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 The Said and the UnsaidPosted on Feb 12, 2007
By Paul Cummins What is unsaid is often more revealing than what is said. Keats wrote that “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/ are sweeter.” In some contexts, this is certainly true. But in State of the Union addresses it is distinctly untrue. Alas, our president’s Jan. 23 speech was, for my ears, quite unsweet. The unsaid for me spoke unpleasing volumes. First of all, the president misses the point of alternative energy. He seems to think that it is only an economic issue: We need to “diversify our energy supply,” to “reduce our dependency on foreign oil,” to “step up domestic oil production”—adding, almost as an afterthought, the phrase “in environmentally sensitive ways.” But his discussion of the most critical issue of the planet—global warming—was dismissed in a vague and actionless phrase, “to confront the serious challenge of global climate change.” I suppose we should be grateful for small blessings, for at least he finally seems to acknowledge that global climate change is for real. After this passing nod to the future of the planet, he then launches into his favorite topic: terror. He never once uses the phrase global warming, but he uses the words terror, terrorists and terrorism 19 times. Yep, keep the public scared as long as you can. FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” has been replaced by GWB’s “The only thing I have to offer is fear itself.” So on and on he speaks of Iraq, terror, a new, newer, new plan, defeating the enemy (once we can determine who that is in present-day Iraq) and so on. Next, the issue of nuclear weapons is narrowed down to preventing Iran and North Korea from having what we have. Nowhere does the president talk of the other—along with global warming—potential catastrophic issue of the planet, namely, nuclear proliferation. Yes, it would be advantageous to stop Iran and North Korea, but how can we possible advocate this in good conscience when the USA wants to develop new nuclear “bunker buster” atomic weapons and to conduct new tests to upgrade our current nuclear arsenal? The real issue needs to be the complete abolition of nuclear weapons, which, if unleashed, could end all life on this planet. A true leader would confront that issue and speak of peace, not only of war. But of course, as usual, the Bush administration wants it both ways: We possess them, others should not. Reason and sanity, however, dictate that no one should have them. The president tosses out other “compassionate”-sounding phrases, from healthcare for the poor, to eliminating poverty, to care for the elderly. Yet he seems to think this will happen by reducing revenue; that is, he calls for his usual tax cuts. In addition, he would not have been a good Republican if he hadn’t taken a swipe at big government: “Together we can restrain the spending appetite of the federal government.” Again, let’s have it both ways: Big government is bad, yet “government has an obligation to care for the elderly.” So how do we do this? Send more troops to Iraq yet cut taxes? Where will the revenue come from? “Balance the federal budget,” increase government services and cut down the size of “big” government? Has anyone ever heard such a ridiculous mishmash of economic principles and realities? And by the way, the president did acknowledge poverty around the world, but didn’t mention the fact that one in six children in the good old US of A are living in poverty. But of course, if he did that, he would have to offer some plan to alleviate such suffering; and when you are trying to correct a deficit you created, to escalate a war and to give tax cuts to the rich, it is rather difficult to have any funds left over for poor children and families. Yet the president asks us to see this jumble of continuing a blunder abroad, widening the gap between rich and poor at home and ignoring the real challenge of abolishing nuclear weapons as “the spirit and character of America” and as revealing our “courage and compassion.” Hogwash, I say. Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment
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By morgan -lynn lamberth griggsy, February 17, 2007 at 1:59 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Now we Democrats through stealth measures will defeat Cheney -Bush.I wish all the candidates would speak up for liberty against the administrations trying to derail it!
Report thisBy particle61, February 16, 2007 at 4:51 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Comic chronicle of the cockamamie, chilling, contemptible and often creepy comments of our conservative-in-chief—
see gwbush comic series verbatim
http://www.redstateupdate.net/verbatim/verbatim.html
http://www.redstateupdate.net
funny, frightening, free
and ‘it’s all true’
particle61
Report thistruth never damages a just cause -gandhi
By R. Palyu, February 16, 2007 at 1:45 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Mr. Bush is plundering and blundering for a better democratic republic. Let the lying murdering primitives rejoice.
Report thisBy W.M. Simms, February 15, 2007 at 10:29 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Did he say the word liberty he pronounces it libutty..It’s his lil’ neo-con, extreme right, born again, Patrick Henry-wannabe, saints come marchin’ in gloss(ary)that we’re all suppose to rally behind. He’s very good at that—a kind of ‘speaking in tongues’.like the post a few above me he needs to be decyphered almost incessantly….it’s just too bad that this administration has managed to somehow dumbdown an entire nation. There are just so many ignorant,hateful people residing in our nation today. They eat his garbage up. His"approval rating” may be falling steadily but we have moved so far from center i’m not sure we’ll ever recover. Slaves to the almighty dollar and our gadgets, we’ve forgotten how to get “it”. “The time to hesitate is through, no time to wallow in the mire, try now we can only lose and our love become a funeral pyre..try to set the night on FIRE”-JM….we seriously need to fry all these fuckers asap before these zealots actually bring on “the rapture” that they so passionately believe in…
Report thisBy Tobiaz, February 15, 2007 at 3:02 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
The said and the unsaid.
Bush isn’t stupid, he just sounds that way. Very important if your targeting the dumbbells in society.
Bush isn’t detached, he just looks that way. He is simply bored. Campaigning, or cheerleading keeps him engaged. And gives the appearance of hard work without the hard work. That’s what Cheney’s for. I think they call it delegating.
Bush isn’t delusional. he just seems that way. His insistence that his war is a success, “catastrophic success” in his own words say’s it all. He sees the success he sought, absolute chaos!
