President Obama made history on Tuesday.
It was only the second time since Harry S. Truman’s State of the Union address in 1948 that such a speech by a Democratic president did not include a single mention of poverty or the plight of the poor.
So begins Hard-Knock (Hardly Acknowledged) Life, a column in today's New York Times by Charles Blow that grabbed my attention when I glanced at it in the middle of the night.
I got up for what I thought would be a brief moment to feed the cats shortly before 3:30. I glanced at the op ed page of the Times. I read the Blow. I could not go back to sleep.
There are political as well as moral implications in what I read.
I will offer the political from Blow.
I will address the moral with my own words.
Continue reading or not as you deem fit, but understand this - I do not believe you can read what Blow wrote, or what he provoked me to write, and simply go back to sleep, physically or metaphorically.
Blow asks how a Democrat can give a speech that complete ignores the "calamitous" condition affecting his "staunchest" supporters, the poor?
And then he hammers away.
(In 2008, Obama won 73 percent of the vote of those earning less than $15,000 a year, 60 percent of those earning between $15,000 and $30,000 and 55 percent of the vote of those earning $30,000 to $50,000. Those were his widest margins of victory of any income group and helped to propel him to victory.)
Blow describes the portions of the speech dealing with education as the most inspiring, although for me they were among the most troubling as I noted in my own response to the speech. He then described programs that benefit seniors, commenting that we "can't forget the plea to the old people." Blow finds caring about seniors morally and politically correct, but notes they are not the ones currently feeling pain.
According to data from the Census Bureau, the percent of people ages 18 to 64 who were living in poverty in 2009 was higher than it had been in any year since 1959, while the percent of seniors living in poverty was lower than it had been in any year since at least 1959.
(By the way, voters over 65 were the only age group that Obama lost in 2008.)
While acknowledging that Obama was clearly the best choice in the last election, and given the current field is likely to be the best choice in 18 months, Blow nevertheless asks bluntly of the President's failure to address the needs of the poor
does that give him license to obviate his moral responsibility to his electoral devotees?
He goes further. He talks about tacking to the middle (reminding me of what slinkerwink described as a centrist speech), offers comments about the negative reaction of those whose suport the President is seeking and wonders about keeping the poor in the shadows as a price of keeping himself in the White House.
And then this stand-alone sentence:
And things could get even worse for the poor if the president feels the need to cut too many deals with the new Republican-led House in order to appear more centrist.
He quotes Brian Miller, the executive director of the nonpartisan and Boston-based group United for a Fair Economy and co-author of the group’s report entitled "State of the Dream 2011: Austerity for Whom?" The kind of austerity measures, about which we heard in Rep. Ryan's response to the State of the Union, based on conservative doctrine of lower taxes and lesser government will not only put downward pressure on the standard of living for most Americans, it will also fall far more heavily on those of color and further exacerbate our economic divide. Blow offers words from Miller about the austerity measures harming a wide swath of Americans but falling more harshly on those who are Black and Latino (after all, those groups already tilt more heavily towards the bottom of the economic ladder and thus will be disproportionally affected by "austerity" programs).
Blow then puts together data from Miller with electoral data:
According to Miller, "With 42 percent of blacks and 37 percent of Latinos lacking the funds to meet minimal household expenses for even three months should they become unemployed, cutting public assistance programs will have devastating impacts on black and Latino workers."
(Obama won 95 percent of the black vote and 67 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2008.)
I want to step away from Blow briefly. He does raise moral issues, and he will touch on them in closing as well. He began with Truman and he will end with Truman.
I find myself once again turning to Humphrey, with words I believe should be required learning for every American, and certainly for anyone bearing the label of Democrat in the political arena. Those words were offered at the dedication of the building named for the one-time Vice-President, and long-time Senator. Here they are once again:
It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
He spoke those words in 1977. He spoke those words at the dedication of the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Health and Human Services. Health - something we as a nation seem to have trouble accepting as a basic human right, unlike almost every other major democracy. We fight tooth and nail and still do not get all of our people covered, with some claiming it costs too much, falsely claiming that it will cost jobs, arguing over jobs and profits rather than over health.
