By Beauty Damned

A Fine Sermon

Bush has some timing. I tell you, it's just amazing how something pulls him back up every time his head is about to sink below water. Is it god? While we were watching as much as we could stand of the SOU tonight, Rob mentioned that Dubya sounds like a preacher up there on the pulpit. Preachin' about freedom. Preachin' about liberty and bravery and sacrifice. Is it a little bit of conniving strategic planning? I tend to think so. The election in Iraq was diligently forced by the administration and was "successful." It was successful in the sense that those who voted no doubt experienced a great deal of satisfaction. And that makes me happy. What doesn't make me happy is the way that every single major turning point during Bush's tenure seems to conveniently occur at the moment where he most needs it. As in, right before he is about to address the American people in one of the biggest speeches of the year. Or right before the election (as the Osama tape emerged shortly before). Or right when he needed a serious boost in approval ratings and a good sturdy launching pad to war with Iraq (as in 9/11). Those are the big ones. But there have been so many other little ones. I also don't like the feeling that the Iraqi people are being paid a great deal of lip service about democracy and such, but what kind of true democracy they will actually end up with remains to be seen and doesn't look so good thus far. It's just another case of Team Bush glossing things over and failing to realize that you can't wish a functioning democracy into existence.

"We will work for a prosperity that is broadly shared..."

Yes? The way that we broadly shared the prosperity of the war in Iraq with Poland and our other allies who sacrificed troops for the war? The way all of Bush's campaign/inauguration donors work to broadly share the prosperity of their gluttonous corporations here in America? The kind of broad sharing of prosperity that we have done in spending hundreds of billions to fight a war that never needed to be fought? That kind of broad sharing of prosperity?

"In all these days of promise and days of reckoning, we can be confident."

"During the last two years we have seen what can be accomplished when we work together."

Thank you preacher Dubya. We should all support preacher Dubya in his endeavor to take out the axis of evil (which is practically expanding by the minute) and all others who do not want to accept our precious American Brand of freedom and liberty that we are so graciously willing to nudge them toward with the help of a few bombs, missiles and mass detainments. What of the cost? What of the cost? You think we don't have enough volunteer troops to take out all the nasty regimes and stop all the genocide and cease the torture and killing that is going on in so many corners of the world? You think we do not have the funds? You do not think it's prudent? I think a world war could be fun, don't you? Let's do it together.

The way Bush talks about taking people freedom and liberty is the same way that Anglo-Saxons talked and went about converting so many foreign cultures to Christianity. With force.

"The best way to address the deficit and move toward a balanced budget is to encourage economic growth and to show some spending discipline in Washington, D.C."

Do we even have to go there Dubya? Do we have to talk about fiscal responsibility? This is another occasion where he proves that he's all talk and not at all about coming through on any of the glossed over promises and pledges that he makes. It's all showtunes.

The talking heads on CNN were typically useless in their post-sermon commentary. All the gushing afterwards really made my ass tired. I could almost see the sap dripping from the side of my tv screen. Oooh. With the token Iraqi woman holding up her index finger while standing at Laura Bush's side, the token mother of a dead soldier, weeping, we are to presume because she is so overcome by pride that her son died fighting this crusade. Oooh this honorable crusade! The fatherliness that Bush intones while he explains to all of us about the hard work that needs to be done and the many mountains left still to climb! And how he trusts us and believes in us! To stand behind him and fight his crusade with him! Er. Um. For him. Ooh the glory. What a con. What a charlatan. What a dirty bullshit artist this president is.

While I have to admit that his speech writer did a far better job than last year, it's a shame that the effort was probably largely wasted since the people who support Bush will eat up whatever line of crap is tossed their way, regardless. Might as well keep it simple. It's not like Bush knows what he's talking about half the time anyway, not to mention the fact that in politics things are always smoothed over enough in speeches to leave out the whole truth. I can't wait to see my republican co-workers tomorrow and hear them reaffirming their faith. It all sounds so great! People want to believe. Bush talks and they feel like he is their messiah, telling them that if they just accept him into their hearts and do as he says they'll be rewarded in the end. (He's not Hitler! He's Charles Manson!) Never wanting to even begin to think about believing that every single move he makes is in the best interest of himself, his family and his special constituents and money donors. And no one else.

It baffles me that anyone can buy the line that he governs the way he does purely in the interest of the American people. It's the most naive thing I can think of. But I guess if you think the way he does, it all makes perfect sense. And I can see it all makes perfect sense to a lot of people. But there's a much more intricate reality that those people don't want to see. It's easy to put your faith in something and to trust blindly, because it relieves you of the obligation to actually think things through. Maybe that's an elitest view, but it's one of those times where that movie "the Matrix" is actually a good point of reference. It's so much easier to live within the reality that is created and laid out for you than to contemplate that life is more sinister than it seems and people are far less trustworthy than they might try to convey themselves to be. It still surprises me though, when people tell me that they support George Bush and the way that him and his administration and all the little political puppets are running things in America. It must be nice to feel so satisfied. But I'm not satisfied with it. The way I see it, as long as the current republicans have control of the government in this country, we will be on a path of war, suffering and environmental destruction.

Bush talked in his speech tonight about energy efficiency and preserving the environment. Sounds great. Too bad that the fucker always does the exact opposite of what he says he's going to do when it comes to domestic policy. He wasn't too concerned with the environment when he rolled back EPA regulations on power plants and factories as soon as he came into office. He hasn't been concerned with the environment ever. He has an absolutely atrocious environmental record. Hearing him tell these kinds of lies and represent himself as someone who cares for the environment is an outrage. I wish that someone would call him out on it once in awhile and that those who DO call him out could be heard rather than stifled and silenced.

He actually said a lot of the exact same, word for word, lines that he said last year. If you compared the two transcripts, I'll bet you would find that 95% was recycled bullshit, all shined and tied up real nice with a ribbon on it.

"Because of excessive litigation, everybody pays more for health care, and many parts of America are losing fine doctors. No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit; I urge the Congress to pass medical liability reform."

That one always gets under my skin. No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit. Okay, but does he ever talk about the lawsuits that aren't frivolous where doctors and corporations of all kinds get away with murder? Does he ever talk about the responsibility of medical providers and corporations to pay, punitively, for their bad practices? Eh, no. If you listened to George Bush talk, you'd think every single lawsuit ever filed was frivolous! Yes, and all lawyers are evil scumsucking leeches. Okay, well a lot of them truly are, but the ones who are making the most money are the ones who are defending these huge corporations from lawsuits! Trust me. That's why they need such good liability insurance, so they can hire these fleets of fancy lawyers. Bush cares more about protecting a doctor's pocketbook than protecting the patients who entrust their health to medical providers, not to mention protecting corporations above consumers.

Well, I could probably go on and on, but my tired digits and sleepy shoulders say no more politics and no more talk of false profits for now.

Belated addition: I failed to mention last night in my half-awake tangent that I cannot believe that with everything that is going on in the world, Bush is still pushing for his constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. With all the things he has to concern himself with, he has room to agonize over the thought of gay people getting married. What a waste of time and energy. But I guess it shouldn't surprise me that the republican party has made the legislation and enforcement of discrimination a top priority for the next four years.

Posted by Maria at February 2, 2005 10:59 PM