------------------------- State of the Union Speech ------------------------- (before i start to talk about this, id just like to say i am in no way condoning the attacks of Sept.11th, and i am also not condemning the whole of america. im sure you're all (mostly) lovely lovely people, BUT i do have problems with the way your country behaves. i may also talk about 'them' and by doing so i dont wish to condemn the whole of america, just those in charge. i apologise in advance if anyone is offended.) i got extremely angry at this speech. the gist of it seemed to be, 'i am fantastic, america is fantastic, anyone who doesnt think so will be bombed. and they dont even have to have bombed us first. we can do this because we're fantastic'. in case you hadnt noticed, america has "saved a people from starvation; and freed a country from brutal oppression." im not so sure the aid agencies trying to get food to the starving would agree that a people has been saved from starvation. and im pretty sure that had the country's infrastructure not been bombed to pieces, getting aid in would be a lot easier. im not saying that america was wrong to bomb afghanistan (well, it was, but thats not the point), and im not saying that it is totally america's fault, but it cannot take credit for 'saving a people from starvation' when it was american bombs destroying this people's country. (and need i remind anyone of the TWO times american missiles bombed red cross food storage buildings??). as for 'freed a country from brutal oppression', where the fuck were the americans when this 'brutal oppression' first came into force in the mid-90s? they only got involved AFTER they had been attacked, so you cannot claim that it was an act of liberation when it was clearly an act of brutality in itself. an act of brutal revenge, which has now killed more innocent civilians than were killed on sept.11th. Monkeyboy also referred to the 'detainees' in cuba. "Terrorists who once occupied Afghanistan now occupy cells at Guantanamo Bay". now, sorry if i dont understand these free, just and democratic values for which America stands, but having the leader of the free world declare prisoners as 'terrorists', (he called them 'killers' last week), while they are still awaiting trial appears to me to be prejudicing any future trial, or are the right to a fair trial and the notion of 'innocent before proven guilty' not values for which you stand, mister bush? however sure he personally is of the guilt of these men, he cannot, and should not, speak of them in such a way until they have been convicted of a crime in a court of law. but what the hell can you expect from a country so fucked-up that it both claims to stand up for human rights and still has the death penalty? -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- i could go on for quite a while about all the tiny details in monkeyboy's speech that troubled me, but i think i will get too angry and too boring for anyone to care. and i DO want people to care. people should realise that what america is doing is stupid, dangerous and misguided. i would have hoped that one good thing to come out of sept.11th would be a reaslisation by america as a whole that there is a problem with what their country does in the rest of the world and how it is perceived there. i was hopeful for a while, but now it appears that they've learned nothing. its still the same old arrogant rhetoric we have come to expecet from a president who probably has help tying his shoelaces. sorry for going on at length, its just that this really REALLY annoys me. if you want to see the speech in full, its at http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1790000/1790537.s... and apologies again if anyone was offended by my demonising of america. it was not meant as a condemnation of everyone and everything american. love mike.xx ps - and on a lighter note, belle and sebastian in april! yipee! :o) _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+