Obama Congressional Speech Analysis: Back In the Days of Jackson

“And though all of these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.

In other words, we have lived through an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity, where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election.

A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations...

Regulations -- regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.”

President Obama confronts the touchiest subject in government, how to spend the money. As Ron Paul has mentioned in countless speeches and forums, government in the United States have taken the word “compromise” to mean spend the money on both Democrat and Republican projects, increasing the debt and causing money to vanish from tax payers pockets.

He is correct, however, of his assessment, more than likely because he was in the meeting causing this entire deficit. Senator have the power to stop a budget that is not balanced, but he had done nothing to stop it. Now he is President, so his voice will be heard, right?

Obama than looks at history. Surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy. President Van Buren did do all of this to the surplus Andrew Jackson created; the last time the United States had a surplus. What this has to do with our current situation, I do not know. Maybe, President Obama is try to sneak a punch at the Federal Reserve, reminding them when Democrat Andrew Jackson shut down the Bank of the United State, creating the first and only surplus in the United States.

What am I saying!

Obama is referring to the budget surplus of the Clinton Administration, a creation of the Republican Congress defeating Hillary Care. He is stating that this budget surplus should have been spent on the project the Clinton Administration wanted to spend it on. He is trying to stretch a rumor. Yes, there was a surplus in the budget, but that means that we could start to pay off our debts; not start to gain more. A budget surplus is not a surplus, just a profit in taxes. The United States was still in a deficit.

On the housing crisis, President Obama, it was the Democrats that created the loan regulations to allow the banks to spread the wealth and give loan to those they knew could not pay it off. It would have been in their interest to not give these people money, but the Fed made them, Congress made them. It is your fault we are in this mess, Congress and all of it’s members that did not fight against this. Republican and Democrat, Left and Neo-Right. The True Right, those like Ron Paul, was against this, trying to stop it, but you did not listen. We are now in this mess because the government forced banks to give people loans that the banks knew people could not pay. In the Free Market, those people would not have been given loans, but when the Government gives banks a way out, it is a win-win situation. Goodness, just stop trying to help, you are bleeding the economy to death!

Obama Congressional Speech Analysis: Our Schools are Terrible and It's Your Fault, not ours!

“Now, if we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that for too long we have not always met these responsibilities, as a government or as a people. I say this not to lay blame or to look backwards, but because it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we'll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.

The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank.

We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy, yet we import more oil today than ever before.

The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform.

Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for.”

The first line made me laugh. He admits that the government isn’t doing its job, than blames the people for it. In other words it is like Obama is saying,

"You chose to vote in these Republicans and they increased spending and caused a huge massive defect with their wars. You should have voted in Democrats to increase spending and taxes causing a massive debt fighting our social wars."

It made me laugh, wasn't he a Junior Senator from Illinois? I guess he didn't think he could change things as a Senator, it is only a minor position, right? Isn't that what Junior means; a person with low rank or status compared with others. Than, he tries to explain this blame game away by saying it is so we can “understand how we arrived at this moment.” I though earlier he said, “You don't need to hear another list of statistics...” Isn’t this another statistic. Oh, I guess he meant not to list statistics that deal with his political parties motives and ideas.

He than gives us more statistics, our economy did not decline over night. He is absolutely correct, it began to decline in the 1990’s. Dot Com boom and bust anyone? The logical thing to do is blame the institution that caused this mess, the Federal Reserve, right?

Than, instead of confronting the institution that led to this crisis, he goes to social engineering, community organizer, "health care is to expensive and our schools are in decline so we need to socialize them" garbage. Our health care is... was the best in the world, until Nixon began to regulate it in the 1970's. HMO was the United States first socialization of medicine. It worked out great, our system is now second to the French!* The only logical solution is to give the people that wrecked health care more control, because that just makes sense. No one would ever to think to let doctors set their own prices and compete in the open market. No one would think to allow the pharmacutical companys to set their own prices. No, that would take lobbying out of medicine, and that would hurt the economy because it would take those jobs away – unless of course it is replaced by government jobs, than we should change it.