Human Services - the word in the original cabinet department including such services was welfare. How far we have come from just the changing of a Department name when Education was split into a separate department. How far we have moved from the words that begin the document that founds the government of which those departments are a part, words in which We the People of the United States as part of the justification for our decision to ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America offer this principle, that we promote the general welfare.
For me at least, one who ignores our responsibility to "these the least" of the brethren is failing the moral tests of any public office, to say nothing of the moral test applicable to those who call themselves Christian.
We are all prone to be forgetful about needs of those out of sight and out of mind. Here we see our generosity towards our own - the efforts Sara R has made for others, which this community now gives back to her - and those whose needs are brought to our attention - the efforts of Navajo and others for the need for basics like fuel for heat in the midst of the poverty of some reservations.
It is good that we do this.
That does not free our government as our collective voice from addressing such needs.
Tax cuts continued for the richest 2% as the price of gaining minimal support for some of the rest should turn our stomachs.
Perhaps it is because I have read too much of the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible, but I want to hear a voice calling those of power to account for how they treat the widows and the children, because in hanging on to every last possible tax break they do worse than trim the corners of their fields thereby denying the divine command to leave that for those who have no fields of their own and might otherwise starve.
The one sentence paragraph immediately before the conclusion of Blow's column reads like this:
I want to believe that President Obama’s speech omissions were oversights, not acts of arrogance. But I’m not sure.
I do not know why the omissions occurred. I do not care. I note the omissions and find myself angry.
Yes, angry, first at myself, for failing to notice the omissions in real time. And then at the speechwriter(s) for not including mention at a time of real economic distress. And finally and the speech-giver, who has responsibility for the words he chooses to deliver.
I mentioned that Blow closes as he opens, with Truman. Here is the final paragraph of the column:
President Truman wrote in 1953 that, "ultimately, no President can master his responsibilities, save as his fellow citizens — indeed, the whole people — comprehend the challenge of our times and move, with him, to meet it." But, it is sometimes hard to follow — indeed, to chase — a president who appears to be moving, often at a full sprint, away from the people who once carried him.
indeed, the whole people. I reread the speech and I see words of our coming together across partisan differences to work on behalf of the American people. I look at the rest of the speech and I do not see many people included. One in five Americans now live in poverty. The number on food stamps continues to grow. State budgets for Medicaid, medical coverage to the poor, are not only stretched beyond belief, but some state leaders propose slashing them, because they are required to balance their state budgets and cannot meet all their obligations.
Our national government is in this time of continuing economic crisis - for despite the rebound of the stock market and the profits of the auto industry and the financial sector, for many Americans it is still a crisis - failing to provide even a minimal safety net that only it can provide. Instead we hear words about austerity. Instead we give money to those who certainly do not need it.
We need moral leadership. We need clear words about how if we are going to survive as any kind of civil society we can NOT ignore the needs of large portions of our population.
Some in politics will argue that the poor don't vote, so why not focus on the concerns of those who will vote in order to win elections. Maybe then we can find a way of giving something to those in need, because the other party will give them nothing.
Why should they vote when they get nothing, not even basic kindness from their government, not even a mention from the President for whom they voted so overwhelmingly?
We are still divided by race and ethnicity.
We are increasingly divided by economic class.
I worry we are also becoming divided by moral insensitivity.
No, wait, that's too kind. It is too much of euphemistic speech.
Let me try this: we are being consumed from the inside out by moral blindness, willful moral blindness.
There was a real opportunity lost this week, the attention of the nation, the chance to make a moral challenge. We did not hear it.
It is a measure of how far we may have already slipped as a society of how few of us even noticed the omission. I was not among the few who did.
Sometimes we need simply language to make a point.
Sometimes we need a child to point out the emperor is naked.
I feel no peace.
I will not close in my preferred fashion.
I will close as I began.
What about the poor?