Tardiness: It is generally rude, often impossible to avoid, and – for many of us – a character trait we wrestle with daily.  Those kept waiting respond in tones varying from understanding one’s fashionable license to labeling the offender “completely unreliable.”  Being late is also something that, this week, the President and I have in common.

I had trouble writing this week.  My head was swirling with mixed messages and conflicting opinions.  This was, after all, a really big week in America.  Joe Paterno of Penn State fame passed away in the middle of a child abuse scandal that has the nation reeling.  The pro-life movement held their March for Life in Washington, D.C., firing up their supporters and the newsreel on Facebook with this endless, cyclical debate.  SOPA and PIPA were dropped off the Congressional tables, and the sound of these bills crashing against the floor nearly deafened us to the news that President Obama killed the Keystone XL Pipeline.  Then, in perfect timing – as though to top it all off, the President addressed the nation with his State of the Union speech.  So, how can I call this timing perfect if I have already accused the President of being late?  It’s all contextual, really.

While I didn’t agree with everything the President said in his address on Tuesday, there were a handful of times that I found myself nodding strongly and even feeling a sense of victory as he spoke.  Tuesday’s speech touched on topics I’ve heard very few politicians discuss publicly, much less the President, but yet there they were – being yanked from the depths of a hamper.  Washington’s dirty laundry aired out by the President himself.

Things like Congressional insider trading and mentions of the corrupting forces of corporate money in politics; calls for investigating certain banking practices and mandating the banks’ repayment of public trust by funding projects and lending money; even scolding the players for letting their petty games obstruct American progress.  The President said that we “think Washington is broken,” and then asked if Congress if they could blame us.

Hearing the President speak this way – as though to a room full of children – was thrilling, but also infuriating.  It creates, in my mind, a tremendous uncertainty about who this man is and what he is really endeavoring to do.  Where was this President a few short months ago when his people were being beaten in the streets?  Where was this President when the NDAA came across his desk?  How does this man, who dares to reason with Congress about right and wrong, justify his actions against Private Manning?  What does he stand for?

From the sound of things on Tuesday, this man may be the product of four years in – tired of the games played on the Hill, sick of the lobbyist/ lawyer dramas, fed up with the failures of shallow men (and women) ladling themselves hefty portions while they watch their constituents starve.  Maybe this is some tardy hero, or maybe this is just another really convincing wag of the dog.  It is, after all, an election year, and that which the nation is talking about is that which we, Occupy, have brought to their attention.  The issues this election year, though you’d never know it from watching the debacle that is the Republican primary, are our issues.  They are written in Sharpie on poster board and being carried up and down the streets of America.  If this President has any chance of being reelected, he’ll need to win over the newly enlightened, the recently riled, and the completely disenfranchised.

This is both a compliment and a problem for Occupy.  The message of our movement is a human message.  It is about people.  It is about the power, the rights, and the unity of those people.  It is as lacking in party affiliation as it is political, no easy feat.  The things that Occupy strives for aim to level the playing field, not to rig the game – something those who already have the game rigged propagate as our secret ploy.  It is a message that rings true in the hearts and ears of more people than the agenda of either party.  It is loud.  It is clear.  And it is getting louder and clearer.  Many of the points the President played upon are the grievances and messages we brought to light.  For hearing us, Mr. President, we thank you.

The problem comes in with the possibility of the coming election co-opting our message.  While the political rhetoric should center on our intensely important political issues, we do not want to be usurped as the movement of the Democratic Party, which is what will happen if the President keeps tossing his ball into our court.  As it is, we are heavily criticized by the Republicans and their media, creating difficult barriers for us to overcome in our mission to unite the nation (see last week’s “Healing”) and forcing our political profile toward the left when we really are quite centered.  It will be an important challenge to reach even further into and outward from our communities if we want to be sure that our message is distinguished from those of the coming campaign.

Whether the President’s intention is to finally take a stand (one many of us were hoping for three and a half years ago), or if he intends to talk the talk just long enough to get his contract renewed remains to be seen.  Personally, I’d love to see the gloves come off.  I would love to have a President who would go to war with the real terrorists and criminals of this world.  Sadly, the question of intention can only be answered in hindsight, when the vows are taken and the title bestowed.  If his rhetoric is real and the President does – in fact – pony up to the task, we will nod our heads at this late bloomer, saying that “it is better late than never.”  If he fails to deliver the one-two-punch of justice, we’ll shake our heads at just another politician and say he came up “a day late and a dollar short.”

I suppose that a great deal of how this will all turn out depends greatly on who the Republican candidate ends up being.  Right now it appears as though they’d have to beam someone in from Mars to get a candidate who is both qualified and close enough to the middle to even have a chance at preventing a reelection.  (Come to think of it, maybe beaming people in from Mars is what has put the Republican primary – and the whole party – in the shape it is in.)  As the circus cranks on, and a stage-full of millionaires and fear/hate-mongers argue non-issues like the whether or not God loves gays and what to do with established immigrants and their American born children, we roll our eyes and refocus on the real work; the work we’ve been busy doing: cleaning up streets, fighting foreclosures, and helping each other through the mess that keeps blaring away on the television.

Republican or Democrat doesn’t matter much to us.  It is, essentially, a shift in an artificial balance of power.  We have the real power here …changing the conversation, stopping the pipeline and internet censorship, terrifying the lobbyists… What we are aiming for is a newer, healthier nation that is the product of our reform, our rationale, and our democratic ideals.  The ideas that carry us into the future seem to rise high above the banter of politicians, even if they are taking their cues from our playbook.  Because of Occupy, the future of America is on our shoulders and not in their hands.  And that shift in the balance of power?  Well, it’s about time.