of 89.9 KUNM FM to write a
response to Bush's State of
the Union Address and then
read it on the air during
Freeform February 1, 2006.
I invited Mark Weaver to back
me up on Tuba-- to add a little
more pomp and absurdity.
Thanks for the challenge Carol!
Listening was a challenge.
Listening to Bush’s State of the Union was a challenge
because my tv had been...
detained.
My tv had been detained
and then wrapped in a sleeping bag.
My tv had been detained
and then wrapped in a sleeping bag,
bound in electrical cord and sat on
by an American soldier who was doing what he was told
who thought he was doing the right thing.
Perhaps if the tv were just a tv he would have been doing the right thing.
But it wasn’t,
so I put my gloves on and went to my moms house in the mountains.
Listening was going to be a challenge
I have a bit of a temper.
So I gave myself 48 hours to calm down and collect myself before the State of the Union.
I didn’t count to ten.
I counted to 1048--the number of days US forces had been in Iraq.
And then I counted the 2243 dead US soldiers.
And then I counted the 30,000 Iraqi civilians dead by Bush’s own low estimate.
And then I counted, out loud, the number of weapons of mass destruction found.
That was my preemptive strike.
When I turned on my mom’s tv, my heart sank
as if some great American red white and disco ball was going to drop from the sky.
And then it did.
Hooh hah, hooh hah, hooh hah.
Cheney clapped and the Republicans clapped.
Cheney stood and they stood.
I thought of puppets and puppeteers and wondered where Karl Rove was.
And then I wondered where Cindy Sheehan was--since she had a ticket.
Oh yeah. Arrested.
Listening to the State of the Union was a challenge.
Why?
Because I don’t like Bush’s voice.
It’s personal.
Just listening to him twisted me into
a pretzel.
Because to me,
he sounded like a zipper on a body bag
he sounded like the click of a camera in Abu Graib
he sounded like a bus taking just the tourists and white people out of New Orleans
he sounded like a mine collapsing
he sounded like another pipeline going in
he sounded like the hum of an un-warranted wiretap
he sounded like a key turning in the lock of a secret prison
he sounded like the numbers on a gas pump turning over
he sounded like tapping on a keyboard of voters being disenrolled .
he sounded like the teller at the pharmacy saying “Medicare part D won’t cover that”
he sounded like the click of a woman’s heels in a back alley
he sounded like the hiss of a leak
and yes,
he sounded like a prisoner in maximum security chewing ground turkey yet again.
Still, I listened.
As he said “The state of our union is strong”
As he said,
“Confident”
“Confident”
“Confident”
As he said, “Our economy is healthy and vigorous.”
As he said, “We show compassion abroad”
As he said, “We show compassion abroad”
As he said, “We are winning”
blah blah blah blah blah
There was no deficit in arrogance.
Still, I waited for the smallest concession.
I waited for him to say the buttercups had bloomed on January 11th in Montana.
Just that.
That’s all I wanted to hear.
The prettiest emblem proving things are out of whack.
(Usually they bloom mid March.)
If he had said that, I would have held a flower under his chin and said “Oh you like butter
and global warming.”
That would have been a photo opp.
He wouldn’t even have needed to be my friend to stand in the picture.
It could have meant nothing.
He’s said as much.
But this wasn’t a child’s game.
This was pomp and circumstance.
This was teleprompters and a fist on the podium.
This was posturing and promises.
Bush made what should have been a nice tribute to Coretta Scott King
but it sounded false.
Funny, what doesn’t ring true after more than 1000 executions in this country
where capitol punishment is riddled with race issues
where an author
of anti-gang books
for children
was put to death.
I’m a writer. These things get to me.
Still, I listened.
It was a challenge.
Despite talk of renewable energy, of wind and solar,
of “clean and efficient” nuclear power, of ethanol made "not just from corn"
his speech struck my ears like an oil spill
or a chemical slick going downstream
like smog hanging in a valley on a windless night
like a loophole that lets oil companies and developers do environmental surveys
in months when endangered plants are still underground and uncountable...
like climate change.
There’s global warming and then there’s the heating up of American paranoia.
Bush said, “Terrorists have chosen the weapon of fear.”
So has he.
Just in his State of the Union,
the words
“danger,” “tyrrany,” “murder,” “destruction,” “beheadings,”
“weapons of mass destruction,” “rage,” “perversion,” “suffering,”
“chaos,” “mass murder,” “heartless,” “weapons of mass murder,”
“terrorists,” “fear,” “vicious attackers,” “assaulted world,”
“evil,” “evil,” “evil empire,” “terror networks,” “terrorist targets,”
“enemy,” “brutal,” “death and prison,” “enemies,” “fear,”
“terror,” “terrorists,” “dark vision,” “hatred,” “fear,”
“dangerous anxious world” and of course “September 11th”, “September 11th”
Words that stuck like chicken bones in his throat,
like twisted wishbones for more power and a way to justify it.
He cultivates fear like some hothouse geranium.
Everywhere Bush is making thin ice.
Fishermen in Greenland are sweating and, let me tell you, bipolars have the chills.
In Albuquerque, you only get 25 seconds
–recorded on a 911 call–
from when the cops cross the threshold to when they shoot young women
like Brittany Wayne
dead.
Right now, as I read this, my mother is running through the airport shouting,
“That’s my daughter, she’s manic depressive and on her meds.”
It scares me.
I’m afraid of the climate of fear.
Do I sound lucid? Did he?
Could he sound lucid?
A man who nominated a wire coat hanger for supreme court justice?
He should hang it up. That’s what I think.
That’s what I was thinking as I listened.
And I was wondering
When is a mouth a levee?
And then I heard it.
“We will not wait to be hit again.”
as if
he’s already planning another preemptive attack.
And I wondered, Who’s next?
North Korea? Palestine? Iran?
A country singled out for a direct address and a glare?
And he told the truth.
He is “offensive” in Afghanistan
He is “offensive” in Iraq
He is “offensive” against terrorism here at home.
He is offensive.
On the upside, he wants “more markets for all that Americans make and grow.”
All that Americans make and grow?
Medical marijuana?
I wish.
As a person with MS, I wish for that and stem cell research.
My heart sank listening to him.
His education plans didn’t help.
So he intends to plug math and sciences– does that mean groom students
to participate in the technology of the well paying war machine?
What about courses in the humanities? In humanity?
Overall,
so as not to sound seditious or forceful,
to keep a “civil tone,” and not be a “pessimist”
I’ll just say,
I found Bush’s State of the Union address
as “interesting” as he found the election of Hamas.