editorials Header

Monday, February 4, 2002

Union of the State
The Terror of Freedom

by Clinton Fein

Click to Send CardPRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, Kenny Boy, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

As we gather tonight, our Nation is at war, Linda Lay is hitting the talk shows pleading poverty, and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers – both from demented terrorists plotting attacks and other nations like ours pissing on the Geneva Convention. Yet the state of our Union has never been stronger. And the Union of the State has never been more dangerous and illusory. (Applause.)

We last met in an hour of shock and suffering. In four short months, our Nation has stopped comforting the victims and begun accusing them of greed, begun to rebuild New York and the Pentagon without the money that was originally promised, rallied a great coalition that is already fraying rapidly, captured, arrested, and rid the world of thousands of terrorists (along with a good few innocents as well), destroyed Afghanistan's terrorist training camps, buildings, art, literature, culture and civilian homes, saved a people from starvation by throwing them food packaged to look like bombs and freed a country from brutal oppression so they can kill their kids through disease and ignorance, like we do, instead. (Applause.)

The American flag flies again over our embassy in Kabul, on the goddamn antennas of SUVs from coast to coast and on the bottom of the screen of every damn television station, cable or network. Terrorists who once occupied Afghanistan now occupy cells at Guantanamo Bay, which are sunny, light and fabulous with a view to die for. And the bleeding heart liberal evildoing supporters from the Red Cross and ACLU have a problem with that! (Applause.) And terrorist leaders who urged followers to sacrifice their lives are running for their own (in between taunting video shoots that embarrass the hell out of the CIA, FBI and anyone else claiming to have captured anyone of even the remotest importance). (Applause.)

America and Afghanistan are now allies against terror... kind of like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan …we will be partners in rebuilding that country, which means instead of Enron, companies like Alcoa or Halliburton can go in and “rebuild” and make enough goddamn money to put Jenna and Barbara in the Whitehouse. That’s right, we won’t be stashing any relics when we leave here like the Clintons did, because we’re coming back. We Bushes are like Herpes. We don’t go away. Ever. (Applause.) Oh, by the way, this evening we welcome the distinguished interim leader of a liberated Afghanistan: Chairman Hamid Karzai.

The last time we met in this chamber, the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school. (Applause.) Today women are free by those standards, and are part of Afghanistan's new government, and we welcome the new Minister of Women's Affairs, Doctor Sima Samar. Of course our female servicemembers in Saudi Arabia are not quite as fortunate, but one country’s modesty is another’s pornography. And if the bitches so much as dare to ask for birth control or other important women’s health issues I’ll pull funding from Afghanistan quicker than you can say budget deficit and tell Laura to stop supporting them and focus on literacy again instead. Got that Doctor Sima Samar? (Applause.)

Our progress is a tribute to the corruption of my cabinet, to the dismay of our coalition, and to the might of the United States military. (Applause.) When I called my cabinet into action, I did so with complete confidence in their duplicity and cunning. And tonight, thanks to them conning our servicemembers into thinking what they’re doing is worthwhile, we are winning the war on liberty, which I now call terror. (Applause.) The man and women of our Armed Forces have delivered a message now clear to every enemy of the United States: Even 7,000 miles away, across oceans and continents, on mountaintops and in caves -- you will not escape the hypocrisy of this nation. (Applause.)

For many Americans, these four months have brought sorrow and pain that will never completely go away. Thanks to incessant coverage by the media pigs at Fox, CNN and MSNBC and the rest of the misery-packing Fourth Estate. Every day a retired firefighter returns to Ground Zero, to feel closer to his two sons who died there and breathe in some asbestos. At a memorial in New York, a little boy left his football with a note for his lost father: ``Dear Daddy, Please take this to Heaven. I don't want to play football until I can play with you again someday.'' Well guess what! I took that same stupid ball, put a grenade in it, and had one of our guys leave it in a field in Somalia so some little kid --a future terrorist -- will pick it up to play with. Last month, at the grave of her husband, Michael, a CIA officer and Marine who died in Mazar-e-Sharif, Shannon Spann, said these words of farewell: ``Semper fi, my love.'' Shannon is with us tonight. (Applause.)

