A couple of weeks ago President Obama delivered that annual State of the Union address followed immediately by Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana giving a rebuttal from the Republican perspective. It was all pretty much cookie cutter stuff that we’ve come to expect from the talking suits that collect huge paychecks to babble on about such things.
I think it’s time that you get to hear the State of the Union from the perspective of a nonpolitical middle class underachiever, that is to say, me. Call it the Slacker’s State of the Union, if you will.
To set the stage, I’m not delivering this message under the glare of TV lighting in front of a joint session of Congress, the Justices of the Supreme Court or the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I’m not filming it from behind a huge desk in a stately looking office with impressive bookshelves lining the walls. That’s not where real people hang out and certainly not where you’ll find slackers drinking beer and complaining about the government.
I’m writing this from the comfort of my recliner, one of two thrones where most of my quality thinking occurs. I’m not wearing an expensive suit, because I don’t own an expensive suit but mainly because only a pompous jerk would wear an expensive suit while drinking beer in his recliner.
Let me start by saying that the state of our union is in deep poop and anyone who tells you otherwise is either stupid or thinks you’re stupid. I’m an average American and I happen to believe that your average American is not stupid, so stop trying to pee in my cup then trying to convince me its lemonade.
As of January of this year about 8.3% of Americans were unemployed. First of all 8.3% of working age Americans is about, let’s see…carry the three… a flaming butt-load, second that’s a BS number because it doesn’t count the 2.8 million people who were “marginally employed or under employed and have become so discouraged that they haven’t looked for meaningful employment for the last four weeks.
These aren’t the deadbeats who don’t want work that Rush Limbaugh and his band of idiots are always babbling on about, these are great Americans, many of whom are returning veterans (something Rush and more than 75% of Congress are not) who just want a decent job and the dignity of supporting their family.
The state of our union stinks because we can’t even afford to educate our kids anymore. Recent statistics show that, as a nation, more than 28% or kids drop out of high school. It’s really bad in some inner-city districts where less than 60% of freshmen graduate with their class four years later! Those are third world numbers!
Among the 36 “Industrialized Nations” the good ol’ USA ranked 18th in quality of public education. Your kid has a better chance of speaking and writing proper English if you send them to school in Japan or South Korea than if they go to school in the US.
Our Union is in a sorry state because most of our youth can identify some clown called “The Situation”, a tattooed jobless loser from a MTV reality show but damned few can identify Dakota Meyer, a Marine who received the Medal of Honor last year, a real hero who should be the poster boy for their generation.
The state of the American union is spiraling down the drain because we’ve been fighting foreign wars for more than a decade and the our politicians keep cutting the military budget and then asking them to do more with less.
This is what happens when the last two presidents and 75% of Congress made the choice not to serve on active duty. They only know what lobbyist tell them and, here’s a news flash, lobbyists lie.
Our union is fat; and I don’t mean that in a good way. What we don’t need is a bunch of rich guys in expensive suits arguing about our healthcare, what we need are jobs so we can get off our ever-widening backsides, go to work at a decent job with quality benefits so we can take care of our own health.
Think about it, a guy with meaningful employment has dignity and teaches his kids self respect (by example) and doesn’t need some pill to make him feel better about himself so he teaches his kids (by example) that self respect doesn’t come from pharmaceuticals and everybody wins.
I know that’s simplistic but, you know what, so am I. I don’t need some rich guy in an expensive suit to tell me what’s best for the middle class, I am the freakin’ middle class. What I need is a straight shooter who can explain how we bring real jobs back to Americans and take better care of our troops.
What I don’t need is negative campaigning that involves calling my house every five minutes.
Hell, one of them is so desperate that he’s literally promising us the moon! He’ll colonize it, create jobs there and if all goes well make it the 51st state. Come on, man…we’d be happy with jobs in Nevada. It just proves they’ll say anything to get elected.
From my recliner the state of our union is concerned but not desperate; find a way to allow the middle class a fair chance to compete for decent jobs and then get the hell out of our lives, we’ll take it from there.
Enough of that, next week I’ll bring you the meaningless gibberish you’ve come to expect from me!
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