archived: 9 - 15 Apr, 2006         Back                 Next

UPDATED:  April 13, 2006 

                        “THE GEORGITE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS: REVISITED"

You may remember “President” Bush’s State of the Union Address (SOTUA) of January 31, 2006.  At the time it was subjected to reams of analysis for both what it said and what it didn’t.  Bush has given many speeches since then, most of them “trying to rally public support for the war.”  Why the White House would think that by so doing he could achieve that aim given that his “trustworthiness” ratings on the polls has sunk beneath even his overall ratings, I don’t know.  However, SOTUAs, even by this President, are important, for they establish a record.  Thus I think that as we enter into the 2006 election cycle for real it is worthwhile re-visiting his vision of principle, practice, and program, as the (titular at least) head of the Republican Party.

As you know, I am a fan of textual analysis.  And so in this column, I am having a go at the speech myself, ad seriatim, before it totally disappears into the mists of history as, on its surface, one of the less-memorable SOTUAs, except, that is, for what it really meant.  For Bush is known to be as much of a straight-shooter as his boss, the VEEP.  Examples of Bush’s skill in that regard abounded in his address, and boy, are the examples revealing of what this man and his party are really about.

Bush started off with a tribute to Coretta Scott King.  The only civil rights leader more reviled by his core supporters are Jesse Jackson and (the now late) Mrs. King’s late husband.  Then Bush said he was humbled by the experience of being “Invited to this rostrum.”  But Bush isn’t “invited” to the Congress for the occasion of the SOTUA.  His appearance is mandated by the Constitution, Article II, Sect. 3.  However, it is unlikely that either Bush or any of his speech-writers have ever read the Constitution, and anyway Bush has referred to it as simply “a god-damned piece of paper” (see my column, TPJ 90, “Why the Patriot Act, Redux”) so he may well think that the Congress invited him.

At the same time, there is nothing in Bush’s demeanor, behavior, or known history that indicates that “humility” plays any part in his being or his psyche (even though, to paraphrase what Winston Churchill once said of Clement Atlee, he has so much to be humble about).  He then referred to “two parties, two chambers, and two elected branches,” and asked for a “civil tone” for debate.  Funny, these words coming from a man whose whole Presidency has been dedicated to establishing his unchallenged power over the government, with the other branches, the other party, and the Constitution being damned, and whose Party, lead by the leading disciple of Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, has gotten to power by using the most un-civil language known to politics in recent times.

Bush then went on to talk about the “enemies of freedom.”  I wonder, was this a moment of weakness in which he was describing himself and Dick Cheney, the obvious leaders of the un-precedented assault on Constitutional Democracy being made by the Georgites?  He followed that up by talking of a goal of “seek[ing] the end of tyranny in our world,” apparently to be achieved by destroying it here (see the violations of FISA, the trashing of treaties, the destruction of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments under the Patriot Act, the introduction of the notion of “the inherent powers of the Presidency” nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, and so on and so forth).  He referred to 9/11, of course, failing to point out (surprise, surprise) that it occurred on his watch, with ample warning that something of its type and magnitude might occur.

He kept on talking about freedom around the world. But he failed to point out that a simplistic form of “democracy,” that is elections without all of the other attributes of true democracy such as the protection of inherent and individual rights, will likely lead to the establishment of a Shiite theocracy in Iraq.  On the other hand, Bush did not seem to laud those instances where voting democracy has brought in governments opposed to US interests, as in Venezuela and Bolivia.  He talked, and talked, and talked about “terror,” “terrorism,” and the “war on terror,” which, as a retired American general recently pointed out is like talking about a “war on flanking maneuvers.”  But as readers of TPJ know well using the term is great for scaring the American people and hiding the real issues.

He referred to the enemy in Iraq as “brutal.”  True enough.  One must wonder, were they taking lessons from Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and that list of secret US prisons around the world?  He talked about Iraq “go[ing] to a constitution” just as he is trying to lead our country away from it.  He talked about “victory” and “winning” in Iraq without bothering to define what in his terms those terms mean.  His vagueness since “Mission Accomplished” is probably the most egregious historical example of moving the goal posts for national objectives that is of concern to other countries since Hitler was assuring the world, after each of his European invasions and takeovers up to that of Poland in September, 1939, that he “had no more territorial claims in Europe.”  Bush told his audience that “our men and women in uniform are making sacrifices” while his budget cuts the proposed VA appropriation by 13% and Don Imus on his morning talk show has to beg and plead for money to fund privately one rehabilitation hospital for Iraq vets in San Antonio, TX, when there is likely a need for 20 to 30 of them around the country that should in any case be fully funded by the Federal government.