Shannon, I assure you and all who have lost a loved one that our cause is just, and our country will never forget the debt we owe Michael and all who gave their lives for freedom. We plan to enrich my family’s oil interests well into the future, so start prepping to lose your sons. American flags are easier to maintain anyway, and Ari Fleischer needs a wife to end those pesky gay rumors. (Applause.)

Our cause is just, and it continues. Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears and showed us the true scope of the task ahead. We have seen the depth of our enemies' hatred in videos where they laugh about my mid-air panic and Laura’s fashion sense. And the depth of their hatred is equaled by the madness of the destruction they design. These evildoers want to do with America what Ken Lay did to Enron. (Applause.) We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities which terrorist sects like Greenpeace use to overzealously watch our environmental policy violations, detailed instructions for making chemical weapons, to which we hold the patents and have not yet sold to the highest bidder, surveillance maps of American cities and thorough descriptions of landmarks in America and throughout the world, which is giving me ideas about banning text books at schools containing any information about landmarks. (Applause.)

What we have found in Afghanistan confirms that - far from ending there - our war against freedom…er…terror is only beginning. For the rest of this speech, I will con you dumb idiots who are gushing over me because you think I like you, or because my approval ratings are even higher than Bill Clinton’s after the blowjob, by linking every one of the dangerous campaign issues I raised (that in normal circumstances would have lost me the popular vote) to our War on Terrorism. (Applause.) Most of the 19 men who hijacked planes on Sept. 11 were trained in Afghanistan's camps, (and our flying schools) and so were tens of thousands of others. Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes (we propped up), are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs set to go off without warning. Like Enron stocks in August. Of course the CIA schooled the trainers of these terrorists in the methods of murder, but Russia wasn’t an ally back then, and I wasn’t around to see Putin’s soul. Nor was he, I don’t think.

Thanks to the work of our law enforcement officials and coalition partners, hundreds of terrorists have been arrested, yet tens of thousands of trained terrorists are still at large. These enemies view the entire world as the battlefield, simply because we have a military presence all over the world. (Applause.) So long as training camps operate, so long as nations harbor terrorists, freedom is at risk and America and our allies must not, and will not, allow it. As soon as John Ashcroft has finished punishing doctors for prescribing drugs to terminally ill patients in Oregon and draping expensive velvet over any semi nude statue that gives him a perpetual hard on, perhaps we can focus on this crisis. (Applause.)

Our military has put the terror training camps of Afghanistan out of business, yet camps still exist in at least a dozen countries. A terrorist underworld - including groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Army of God, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council and Soutehrn Baptist Convention - operates in remote jungles and deserts and hides in the centers of large cities. (Applause.)

While the most visible military action is in Afghanistan, America is acting elsewhere. We now have troops in the Philippines helping to train that country's armed forces to go after terrorist cells that have executed an American, a privilege we reserve for ourselves, and still hold hostages. Call it imperialism if you want, but none of these places has Starbucks, and since these entrepreneurially challenged twits are bombing us because they hate us, wait until we open up malls in their countries, and charge them American prices for products made using their women and kids in sweat shops. You want real reasons to hate us. Here we come! (Applause.)

Iran aggressively pursues weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. Elections are elections, no? We don’t govern because some Court decided that should be the case. We count ballots and we elect, don’t we Jeb? (Applause.)

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. Thanks Dad! The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. Those are our products goddamit. Copy our good points, not our bad. Did you guys not read the rulebook? This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. Kind of like Three Mile Island? This is a regime that agreed to international inspections then kicked out the inspectors; this is a regime that has more to hide from the civilized world than Dick Cheney has from his meeting notes with Enron.

My hope is that all nations will heed our call and eliminate the terrorist parasites who threaten their countries and our own. I know eliminate is a strong word, but it seems to be a buzzword lately. Thank you Mr. Sharon. Many nations are acting forcefully. Pakistan is now cracking down on terror, and I admire the strong leadership of President Musharraf, which I know how to pronounce now that I know who he is. But some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it: If they do not act, America will.

