Thursday, February 02, 2006

State Of The Union Address 2006

Have you read President George W. Bush's State of The Union Address 2006 ?

Before he spoke, there were already sites betting on how many times he used "Iraq" and "terrorism" in his speech.

He used both words many times. Iran, Afghanistan, Palestinians and Egypt too. Surprisingly, he only mentioned "Hamas" once.

The focus is clearly still on terrorism. And it's probably going to be a permanent issue in every State of The Union Address for the next 10 years.

To his speechwriters' credit, they stopped mentioning terrorism when the focus shifted to domestic issues. But they did sneak it into the end part of the speech.

I do love these couple of lines extracted from his speech.

"Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world."

"Fellow citizens, we've been called to leadership in a period of consequence. We've entered a great ideological conflict we did nothing to invite."

Remember his State of The Union Address last year?

He said, "The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That is one of the main differences between us and our enemies. They seek to impose and expand an empire of oppression, in which a tiny group of brutal, self-appointed rulers control every aspect of every life. Our aim is to build and preserve a community of free and independent nations, with governments that answer to their citizens, and reflect their own cultures. And because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace."

In my humble opinion, even democracy is a form of government.

To have voted Hamas into power, it's like a slap in the face to America. Apparently, some Palestinians viewed Hamas as efficient and lesser in corruption as compared to Fatah. Right.

You can almost imagine Hamas leaders making the same State of Union Address from the other side of the world. Or rather, from the opposite ideological viewpoint.

11 comments:

=^..^= said...

Last year on an episode of The Daily Show (by Jon Stewart), they showed a clip of Bush at a press conference talking about Osama. Bush could only describe him in two ways -- "dangerous" and "mad man", and he repeated the words non-stop... to a point you would believe he has a VERY limited vocabulary.

Worse still, Jay Leno aired a footage of Bush misprouncing "tsunami". He said "salami" instead. Bush senior and Clinton, who were standing beside him, looked as though they were about to faint.

Who prepares Bush for his media appearances?! Fire the dude!

~5-Cat Style

Anonymous said...

democracy is all good nice and ideal. but if the country doesn't want it, then it can only be persuaded can't it? and by Bush's standpoint, violence seem to do it. and the justification: terrorism.

so violence begets violence.

that contrasted bigly with his speech on points of HOPEfulness.

Anonymous said...

this has been Bush's 'mandate' since he became President. so all the more, he'll be carrying out his father's vision.

Anonymous said...

waaah...are you doing research for any paper?? why are you analysing the Address?!!

please don't tell me it's for fun okay.

Anonymous said...

an ideological viewpoint is different when viewed from opposing sides.

each will think the other is bad.

but really, who's to say it's bad?? the dominant ideology i guess.

Anonymous said...

honestly, i've no idea how could Hamas have been voted into power. or shall i say democracy is not the desired ideology in certain 'unstable parts' of the world?

Anonymous said...

he peppered the speech with so many 'advance to freedom'. i'm beginning to think that this phrase is almost graphical. almost like a military tactic to rouse america as the harbinger of peace and freedom. justification perhaps?

Anonymous said...

this IS the era of the clash of civilisations.

Anonymous said...

will America then try to take out Hamas. scary to think of what's going to develop from now.

Anonymous said...

an ideology when interpreted into a structure, is a form of government.

Anonymous said...

terrorism as viewed by us. not by them. this divide is here to stay. and it really seems to take nothing less than violence to settle it decisively.