There's a reason why WE are let down

[nadinbrzezinski]

Look folks most of us have been discussing the news in the technical minutiae for the last oh since this started. Hell some of us have even enjoyed some hot robot action... which I wish I did not.

We have been following this to the nth degree. People outside this small bubble have not. For many of them what the President of the United States was NEW... even him addressing peak oil.

Should he have said more? In my mind, yes.

But we are not the main audience. The main audience is the soccer mom that has not been following this, Joe Six Pack who really has not been following this... the guys at the coffee shop who a month into this told me, WHAT SPILL?

Those are the audience... .so perhaps to their ears... this was far more substantial, and hey he did mention peak oil without saying the words... and some of the green technologies that we will need. So if this is the basis for actual policy that would take HOURS for the President to scratch the surface...

Still I am getting more and more bothered with them calls to Prayer... my ears just go WTF? We are not a Christian Nation, even if we are the most religious country among developed countries. Chew on that statistic and what it means...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. K&R...even though it didn't show.

I think you're absolutely right...

I wish we had a way to really make our voices heard above the din of all the folks who are more numerous than we are...

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. And to a point our media is having the same problem

reality is don't matter what he says... it is wrong...

They have forgotten that part of their jobs is to expand on the education during a crisis.

[gateley]

2. He had a lot of 'target audiences' he had to play to. Progressives, Republicans,

Tea Baggers, Gulf Coast Residents -- tough crowd.

I wish he would played more to MY side, but the world doesn't revolve around me, I guess.

The prayer stuff makes my skin crawl.

[RKP5637]

3. +1000 +++ makes my skin crawl too! n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. And what did RM open her show with?

That clip...

Skin is crawling now in all kinds of crawls

[Catherina]

6. I disagree about the audience

We are the main audience. The soccer mom is at her soccer match, Joe Six Pack is still sitting on a bar stool and the guys at the coffee shop are ordering more donuts.

I noticed at work tonight that the same people who pay no attention to the spill had no idea the President was speaking tonight, and when I told them, they had no interest. They're not that concerned or they gave up already.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. If we were the audience

it would have been more technical. We were not. It was people who have interest in this, but have not been discussing in the depth we have. Nor will go to read blogs written by experts. Some of us have done that.

[jwirr]

8. You are absolutely right about what the average person in his audience

knows. My own granddaughter thought it was a leak from a tanker on ground. She was shocked when I told her it was a mile down in the Gulf. My daughter knows about oil depletion and both her husband and her listen to me but they do not see the big picture. "We will have electric cars by then....". I don't know how we are going to get people to understand. I think Kunstler has it right, most people in this country are going to have learn the hard way.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Electric cars...

even here... you read it.

Never mind that the electric cars are just PART, and a SMALL PART mind you, of the solution. I think you are right, people will learn the hard way, but just not in the US.

[jaxx]

10. I scrolled all the way down to here to find some common sense.

You are so right, the President speaks to everyone. He made some very good points tonight and I hope the people heard him. It's obvious most on here didn't because they'd already written the speech they would have given.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. I was diapointed, but I am not

his audience. That's the truth.

There is much more that I WISHED I heard, but it would have taken two hours, at the very least.

[stray cat]

11. How dare he speak of faith - worse than any oil spill!

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. You can pray all you want

but in a nation that has nominally SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, and respected this up to the COLD WAR... yes it grates my ears.

No, not because people pray, go on, pray... that is why PRAYER SHOULD STAY IN THE PRIVATE SPHERE. Of course I am talking of US history, and the Founders, nothing much... or asking for much.

But at this point, and it don't matter what party has the WH, we need to pay homage to the loony CHRISTIAN RIGHT that believes this is a christian nation formed by god to lead the world for the ages. If that is not a problem for yah. then I guess it is not a problem... really.

And no, not trying to be argumentative, just that in a nation with a separation of church-state, at least nominally, yes IT BOTHERS ME. Now if you want to pray IN PRIVATE, to your god, by all means. THAT IS WHAT THE FOUNDERS INTENDED... and lord knows the Congress MET on Christmas day for the first 150 years... or so.

GRRR bad math...

[Bluenorthwest]

22. This is the same faith he credits for his views that some

minorities should not have equal rights under the civil law, so when he drags that dogma into things again, it is in fact a huge turn off. This god he asks us to pray to, according to Obama, thinks rather poorly of millions of Americans. He needs to keep it to himself. He has identified his faith as the direct source of his pro-discrimination views. This makes that faith out of place in an address to the whole of the nation. It is, by his definition, a judgmental and divisive faith, in which some are 'sanctified' and some are not. This does not belong in an address to the nation.

[Patsy Stone]

12. Yes.

I recommended this, but it didn't seem to help. And really, at this point, prayer can't do any harm.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Will not do any good either

:-)

[Patsy Stone]

16. Nope, not really.

:)

But some people think it does, and as long as they don't make me do it, I say, go for it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. As long as they keep it in the PRIVATE sphere

as the FOUNDERS intended... you know at HOME and CHURCH...

[Laelth]

18. Perhaps you are right.

I am certain I was not the target audience. If I were, President Obama's speechwriter should be fired.

:dem:

-Laelth

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. I am afraid it would have lasted three hours

and it would sound like a college graduate seminar

:hi:

[Laelth]

23. Quite. Now, wouldn't that be fun?

:hi:

:dem:

-Laelth

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. For you and me

but most people are not into graduate seminars.

[HughMoran]

19. People I know who are following it are hitting outrage overload

Granted, they aren't in the Gulf where it just gets worse and worse, but that's what I'm seeing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. That is part of it

but people who are following this closely expected something you cannot get, a deep policy speech that "sounds like a college seminar."

I was on the tad angry and then went... shit I AM not the target audience. So I am listening to it again, and that is part of the reason. He is trying to explain to folks who are NOT following this day in and out what the fuck is going on. What I find sad is that he had to be so damn basic about it, but we have seen here, with many folks with college degrees, how difficult it is to 'splain things like... the pressures at those depths. Boyle's law is not something most of us are conversant with, even with Masters and PhDs... hell I guess I am since I loved the history of science and I had to deal with it in practical applications.

[Kablooie]

25. He seems to be playing to the conservative right more than anything else.

[shireen]

26. but are soccer mom and joe sixpack listening to him?

:(

[Mira]

27. Very solid observations. Thanks. K&R