SOTU

THE STATE OF THIS UNION (January 30, 2018)

As I listened to the POTUS deliver his first  "State of the Union" address, the subatomic particles of my DNA became angry.  All of us American citizens heard words baked in an oven of selected  truth and sprinkled with genuine tears that the Tribe of Trump appropriated for their political ends.  Please note that the parents put on stage to weep were not the parents of unarmed children  who have been murdered too frequently in our recent history by police people and  newly motivated racists and newly empowered supremacists. The platitudes regarding a tide of optimism and a righteous mission to make the American republic great again for all Americans created the music of pebbles raining on a tin roof.  A cold tin roof on the house that seven deadly American sins built. The POTUS did mimic, I admit, some of the better features of oratory.  That I don't deny.  Nevertheless, the persuasiveness of the address was undermined by strange white noise: the sound of the serpent slithering to Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine,  to be reborn. And the counterpoint to that noise was the sound of "love" dropping in the s---house!  Most disconcerting.

It was obvious that all Americans do not wash with the same great American flag.  Nor do all Americans defend religious liberty, a vexed concept in democratic discourses, or participate in consensus-building in refining the definition of the concept and deciding what should be its most judicious application by virtue of policy.  Despite loud Republican applause for the waving of invisible olive branches, the hawk-faced gods of war hissed "THERE SHALL NOT BE PEACE."

Is the cost of ending the "war" on great, beautiful, clean coal the death of reasonable anxiety about ecology and environmental protection and conservation?  What contradictions flourish when one promises a great era of jobs and a great reduction of unemployment  while threatening to "remove" (deny employment to) whistle blowers who might undermine the public trust (a great, beautiful fiction)?

What anxiety should accompany a promise to have the FDA approve new medical technologies to give the terminally ill greater access to experiments?  Should we fear that the experiments might be performed by clones of Nazi doctors?  Is a mere 1.5 trillion dollars sufficient funding  to reduce the infrastructure deficit?  There is an abyss between debt reduction and the material labor/people power necessary for the massive rebuilding of USA infrastructure!   The remedies that can be obtained by greater investment in job training and restoring the dignity of vocational schooling are great and wonderful on the surface.  Do those remedies demand that we buy into privatizing public education through chartering?  Isn't it a bit irresponsible to argue for the goodness of giving a second chance to "criminals" who served their sentences in the same breath that remains very, very silent about efforts extirpate the root causes of criminality in an American that shall become great again?  Why did the POTUS make symbolic political capital of demonizing the  MS13 gang----and perhaps the thugs deserve demonizing for the evil they do---without reminding the ignorant that MS13 is a pure American product manufactured in California?  Why was there no mention of the perfumed gangs on Wall Street and in corporate America?  Why was there no mention of the  gangs constituted by the diverse hate groups documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center?  Why was there no mention of the gangs inside American pharmaceutical companies who obviously incubated the current drug epidemic? 

The State of the Union address was remarkable exercise in rhetorical sleight-of-hand.  As such, it should put American citizens and all of their elected officials and self-elected "leaders" on notice to check all the flaws in the American moral compass, or to actually ask whether our nation has a moral compass.  The four pillars erected by the imagination of the POTUS are cosmetic and ultimately may sink in the sand.  Why secure the border in the South as if terrorists can't zoom through the borders of the North, West, and East?  What is the standard of proof that immigrants admitted under a new merit-based system "love and respect our country?  It takes 12 years for 1.8 million immigrants to earn citizenship?  Where is the proof that such an entity as "chain migration" exists and is factor in the growth of terrorism?

There was great, beautiful hypocrisy in recommending that the United States should build a nuclear arsenal large enough to terrorize all other nation-states on the planet.  It was rather dangerous to announce that the USA will create new terms of engagement that have no artificial timelines and that preclude the leaking of plans.  In theory, the new terms may be exceptionally effective.  In practice, they may greatly encourage the creation of massive nuclear arsenals by nations that behold the USA as a threat to civilization and humanity rather than the savior of those phenomena.  And only God knows what the subatomic particles of my DNA heard as "U.S.A., U.S.A, U.S.A." was chanted with operatic alacrity.

Ultimately, the State of the Union address dispensed a new trinity for a nation of sheep:  God the Father who has confidence in America's values and way of life; God the Son who maintains faith in American citizens; God the Holy Ghost who beams with approval on the  "In God We Trust"  motto that graces our dollar bills.

The POTUS had spoken.  Let us resolve to use our heads, heart, and hands to prevent the vicious erosion of American democracy (as we once knew it) by the dawning of American fascism (as we know it in 2018).  Let us not sleep with anger.  Let us devote our waking hours to purpose.

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.            January 31, 2018.