Education totals are also lies. Our schools are view to be equal to France and greater than Germany, Belgium, and other European Social Democracies.† I guess Germany needs to reorganize their education as well, they won’t be able to compete with those dirty Americans and French with their good high schools. Maybe he was thinking about colleges? American colleges consistently rank higher than French, German, Dutch, and other European colleges. The only competition is Cambridge in England (might I point out, it was establish a good many years before Harvard and Stanford, two school mainly competing for the number one spot on the college ranking sheets). Of the top ten univeristies, 8 are American (Harvard (1), Stanford (2), Cal Berkeley (3), MIT (5), CalTech (6), Columbia (7), Princeton (8), and University of Chicago (9)) of which 4 are private and 4 are public, and 2 are British public schools (Oxford (4) and Cambridge(10)). I guess we must assume that these two college represent the rest of the world and educate the rest of the world equally.ª

* "Sicko", Micheal Moore
† "Uberpower: The Imperial Temptation of America", Josef Joffe
ª http://www.arwu.org/rank2008/ARWU2008_A(EN).htm

Obama Congressional Speech Analysis: We the Politicians to You, the People

“But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

More motivational jargon with little to back it up, Obama continues his speech by speaking to the American people directly. The purpose of the Joint-Congressional speeches of old were to speak directly to Congress, today it is a chance to speak to the people. It is a good thing that he is trying to motivate us to move on with our lives, but we also need to remain real with the situations that are affecting us, or we will be doomed to repeat it.

“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities, in our fields and our factories, in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth."

"Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.”

Obama sets his agenda in these paragraphs and moves towards addressing Congress and not the American people. He wants America to unite together, under that banner of the Government. In the guise of Uncle Sam of old, we have Uncle Obama today urging the American people to keep up with their patriotic duty. He than gets “honest” about the economic situation, and admits that this was not just Bush’s fault, but all of Congress.

Obama Congressional Speech Analysis: Intoduction

"Thank you very much.

Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, and the first lady of the United States, who's around here somewhere.

I have come here tonight not only to address the distinguished men and women in this great chamber, but to speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here.

I know that for many Americans watching right now, the state of our economy is a concern that rises above all others, and rightly so. If you haven't been personally affected by this recession, you probably know someone who has: a friend, a neighbor, a member of your family.

You don't need to hear another list of statistics to know that our economy is in crisis, because you live it every day. It's the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights. It's the job you thought you'd retire from but now have lost, the business you built your dreams upon that's now hanging by a thread, the college acceptance letter your child had to put back in the envelope.

The impact of this recession is real, and it is everywhere."

President Obama begins his speech by stating facts that have shaped our economy. His thesis of this speech becomes what is the governments response to this economic collapse. It is a noble goal, but today I will call into question the constitutionality and results of these words and speeches.

Through the coming days, I will be taking this speech, part by part, and show what this results of these words and phrases upon the American economy and people.

Owen's Manifesto

In the early 1820's, a Scottish industrialist attempted to create a new type of society in the Indiana Wilderness. The town of New Harmony was the location, as the western world saw the rise of a new era. Robert Owen called his new philosophy of life Socialism – a movement that sparked a revolution in modern society and culture.

What is true socialism?

The answer is found in Robert Owen's Declaration of Mental Independence. In this pivotal, yet seemingly unknown document, Owen declares war on the "hydra of evils." The "evil Trinity" that the new man must defeat, according to Owen, is "private, or individual property -- absurd and irrational systems of religion -- and marriage, founded on individual property combined with some one of these irrational system of religion."

In order to truly understand the modern political movements found within culture carrying the Socialist or Marxist banner – of which is the Communist, Labour, and Socially Democratic political parties – is to understand the creator of the movement. The New Harmony experiment called for, and put into practice, the end of all private property, marriage, and organized religion. Modern luxury, such as publicly owned schooling for children (beginning at Pre-School and ending with a College education), free food and water to all citizens, equal rights for woman and children, and fair labor practices were instituted and performed (with some chaos). The project ultimately failed, despite the great and universal want for success with the intellectuals that crowded the street and homes of New Harmony.

Why did it fail?

Robert Owen admitted the reason why it failed was because there were to many thinkers and not enough doers. Owen submits that his experiment would have succeeded if their had been more people working the fields and less people thinking about an equal society. The society was unable to support itself because the population could not feed itself, but instead thought about what the world should be. They lived in a fantasy of what they wanted, and failed to see what they had.

In this we have the problem with the Socialistic system. The class structure remains, but is based upon the intellect of the individual. If society were to dictate that one man should think in the offices and another work in the fields, who has done more physical labor (therefore needing more calories to achieve the desire goal of society.). The worker in the fields deserves more food under logic, but in this society the worker in the fields received equal that that of the office worker, who produced nothing tangible physically. The Marxist attempts to solve this problem by eliminating the thinker altogether, but fails to provide the motivation for the worker to think. The New Harmony experiment failed over a century and a half ago, but the intellectuals and high thinkers of modern culture to this date still believe the dream is possible.

Works Cited
1) Heaven on Earth. Public Broadcasting Company, 2006. Youtube. 1 Jan. 2009. 24 Feb. 2009 .

2) "Owen1826." Indiana University. 24 Feb. 2009 .

3) Seth. "The Rise and Fall of Socialism." Weblog post. Seth's Opinion Matters. 23 Feb. 2009. 23 Feb. 2009 .