Shut Up And Listen 149 Bush Is A Fucking Moron! Year Three What the fuck? It’s only January twentieth and the State of the Union Address is happening. He’s a week early. For the past two years, the speech has happened on the last week of January. The first year, it was on my birthday, the twenty-ninth; last year, it was on the twenty-eighth; so, naturally, I was thinking it would be on the twenty-seventh this year. Of course, the fact that the Iowa caucus for the Democrats was yesterday, so that was probably a big factor in moving the speech up a week. But anyways, I’m here doing my annual written-live-as-it-happens column on the speech. I love the pre-game show on CNN. Kind of reminds me almost of the pre-game shows I’d see on Fox on a Sunday afternoon before a football game. We have the anchorperson speculating a little and then the talking to “experts” and the shots of the “field” and even some shots of the “fans” waiting patiently. I kind of like CNN. Even if I got the other 24-hour news channels in my room, I’d probably pick CNN. MSNBC would be a close second. Fox News, of course, wouldn’t be an option except for a good laugh during commercials. Although, I’m lucky, even on the TV that has digital cable and a shitload of channels, we don’t get Fox News. Yes, yes, Canada rules. Hell, our 24-hour news channels (which are quite different from American ones) aren’t even covering it yet. They may once it starts. Actually, tonight my mom asked if this thing is a big thing in the US. You know, if Americans all gather around the TV and watch, and honestly, I don’t know. Do they? Is this something they watch? I mean, I know people pay attention to it in a general sense, but do they actually watch it? Or at least, would they if it didn’t pre-empt every channel? Wow. Just saw one of those people CNN talk to who you have no idea who they are say that he thinks Bush is a President who thinks big and acts big. In other words, he tackles the big issues without fear. Now, I’d agree with that, except I wouldn’t say it as a compliment as the guy meant. Bush strikes me more as a guy who isn’t afraid to tackle the big issues, because he’s too dumb to know better. He’ll take on terrorism, healthcare, immigration, homosexual rights, and every other big, make-or-break issue, but does he do it well? Anyone can take on the issues, but it matters how well the issues are handled. And honestly, he doesn’t do that well. His policies on all are lacking, in my opinion. One phrase that keeps coming up that I don’t remember from past years is “the President’s night”. This is the President’s night, you know. The funny thing it only seems to be said whenever someone comes close to questioning Bush or criticizing him. Now, I think you all know I think that’s bullshit. This isn’t the President’s night in the sense they mean. Yeah, this is his chance to lay out his plans and appeal to the people, but that doesn’t mean he gets a free pass or anything. No, this is a night where he has got to plead his case and tell everyone why he thinks he’s been a good leader over the past year. He’s got to justify himself and say why he thinks he’ll do a good job in the upcoming year. This should be treated more as one of those employee evaluations that happen in companies. In fact, I wish they gave everyone in America a little card to fill out where they grade him in certain areas and add little comments. That would be nice. >APPLAUSE< There he is, ladies and gentlemen. Dubya himself. The man. The Commander-In-Chief. The President of the United States. George W. Bush, Jr. Wow, I really don’t like him. Seriously. When I see him, I just want to punch him in the face. I don’t like feeling like that. >APPLAUSE< Yes, yes, start the speech by mentioning terrorism and the military. He is smart in that respect. But then . . . HA-HA! “The tax relief you passed is working.” He’s funny too. Did you know that? Don’t believe me? They just showed Ted Kennedy and he was laughing. Good ol’ Teddy finds Bush hilarious. Honestly, I find this part of the speech hopelessly boring. It’s all rhetoric and phrases you can’t argue with, for the most part. Although, I must wonder how he plans to defeat terrorism. Seriously, how do you get rid of terrorism? >APPLAUSE< OH FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! THE MOTHERFUCKING PATRIOT ACT! Do not believe that bullshit. Goddamn asshole reminds me of Hobbes and The Leviathan when he talks about this shit. The sovereign’s only job is to protect the people from violent death and they give up all rights to accomplish that. Seriously, I hate that shit. Yeah, you need to protect yourself, but not while saying you’re doing it to protect a way of life that you are undermining with your methods of protection. America loves to call itself the home of the free and praise its freedoms, but what, the moment it finds out that those freedoms do give them a weak spot in some ways, they’re ready to compromise them (well, except the freedom to own a gun--for some reason that’s the one freedom that the Department of Homeland Security seems to respect, because, you know, terrorists don’t use guns, no, they kill you with library books). >APPLAUSE< Hey, I can get behind this. Saddam Hussein found in a hole and now sits in a prison cell. That’s good shit right there. And he’s talking about all those great things they’re doing in Iraq. But you don’t see him mentioning the attacks on US soldiers by Iraqi citizens, do you? See, that might make you wonder if the