Yes, so, that was a relatively short summary of Obama's speech yesterday, which if he loses the upcoming election, would in fact be the last State of the Union address that he gives. That said, I expect that he will, in fact, win another term in office.
One interesting proposal that he desires to see, apparently, is a law that would force all kids to stay in school until they either graduate, or at least turn the age of 18. Seeing the steady deterioration of the education system in this country, and furthermore being saddened by the failures of the "No Child Left Behind" policies of the Bush Administration that Obama and many Democrats, to say nothing of Bush's Republicans, seem to so firmly believe in, maybe this is at least a measure that could help students, and at least is designed to assist them and show the importance of an education. Right now, I believe the age that a student can drop out in is 16, but 16 year old kids are not adults, and may not understand the full ramifications of their actions just yet. So this is an interesting proposal, although it may not be the most realistic. We shall see.
On the environment, he sounded the same bell as always, calling for an end to tax cuts and breaks for the oil industry and other major polluters, and favored increased investment in clean energy sources, announcing a federal incentive that would stimulate clean energy research and production domestically. That sounds good, but is it enough? If there is one issue that I feel Obama has not done nearly enough with short of political posturing, it is in regards to clean air and the environment.
There is another response to Obama's speech that I think merits mentioning, although it certainly was not covered by any major media on any prominent level that I am aware of. It is from the Occupy protestors, because they certainly nonetheless did get a lot of attention towards the end of last year, and have managed to add to the overall debate about our way of life at least as much as the Tea Party did when they first arrived on the scene a few years ago. I am not a fan of the Tea Party, and they never seemed to really have anything new to say, anyway. They just rehashed many of the same old arguments, only taking it to a greater extreme, and expressing anger. The Occupiers, on the other hand, began to call into question the entire banking system that we have entrenched in the modern industrialized nations, and they have become an international movement. Although you do not hear as much about them lately as perhaps a few months ago, I am confident that they will continue to make news, and that there will be more protests throughout the world. They are not done yet. The Tea Party? Who knows? I do not think they were ever all that relevant to begin with. So, I was interested in hearing what the Occupiers had to say about Obama's address, and in case you were to, here is a link:
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