My own men have become quite the media sensation. Rumsfeld, Cheney and Ashcroft. (Applause.) They, with their McCarthyism tactics, constitute an axis of evil, conspiring to threaten the peace and liberty of the world. By seeking to suppress information, curtail speech and rip off and abuse the environment, these men pose a grave and growing danger to anyone who opposes my ever-expanding definition of terrorism. Dangerous Americans could provide truthful information to the minute array of journalists who deserve the title, giving them the means to actually back up or refute their regurgitations. They could reveal the truth to our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of anything beyond complacency would be catastrophic. (Applause.)

We will work closely with our fragile and increasingly discordant coalition to deny Americans and anyone else the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver truthful information. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to keep Donald Rumsfeld happy and rub salt into the wounds of Enron employees who were too stupid to notice they were being led astray by lies and misinformation. (Applause.) And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to keep the men who financed my campaign for the Presidency fat and wealthy. (Applause.)

We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will run away like I did on September 11. I will not stand by again, as companies go bankrupt and lose fortunes and the expense of the taxpayer, which ironically do not include the very corporations in question. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons. And so I’m taking back all the money I gave Boeing, United and American airlines. (Applause.) I will ensure that we track with technology every book taken out of any library and we will swoop down and catch anyone reading material that is dangerous or anti American. (Applause.)

Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our watch -- yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch. Same as the War on Drugs. We watch on your wages.

We can't stop short. If we stop now -- leaving freedom and liberty in place -- our sense of security would be false and temporary like my Presidency. History has called America and our allies to action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to fight freedom pretending its terrorism. (Applause.)

My budget includes the largest increase in defense spending in two decades -- because while the price of freedom and security is high, repeating Daddy and Ronnie’s flawed policies is even higher. Whatever it costs to destroy, rebuild and genetically engineer the planet and make Rummy and my henchmen richer than Bill Gates, you will pay. (Applause.)

Once we have funded our national security and our homeland security and give Governor Ridge something to do aside from our Tweezers Confiscation Protocol (TCP) and Toenail Clipper Pogrom (TCP), the final great priority of my budget is economic security for the American people. To achieve these great national objectives - to win the war, protect the homeland and revitalize our economy - our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term so long as Congress restrains spending and acts in a fiscally responsible manner like my Administration. Ask Mister Ashcroft about that. Ordering $8000 drapes is more responsible than hiring a bunch of unemployed Enron workers to move a podium over a couple of inches. We have clear priorities and we must act at home with the same purpose and resolve we have shown overseas: We will prevail in the war, and we will defeat this recession. Especially with Rumsfeld’s pie in the sky Missile Defense pet project that would have done so much to save the suckers in the World Trade Center and Pentagon. And better intelligence to feed our enemies so that they don’t fly their planes into Morgan Stanley when Arthur Andersen has all the damn evidence that wasn’t shredded yet. (Applause.)

Americans who have lost their jobs need our help, and I support extending unemployment benefits and direct assistance for health care coverage. Yet American workers want more than unemployment checks, they want a steady paycheck. When America works, America prospers; so my economic security plan can be summed up in one word: Enron. (Applause.)

Good jobs begin with good schools, and here we've made a fine start. Republicans and Democrats worked together to achieve historic education reform so that no child is left behind.

There is more to do. We need to prepare our children to read and succeed in school with improved Head Start (did Bill Clinton name that?) and early childhood development programs. We must upgrade our teacher colleges and teacher training and launch a major recruiting drive with a great goal for America: a quality teacher in every classroom. I mean an American teacher with American ideas. We need to follow the lead of my brother in Florida and fire any professors or teachers who hold unpopular views and we must vigorously diminish the role of universities and other educational facilities as an open forum for ideas. (Applause.)

Good jobs also depend on reliable and affordable energy – especially if Ken Lay and other Enron flaks set energy policy in secret and Dick Cheney refuses to tell you anything about it. This Congress must act to encourage conservation, promote technology, build infrastructure, and it must act to increase energy production at home so America is less dependent on foreign oil. In other words keep on buying gas guzzling SUVs while we start drilling in Alaska and jail as terrorists any environmentalists working to weaken us as a nation and threaten our security.

Good jobs depend on sound tax policy. Last year, some in this hall thought my tax relief plan was too small, and some thought it was too big. But when the checks arrived in the mail Americans thought tax relief was just about right. They’re both here this evening, thank you Karen and Ari. Congress listened to the people and responded by signing away heaps of constitutional liberties without even reading them. Save perhaps, Russ Feingold and Barbara Lee. (Applause.)

