Blog: "The American Family"

On Tuesday night President Obama addressed the American public in the State of the Union address for his second time as president.  Facing a divided government has always been a challenge for incumbent presidents, even when the Democratic Party was the majority last year we heard grumbles from the other party (i.e. Joe Wilson "You Lie!"). However, the congress that gathered in the capitol on Tuesday carried a somber air grieving over the tragedy of the shootings of congresswoman Gabby Giffords, and the people of Tucson. Obama observed a broken and divided America, and used his common message of unity and hope to address his course of action for the rest of his presidency. He carefully structured his speech for a dual audience. He conveyed the idea of collective compromise to a divided audience in Congress, and appealed to the pathos of the audience of the American people by addressing them as "family members".

Obama opened by addressing his audiences as a part of "the American family" this phrase appealed the ethos and pathos of his audiences.  The definition of "family" is common and understood by all Americans and taps into both their hearts and their minds. He used the definition of family as an extended metaphor to the current state of our nation. A family has divisions, but grows from continuing toward the betterment of the whole family, they grieve together, and work together. The established theme of familial compromise and growth continues throughout the rest of his speech.

After his opening pathetic appeal, Obama switched to strict business, but the overlying pattern of his speech conveyed his message of compromise even when listeners became lost in the policy talk and numbers.  An opinion column in the New York Times featured a conversation between columnists David Brooks and Gail Collins as they provided a review of Obama's State of the Union address.  Brooks provided illuminating insight to the rhetorical structure of Obama's speech when he stated, "the three things that the president emphasized were all worthy, important policies that have significant bipartisan support...the really big tasks were mentioned but not emphasized". The speech that Brook’s described as “modest” exhibited Obama’s keen sense of his network of interpretation. The president understood that he was facing a divided congress and a divided America, and therefore emphasized the topics that few people could dispute.

The effectiveness of Obama’s delivery was apparent to me as I sat in a room filled with bipartisan college students.  The Penn State College Democrats, the College Republicans, and a few Tea Party members meet in one room in Willard to watch the speech together. As the president discussed research, education reform, and infrastructure spending, there were few scoffs or signs of disagreement from any party. The lesser-emphasized points of tax reform, immigration reform, and entitlement reform are topics that receive much more debate and were purposefully mentioned and moved away from. The rhetorical pattern of Obama's speech address a divided congress with a communal tone, and his message of hope and compromise was for a grieving and broken American public who needed comfort from their "American Family".

Blog: "Revolution in Egypt: Onions, King, and Soccer Fans"

I would like to devote my blog this week to the Revolution in Egypt and their extremely well organized, militant, and creative efforts with which the Egyptians have successfully ousted their leader, Hosni Mubarak, and sparked a pro-democracy revolution in bordering countries with oppressive regimes.  Their movement fascinates me for the three reasons: onions, King, and soccer fans.

We've all created Facebook events for our graduation parties or used it as a tool of procrastination. The Egyptians utilized this medium in a different way; they invited people to join a revolution. A government overthrow was organized from a Facebook group. As Wael Ghonim said in the New York Times, "I have never seen a revolution that was preannounced before". Over 100,000 citizens signed up for the event. The timing and placement of this revolution was a collaborative plan between college age students in Egypt and Tunisia that had been being developed for over two years.

A group of college students who were well off and intelligent formed the core of the protest movement in Egypt.  Many of their parents were supporters of Mubarak, and the tech-savvy students knew death was the price of failure. They carefully organized and collaborated with their victorious counterparts in Tunisia, rebels that had succeeded in revolting against their government. The Tunisians provided tips on how to survive protests. They told the Egyptians to bring "lemons, onions and vinegar to sniff for relief from tear gas, and soda or milk to pour into their eyes" (New York Times). The tips were transferred between protesters through a Facebook group. The rapid ability to share causal information about the use of onions to neutralize tear gas proved invaluable to the Egyptians’ success.

Police violence and riot control tried to stamp out the protesters. The rebels’ cycled protesters into the streets to allow the injured to recover but as the violence increased, they needed help. Two unlikely groups came to their aid, the Muslim Brotherhood, …and the soccer fans.  The Muslim Brotherhood is a secret, illegal organization that operates with a very disciplined hierarchy. They were able to organize the protesters into disciplined groups to fend off the riot police and Mubarak supporters.  The soccer fans of the two Egyptian teams, normally bitter rivals, united and joined the effort to protect the protesters. They were used to confronting the police at the stadiums and their offensive skills practiced at soccer games became useful when fighting for their peoples’ freedom.

