01.25.07

State of the Union Message of Hope and Opportunity

Posted in General at 8:04 am by ZoeWashburne

I’m not saying that “terrorists” don’t exist in this world, because I’m sure that they do. I’m not saying that America doesn’t have “enemies” that would go to extreme lengths to take away the freedoms and luxuries that we have in this country, because I’m sure that we do. I’m not even saying that we shouldn’t be deploying troops to various parts of the planet to help keep the world safe from these so-called terrorists and enemies, because I’m sure that we should. What I am saying is that we don’t have to be reminded of these facts by constantly being hit over the head with threatening, fear-inducing, scare tactics in order to bully us all into following foolish and ineffective leadership.

In this week’s State of the Union address, President Bush started off his speech by using the term “hope and opportunity” seven different times to talk about bipartisanship, the economy, education, healthcare, immigration, energy, and a fair justice system. Great, I’m all for hope and opportunity, sounds good, where do I sign up? However, just as the positive message Bush was sending started to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, ready to sing Kum-Bai-Ya, and roast some marshmallows to make smores, the fear and loathing I had been feeling for the last five years was quickly returned to me as the visions of death and destruction replaced my visions of hope and opportunity. As Bush continued, he proceeded to use the words terror/terrorist 20 times, enemy/enemies 12 times, extremists five times, and kill/killer five times. In addition, to mix it up a bit, he used words like slaughter, wicked, violent, malignant, atrocity, evil, danger, hatred, extremist, horror, hostile, and death squad dozens and dozens of times to indicate just how much the rest of the world hates us and wants to kill us. Jeez Louise, suddenly I feel as if my own shadow is out to get me!

Why is this overwhelming tendency to scare the beegeezees out of everyone used by someone who is supposed to fill us with confidence rather than uncertainty? Because it’s effective. Whether the American public realizes it or not, our subconscious is taking in all of those words and images and feelings of fear and uneasiness and on some level making us all believe that these threats are very real and very relevant. Like I said, I have no doubt that the boogeyman is out there somewhere and he wants to get us all, but what I don’t know is how bad it really is. As any good cult leader would know, the more you tell someone you’re the reincarnation of Jesus, the more likely they’ll start to believe it as truth simply based on the mere repetitious suggestion of the idea. It’s this type of mind-manipulating persuasive speech that gets inside a person and makes them start seeing demons where there are only shadows.

So, how can we know for certain how threatening these extremist enemy terrorist killers really are? Well, according to Bush these things are “measured by the things that did not happen.” What??? That’s like saying, “I didn’t get a murdered today, so I’ll probably get murdered tomorrow.” The mere fact that you didn’t get murdered today in no way proves that you’re going to get murdered tomorrow. The two things have no connection whatsoever. Saying that we have to continue to live in daily fear based on things that did not happen makes absolutely no sense. Where are the planes filled with terrorists? Where are the massive supplies of anthrax waiting to be poured into our water systems? Where are those hidden nuclear (or should I say nu-que-lar) weapons we heard so much about? I guess those things haven’t happened yet, so be afraid…be very afraid because they’re bound to happen tomorrow. Suddenly, that message of hope and opportunity seems so distant.