Good jobs must be the aim of welfare reform. As we reauthorize these important reforms, we must always remember the goal is to reduce dependency on government and offer every American the dignity of a job. Every American means unborn children as well, who deserve rights we will take from them once they are born. And so I can pay back the anti abortionists who helped send me here and partially own me. (Applause.)

Americans know economic security can vanish in an instant without health security. I ask Congress to join me this year to enact a Patients' Bill of Rights, to give uninsured workers credits to help buy health coverage, to approve an historic increase in the spending for veterans' health, and to give seniors a sound and modern Medicare system that includes coverage for prescription drugs. No Noelle, you’re not a senior and I don’t mean quick fixes of anti depressants from a Walgreens drive through. You’ve been spending way too much time with Laura and your cousins. (Applause.)

A good job should lead to security in retirement. I ask Congress to enact new safeguards for 401(k) and pension plans. Employees who have worked hard and saved all their lives should not simply expect our intervention if their company fails because of campaign contributions to me and virtually my entire cabinet and most of my appointees. Who do they think they are? An airline carrier? (Applause.) Through tricky accounting standards and convoluted disclosure requirements, corporate America must be made more accountable to employees and shareholders and held to the highest standards of conduct. Although don’t mess with Wendy Gramm. Two words: Clifford Baxter. (Applause.) And don’t any of you buy that bullshit the media’s been feeding you about Laura’s mother’s losing a lousy eight thousand dollars in Enron stocks. That woman could make up that by pissing in a jar and selling it on EBay. (Applause.) Or selling her second-hand drapes to the Department of Justice.

Retirement security also depends upon keeping the commitments of Social Security, and we will. We must make Social Security financially stable and allow personal retirement accounts for younger workers who choose them. Let’s reintroduce my campaign idea, which was to invest your hard earned Social Security money in companies like Enron. (Applause.)

Members, you and I will work together in the months ahead on other issues: productive farm policy, a cleaner environment, broader home ownership, especially among minorities, and ways to encourage the good work of charities and faith-based groups like the Traditional Values Coalition or al Qaeda. I ask you to join me on these important domestic issues in the same spirit of cooperation we've applied to our war against freedom, again by supporting anything I say and any demented domestic policy I introduce as part of that war. (Applause.)

During these last few months, I have been humbled and privileged to see the true character of this country in a time of testing. Our enemies believed America was weak and materialistic, that we would splinter in fear and selfishness. That survivors would start bickering over entitlements or that racial profiling and targeted hate against Muslims or anyone not White and Christian would become commonplace. (Applause.)

The American people have responded magnificently, with courage and compassion, strength and resolve. As I have met the heroes, hugged the families, and looked into the tired faces of rescuers, I have stood in awe of the American people as I have simultaneously screwed them over by signing away most of the liberties they were fighting for to begin with. (Applause.)

And I hope you will join me in expressing thanks to one American for the strength, and calm, and comfort she brings to our nation in crisis: our first lady, Laura Bush. Buy shares in Xanax people. Calmness like that is not necessarily a stupor. (Applause.)

None of us would ever wish the evil that was done on Sept. 11, yet after America was attacked it was as if our entire country looked into a mirror and saw our better selves. We saw John Ashcroft jacking off over obscene art, we saw Don Rumsfeld playing with toy missiles and we saw Karl Rove getting a blowjob from Jack Valenti. We were reminded that we are citizens, with obligations to each other, to our country and to history. We began to think less of the goods we can accumulate, and more about the good we can do, even though we were telling you to do good by spending more on goods you can accumulate. (Applause.)

For too long our culture has said, ``If it feels good, do it.'' Now America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: ``Let's roll.'' It’s exactly what Jenna, Barbara and Noelle scream before they go on a drug binge to help forget where they came from, poor things. And some greedy, opportunistic dregs from the Todd Beamer Foundation, who would happily cluster bomb the graves of World Trade Center victims and rim Osama bin Laden to improve their own fortunes, have sought to trademark the phrase. In the sacrifice of soldiers, the fierce battles of firefighters, donors and victims and the greed and selfishness of ordinary citizens, we have glimpsed what a new culture of responsibility could look like. Pretty, isn’t it? Roll, my ass. How about “Let’s Puke”? We want to be a nation that serves goals larger than self. We've been offered a unique opportunity and we must not let this moment pass.