The protesters in Egypt and Tunisia are a great example of the force and power behind unified non-violence. They modeled their protest on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and attained world respect because of their approach. The New York Times cited a group of men who "stood silent as rocks rained down on them. An older man told a younger one to put down his stick". The college student that organized this large scale-nonviolent protest can be seen as examples of the Gandhi’s and King’s of our generation.

The revolution in Egypt is classic revolution with a new twist. Just as in the “classic” revolution, young forward thinking people started it. The common people rose up to rebel for their country, and it was a unified effort against the current government. However, in Egypt’s revolution, young rebels shared information between countries instantaneously through Facebook groups. The “common people” were angry soccer fans well versed in resistance, and an illegal brotherhood. Finally, the resistance was nonviolent and inspired by Gandhi and King. Egypt’s protest was a 21^st century revolt and it sparked the sense of freedom in other oppressed countries in the region such as Bahrain to enter a new age of revolt.

Blog: "Our Sputnik Moment"

On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite into the Earth's Orbit.  This act ignited the Space Race. America, lacking the science and the head start, beat the Soviets to the moon twelve years later in 1969. Amidst a dismal and internationally competitive job market, rising international powers such as China, India, and Brazil, and a current energy problem looming as a crisis on the horizon, President Obama has labeled now as America's "Sputnik Moment". In Obama's pep talk to Congress he stated the need to, "out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world".  He said, "The future is ours to win. But to get there we can't just stand still".  Obama's speech was inspiring, but to Congress and the American people he was the coach speaking to an over-confident highly-ranked basketball team at half time as the lower-ranked team surpassed them.  The score shows that America has fallen behind internationally, and if we want to "win the future" we need to work our way back into the game.

Innovation is what sent us to the moon, and Obama is proposing that we use the same innovation to lead us to a greener future.  Energy independence will save us billions of dollars every year and is worth the investment. The president wants 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. Is it worth the cost of research to create this innovation?  Let's do the math. From statistics posted on whitehouse.gov, the average electric car save around $630 a year over a gas powered car.  This would be a national savings of $6.3 billion a year after reaching the President’s goal by 2015. The science may not be there yet, and neither is the market, but NASA didn't exist when Sputnik was launched and we won that race. Commitment to innovation drives America into the future, but this innovation would not be possible without top-notch education.

Education is something Americans have always taken seriously, and 15 of the 20 best colleges in the world are located in the United States (whitehouse.gov). People come from all over the world to attend college in America, and similarly the job market has grown increasingly international and increasingly competitive.  While our colleges are some of the best in the world, America is ranked 9th in the world for the percentage of people receiving college degrees.  More than one-fourth of high school students do not receive a diploma, and the quality of our math and science education falls behind many other nations (whitehouse.gov).  America cannot out-innovate or out-build without increasing our education standards.  Obama's speech offered hope for our education dilemma.  Unlike the from the top-down, unfunded education reform mandate "No Child Left Behind", instituted under President George W. Bush, governors from across the United States have worked together to develop rigorous standards that would promote student development and reward good teachers. In accordance with the theme of the president's speech, the plan is called "Race to the Top". The reforms name itself has a positive connotation, a "race" to see the best we can perform, without slowing the most talented students down waiting for everyone to catch up.

Finally, President Obama addressed our infrastructure. He cited the U.S. as the country who built the transcontinental railroad and the Interstate Highway system, but now, "our own engineers graded our nation's infrastructure, [and] they gave us a D". China and counties in Europe invest more in their infrastructure and as a result, "China is building faster trains, and newer airports" than the United States.  95.9% of South Koreans have access to high-speed Internet, whereas only 63.5% of Americans have the same access (whitehouse.gov). These are the Sputniks of today, and we can only win the future if we rejoin the race.

Obama challenged America with a quote from Bobby Kennedy, "The future is not a gift. It is an achievement". Obama's rhetoric conveyed a hopeful tone for America's future, but underneath his tone lays the hard facts of our comparative advantage in the world.  As we are reminded this week that being a superpower is not a birthright, but a title to work for, I am confident we can do it.  The winning team always comes out stronger after half-time, and its in the American spirit to love a challenge. The race is on, this generation’s Sputniks have been launched into orbit, and now is America's chance to "win the future".