State of the States

Last night I could only stomach to watch about 5 minutes of President Obama's state of the union speech.  What is the significance of this speech?  It seemed like a lot of him really stretching to pat his own back.

If I went into a annual job performance review and spent the whole time bragging myself up and talking about my accomplishments it wouldn't be a very effective review.

A company with a good performance review process incorporates a 360 degree feedback process.  The United States is a huge place and for one man to speak for that long and not get a real down to earth report of the state of the union is a waste of airtime.

Here's my idea:

State of the States

Setup:  Every state's governor should meet in his office in his own state capitol with the local TV station with national broadcast affiliations be on hand.  The President also be on hand in the oval office

At the start of the broadcast, the President gives a brief (5 minutes) statement about his role in government and what the states can do to improve the country.

Then out of the 50 states, 10 Governors from the various states are selected randomly to address the state of their state and make a statement or question regarding the federal government's influence (good or bad) on their state's general well-being, or a specific situation.  The Governor should represent the people of their state with their question or comment.  Each Governor has 3 minutes to make their comment, question, or statement.

The President then has 2 minutes to respond, after which the Governor then has 1 minute to make a final response.

This would take a little over an hour and 10 states out of 50 could get to participate in this 360 degree feedback process, all live for the nation to watch.  It could even be interactive where those who tweet with #stateOfTheStates could randomly get their comment posted at the bottom of the screen.

It's this kind of accountability that the president needs, not all this self-congratulatory bullcrap.  Plus it would force him to come up with his own thoughts and not some polished speech writer's propaganda.

In a way I'm envious of the people who live in countries like the Ukraine, where they actually protest their government and get change to take place.  Here in the US, we apparently are satisfied with the status quo.  Look at the last Presidential election.  After all the dissatisfaction that was voiced nationally, prior to the election, what changed?  Practically nothing.  We got the same president, and the same type of Congress.  With all this bickering between Democrats and Republicans, yet we still have a two party system!!!

When will America wake up and people really unite to make change in this country?   Voting matters, and blindly voting for a party should NOT be an option.  That is only making things worse.  I personally will never vote for a single Republican or Democrat again.  We need a system of government that involves more than just two parties ( or no parties).  I may be naive or ignorant, but an effective and non-corrupt government is something that I long for.