QUOTES OF THE DAY –thanks to Ben Noyes

“Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.” –Mark Twain

“He who can lead you to believe an absurdity, can lead you to commit an atrocity.” Voltaire

AN IRONY FROM A READER: “This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address fall on the same day. It is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication. The other involves a groundhog.”

STATE OF DISUNION
AL GORE’S CURRENT SEEKS $100 MILLION
REMEMBERING SUHARTO AND HIS PALS

It was billed as the state of the Union address but when I tuned in, it sounded like another propagandistic civics lesson featuring the Bushevik view of “freedom” praising the “new strategy in Iraq.” To me, it also epitomized my own state of dispair about the level of our political discourse.

Reported AP: ‘President Bush, standing before Congress one last time, urged the nation Monday night to persevere against gnawing fears of recession and stay patient with the long, grinding war in Iraq. He pressed Congress to quickly pass a plan to rescue the economy.”We can all see that growth is slowing,” Bush said in a blunt acknowledgment of rising food and gas prices, increasing unemployment and turmoil in the housing and financial markets.

Of course there was no mention of how his administrations policies helped wreck the economy. I always wanted to hear Herbert Hoover must have sounded like in l932 as he tried to bolster “confidence” in a sinking ship.

The Economy he said was in a state of “uncertainty.” (There is nothing uncertain about the folks losing jobs and their homes. What is uncertain, happily, is whether or not the White House will get what the President told the Congress the nation needs. Noted the Associated Press the next morning: “A Democratic Congress is poised to heed President Bush’s call to help save the economy, but may not give him much else after a State of the Union speech that recycled many of the administration’s past initiatives.”) Also very uncertain, by the way, is whether the measures endorsed by the White House and the House can do anything like “saving the economy.” This may be as deluded as Bush’s stated beliefs that we are winning wars or making the world freer.”

But back in the CHAMBER, reaity stood still as he went on, with more hackneyed, even psychotic war on terror rhetoric, regurgitating the support” our troops mantra while the members of Congress (mostly Repugs) stood up and applauded and applauded some more even with a bi-partisan embrace of our surge and theirs, and, in essence, the war itself which they, Democrats and Republicans alike continue to finance.

It was another orchestrated ritualistic photo-op, a last hurrah maybe but still a picture of the problem every one wrapped in the flag of patriotism and contined militarism in the guise of “fully funding our troops.” Applause. Hoorah.

There was no mention of course of statistics like these from ICH:

Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq “1,168,058″

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America’s War On Iraq 3,940

So Far The War in Iraq Costs $489,646,132,314

FACT CHECKING

Some organizations took the time to check the “facts” in his speech, as if its ideology was based on facts:

Example: Washington, D.C.-A fact check from the National Security Network on President Bush’s State of the Union comments regarding Afghanistan show the country is still in a state of disrepair. Bush claimed that:

A nation that was once a safe haven for al Qaida is now a young democracy where boys and girls are going to school, new roads and hospitals are being built, and people are looking to the future with new hope.

On each point, Bush is absolutely wrong:

What else is new?

A FEW TROOPS OUT AS MORE GO IN

And then he announced that 20,000 of our troops are coming home, more cheers. And you can already picture the parades that will be staged while the name of General Petraeus is used to argue against any other “drawdown.”

And as he spoke the while resistance in iraq is branded as consisting only of Al Qaeda with the suggestion that Washington itself is about to be attacked.

Fear mongering has always worked well for this Administration and, predictably, they are playing this card again. Fear of Iran’s nuclear capacity is stressed again.

He went in about “the Images of liberty have inspired us while other images have sobered us…..We will deliver justice to our enemy –applause. We will stay on the offensiv We are engaged in the defining ideological struggle of this century…we are spreading the hope of freedom…for peace of the world..

