Please Remember Mr. President -- We Are a Nation, Not a Corporation

[paft.livejournal.com]

From President Obama’s State of the Union Speech:

We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business…

I would submit that it’s more important to make America the best place on Earth to live.

Which is not always compatible with America being the best place on Earth to do business. In fact, judging from the behavior of many businesses, the “best places” to do business are countries that don’t bother with unions, minimum wage, worker safety regulations, environmental laws, or restrictions against child labor.

There are good things in this speech. Obama’s succinct call for religious tolerance, his observation that “American Muslims are a part of our American family,” was badly needed in our current climate. Yes, we need technological innovation, yes, we need to improve our educational system. (We can start by improving the working conditions for public school teachers and reducing our stultifying reliance on standardized tests.)

But its general tenor made me uneasy. As Rachel Maddow observed, it came across as a “prayer to the free market system.” The United States seems determined to follow the same path as the late, unlamented Soviet Union. We are staking everything, with starry-eyed religious fervor, on a single, narrowly defined economic system, even though it’s not working for large segments of the American people.

For the Soviets it was Communism. For us, it’s an unfettered capitalist system where human beings without money or the ability to make money are treated as meaningless. Note the increasing drumbeat from the right in which the poor and unemployed are reviled as lazy and immoral. Dehumanizing language describing those who don’t fit into the right-wing libertarian utopia has become increasingly common. They aren’t citizens, but “tax eaters,” and “unproductive consumers” (The more concise and punchy phrase, “useless eaters,” was taken about seven decades ago.)

We are not a business, the president is not the equivalent of a CEO, and citizens are not the equivalent of employees or customers. When Americans become too sick or elderly to work, they are not “laid off” or “retired” from being Americans. When Americans are too poor to pay taxes, they are not cut off from government services, as are consumers who cannot pay a business for its product. When Americans can no longer make enough money to satisfy the bottom line, their welfare is not suddenly beside the point, as the welfare of a fired or laid off employee is beside the point to a business. The plight of the poor remains the nation’s problem – and not merely because the poor are aesthetically unpleasing to the “customers” who have to edge around them on their way to buying something big and shiny.

Blogger Bob Cesca seems to believe that the speech was a calculated, “perfectly orchestrated” trap for the Republicans, a game of chicken in which the Republicans must “vote for the spending freeze they've been demanding, or vote against the spending freeze in order to preserve their earmarks and, thus, saving their asses from being voted out of office.” I hope that’s so, but even if it is, it makes me uneasy.

Given the madness that has seized the Republicans since Obama’s election, betting on their logic, their humanity or even their sense of self-preservation may be a losing proposition.

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

Comments

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Then there's the little matter of American exceptionalism.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Presidents are expected to talk like that, though. It's certainly questionable but hardly news.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Understood. It just happened to strike me a certain way in light of where we are and what he has preached before. Exceptionalism/"Othering" may not be the smartest paradigm as the world flattens.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

If you're not exceptionalist you're antiamericanistismistist.

[dukexmachismo.livejournal.com]

shit

livejournal doesn't have "like" or "thanks".

oh, I know....


DAILY QUOTE!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

My first counterpoint is that bashing the poor is a time-honored tradition in this society. It's very rare for any politician to recognize the roots of poverty are not laziness or inability to do something under the current system. Obama is too moderate a politician to think on those lines as it is.

My second comment is that the President, rhetorical-choice aside, is raising a major problem: the US is going through the same Relative Decline that affected the British. Educationally we are in fact regressing behind totalitarian societies like the PRC. The USA, unless it's willing to do what is necessary to change this, *will* be out-innovated technologically, will be out-educated due to apathy and the unwillingness of parents to lift a finger a lot of the time, and we will be surpassed by the rest of the world.

And frankly he's again a MODERATE. George W. Bush he is not. Neither is he Huey P. Long. He will of course refer to the free enterprise system as a good thing because he's a US President. It's what they do.

Please explain

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

The USA, unless it's willing to do what is necessary to change this,

What is it you believe is necessary?

Re: Please explain

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

For one thing *all* the states, Red and Blue alike have to find new means to balance their budgets beyond gutting Higher Ed. That's not only a Red State issue, it applies just as much in the Blue States. For another there has to be a much more rigorously and consistently applied level of discipline in the schools because to put it bluntly the way things are now that does not exist. Too, there has to be a consistent, well-balanced curriculum in all the basic areas for people to know, both in the sciences and in the liberal arts.

It's very simple to say all this, but it has been repeatedly a bitch and a half to do in practice.

