State of the Union
The first part of Bush's speech tonight was centered around "national security." National security as an idea and most of the points contained within this portion of the speech depend on making we the people feel afraid of "them." "They" are no longer just al Queda but "terrorists" in general. This general and undefined threat works better when it is vague, because the threats are everywhere and so the primary (if not only) goal of the government is to "protect" your "security." That's about as specific as Bush wants to get. The problems start when we ask questions, when we demand specifics for his generalities. Who is a terrorist or dangerous threat? Well Quakers are a threat for starters. Cindy Sheehan was arrested for wearing a "Stop war" t-shirt while attending the State of the Union speech. See, "national security" is really a big job! National security is all about protecting "freedom." Freedom from seeing anti-war t-shirts included!"Freedom," as Bush uses the word might as well be a filler word. When used so often and for God only knows how many purposes it completely looses its meaning. What does "freedom on the march" really refer to? An agressive unilateral neoconservative foriegn policy? That doesn't roll off the tounge like "freedum's on the march." What does "enemies of freedum" mean? Anyone who voted against Bush's social security policy? Al Queda? Unions? Ang Lee? The only thing we are supposed to know is that freedom=good and enemies of freedom=bad. It's really that simple, so please don't go asking any pesky questions that might force him to admit what he's really talking about.
Do you disagree with Bush's policy in Iraq? Then there is a new word that they have for you, Isolationist. Awesome! New talking-points. Bush's use of isolationism was perhaps one of best examples of a straw-man fallacy I've seen. If you find 28,000+ Iraqi and 2,000+ American dead in Iraq morally indefensible you must be for "cutting and running" and "isolationism." Using the language of isolationism Bush made it clear that there is only one way to deal with the Middle East: his way. To do it any other way is "without honor."
And of course there was the constant stream of nationalism and civil religion that I usually object to in these things. As a Christian I found the whole thing to be sad and lacking any of the comitment to truth, the passion for loving others and the pursuit of justice and reconciliation that constitutes the Kingdom of God.
Labels: Civil Religion, Non-Violence, Politics
posted by Charlie at 11:07 PM
5 Comments:
I didn't really know about that until last night. I'm kinda glad I was at Kensington Coffee reading about Descartes!
I had a brief conversation with a couple of Christian co-workers yesterday at lunch who would both definitely describe themselves as 'conservative' and they both agreed that Bush, although they think he believes in God, really doesn't do anything to Christ except give him lip service. I didn't even bring the topic up! I just sorta nodded the whole time. Sad things.
Oh by the way, you are one rad bro, Charlie.
peace,
eric
What? There's a State of the Union address EVERY year?
Gosh, and here I was, thinking that the Super Bowl was going to be January's biggest attraction.
Nice to get a glimpse of that Pardue face this Sunday past. Peace, brother!
Exactly. I was one (and have been every year) that can't stand to hear the guy....so consistent is he with the "nationalistic platitudes", and with each passing year, it is more apparent that they operate on a "reactions as needed" , ignoring anything and everything that doesn't feed their machine of wholesale selling out of practically every person-supporting structure in our society (health, education, public safety, etc.)
Thanks for this blog post.
And hey, impressive web designs!
One of the main themes of Bush's speech was we're cutting all kinds of government programs, and spending more on the military. This was all disgisued with talk of saving money and paying back the deficit...
"Keeping America competitive requires us to be good stewards of tax dollars. Every year of my presidency, we've reduced the growth of non-security discretionary spending, and last year you passed bills that cut this spending. This year my budget will cut it again, and reduce or eliminate more than 140 programs that are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential priorities. By passing these reforms, we will save the American taxpayer another $14 billion next year, and stay on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009."
It's that little phrase though, "non-security discretionary spending." That probably means things like Student Loans, Teacher programs in the inner-city, etc. All that stuff is expendable to save money... the addiction to weapons and military spending that is sinful and outrageous... that's not something Bush can kick. He quit the booze and took up war.
"He quit the booze and took up war."
Charlie, you found your muse! I had no idea you were a fully-fledged sloganmaster.
The downer is, however, that it's tragically true.
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