THE STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH (APPLAUSE)

I never watched a George W Bush State of the Union speech preferring to read the script instead and avoid the histrionics of political theater but after six years of reading excessive rhetoric peppered with references to “good” and “evil” and ending with “god bless America” I decided to watch, to listen, to take notes and describe my experience in Yova’s world.

The pre SOTU moments were spent watching the camera focus on different members in attendance while the commentary in the background informed me who I was looking at and what their position was among the ruling elite. From the moment I saw the parallel between this ceremony and the Oscars I realized that I was about to experience the APPLAUSE of farce and the SILENCE of tragedy.

That moment began when I saw Condi Rice leading the procession for her president and wondered how was she is able to show herself in public after actively participating in the creation of carnage without conscience but realized she was among her peers the majority of whom shouldn’t be showing themselves in public either. She not only was with fellow travelers she was in that inner circle of the power structure that creates, executes, and enforces foreign and domestic policies in the name of the people.

George W Bush walks down the aisle (APPLAUSE), shaking hands, giving winks and fake kisses to his groupies, and does a brief stop and chat with someone who has a choice seat. The camera pans an audience providing a hero’s welcome, standing and applauding someone who violated the Constitution of the United States as President of the United States then committed war crimes as the Commander-in-Chief. APPLAUSE where honor and decency demanded SILENCE became a theme.

Time to listen to gratuitous remarks to Speaker Pelosi (APPLAUSE) before the litany of superficial statements (APPLAUSE) that created the surreal world I was about to enter where every sentence concludes with a Pavolvian response of popping up and down while clapping their approval as others sat stoically until they heard what they wanted to hear.

Meanwhile I find myself captivated by this absurd behavior from beginning to near end.
So spellbound was I by this odd ceremonial ritual that note taking was reduced to scribbling a handful of paraphrased quotations the first of which had to do with facing our enemies together (APPLAUSE) but offering absolutely no examples of how we were to do this. (SILENCE) Indeed it was this slogan without substance approach which prevailed throughout the speech.

At least I was permitted the opportunity to appreciate the irony that the actions of the man speaking these words divided the American people he now claims to serve and unit. As for “the enemies” we were to face together (APPLAUSE), based on this president’s proclivity for faulty or cherry picked intelligence to define “the enemy” one would have to be a true believer to permit such incompetence to ever define “the enemy” again. (SILENCE)

Then there the was good news about our growing economy punctuated by (APPLAUSE) that now provided more hope and opportunity than ever before (more APPLAUSE) and an admonition that we had to spend our money wisely in order to balance the budget in five years without raising taxes. (and even more APPLAUSE)

While economics never interested me as a student, my rudimentary grasp of the subject compelled me to suspect that when we can spend two billion dollars waging war in Iraq and a billion dollars a week waging a war on drugs without raising taxes cutting social programs becomes the obvious conclusion. (SILENCE) Ah but then again I forget about our growing economy and all that hope and opportunity for the many still getting by from paycheck to paycheck. (SILENCE)

My interest peaked when I heard George W Bush talk about pursuing freedom for people in a few nations including Cuba (APPLAUSE) because I remembered reading about the over 1800 people who were arrested in New York City for exercising their freedom during the Republican National Convention’s coronation of their leader who now speaks of freedom for others (APPLAUSE) while waging a war against freedom to dissent in the homeland. (SILENCE)

The last half of the speech which addressed the issue of Iraq were the reflections of an irrational perspective formed in a delusional mind for Bush once again was connecting dots of an al-Qaeda/Iraq/9/11 connection (APPLAUSE) that didn’t exist in October of 2002 (SILENCE) when he made his intentions known in Cincinnati as he claimed we faced “clear evidence” of peril” from Hussein and we could not wait “for the final proof…in the form of a mushroom cloud.” (more SILENCE)

That same connection based on faulty or cherry picked intelligence now finds its way into the SOTU speech by claiming America faces a nightmare scenario from terrorists in the future if we do not succeed in securing a democratic Iraq. (APPLAUSE) Not one commentator nor article nor post that I’ve read then or since has mentioned that the National Intelligence Estimate report of early 2006 concluded that the Iraq war made the overall terrorism problem worse. (SILENCE)

I read where Bush received a two minute applause at the conclusion of that 2002 speech and although I wasn’t in a pedantic state of mind during there recent SOTU it sure seemed like longer then two minutes applauding the same speech over four years later which continues to perpetuate a lie. In retrospect I think “my god, as a nation we have gone mad” and I remember turning on the mute button for a few moments seeing the president’s mouth moving (SILENCE) and people popping up and down. (APPLAUSE)

In Yova’s world the troops who thought they were fighting for freedom and democracy in Iraq are back home fighting for it here by entering the halls of Congress invited by the representatives of the people to “execute the laws of the Union” by arresting George W Bush and Dick Cheney for far more than merely aiding and abetting the enemy indeed their treason created the very chaos that resulted “in new safe havens, new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to harm America” the very conditions that now threaten our national security. (APPLAUSE) (SILENCE)