[paft.livejournal.com]

U: My first counterpoint is that bashing the poor is a time-honored tradition in this society...

And this qualifies as a "counterpoint" because....?

U: the unwillingness of parents to lift a finger a lot of the time, and we will be surpassed by the rest of the world.

You think we're going through some epidemic of parental laziness?

You are aware, right, that many parents are now spending a tremendous amount of energy and time just keeping their children sheltered, clothed, educated, healthy, and fed?

U: And frankly he's again a MODERATE. George W. Bush he is not. Neither is he Huey P. Long...

So what? How does this "counterpoint" anything in this post?

[msmichelle.livejournal.com]

Yes, the big bad USofA always bashes the poor. It's all we do and we should be ashamed.
Looking at the practicality of a welfare to work program is completely subjective, isn't it? The sentiment behind understanding and appreicating that going out and earing a buck, providing for one's family actually can boost one's self esteem is very anti-leftie, yes.
And, yeah, parents are so apathetic and lazy and don't lift a finger.
Sweeping generaliations really make the lefties feel smart, don't they, despite the complete and utter ignorance behind them.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Really? Islam was pretty chill to the Jews for a few centuries there. And the coexistence between Anglicanism and Theravada Buddhism has always been peachy in Thailand, hasn't it?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Eh, I don't know, there's plenty of instances where religions got along just fine. I don't recall Hindus having had conflicts with the Mumbai and Kerala Jews or with the Kerala Christians. Nor do I recall that the Chinese experience with Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity worked out too badly.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

So you mean you're intolerant of religion?

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

Obama: “I don’t think that we can make judgments based on people’s ‘spirit.’ Uh, that would be, uh, a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that, uh, say that, uh, we are going to provide good quality care for all people. End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we’re going to have to make. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they’re not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they’re being made by private insurers. At least we can let doctors know — and your mom know — that you know what, maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off, uhh, not having the surgery, but, uhh, taking the painkiller.”


When Americans become too sick or elderly to work, they are not “laid off” or “retired” from being Americans.

I don't know...maybe you're right but it seems like we mightchange that philosophy one day .

[paft.livejournal.com]

Paft: When Americans become too sick or elderly to work, they are not “laid off” or “retired” from being Americans.

vtm: I don't know...maybe you're right but it seems like we mightchange that philosophy one day .

Change it to what?

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

I would submit that it’s more important to make America the best place on Earth to live.

Yes, but in the real world, people need jobs to make money to pay for a home, car, food, etc. Anyone can understand what the President was getting at was in order to get more jobs and a better quality of living in the U.S., we need to become more innovative and support thriving industries.

Making America the best place on Earth to live is up to the rest of us.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

That is fairly ass-backwards. Up to us should be economy-ing. Up to government is what We The People decide is better to do as a group than as individuals.

[paft.livejournal.com]

The real world includes people who are currently working full time and are STILL unable to afford a home, food, medicine, etc. The real world includes people who are too ill and too disabled to work. The real world includes employers who are refusing to hire the long term unemployed. The real world includes employers who are refusing to hire anyone with a poor credit record. The real world includes employers don't consider worker safety or environmental laws "cost effective."

The real world demands that we address these realities. This notion that if we just give businesses EVERYTHING THEY WANT, if we just make America a paradise for them, all the rest will follow, is simply nonsense. An unfettered free market does not, in fact, mean freedom or good living in general -- (as Pinochet's Chile showed us.)

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

You do realize that people no longer consider that for something to be consumed, someone must make it. So you're asking for a lot just for people to agree that work helps people live better lives.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

thank you, very nice write up.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

You must really love the poor because you certainly keep supporting economic policies that make more of them.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

poor people are like puppies. you feel good when you feed 'em and pat 'em on the head.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

The relationship between a business and a nation/country is very closely linked. Like it or not, the government is big business and will have to be treated as one from time to time.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Paft: When Americans become too sick or elderly to work, they are not “laid off” or “retired” from being Americans. When Americans are too poor to pay taxes, they are not cut off from government services, as are consumers who cannot pay a business for its product. When Americans can no longer make enough money to satisfy the bottom line, their welfare is not suddenly beside the point, as the welfare of a fired or laid off employee is beside the point to a business. The plight of the poor remains the nation’s problem – and not merely because the poor are aesthetically unpleasing to the “customers” who have to edge around them on their way to buying something big and shiny.

a:The relationship between a business and a nation/country is very closely linked. Like it or not, the government is big business and will have to be treated as one from time to time.

So which of the above business measures that I listed do you feel the government should implement "from time to time?"