Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

The State Of The Union

So whilst I was doing my laundry I caught the State of the Union address. Those of you in the computing field, specifically those that use the Macintosh are familiar with the term "reality distortion field." For those of you not initiated in the way of the Macintosh, the term is used to describe the apparent power that Steve Jobs has to make people who are in his presence during MacWorld events to forget reality and believe every and anything that comes out his mouth or out of the halls of Apple Computer Inc. I believe that President Bush has the power of the "reality distortion field."

At least half of his speech was on "the terrorist threat" and he continued to use 9-11 as a whip for those who object to his decisions. What was worse was that he stated that America's word was the most "certain" in the world. Of course there was the obligatory shot of Colin Powell. The President then went on to lie about WMD's and the threat Saddam posed to the world. Senator Kennedy was shaking his head as others in the chamber stood and applauded this lie. "Most certain" indeed.

Then Bush talked about how these countries needed to, among other things, form labor unions. Have we not covered the fact that American companies are the biggest obstacles to organized labour in the developing world? These companies actually dictate to governments and make it clear that organizing and other labour actions will not be tolerated and will result in the closure and relocation of jobs to other more compliant governments. But Bush got a standing O for that line.

Another laughable comment was that the people that objected to the war because they think that it was/is due to interests in the resources, should talk to Italy, Australia, Equador, etc. We are supposed to believe that these countries became a part of the "coalition of the willing" out of a sense of justice for Iraq. Never mind that in the run up to Gulf War I, a small country, who's name escapes me right now was basically threatened with a guarantee of economic strangulation for having the gall to vote in oppostion to the US. They were told "that was the most expensive no vote you will have ever made."Note to the clueless: Those countries have a vested interest in keeping good ties to the US. Their interests is to make sure the US interests are secured. Duh!

Bush went on to contradict himself some more and I lost interest in the rest of the speech. Such other notables was how the tax cuts have lead to economic recovery. Well if you give tax cuts to corporations who can use that to increase thier after tax income while they offshore and outsource high paying jobs, I would suspect that you'd see an increase in the economy. Besides, as it is being reported Americans went into some serious debt this holiday season. Interest sugar treats for everybody!!!!

In what may be a mistake on my part, there was a shot of an apparently sleeping Congressman Charlie Rangel. If he was in fact asleep I would say that the image is a perfect snapshot of Black leadership.