Chapman is a third-year English and history student.
By Corey Chapman
It’s probably a good thing I don’t have a TV in my
apartment, because if I did I would have been watching the State of
the Union address last week. And if that had happened, you can rest
assured I would have been evicted for noise violations after
screaming more at President Bush than I do during a Raiders
game.
I did wind up deciding to sit down and read the speech, however,
and would have been laughing the whole way through, if not for one
reason: most Americans probably bought into his rhetorical
deceptions.
I was annoyed with several aspects of his speech. First of all,
it was utterly political. Behind his halfhearted attempts to reach
out to the working class and minorities, was the conservative
doctrine for an increase in defense spending, internal
oil-drilling, and tax cuts for the wealthy.
Secondly, his language was at best ““ boring, if not trite.
For example, his proclamation that “we must act first and
foremost not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as
Americans,” rekindled memories of my writing the same thing
to the White House in the second grade (note to Bush: obtain more
speech writers who actually completed primary school).
What hurt me most, however, was when the president outright lied
to every single American and the international community as a
whole. If you don’t believe me, take a closer look.
Halfway through his speech Bush proudly declares,
“Afghanistan proved that expensive precision weapons defeat
the enemy and spare innocent lives.” Oddly enough, Bush seems
wrong on both counts. Neither of the world’s two most wanted
have been captured, a multitude of terrorist organizations still
exist, and our greatest enemy ““ animosity toward America
““ has no doubt increased during the war.
His even more blatant lie is also the saddest one. Despite his
words to the contrary, countless “innocent lives”
vanquished in the American bombing. Pentagon officials are just now
beginning to admit how deadly some of these “raids” in
Afghanistan were. How many destroyed Afghani villages have we yet
to hear about? How many children killed by bombs the same color as
“humanitarian” food packets will we not see on the
evening news?
Bush compounds the lie by asserting that America affirms
“the dignity of every life.” But if that were true, I
would have read a personal biography on every Afghani civilian we
murdered, not just on marines who die in helicopter crashes and
brainless “smart” bomb accidents.
Even more frightening is Bush’s continual invocation of
the word “freedom.” Pardon my skepticism, but Bush
using that word is just as ridiculous as Stalin claiming to love
his subjects.
I say this not just because he became president through a
fraudulent and freedom-less election, but based on the realities of
the past four months.
“America will lead by defending liberty and justice
because they are right and true,” affirms Bush; yet since
Sept. 11, we have seen Lady Liberty ravaged not by suicidal planes,
but by this nation’s president and a congress that has
condoned his actions.
Anyone can look at the articles of the devilishly-named USA
PATRIOT Act to see that freedom is on the run in the post-Sept. 11
world. Attorney General John Ashcroft has even openly warned
against “those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of
lost liberty.”
The speech severely disrespects our intelligence. I would so
much have rather heard Bush tell me straight out, “Yeah, we
killed innocent civilians in Afghanistan and denied it. Yeah, your
freedom means little to me. Sure, tax cuts are for the wealthy
““ you didn’t honestly think tax havens in the Bahamas
were enough, did you?”
Just don’t lie to me. Don’t tell me you’re
here to protect the working class when you represent the interests
of the wealthy. Don’t tell me that we’re destroying the
constitution in order to defend it.
Just as our founding fathers refused to be lied to by old King
George, there’s no way I’m going to be duped by the
President.