State of the Union 2007

On September 20th 2001 George Bush addressed the Congress and the nation thusly:

In the normal course of events, Presidents come to this chamber to report on the state of the Union.

Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people.

I doubt he’ll use that line this time, what with election results and his approval ratings and all.

In this speech the least hardest-working President in politics revealed his and the nation’s future:

Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated…we will direct every resource at our command…to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.

But rather than draw a comparison to WW II as he and his cohorts have done subsequently, Bush drew on a more recent and more limited example of war;

This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion

Indeed, why would the Global War on Terror be like the regional Gulf War? As the public majority has known for at least two years Bush’s declared “global war” was already focused primarily on the territory of Iraq (even before the invasion of Afghanistan) and the swift conclusion of Iraq's ‘liberation’.

But at this time even the best-informed skeptics couldn’t know the true import of this single remark.

Bush, the Republicans and a conservative cabal chose to use the most impressive “irregular” attack in history to launch a war of aggression using the world’s most powerful military against a weak but oil-rich country under false pretenses to satisfy their egos, their bank accounts and their lust for power over America and the world by exploiting like-minded supporters and bullying dissenters; bending all government resources not to preserve and promote freedom for all but to destroy it for all, save for a privileged few.

It is this powerful minority that has chosen to define America in the 21st Century not by the principles of its constitution and its Bill of Rights; not by self-evident truths, nor government of, by and for the people but by a war of aggression and the illegal occupation of a single country, Iraq, for the interests of a self-righteous, self-important and self-serving few.

But in 2007 a majority in America now holds these truths to be self-evident:

"That whenever any Form of Government become destructive to these ends it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States."

In 2007 absolute "Tyranny over these States" is not being impressed by a King of Great Britain, but by a King in our capitol, George Bush, propped on his throne by legions of courtiers.

The real State of the Union is much as it was at the moment of its inception, and as insurmountable as the power and rule of government appears to be today, it appeared so then when England ruled.

It is not a King nor a single misbegotten adventure that defines the state of a nation, nor the President that defines the State of the Union—it is We, The People.
Just as the Colonies warned the King, so the November elections warned the President—change your policies or we will make our own. Govern according to our needs or we will govern ourselves.

According to the latest Newsweek poll 68% oppose Bush’s escalation of troop deployments to Iraq, his personal approval rating is it 31%, on Iraq is just 32%, and not forgetting the post- election exit polls that showed the majority's major policy concerns were inversely proportional to Republican political priorities.

So after six year’s of exclusively Republican rule Bush and his cohorts have largely united this nation not behind them but against them. Whatever verbal concessions Bush might make about “mistakes” in his 2007 address, the people have spoken and continue to speak against his policies and his party’s rule.

The State of the Union is a shambles (to put it kindly) not through circumstance but precisely because of his and his Party’s direct ‘governance’.

If there is any reason to listen to Bush’s State of the Union address at this juncture it is not to search for hope in his singular American vision but to confirm once and for all the hope in our collective vision for a united nation, a truly United States of America.

As Bush famously said in his speech that September of 2001, “You’re either with us or against us”.

President Bush has been against ‘us’ for six years now, and now the majority is against him, personally and politically. The only meaningful acknowledgement of that fact would be if he were to announce his resignation.

In essence that is the real State of the Union.