State of the Union address: more reading, less watching.

Back when my mom was a little girl, she lived with her mother, grandmother, and grandfather in a one-room "communal apartment" in Kiev. For those who aren't familiar with the realities of life in USSR: after the Bolshevik revolution in the end of 1917, and the civil war that lasted for two years after, many previously privately-owned houses and apartments were redistributed among the many people who moved to cities. If they were lucky, a family would be assigned one or two rooms in an apartment with several other families, mostly strangers, and then share the bathroom (or an outhouse) and the kitchen. The only way to improve one's living arrangement was to trade with someone, which was not such a private arrangement as it may sound at first.

Anyway, it's not my intent to write a treatise about the realities of life under Soviet Russia. I'm just giving some relevant background to the story.

So, my mother was living in a housing development in a communal apartment in Kiev. The building itself was quite old, and has all kinds of problems. As could be expected, the powers that be weren't all that willing, interested, or able to fix those problems, some of which were quite acute. At the time relevant to the story, the most acute problem was water leaking, or more like showering, from more than one place in the pipes and into the people's already-cramped living quarters. The tenants, hardened to put up with all kinds of privations, reached their limit, and started complaining loudly and insistently to the management, and the management's management (which is really the way to go if you want to get things done: threaten the bureaucrat's own job).

The manager, a relatively young and ambitious man, came quickly to address the tenants once the complaints started coming in to his manager. Gathering everyone in the courtyard, he eloquently appealed to the tenants' patience, making promises high and low if only they'd give him some breathing space to act, and hold off on their complaints so as not to distract him from doing his job.

Everyone was convinced, except for one tenant---an elderly blind man, who insisted that the manager was misleading. But overall, the tenants calmed down and stopped complaining, and settled down to patiently wait on the fulfillment of the manager's promise, placing buckets under the drips.

Three drippy weeks later, they learned that the young fella was promoted to manage a large new apartment complex in Leningrad. He was gone, aided by their silence in keeping his record clear of complaints.

The tenants cried out, betrayed, but for that elderly blind man. When asked how he knew the guy was not being straight with them, though he heard the same speech the rest of them heard out there in the courtyard, the blind man simply replied: "While you were staring at his gestures, I was listening to his words."

Which brings me to the State of the Union, or, more generally, to speeches in general, and president Obama's speeches in particular. No, I did not see the president's speech, nor did I see the GOP rebuttal. Rather, I read the transcript. Obama makes good speeches, and I particularly appreciate that he gives concrete and specific proposals, and doesn't rely only on the high-sounding generalities or cute anecdotes that were so prevalent in the speeches of W Bush (though to be sure, they were there a-plenty). I also found the GOP rebuttal lacking in similar concrete specifics, and high on generalities.

After reading the transcripts, I was curious about other people's reactions to the substance of the two speeches. What I find instead are prolonged discussions about who clapped when, whom Obama appeared to look at a particular phrase in his speech, who was scowling more than usual.

People, you are staring at their gestures.

It reminds me of the recent interview with Michael Moore on DemocracyNow!, where he talked about writing a letter to president Obama decrying his disappointment with the president's first-year performance. In the interview, Moore said,

I sent a note off to the White House the night of the Massachusetts election, and I said to President Obama, “I’m sure you’re not surprised. What did you think was going to happen after a year of completely going back on everything you promised in terms of real universal healthcare, a year of you not getting us out of Afghanistan but escalating the war to a degree that is shocking?"

And I thought to myself, did Michael Moore hear different campaign speeches and presidential debates than I did? Obama didn't make any promises about real universal healthcare, he only talked about working towards extending coverage to the 40 million Americans who currently don't have it. And he never talked about getting out of Afghanistan, he talked about getting out of Iraq, and shifting the focus back to Afghanistan, which is exactly what he did.

I suspect that Michael Moore, and many others, were staring at Obama's gestures, while I was listening to his words.

Obama is an excellent public speaker. He can take a W Bush speech and make it sound hopeful and progressive. But the words will still say the same thing. And deeds need not follow words. So I have a suggestion: skip watching the speeches. Read the transcripts instead. And remember to follow the actions.