PISSED WITH BOTH, NONE OF THE ABOVE

The president's speech last night was a good job. It was great. I don't agree with almost anything he said, but he managed to convey a message and instill in our minds the concept of a good president fighting for the American people and a lazy congress more interested in vacationing and bickering than in solving America's problems. "Today", he said, "I am announcing..". and there he went with some of the long awaited laws that we all cared about. Or "send me a bill... and I will sign it immediately..." the president was willing to lead, to move the country forward; that was the tone of his speech. All references to his two years of majority with no significance change in immigration, the tax code, or a comprehensive energy policy were conveniently avoided. A barrage of numbers was thrown at us with no mercy; it reminded me of Castro's "futuristic" speeches in which he depicted a reality that nobody else could see; and there he was giving us an example of a company bringing back jobs to America: Master Lock; oh how cool; only that Master Lock is a company that manufactures most of the locks used to secure the foreclosed homes. Oops; would that mean that their improvement is directly proportional to the deterioration of the housing market?. But people hardly ever check these things; we love the numbers and the fanfare.

Nothing was said about the pipeline from Canada that was not approve by the president; so, a project paid for by the private sector, that would not only create jobs but contribute to our energy independence is halted on its track because there is allegedly not enough time to review the possible environmental implications; fair enough; but then Obama gives the go ahead to the high speed train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, 100 billion dollars paid for by the American tax payers, which means a lot of waste and corruption; buddy-ism and union "turfing", and that could probably be a total failure due to the very small amount of passengers that would eventually use it. Nobody has told us about its environmental impact, it might be harmful; but who cares; it's good numbers, great propaganda, and the president can ride on its wave until after the election; later on, if it has to be killed, fine, isn't that what public projects are all about?.

But politics and demagoguery are not Mr. Obama's exclusive weapon. Republicans seem to be unable to put forth a comprehensive action plan, and the GOP candidates to the nomination seem to be more interested in kicking one another's butt than opposing a different philosophical position. The State of the Union proved, if any thing, that the state of our economy and society is shameful, that "union" is a chimera since the country is more divided than ever, and that the two party system may be in a serious identity crisis in which it is not only difficult to say who's best, but it's even much more difficult to say who's worse.