fantastic and quite suprising. Because both the Democrats and Republicans are bought off by corporate America, they rarely talk about economic issues. Jim Webb, however, did! Here are some great excerpts from his speech I found suprising and very hopeful:
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"Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits.
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But these benefits are not being fairly shared.
When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times.
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In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.
Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world.
Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them...
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In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy - that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base.
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Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today...
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Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th Century.
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America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines.
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The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.
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Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions.
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He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves 'as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other.'"
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I didn't think it was possible anymore for a politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to acknowledge the dangers and warn against "corporate influence", which is destroying our country and is one of my #1 concerns. The war on the middle/lower class that the ruling elites have been conducting over the past 25 years has been ignored by Washington and the media, almost entirely.
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Literally, wages for 80% of Americans have stagnated or declined over the past 25 years, while economic growth has continued at a relative pace. Thats never happened before in our history. We've had depressions/recessions, but never a period of sustained economic growth where wages are declining for most of the population (but skyrocketing for the top 1-5%.)
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In the 1960's, families were much bigger (more kids) and usually had just ONE parent working. Yet that one parent could support his wife and kids, own a house, two cars, and afford vacations and other economic comforts. America is a much more wealthy nation now. Yet two parents struggle to afford what one parent could afford 40 years ago.
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Yet our productivity has skyrocketed. Americans are working much longer hours then we were back then, in fact as Webb noted, Americans work more hours then any other industrial nation. What is the result of that? Not only declining wages, but declining benefits. Whats going on?
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And yet, if you turn on the television, as Sen Bernie Sanders noted at the media reform conference, you would think nothing is going on. Its not mentioned at all. It should be a national scandal. We, the richest nation on earth, have the highest poverty rates, child mortality, longest hours, least benefits, declining wages (while the top 1% is overflowing with wealth.)
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So I'm quite pleased that Jim Webb broke that taboo and actually said something about this, you rarely hear a Democrat or Republican ever say anything (because they both represent corporate interests.) For once, I'm hopeful.
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