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As I had suspected, Barak Obama’s 2010 speech at the UN’s annual opening lacked tangible proposals.  For example, he urged progress on the middle east peace talks, but proffered no proposal.  He said Africa could be prosperous agriculturally, but gave no proposal for how.  Also, he said corruption in governments of developing countries is a problem, but offered no solution.  Pointing to corruption in general diffuses responsibility so talking about it does not shame anyone into making hard choices.  In my view, more radical (i.e., systemic) changes are needed, but the politicians are too mainstream/moderate for that.For example, he could have urged African leaders to cede more governmental sovereignty to the African Union, which in turn could then act as a check on government corruption at the state level.  Also, Obama could have proposed a loose federal confederation for the middle east, which would mitigate the middle east conflict, or he could have given a proposal involving the borders of a possible Palestinian state (i.e., what to do with Jerusalem). Finally, the President could have gone beyond citing his efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation to announce that the US would join the ten countries that have created a movement with the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons completely—even from the present nuclear powers such as the US. Meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, the 10 countries launched the new initiative to work towards a world without nuclear weapons. Foreign ministers, led by Japan and Australia, hoped to bring new life to efforts for nonproliferation and disarmament. Their mission statement said: “The only guarantee against the use and threat of nuclear weapons is their total elimination.” This would be real change.  In contrast, Obama said his goal is securing loose nuclear material around the world in four years.  This sort of goal shows that he is inside the box—an incrementalist rather than a leader.

I wish the President and his advisors had thought more to create new proposals and to think outside the box than simply putting a nice-sounding speech together. In short, in place of politics as usual, there could have been real change in the speech.  What good do platitudes do?

See: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6035871,00.html