by B. R. GOWANI
President Barack Obama speaks at McCormick Place in Chicago, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017, giving his presidential farewell address PHOTO/AP/Nam Y. Huh/ABC
One of the main differences between the outgoing US president and the incoming US president: President Barack Obama is a very articulate, charismatic, and sincere sounding speaker whose body language, gestures, and fine vocabulary has the power to force the listener to believe in what he is saying, even though he may be lying. On the other hand, president elect Donald Trump, who sounds phony, is extremely inarticulate with a limited vocabulary, and whose rough uncharismatic presence can piss off the listener, even though sometimes he may be stating the fact. But to state the truth, both are bullshitters – Obama to a lesser degree.
The outgoing president utilized his farewell speech to list his achievements:
“If I had told you eight years ago that America would reverse a great recession, reboot our auto industry, and unleash the longest stretch of job creation in our history . if I had told you that we would open up a new chapter with the Cuban people, shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program without firing a shot, and take out the mastermind of 9/11 . if I had told you that we would win marriage equality, and secure the right to health insurance for another 20 million of our fellow citizens – you might have said our sights were set a little too high.”
For improving relations with Iran and Cuba, and introducing the Obamacare, Obama should be commended. The job creation boast is half true because most of the jobs created during his tenure were part time and of temporary nature. Killing of Osama bin Laden was not a big deal; in May 2011, he was a spent force. A revolutionary thing Obama could have done but didn’t do was to put behind bars the Wall Street crooks responsible for the 2008 financial crisis. The reason being that he himself is part of the establishment.
Obama had the nerve to tell the people that the “sights were set a little too high.” It’s a great lie. His statement would have been true if he had really done somethings such as releasing members of minorities (mostly blacks and Latinos) incarcerated wrongly or on minor charges; close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center (which he might close down before leaving office); forced Apple, Microsoft, and other high tech companies to hire more minorities (they only have two% blacks in their workforce); and so on.
Though later in his speech, Obama acknowledged how much work was not done. The usual rhetorical blaming of the corporations was there when he said:
“make more reforms to the tax code so corporations and individuals who reap the most from the new economy don’t avoid their obligations to the country that’s made their success possible.”
Bullshit. January 2009, when Obama came to power, was the time for him to have arrested the corporate crooks and set an example for other corporate CEOs to pay their due share without creating any economic/financial crisis.
The other gist of Obama’s speech was to warn the Democrats and supporters of the Democratic Party to be prepared to face and fight back the drastic changes Trump administration will be unleashing once he is in power.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com