Bush talked about Iran as “a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite,” when the core of his supporters would like to establish just such a regime in the United States. A principal Christian Right leader, the Rev. D. James Kennedy, leader of the Coral Ridge Ministry, has clearly stated their goals: "As the vice-regents of God, we are to bring His truth and His will to bear on every sphere of our world and our society.  We are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government ... our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors - in short, over every aspect and institution of human society."  Just like the clerics in Iran do.  One has to wonder just why the Georgites dis-like them so much, since they have so much in common in the realm of theory of government.

He talked about “fighting AIDS” when his party, under Reagan and Meese, began their whole homophobic onslaught around the theme of AIDS as “God’s punishment for homosexuality” as Pat Robertson once so kindly put it back in the 1980s.  (No, making such statements is not something new with him.)  Much more importantly now, Bush talks about fighting AIDS in Africa when his Administration explicitly refuses to support programs for the distribution of condoms, the current most effective preventive measure for controlling the spread of AIDS in Africa.

He talked about the “pre-eminence” of the American economy in the world without mentioning that it is currently floating on an enormous sea of debt, both foreign and domestic.  Nor did he mention that it was and is American capital, fleeing the United States for higher-profit realms, that fueled the growth of industry in our largest debt-holder, China.  Nor did he mention that almost all recent American job growth has been in non-manufacturing, low-wage, often health-insurance-less, sectors.  (See the on-going series of articles by Judge Gheen in TPJ on the true state of the American economy.)  He talked about being “good stewards of tax dollars.”  Interesting definition of “good steward.”  One can only surmise that it means creating the largest deficits by far, and for the foreseeable future, in American history, largely by giving away huge sums to his rich private and corporate backers, funds that if they are ever to be made up will have to come out of the pockets of middle- and low-income taxpayers, at least in part.

He talked about “affordable health insurance.”  Affordable for whom, one must ask?  I guess that it is for the profit-makers in the drug and insurance industries that now run the US health care system.  Then he, ha, ha, ha, told us that “America is addicted to oil.”  Close, George, but no cigar.  America, or rather its oil industry, is addicted to oil profits.  One of the first acts of Bush’s ideological, although not quite so gross, predecessor Ronald Reagan was to shut off all Federal support for non-petroleum-based energy research that had been created in the Carter Administration.  That Republican policy has been continued unabated and we all know how huge oil company profits have been in the past year.  The United States could have been the world leader in alternative energy, and Al Gore’s book Earth in Balance, among others, showed just how profitable that sector could be.  But the oil industry isn’t in that sector and they want their profits now.  They are getting them under the Georgites.

Bush did not talk about his proposal to gut Social Security, which had failed completely in 2005, even in a Right-Wing Republican Congress.  However, Bush has now included it in his 2007 Budget Proposal, without anywhere mentioning it specifically.  Budget Proposals are not the usual place for such major changes in both the law and the social compact to appear, but what the hey. Bush has successfully sneaked tons of society-changing stuff, like the Patriot Act, past the Congress, so why not try once again for the destruction of Social Security as well?  He didn’t deign to mention in the SOTUA that he was going to have another go at it.  Not important enough, I guess.

Finally, Bush spent the last part of his speech talking about a “hopeful society.”  Hopeful for whom and for what, one wonders.  The increasing number of people without health insurance?  The increasing numbers of people who have lost well-paying manufacturing jobs that have disappeared from the American marketplace forever?  The survivors, human and bricks and mortar, of Katrina and future Katrinas for whom the Federal government is doing so pitifully little?  The infrastructure of the US, which is crumbling before our very eyes?  The veterans of Iraq, the Gulf War, Vietnam, and before, for whom the VA is evermore a disappearing mirage?  The millions of elderly people for whom Social Security could just disappear if the Georgites get their way?  The tens of thousands of civilians in other countries who will be killed if the Georgites’ “Long War” comes to be?  Hopeful for a world that may become uninhabitable by the human (to say nothing of many other) species in large sections in a century if the Global Warming that the Georgites tell us doesn’t exist does continue unabated?  Hopeful for Constitutional Democracy here at home and the millions who will suffer if the Georgites are able to destroy it as they so very clearly want to?   Hopeful, I guess, for the profit-makers, for the greedy, for the petroleum-military-industrial complex, for those who are destroying the environment at home and abroad for short-term gain, for the theocrats of the Christian Right.  Yes, there is a list of people and sectors for which Georgitism produces hope. Bush just didn’t happen to include it in his 2006 State of the Union Address.

What Bush said and what the realities are.  Some frightening comparisons, wouldn’t you say?

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