SOTU 2006 REVISITED

SOTU 2006 REVISITED

By Peter Fredson

February 3, 2006

I have looked at over 100 blogs on the SOTU 2006 of Bush, all varieties. The Right-Wing responses made me rub my eyes in disbelief of the huge gap between their assessment and mine. “Noble solutions”, “Brilliant Recovery”, “Visionary”, “Strong and Determined”, “Regaining Initiative”, and “Great Speech” were some of the adulatory sycophant applause.

"Bush’s Great Leadership Ability made headlines.

I decided to get another look at the SOTU transcript to see what I had missed. I wanted to know what novel, visionary, strong, and great aspects of Bush leadership were present.

I was immediately struck by the brilliant solution to ending the war with Iraq, the enormous economic and human losses. I wanted to know what visionary strategy Bush had, what novel solutions he proposed. To my great delight Bush showed his true vision, his understanding, and his leadership. Basically he proposed to Stay the Course. He would let his Generals decide when the time was ripe to leave, perhaps soon, perhaps in the next 20 years. Brilliant, novel, genial.

Evidently no one in the audience had ever heard or thought such a solution was possible judging from the claque and clapping.

Evidently the secrecy Bush depends on to keep him alive is also extended to keeping terrorists and the American Public in the dark. In that way he can kill people THERE so they won’t come and kill us over HERE.

He said he would let the Iraq people help him decide, but in my experience with his determined leadership they would be whistling in the wind. The Afghan chief executive already had asked him to start withdrawing, but Bush showed remarkably little interest in that request.

During the past several days the Taliban of Afghanistan seem to be resuscitating their forces. The Dutch and British are going to rush troops there, not withdraw. Given the Palestinian democratic solution, and the grave disappointment of Bush, he is not very interested in any “democratic” procedure in Iraq which does not meet with his fundamentalist approval, or in what his Double-Think idea of Democracy might be.

Bush’s Brilliant solution to the Energy Crisis did not mention that he had kissed and held hand with Prince Bandar and that soon after gasoline soared from one to two dollars a gallon. He did not mention that his investigation committed did not think that interrogation of the jowled energy CEOs needed any kind of sworn testimony.

Evidently the enormous profits of the energy companies had nothing to do with honorable testimony but everything to do with political contributions.

So, what to do? During the World War II I was in France, and saw buses and trucks with large cylinders on their sides with smoke arising constantly. I asked one driver what was in the cylinders and he answered “Chicken manure and waste material.”

This was back in the late 1940’s but Bush recently has found that burning grass, wood chips, etc, will provide the energy to move large transport. Evidently his cabinet smoked the grass and did not realize it could move trucks. At this rate it will only take about 50 years to find alternative sources of energy which don’t require many thousands of acres to move political limousines.

Bush mentioned windmills, but didn’t show much enthusiasm. Evidently when the wind doesn’t blow, the whirling blades stop. We know that houses can successfully be lit and heated with sun catching devices, but Bush only recently found out about it.

No, what Bush wants is maximum profits for large energy companies and political contributions, not rinky-dink small operations. So Bush is going to give billions of dollars to the already bloated oil executives in the hopes that they will stop making big cars.

The Republican audience did not realize that Bush mentioned weaning our country from oil in all his other SOTU efforts, and that nothing was done after all his oratory. In fact some presidents before Bush made similar suggestions, but Bush sycophants think his “solutions” are novel and brilliant.

Bush identified only Arab country oil imports for reduction., making up abut a fifth of US imports. Bush ignored Canada, Mexico, Nigeria and Venezuela. The U.S. thinks Venezuela’s President detests Bush, and that makes him liable to preemptive action. Mexico is angry about immigration; and violence has cut part of Nigeria’s oil output.