Bush isn’t charismatic, he’s simply a bully. Bully’s are by their very nature lacking empathy and courage. Note all neo-cons and repub think tankers exhibit a lack of both. Bullies push others around, usually smaller others or with the assistance of a gang because they lack any sense of value unless they do. Especially if they have been brought up to believe success only equates with money and power. And they would have neither if it hadn’t been given to them, or gained by force and/or corruption.
And finally, Bush is not a liar. A little effort looking at what he really says makes that very clear. For example, when Bush proclaimed he would not be a nation builder and everybody breathed a sigh of relieve, he was telling the truth. He is not a nation builder, he is a nation destroyer. He never said he wouldn’t do that.
So there really never, ever should be any surprise as a result of what he says.
If there is anything to be gained from listening to his message, which is so clear, its to marvel that so many still flounder around trying to make sense out of the nonsensical.
Report thisBy P.G.STAFF, February 14, 2007 at 1:19 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
OMITTED FROM g.w’S SPEECH
BUSH’S IRAQI EQUATION
DESTRUCTION + VIOLENCE + KILLINGS
= SECURITY
Report thisBy TS, February 14, 2007 at 7:01 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
thanks for the commentary. i watched, only because i believe we must see what this madman is up too regardless how repulsive. i too wasn’t moved by his babble, and while you kept this piece short there was a whole lot more that wasn’t said, and it is time to put this man to the fire.
Report thisBy morgan -lynn lamberth skeptic grigssy, February 14, 2007 at 6:28 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
That is Cheney -Bush: unneeded compassion for the affluent ,lips only compassion for the rest of us,particularly the poor.They want to give a pre-Warren Court liberty to Iraqis but deny us liberty. They want the small government of economic royalism, not fairness for the rest of us.They want historians to give them excellence for an unneeded war and unbearable tax cuts,but historians will rate them poorly.They maintain that if we fight terrorists in Iraq , we are keeping them from harming us here when that makes it sound good to terrorize the Iraquis but not us and terrrorists will operate here on their own time schedule.They do well to focus on the Asian tsunami but fail here with Katrina .
Report thisBy herbert rosenbaum, February 14, 2007 at 1:34 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I’ve made a translation of Bush’s State of the Union:
Fellow Americans = Dear CEOs
Mr. Vice-præsident = Court-vampire, Dick Cheney
We must improve conditions for the poor = Distribute more credit cards to the poor
Air pollution must be dealt with = All air-polutants must be spiked with pleasant aromas
Health-care must be made available to all Americans = The price of a life-saving pill must not exceed the monthly wage of a worker. The poor shall be able to afford all the side-effects of expensive drugs.
We must protect America against natural catastrophies = Natural catastrophies prove that God is dissatisfied with the results of the last election.
Our dependence upon foreign oil must be decreased without endangering the economy. = more tax cuts for domestic oil magnates and their friends.
Finally I would like to thank the Democrats for their patriotic cooperation = You are a gang of bastards that will burn in hell
God bless America! = I know, that God knows, that Ive been doing the right thing all along.
Report this.
By TAO Walker, February 13, 2007 at 7:36 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
G.W.Bush’s blather is so laden with ‘viral agents’ lethal to actual meaning it’s a wonder seemingly smart people still ‘download’ so much of his bullshit into their cognitive faculties. And of course he’s probably the least capable ‘delivery system’ his operators have and one they’d never bother at all with except for his illegitimate occupation of “the bully pulpit.”
Yet legions of talking heads and opinion mongers spend hours of air-time and acres of print-space (both actual and virtual) parsing his every utterance for kernels of “meaning” that by careful design of his handlers don’t even exist. Everyone would be a lot better off ignoring this idiot completely, and turning their precious attention to the already dire and rapidly worsening condition their own and their neighbors’ condition is in.
Bush is a cipher. Cheney is a mono-maniac. Expecting from either of them, or the coterie of ass-kissers surrounding them, any real sign of intelligent life is to play the damned fool in a fools’ game. Anyone who wastes time and vitality trying to make sense of the institutionalized insanity rampant in the virtual world o’ hurt inhabited by the domesticated breeds of two-leggeds is only aiding and abetting those who intend the total degradation and ultimate obliteration of organic human nature from the living arrangement here on Earth.
Paul Cummins and many other decent people who write for and post comments on this site, harboring sincere hopes of somehow altering the present course of events toward some less disastrous outcome than the one looming over all today, are up against a system of exploitation and control that can use for its ends even those who actively oppose it. In fact, it couldn’t continue to exist and operate at all without their resistance, which provides it the ‘traction’ necessary to invade and occupy their very lives.
“Civilization” is a death-trap. Your tormentors are caught in it….by their own self-perpetuating design.
Human beings are by nature free and wild. We are not obliged to keep these cosmic fools company in their self-inflicted misery, or go down with them into the oblivion that will finally put them out of that misery….and much sooner than later.
So forget about the finger-puppets stumbling around in the crumbling corridors of “power.” They named their price, and it’s been paid. They named their poison, and must now swallow a lethal dose of it.
Attend, instead, to trying to save something of the natural order upon which your children and grandchildren might stand at least a GhostDancer’s chance of going on living. The wannabe destroyers of the Earth are only destroying themselves. You ordinary domesticated people don’t have to be amongst ‘em.
HokaHey!
Report thisBy trantieungoc, February 13, 2007 at 5:13 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
What is said is “mission accomplished” and “we have big victory in Iraq”.
What is unsaid was “I was a liar” and “my administration was a criminal ones”.
Report thisBy joneden, February 13, 2007 at 4:49 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
When a person deceives and lies 24/7, there is no way to interpret what he says or does not say…
He is just one useless SOB!
Cheers! jon
Report thisFor an irreverent (and relevant) look at the climate change report, see http://EcosystemCollapse.com/ellen.html