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| THE CARBON-COPY PRESIDENT
By Peter Fredson
February 5, 2006
Remember when George W. Bush was a promising Governor of Texas? Like many
politicians before him he was glib in making a host of promises concerning most
of the issues affecting voters. And like many politicians before him he was
adept at wriggling out of his promises. He still continues this dual approach:
Promise and wriggle out.
He is certainly consistent, still using some of the very same promises he made
in those days for the voting public of today.
Remember when we used carbon paper and typewriters, and how the black, or
purplish coating could stain fingers, clothing and equipment? Making copies of
articles was easy. Today the task is even easier with computers and
spell-checkers, although the boast of having paperless offices was challenged by
printers which could churn out neat copies by the score. Cut-and-Paste
operations no longer depended on scissors and library paste. Sections of
manuscripts could be switched easily, erased, transposed and rearranged quickly.
This feature made speech-writers able to take a sentence or phrase from one
edition and flick it to another. “Originality” was achieved by a thesaurus or
dictionary feature, making each speech distinct but actually copied from
previous speeches.
Bush and his “speech-writers” have “created” essentially the same speech for
years, yet each sounds slightly different for the barely educated and
non-analytical audience of True Believers. The speeches are full of emotive and
religious references, with specific code-words for indoctrinated people.
The rhetoric is often turgid, sometimes full of clichés and Biblical references.
Certainly as we read the transcript of the 2006 SOTU speech we saw the evolution
from carbon-paper to cut-and-paste to substitution of entire paragraphs.
Sycophants disposed to adulation saw originality to the point of standing up on
their hind legs and applauding unoriginal material until their hands turned red.
Administration followers used phrases like “novel”, “brilliant solutions”, and
other wording to indicate that Bush was genial, far-thinking, visionary, very
intelligent, and a true leader with great vision.
More analytical readers said “same old, same old”, “warmed over hash”,
“unoriginal”, “trite”, and “retrying failed rhetoric.”
The audience, absolutely partisan by design, was divided into claques and
opponents. The claque bunch genuflected, rising and falling, clapping and
expressing vast approval, (appropriate for the Second Coming of their Lord) with
each sentence, which was marked by a slight drop in pitch.
The opponents were barely civil, sometimes clapping for a previously successful
idea and sometimes expressing discontent, as for instance when Bush brought up
the issue of Social Security.
The aftermath of SOTU was even more dramatic when civility gave way to either
forms of rapture and praise, or toward criticism, sarcasm, or insulting remarks.
Certainly the nation is divided.
The laudatory claim of Bush in his first year in the Presidency that he would be
a “Uniter, not a Divider”, soon vanished into partisan bickering as Bush decided
he would bully and railroad the democrats into whatever his whim dictated would
occur.
He decided not to consult with opponents, to use executive action to get his way
in legislation, policy, appointments, religious pronouncements, and to assuage
his paranoid fear of “terrists” whom he had single-handed created by arrogant
preemption, shock-and-awe, cruise missiles, heavy weapons, and the constant use
of lies, stealth, misinformation, twisting logic, and a thick coating of
secrecy.
Bush and his cabinet created a war out of whole cloth. Bush, as a religious
zealot, backed by millions of fundamentalist true believers, decided to show
oil-rich Muslims that they were inferior to his armaments. And, although he is
too embarrassed to acknowledge it, he lusted for the oil of Iraq and was
determined to steal it to accomplish his Neocon mission toward world domination.
He still wants huge bases in many countries, specifically Iraq today, from which
to threaten and bully the entire Middle East region.
To that end he sent the Black Angel of Death, Condi Rice, to threaten other
nations, provoke them into some action whereby Bush can send his Cruise missiles
screaming into populated areas, thus entitling him to strut and swagger like a
true military hero. They talked of weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds,
EVIL, and a lot more, avoiding any mention of oil, bases, regional domination,
or illegalities.
This plan was hatched before he was selected as President by a partisan Supreme
Court as part of the New World Order strategy and he has stuck to it ever since.
Iran, Syria and other countries are in tremendous danger of vile Bush action,
but his unwarranted invasion of Iraq and the occupation of 160,000 US troops
make a direct military assault with tanks and Humvees prone to criticism
Missiles and gun-ships were, for Bush, viable options which might give him
resources and glory. with several prominent Republicans, also issuing threats of
their own for public consumption and voter appeal. If any one was fomenting
terror, it was Bush and his chicken-hawks.
His slogan of “Winning Hearts and Minds” I regarded as a form of sarcasm
intended for the consumption of a gullible, ignorant, and indoctrinated audience
which made up his base, much like “Faith”, “Compassion”, “Democracy,” and
“Sovereignty.”
Thus today we have a carbon-copy of the 2002-3 threats, war mongering, and saber
rattling. Condi Rice is daily threatening Iran and Syria. She talks of mushroom
clouds. Bush talks about bringing Democracy and while avoiding any talk of
sovereignty or oil or domination of the region.
The entire cabinet, with Dick Cheney in the forefront, is rattling sabers and
dancing the war dance. Several prominent politicians have started their own
threats of “retaliation.”
The Military are again drawing up war plans, just waiting until the time is ripe
to send cruise missiles screaming into Iranian space because the Iranian
President is EVIL.
As I said, Bush is consistent. He will stick with a course, even though it is a
failed course, in the hope that the next time it will succeed, or the next time,
or the next time. His speeches like his actions. are like the old-time
carbon-copies which will stain his honor, courage, wisdom, compassion and dreams
of a united legacy.
He disdains any limitation on his imperial will, continues to defy
Constitutional provisions, and repeats the same old lies, over and over and
over. He struts, swaggers, smirks, has the same old photo-ops intended to win
hearts and mind while giving the public his upraised finger in his well-known
salute to fascist theocracy.
His supporters have never wavered. All of his actions, words, gestures are
familiar. He will always resort to lies, misinformation, deceit, stealth and
midnight executive action as hallmarks of his legacy.
His clichés, Bible quotations, aphorisms, blithe references to Laura, talk of
“our brave boys”, forbidding photos of caskets or maimed troops, smiles, blinks,
smirks, struts, staring into the TV lens, waving his hands in stereotyped
gestures, references to the Old Testament God, suggestions that prayer will
solve anything but condoms are sinful, subtle hate of gays, and a hundred other
actions are standard carbon-copies which he will use over and over again.
Of course, he will probably also mention 9/11 another thousand times in the 3
years he has left to push America down the drain.
And his True Believer followers will call him brilliant, genial, honest,
trustworthy, compassionate, Uniter, Peacemaker, while some may continue to
believe he is a species of Messiah whose every word and action is approved by
the Supreme Creator of the Universe. They too are carbon-copies of True
Believers of the 1500’s ever ready to smite the infidel.
By : peter fredson
February Sunday 5th 2006
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