I like some food warmed-over. Roast chicken, spaghetti, meat-loaf for instance taste good the second time around. Evidently the Republican audience at SOTU 2006 likes everything warmed over, perhaps even pre-digested, from the applause and genuflections they displayed. I carefully examined the SOTU transcript and can find nothing new, novel, brilliant, or genial. Instead I find the same old failed suggestions Bush has put forward on multiple speeches because he like to “stay the course,” even if it is a failed course.

The remainder of his term will probably see about 50 speeches. The logic of all that duplication is that every time Bush makes an emotional speech his rating rise a point or two. So if he is only at 50% approval, 50 more speeches will put him at 100%. His audience evidently forgets his promises on the very next day, so it doesn’t matter if he gives essentially the same speech the next week.

The Déjà Vu voodoo of Bush evidently works on his gullible Republican fundamentalists, so he will repeat his speeches incessantly in the time he has remaining in power with the confidence that the religious and corporate sheep of his congregation will support him all the way to hell if necessary.

His speech writers know the issues and simply have to find emotive words like “compassion” or “freedom” or “prayer” to sell the stale merchandise again and again.

Bush had another vision of sheer genius when he rediscovered that education is good for children and the country. Although a scientific idiot, someone has told him that science, math and technology are very promising subjects and that touting them will make him seem like a great visionary, so he’ll try it.

He still thinks that Biblical science of 2,000 b.c. is preferable and wants to Build a Bridge to the 1500’s. Bush is desperate to do SOMETHING to get some upward movement in the downward polls. He has NO new ideas, not solutions other than “more of the same.”

Although he left every child behind in past promises, this time he will try it again. One blogger stated: “Bush seemed bowed to his Rocky 2005 and didn’t propose any bold plans; no ”Great Society”, ”New Deal” or ”City on a Hill” moment. Was this going to be the Bush of the last two years of his term---muddling his way through mediocre moderation posing as legislation?”

So it was puzzling that so many people would get up on their hind legs, so often after one ancient sentence, and clap so fervently, like Italians once did for Benito Mussolini. Evidently they feel that they must hang together or they will all hang separately.

He reiterated that he is authorized to do anything his intuition or whim or Karl
Rove suggests to bully the American public. He feels that he is above the Constitution, which he has stated is just a GDDM piece of paper and does not apply to his imperial leadership.

In fact he is above all law, all restraint, because he wants to protect the public by wire-tapping their phones, watching their e-mails, opening their letters, putting microphones in their homes and bed rooms, installing a Secret Police Force which will spring into action with shotguns, masks, body armor, tear gas, and electric shock to any citizen that dares criticize him, because he has determined that criticism is treason.

The Bush approach to leadership reminds me of the Cold War Russian story. A lone gunman held up a bank and the police were told to get cracking and arrest the man immediately. The next day they reported:
“Six people already confessed. 20 more are detained and we expect that all will confess, except for the 20 that accidentally suffered heart attacks and regretfully died.”

Bush has discovered that the public may not be trusted, but must be bullied, dominated, terrorized in order to be governed. And judging from the applause of his audience they feel the same way. People felt the same way about the Brown Shirts and the S.S. police in Germany.

There is pathos in the Bush declaration that he wants bipartisan cooperation. He evidently just learned that this might possibly work.

In the past he has used secrecy, deceit, bulldozing, railroading, slander, swift-boating, outing agents, firing whistle-blowers, condemning Democrats to his version of Hell, refusal to meet with the Democratic leadership, denunciations of treason for critics, dirty tricks and a dozen other ways of squelching his opponents.

But now he wants people to cooperate with him. He is not about to cooperate with THEM, but he is pleading that THEY cooperate with him.

I could go on about Bush promises, sycophant responses, his incompetence to follow through, his delusion that he is above the law and stacking the court to realize the fundamentalist dream of installing a theocracy in the US, but I am outraged that this petulant, carefree, irresponsible daddy’s boy has the incredible gall to try and foist garbage on the American public.

Bush has come to the end of his rope. He or Karl Rove think they can fool everyone by killing Muslims and building bases in every country. We should not sell our birthright for a mess of pap.