My call tonight is for every American to commit at least two years - 4,000 hours over the rest of your lifetime - to the service of Wendy Gramm, Linda Lay and your nation.

Many are already serving, and I thank you. If you aren't sure how to help, I've got a good place to start. Buy stocks from companies that provide me with enough soft money to make you hard. Buy and spend every penny you make so I can give you some lousy tax break that won’t buy you enough toilet paper to wipe your ass for more than six months.

Our country also needs citizens working to rebuild our communities. We need mentors to love children, especially unborn children whose parents are not aware of birth control because we’ve gagged reproductive workers with the threat of pulling funding, and prefer executing adults to terminating fetuses. Unless, of course, they’re old, terminally ill, suffering so that John Ashcroft is not alone in his misery.

And America needs citizens to extend the dogmatic insanity of our country to every part of the world. So we will blur the distinction between Church and State, and ask you to join a new effort to encourage religion, and Christian fundamentalism in the Islamic world.

All fathers and mothers, in all societies, want their children to be educated and live free from poverty and violence. No people on Earth yearn to be oppressed, or aspire to servitude or eagerly await the midnight knock of the secret police. Unless they are dissenters, keep pornography at home, or look Middle Eastern.

America will lead by curtailing liberty and justice, because they are wrong and dangerous and too available for all people everywhere. No nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them. We have no intention of imposing our culture, but America will always stand firm for the nonnegotiable demands of capital punishment: the mockery of the rule of law, unlimited power of the state, some respect for some women if they are able to get in line with my thinking, private property, free speech unless Ari Fleischer doesn’t like it or John Ashcroft wants it silenced, unequal justice and religious intolerance. (Applause.)

In this moment of opportunity, a common greed is erasing old rivalries. America is working with Russia and China and India in ways we have never before to achieve prosperity. In every region, free markets and free trade and free societies are proving their power to lift lives by drinking Starbucks and eating McDonalds. Together with friends and allies from Europe to Asia, and Africa to Latin America, we will demonstrate that the forces of dissent cannot stop the momentum of globalization. Protesters are terrorists. Pure and simple. (Applause.)

The last time I spoke here, I expressed the hope that life would return to normal. In some ways, it has. In others, it never will. Those of us who have lived through these challenging times have been changed by them, even though I got pissed off and refused to agree I had changed when recently asked. “Ask my wife,” I said sneeringly. (Applause.)

We've come to know truths that we will never question: Evil is real, and it must be opposed. Beyond all differences of race or creed, stockholder or assembly worker we are one country, mourning together and facing danger together. Deep in the American character there is honor, and it is stronger than cynicism. And many have discovered again that even in tragedy - especially in tragedy - God is near. Our God. Reverend Franklin Graham’s God. The God that stepped in and stopped the 19 hijackers on September 11. (Applause.)

In a single instant we realized that this will be a decisive decade in the eradication of liberty, that we've been called to a unique role in human events. Rarely has the world faced a choice more clear or consequential. It’s America’s way or kiss your kids goodbye and wait for the daisy cutting. (Applause.)

Our enemies send other people's children on missions of suicide and murder. They embrace tyranny and death as a cause and a creed. We stand for a different choice, made long ago, on the day of our founding. We affirm it again today. We choose the illusion of freedom and the dignity of every life. Even the ejaculated sperm you murderously flush down the john. Susan Smith didn’t fare too well after she pushed her kids into a lake and nor did Andrea Yates after she gave her kids a bath. Keep those semen filled tissues around my fellow male Americans, because not only will you avoid prosecution, soon they’ll be eligible for insurance. (Applause.)

Steadfast in our purpose, we now press on. We have exacted freedom's price; we have shown freedom's weakness and the power of terrorism as a catch-all phrase to exploit thousands of deaths and push an agenda, and in this great conflict, my fellow Americans, we will see freedom's demise and the rise of theocracy. I will make sure of it.

Thank you, and may God bless. Our God. America's God.

 
search      

© Copyright 1997-2024 ApolloMedia Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
annoy.com Site Information