PANDERING TO MILITARY FAMILIES

Repeatedly, the President spoke of “freedom’s power “and immersed himself in the glow of the heroism of our military families….cheer, cheer, cheer. Read this from GI SPECIAL, a story from a local newspaper from Texas, the state that gave us George W Bush.

“I did know that they come to your house if there’s a death and not call you on the telephone. So the call was a relief that he wasn’t dead,” his father, Dr. Ronald Corley said.

Corley was on patrol when he was shot in the jaw by enemy fire. The bullet shattered his jaw and exited through his neck. He was immediately flown to Germany and treated by a spinal surgeon. They discovered the bullet just barely missed a major artery in his neck. Corley is now recovering in a San Antonio hospital.

“He’s not moving his right arm at all. He has a tremendous amount of pain in his shoulders, neck and arms. And of course he can’t speak with a trake, and his jaw is wired together,” his father Ronald said.

David’s brother Justus Corley told us, “It’s real tough on the whole family. But it’s good that we have a large family because we all get to go see him and take care of him. We take turns seeing him.”

Corley had been in Iraq 9 months. Family members say they were skeptical when he first joined the Army 2 years ago.

“I was proud of him but scared for him. Nothing really good come out of the war in Iraq, I believe. I believe it’s very [words cut from news story] of him to serve our country,” his brother Justus said.

‘My son was eager to go and I’m very supportive or their efforts. I just worry that our government is not accomplishing…we really don’t know what they’re accomplishing,” his father Ronald told us.

The Iraq Veterans Against The War had urged Bush to proclaim A new GI Bill for Iraq veterans. “President Bush should call on Congress to pass a modern GI Bill by the end of his term. A new GI Bill would significantly stimulate the U.S. economy and go a long way toward helping our newest generation of heroes build a better life. “

He didn’t.

DEMOCRATIC RESPONSE: PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE

The Democratic Response was unbelievably tepid, toto, with the Governor of Kansas sounding like an old fashioned school marm calling for forging a bi-partisan consensus. There was no real criticism. It was soft and muddled, laced with soppy rhetoric about “getting the job done,” Instead of a democratic response. She said, we need an “American response.” There followed Wizard of Oz blather about the struggling economy. She closed by practically begging the President to “work with us. ”

Fat Chance: How sad and pathetic. Another opportunity missed.

SPEAKING OF THE ECONOMY

And speaking of the economy, the Campaign for America’s Future compiled some statistics that bear repeating:

ON INCOMES:

– Median household income in 2000 (inflation-adjusted): $49,158

– Median household income in 2006: $48,201

– 8-year increase in median household income in 2001: $6,000

– 6-year decrease in median household income in 2007: $1,100

[U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 - 2007]

RE MONEY: GREG PALAST POSES SOME QUESTIONS

In his State of the Union, the President asked Congress for $300 million for poor kids in the inner city. As there are, officially, 15 million children in America living in poverty, how much is that per child? Correct! $20.

Here’s your second question. The President also demanded that Congress extend his tax cuts. The cost: $4.3 trillion over ten years. The big recipients are millionaires. And the number of millionaires happens, not coincidentally, to equal the number of poor kids, roughly 15 million of them. OK class: what is the cost of the tax cut per millionaire? That’s right, Richie, $287,000 apiece.

Mr. Bush said, “In neighborhoods across our country, there are boys and girls with dreams. And a decent education is their only hope of achieving them.”

So how much educational dreaming will $20 buy?

MEDIA COVERAGE

Predictably PBS’s had two mainstream media commentators on to asses the president The WP journalist bought the idea that the Iraq War is improving called the speech humble. Yuk. David Brooks, the NY Times conservative also praised Bush… and his No Child Left Behind program. Again no real criticism. This is analysis?

Meanwhile FAIR issued an action alert criticizing the NY Times pro-Administration spin on Bush economic policy: “

The New York Times (1/28/08) claimed in a front-page story that George W. Bush’s economic growth record “would be the envy of most presidents.” This claim has no basis in fact and should be corrected by the newspaper.