Sinister: look into my eyes. its the only you'll know i'm telling the truth.

[Michael Grant]

-------------------------
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.stm
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)

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