by Al Krastev

SOTU: Consistencies and Raised Eyebrows

U.S. President Barack Obama held his third State of the Union address on Tuesday, successfully taking the entirety of the swollen House Chamber to its feet multiple times.

Having spent now over three years at Earlham, I heard a fair amount of disappointments in LBC 105. Yes, there were a fair amount of questionable policies regarding oil drilling, the actual success of the two wars and certainly foreign policy in general. There was undoubtedly a rather nationalist USA-will-lead-all notion throughout his address.

However, despite the overarching push for togetherness, let us not forget it is 2012. If Obama wishes to push his vision through and past the end-year election, he absolutely has to seize this perfect moment of havoc in the non-Democratic electorate to win some votes over.

There certainly hasn’t been as deeply obvious and grotesque a divide between the two parties as this year’s in a very long time. Given that, Obama did a great job at addressing all sides of the electorate in the way they want to hear and expressing very well that he is not backing off for the sake of election-winning. He reiterated his demand for proportional taxation through the brilliant examples of Congress and himself, and firmly asked for financing innovation and education, while cutting war spending and the budget deficit.

His high hopes and bright predictions have not fully materialized before, but nonetheless he has stayed focused in what appears to be the right direction on most issues. Regardless, he did achieve incredible balance between being populist, remaining firm in his conviction and even pointing fingers and dropping a joke.

Now, would he actually execute his foreign policy vision in the manner ‘America – the world’s police’? I believe that was laid out this way to win those few independent voters that may as well make the difference this fall. I’d rather believe he would instead shine out as a leader in the idea of togetherness in the global sphere, too.

This State of the Union address will be remembered as one radiant example of the perfect public speaking skills in the cloudy realm of politics.

Quakersphere

As of today, you would be seeing hundreds of high school students all over our little green (or maroon?) campus. The annual Earlham College Model United Nations Conference is taking place all over Landrum Bolling Center and this year looks truly promising.

Don’t be so quick as to put your superiority flair on and boss the students around! They are after all potential future Earlhamites. The better impression they have of us, the bigger the chance this college will get to finally build Arts and Science buildings, thanks to balanced budgets. And you may even make some friends! Don’t worry, surveys show they actually really like Saga (?!). So, the rest is up to you!

Speaking of LBC, Landrum Bolling himself is holding a highly interesting, potentially controversial for many, convocation on Wednesday. He is set to return from Mercy Corp work in Egypt and within a few days speak in Goddard of the quick road to peace in the Middle East. Looking at the baby steps taken by Netanyahu and Abbas just recently in Amman (but taken nonetheless), I am highly skeptical of any quick fix.

But let’s not take Landrum Bolling lightly – he is not only a name of our Social Sciences building, but also Earlham’s ex-president of 15 years and a highly experienced peacemaker. We should be so lucky to look anything like him, especially at his age.

Keep your eyes and minds open for these two events and may the Quaker force be with you!