House of Eratosthenes

Add instilling a spirit of unity to the long and growing list of successful achievements by Barack Obama’s predecessor, that Mister Wonderful Himself is now going to merely attempt to do.

I was skimming through the speech and I sat up and took notice when I saw these words:

Against that backdrop Obama spoke forcefully.

“The highest honor we can pay those we lost, indeed our greatest weapon in this ongoing war, is to do what our adversaries fear the most,” the president said.

Aha!, I thought. We got a long list of things we are not going to do…now we’re going to get a statement from our leader about what it is we will do. What’s going to make us great, here. Even better, how we’re going to pay honor to the deceased. So what’s this wonderful thing we’re going to do, Mister President?

Image credit: Rodger the Real King of France

“To stay true to who we are, as Americans; to renew our sense of common purpose; to say that we define the character of our country, and we will not let the acts of some small band of murderers who slaughter the innocent and cower in caves distort who we are.”

++blink++

Did I get that right? Yet another thing-we-are-NOT-going-to-do?

The more months I spend trapped with my fellow countrymen in this — hey, let’s call it what it is — malaise, the more I think this has very little to do with conservatism versus liberalism. The more I start to think this all concerns something much more fundamental to human existence.

It is a widespread and deliberate delusion. It is a mixing-up of doing great and glorious things, with the not-doing of anything.

This is an easy thing to do in the wake of heinous crimes. Killing killers never brings murder victims back from the dead, as we’re frequently reminded. But there is something particularly unappealing about the victims of such crimes, and their relatives, just leaving things be & moving on.

Part of the rhetorical flourish that swept Obama into office, had to do with Osama bin Laden & pals running around wild and free. Now, is something going to be done about that? Or was that all a fake-out, to help buttress the campaign of a candidate running on pure narcissism?

Are Americans really that worthless? The most glorious things we can do, in the wake of such a tragedy, amount to a whole lot of nothing? What are we, human beings living out glorious, dignified lives full of potential, or cattle milling about in a big barnyard just waiting for a trip to the slaughterhouse?

The question is so seldom asked. But, like I said…the more I’m privileged to watch such speeches and events, the more it seems to get back to that. We’re just not good enough. Not good enough to hang on to our guns, not good enough to emit carbon, not good enough to be hired by anyone outside of our government, and not good enough to be avenged if we happen to be in the wrong building at the wrong time.

We’re only kept around for our tax “contributions” and for our opinions, but not any old opinion. We have to like the people in charge or else we’re racists.

Not feeling terribly unified at the moment. A few more statements about what Americans can & will do, that only Americans can & will do, would have gone a long way. It’s tough to find a speech by Obama’s predecessor, that fails to mention such things. His Holy Eminence, once again, doesn’t have too much to say about us that is nice, other than His vision for what we’re going to be transformed into.

Update: In the “great minds thinking alike” department, I see blogger friend Gerard has had a similar thought. Something Wonderful: When Our President Was a Man.

At this point, I’d say it’s worthy of an actual question to be put to the President at a press conference — assuming we ever see one of those again. “President Obama: What, if anything, is great and wonderful and beneficial about the United States of America? Specifics, please, and kindly skip over any empty bromides about things we’re not supposed to think or do, or awful things we ‘tolerate,’ or where we’re going to go from here. How, as intelligent, historied and stateful beings, are Americans good?”

It’s a worthy question to ask because some people are still in the process of deciding whether they made a mistake in November of 2008. They need to be given the information necessary to make this decision.

Thanks for the video.
- Fai Mao | 09/12/2010 @ 04:12
Excellent read, as always. If it is true that smugness, arrogance, and condescension are requisite traits for any Liberal, no exceptions, and it is, then Obama is only playing to character here. What is worrisome is his predilection to use any means necessary to impose his will. I see socialists as commies without guns; as POTUS he has plenty. But that’s just me.
- TRKOF | 09/12/2010 @ 07:25

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What We’re Not Gonna DoSaturday, September 11th, 2010

What We’re Not Gonna Do
Saturday, September 11th, 2010