Comment to President Obama about his historically important speech yesterday

What he had to say was historically HUGE....

But...

This was the first time in a long time that an American president has presented the situation, directly, without twisty thinking to exempt himself from doing the right thing. 

The situation:

"If you perceive a moral imperative, you have to take action, not just stand around and wish you had" -- and take that action with mindfulness to the principles that you know are the source of your strength...

No total bullshit fabrications like 
"They hate us for our freedom."

That's what they love about us. 

They hate us because we support multinational corporations going into their homes and pissing all over their culture and beliefs for their profit and campaign contributions...

What Our President had to say AND what he said was historically extraordinary.

BUT the way he said it! Damn.

This was the first time I can recall when I really noticed the professorial academic syntactical self-gelding of his message in which, instead of confidently asserting and stating the points to be made as the person who is the holder of the ONLY nationally elected office in America (along with his choice of VP) -- the ONE PERSON the entire voting population has chosen, the one person in the world who can rightfully take the stance of "L'etat c'est moi" for that particular instance -- instead of that, mealy-mouthing his historically and philosophically significant impeccable case by positing and footnoting as if he were a doctoral candidate presenting his dissertation before the dubious academic board,  prefacing and modifying each important point with "I think..." "I believe..." etc.

Jeezus Keerist, Barry -- We KNOW it's what you think. 
We have always thought it's EXACTLY what you believe. 

You're NOT a candidate for a degree or a job.   

You've already got the job.   

(You had us at "I'm not McCain and Palin.") 

So stop shillyshallying around -- put the goddamn hammer down. Kick some ass and take some names.

"I think..." and "I believe" amputates the power and limits the validity of the message as much as "Under God" in the pledge limits the right of the franchise to only those who suffer from the same fantasy as the people who are afraid we can't compete with the godless communists and need some supernatural validation in order to try.

A man who knew more about Euro-American politics than almost anyone else -- George Orwell -- noticed the problem:  

"We have a hunger for something like authenticity,  

but are easily satisfied by an ersatz facsimile."

In this case, Mr. President -- you ARE authenticity itself, but you are ceding the authority to the signifying monkeys of the right and and wrong.

We live in a world of "It's the singer, not the song." 
You HAVE the song, and it's the right one. 

Hell, you WROTE the song and we love you for that. 

But we need for you to sing it to us the way you did those few bars at the Apollo theater. 

No one wants to hear Noam Chomsky do Al Green, as brilliant and perceptive as Professor Chomsky is. 

Forget that old crap of 
"Campaign in poetry and govern in prose." 
That's what old white guys who can't dance like to say. 

Don't lose the poetry. 

We need for you to sing to us.

We want to know you still love us.

That you still think we're beautiful.

That you want us to stay together.

And that's why you're standing up there.

So, to be concise -- don't just tell us -- sing your song to us. 

(Bolinas poet Bill Brown used to put it this way: 

"You can call them horse's asses if you want, 

but for God's sake -- don't bore 'em to death." )