Beyond Our Borders: Obama's State of the Union

President ObamaObama’s State of the Union Speech touched on many aspects of international and internal relations. Here are the highlights I heard and my reactions:

1. He claimed that we are acting effectively and increasingly successfully in Afghanistan. This is pretty vague and there’s not much we can know about it as we listen- I take his word for that. And if it’s true that we are doing better, great.
2. He reiterated that the troops will be coming home from Iraq and that we will be assisting the people of Iraq to hold democratic elections. This struck me as an issue that has completely gone off the radar. When was the last time you saw a protest about the Iraq war or heard someone calling out their outrage about the reasons we went there or why we are still there. I’m glad he reiterated that and hope it becomes a success soon. 
3. He touted his success with Russia on reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the two countries. Well, get it done. Sign the thing.
4. He emphasized how America must stand on the side of human dignity, especially in situations like Haiti. I think this would have gone better in the beginning when he was going for the spirit of America, when he was talking about what was going through the American psyche right now. But, still well noted.
5. He talked about finding unity in incredible diversity and that our strength both at home and abroad has always been in our ideas. Now this is the kind of concept that has legs. I could have seen this as something he framed the whole speech around, but he went for the issues. Alright.
6. He noted his administration’s dedication to enforcing the civil rights principles in our laws, through allowing anyone to serve in the military regardless of sexual orientation, get women equal pay for an equal day’s work, and reform the immigration system to enforce the borders and take care of people here. It was basically a way to work in all of the democrat ideas and issues that he hasn’t spent any time on while in office and let everyone know that he is still with them. Was it enough? No. But it may have been all he could do with the economy being where it is.
7. He concluded by acknowledging the causes of cynicism out there. And then he talked about how hard it is to make change happen in a nation of 300 million people. Saying that he didn’t ever suggest that he would be able to do it alone. And he called on everyone to make the decisions necessary to do what is needed and to do what has to be done to make the nation we all want for our children and our grand-children. 

Despite all the setbacks of his administration, the spirit of America lives on in Obama’s hopes. He once again stood on hope.

“We don’t quit. I don’t quit,” he said, “Let’s sieze on the spirit to make this nation strong once more.” Cheers.

Photo Credit: jmtimages (via Flickr under CCL)