Oldthinkers Unbellyfeel Bushsoc: Bush’s State of the Union: ’Leader of the Free World’ blabs to nobody in particular

Synopsis: US-based Daniel Patrick Welch reacts with expected horror
to George Bush’s surreal State of the Union address. Democrats, he
notes, don’t appear willing or able to stop the runaway train. With
no cavalry riding to the rescue, Welch turns to familiar metaphors to
describe a new despair.

Daniel Patrick Welch
http://danielpwelch.com

It strikes me how little of George Bush’s bullshit I can actually
stomach as time goes on. It’s a little bit like THC, which builds up
in the bloodstream so that it takes less and less exposure to achieve
the narcotic effect. Or more like the Monty Python sketch, where the
funniest joke imaginable was translated only one word at a time into
German to be used as a secret weapon against the Nazis. One
translator accidentally translated an entire phrase and spent several
months in hospital.

But it only takes a glimpse, or rather, a whiff, to get the full
effect of the Mouthpiece of Empire’s unschooled blather to see where
this is all heading. No surprise, the train is headed off the tracks,
and we had all better jump out now, mug the brakeman, or follow
headlong off the cliff. The Boy in the Bubble speaks in what may be
the most hermetically sealed bubble of all, the US Congress: “I ask
you to support our troops in the field, and those on their way.”

The pointed reference to ’those on their way’ combined with all the
references to what Iraq ’must’ do, is enough insight, as if any more
were needed, to show that our unhinged Dear Leader is off the
reservation and out hunting reality on his own. Another reference
pops into mind, this time of General Jack Ripper’s message as read by
Buck Turgeson in Dr. Strangelove. I’ve sent the wing to attack the
Russians, "and you sure as hell won’t stop them now!" We will
prevail, in the purity of essence of our natural fluids.

True to form, the Congress gives yet another grim and unsmiling
standing ovation, snapping dutifully to attention at the mention of
supporting our troops, at least until their post-traumatic stress-
ridden, DU-soaked, limbless bodies are shipped home, with or without
the superpathogen cooked up in army field hospitals. How did these
guys ever get away with making fun of the Politburo for so long? I
see a bunch of paunchy old white guys barely stirring from their
catatonia long enough to rubber stamp the diktats of other paunchy
old white guys, all a bit too sclerotic to dance even at their own
War Party.

What exactly is it that the opposition has to contribute? A stream of
useless nonbinding resolutions and handwringing rhetoric aimed at
blunting the "mandate" they got from a war-weary public on November
7? Throwing Jimmy Carter under the bus for having the temerity to
suggest that maybe, just maybe, it is the land-grab of Palestinian
territory and decades of abuse that lies at the center of the mideast
conflict? Silly malaise-ridden Jimmy. He must be an anti-semite.
Bellicose, if confusing, musings from the party chairman about how
Iran is the real threat, rather than Iraq? Translation: if Democrats
were in power, we would have kept our powder dry to launch a
murderous rampage against a totally different country!

Congress could stop this insanity in a minute, despite all the
crocodile tears about the power they don’t have. And here we go into
election season: a fresh crop of sharp-elbowed overachievers with
money to raise, asses to cover, and focus groups to please. Don’t
count on this crowd to stop the impending hell of ever expanding war.
Their pockets are lined with the same cash that keeps the war machine
humming. Impeachment is the only real remedy for a president who
thinks he is above the law. But of course, that isn’t in the cards,
or even "on the table." Nancy Pelosi’s house must be a mess, strewn
as it is with things that are "off the table." No, I’m afraid that
hope is a scarce commodity at this point. But it could be the state
of the union and the bourbon talking. Maybe we’ll scrounge up some
hope before there’s nothing left to do but grab hold, like Slim
Pickens, and ride the missile all the way down.

© 2007 Daniel Patrick Welch. Reprint permission granted with credit
and link to http://danielpwelch.com. Writer, singer, linguist and
activist Daniel Patrick Welch lives and writes in Salem,
Massachusetts, with his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Together they
run The Greenhouse School http://www.greenhouseschool.org.
Translations of articles are available in up to 20 languages. Links
to the website are appreciated at http://danielpwelch.com.