Why are some people standing up and clapping and why are those other people looking so angry?” Will wanted to know. It was a good question from a 14-year-old whose parents had made him watch at least part of President Obama’s State of the Union speech this week. Good citizenship and all that. I could see why it could be confusing. Go to a Broadway show, concert, almost any venue, and you’re going to find everyone in pretty much the same mood with similar body language. Only in the United States Congress will you find such a 180-degree swing — from pure exuberance to grim, almost seething anger.
The rigid bipartisanship that has stymied Obama’s presidency and virtually paralyzed this nation on so many fronts was painfully and vividly on display in Washington D.C. Again. No wonder we have lost so much trust in our elected officials. Why can’t they all just get along, especially when they are supposed to be working for the greater good and not for their own selfish agenda?
One of the most patently ridiculous shots was captured in response to the president’s description of a timetable for the end of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. This, to me, is a no-brainer. Bring home thousands of American troops so they can be home with their loved ones? Stop spending millions of dollars on arms and ammunitions that kill and mutilate people including infants and the elderly? Let nations and people of the world determine their own governments and decide their own destinies? Duh. And yet, while Democrats stood up, cheered, and applauded wildly, as if they were in a sports stadium watching their team win the World Series, many in the audience, Republicans, presumably, acted as if they were at a funeral. Stoic and grim-faced, they looked as if the president was deliberately out to kill their hopes and dreams.
I majored in political science in college and once upon a time, for a brief moment, thought politics might be fun; though I could never be president because I was born in Korea, I could still be elected to public office. Now I could not imagine wanting to go there — either physically to Washington, D.C., as an elected official — or mentally with all of the challenges of navigating politics with people who act more like spoiled, recalcitrant children than leaders entrusted with our future. I’ve also developed an allergy to hot air and meetings, and it would appear that there is too much of each to be healthy and happy in office.
There was another no-brainer moment, at least for me, and that’s when the president was talking about raising the minimum wage to a level where able-bodied, grown men and women working all day, full-time, would not have to live below the poverty line. Of course, the detractors of this idea cry and whine about the necessity of raising taxes. That is always the specter that looms and kills these schemes of compassion.
But think about so many Americans out of work or underpaid and living lives of silent desperation. I had a small, brief taste of what it must be like not to have the ability to pay bills. It seems that in the holiday hullabaloo my power bill was lost in the fray and I missed the December payment. In my very next statement, written, in bold, unmistakable letters, was a turn-off notice warning. Pay your power bill by this date or we will cut you off. Bad girl. No heat or electricity for you! Really? After years and years of paying my bills on time? What if I had lost my job and was unable to pay? What if I had elderly parents living with me or an infant or a sick child who could not stand the cold if heat were to be cut off in the dead of winter?
I was so outraged by the threat that I called the power company to tell them exactly what I thought about it. It is never my intention to kill the messenger but in this case, my ire spilled over to the poor person who happened to answer the phone that morning. Phrases that I have heard others use but that I never would have thought would spill out of my mouth simply did — how dare you threaten me like this, what is wrong with you people, where is your compassion, what would you do if I really couldn’t pay this bill. By accident or design — I am hoping the former — the phone suddenly cut out, and I was shouting to empty air.
Because the December bill was now lumped in with January, I owed the power company more than a thousand dollars. Not a small ding in the bank account. I went online and paid the bill, grateful that I could do so, even while wondering how I would still have to shift some stuff around, and wondering how desperate I would feel if I couldn’t pay.
There is something wrong with a country that spends millions on extravaganzas like the Grammys and the Super Bowl, with their over-sexualized, over-commercialized, and hyper self-indulgent displays, while hard-working Americans struggle to eat and stay warm.
There were other elements of the State of the Union speech that I liked, especially the news that Apple will move toward “in-sourcing” — bringing thousands of jobs back home to American soil with the manufacture of products in the good old US of A. This is an idea that is so eminently sensible, other American companies should take note and copy it. We need more jobs and more common sense economics.
We also need everyone to support and applaud the common good, whether Republican or Democrat, because as Americans we will rise or sink together. That’s a lesson in civics that any 14-year-old can appreciate and a lesson in compassion that people of all ages can understand.