Iraqi people really want American troops there. Seriously, they hate Saddam, but that doesn’t mean they love America. >APPLAUSE< HA! “For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible. And no one now can doubt the word of America.” You know what that means? Libya and all those countries know that if they don’t do what Bush says, they get fucking bombed. He did it to Afghanistan. He did it to Iraq. And you can be sure he ain’t afraid to do it to you. He is concerned with keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of dangerous regimes. Now, who has made more war than any other country since Bush has taken power? And let’s be honest, unprovoked war. When I say unprovoked, I mean, there were no attacks by the countries they attacked. September eleventh wasn’t an attack by Afghanistan (more like Saudi Arabia). Iraq never attacked the US. So why is it that other nations have to disarm while the US doesn’t? >APPLAUSE< Alright, Bush has said, once again, that America is at war. Then why aren’t those so-called “enemy combatants” treated as prisoners of war? You can’t say one thing here and another thing there just for convenience sake. Either it’s fucking war and the people captured are treated under the guidelines as such or you admit that it’s fucking bully-tactics and outright terrorism! >APPLAUSE< Not attacking Iraq would have weakened the UN. The US acting without their support and essentially declaring the organization useless obviously didn’t. Which leads to his list of international allies, there are a few absent members. You know, like Canada and Mexico, the two nations that would be deeply affected if America was attacked. Attacking Iraq was not an act of defence. Anyone who thinks that is naïve and foolish. It was an act of aggression. Believe me, I wanted Hussein gone too. Who didn’t? The ends don’t justify the means though. They never can. >APPLAUSE< One thing that does impress me is he keeps mentioning Afghanistan. I had thought he’d forgotten all about that nation. Seemed like he bombed them and just said, “That was it? Damn, son, I ain’t done yet!” and then moved right onto Iraq. I sincerely hope that Afghanistan is rebuilt to the point it was before it was bombed to shit. >APPLAUSE< I love this shit. Bush speaks, half the room stands up and applauds, Bush speaks, half the room stands up and applauds, and so on. I honestly wonder how many people agree with what he says and how many people agree because he’s the President and better yet, a Republican President. >APPLAUSE< I have some serious problems with that “no child left behind” bullshit (at least as far as it’s been explained to me). I like the idea of making sure no one falls behind. No child should fall behind, obviously. Covering that is essential. But where does he speak of children being taught to excel beyond the fundamentals? You need to challenge kids to not just meet the basics, but to go beyond them. That’s the way I was taught. I wasn’t taught for the test. I was taught so I’d know it and be able to learn more. Teaching for the test is the wrong kind of teaching. That teaches regurgitation, not thought, and dammit, thought is a fundamental. That style of teaching is too black-and-white and leads to a future generation of fucking morons. >APPLAUSE< I said it last year and I’ll say it again: Bush’s spending plan doesn’t make sense. He keeps speaking of low taxes, lots of new expensive programs, and somehow lowering the deficit. How does that work? Seriously, I would be quite grateful if someone can tell me how lower taxes, spending more and somehow decreasing the deficit actually makes mathematical sense. I was always pretty good at math and it just doesn’t seem to make sense to me. But then again, I don’t subscribe to the theory that somehow corporations making more money somehow means social programs get bigger budgets. >APPLAUSE< Drug use in high schools has decrease by 11% since 2001. Because of drug-testing. Read between the lines. Drug use in high school is down because of expulsion. Those kids that are caught are kicked out and therefore the drug use isn’t in the school anymore. It’s on the street. There’s some effective drug prevention. Of course, he plans to increase funding here. Also, he wants to increase funding for programs to teach young people about sexually transmitted diseases. Honestly, I think that would be good if I agreed with how they taught it. Sadly, they seem to teach about sex in the dumbest ways and the kids know it. Why do you think they don’t listen? Because they don’t want to hear for the fiftieth time how they can get AIDS. They’re told that shit so much that it becomes noise. They need to be taught it, but you can’t do it to the point where they don’t hear it. >APPLAUSE< Fuck the “Defence of Marriage Act”. Fuck it up the ass. >APPLAUSE< Well, he ended the speech the way he began it. With meaningless rhetoric bullshit. I wonder if there really is an Ashley Pearson. >APPLAUSE< Well, my closing thoughts are: Bush has some damn good speech-writers. Its structure was solid. He got the bigger, more controversial issues out of the way in the first part, and he always balanced potentially controversial statements with safe comments that are nearly impossible to disagree with. He kept talking about more spending though, and that baffles me, as stated above. Also, his religious-filled style of speech near the end disturbs me. Fuck it. My back hurts from shovelling snow and I want to lie down. See you next year.