Watch the state of the union address? Nah, neither did I. At this stage, I won’t give Bush the satisfaction of irritating me for the better part of an hour. (I understand the word “strong” was employed more than once. How novel.) This has become such a highly ritualized tradition that I feel as though I watched it anyway. I mean, since Reagan (the cardboard commander-in-chief), the state of our union has always been “strong,” regardless of what horrible hell-disaster the president had propelled us into during the previous year. 
There is seemingly always some anecdotal tidbit about a soldier or a mother or a small business owner or a virtuous immigrant who just happens to be seated next to the first lady. No real new information is imparted, since the previous week is choked with trial balloons sent off from the White House to preview all new policy proposals. So aside from bad television, there is no meaningful content… though that doesn’t stop the various news organizations from yammering about it for days afterward (when they’re not talking about who is and is not running for president next year).
Not that any of them care what I think, but I think they should be concentrating more on the impending war against Iran, which is seeming more inevitable all the time. I mean, a carrier battle group added to the Gulf fleet, an admiral in charge of middle east operations, attacks against Iranian diplomats and other personnel in Iraq? Sounds like provocation mode to me. Have the major media taken note of the catastrophe in Iraq they report on each day with clinical detachment? I mean, don’t they feel as though they should give us a head’s up when a very similar danger is fast approaching? I presume they would fight to be the first to tell us that another Katrina-scale hurricane was bearing down on us. Well, what the hell — here comes hurricane Iran: another ill-defined, open-ended conflict in the Persian Gulf, only this time it will be against a relatively functional society with a long record of repulsing well-armed invaders. Where is Anderson Cooper on that one?
It’s happening again. Forget all the lofty mea culpas about the press’s failures during the run-up to the Iraq war. They’re once again performing that vital function of amplifying the administration’s bogus claims about the perils we face from a third-rate power — a nation surrounded by hostile armies (and navies!); a nation under existential threat from both the U.S. and Israel (both of which have the capacity to make good on that threat); a nation that shares a long border with the chaotic clusterfuck we’ve created in Iraq. Our major news organizations should put a freaking laugh track under any administration official that accuses Iran of destabilizing Iraq or of having undue influence in a country that invaded them (with our help). Instead, such claims are treated with seriousness and are seldom subjected to the kind of scrutiny that elevates journalism above public relations. One such failure in a single decade is inexcusable; two is simply criminal.
Peace Machine. With a major peace rally in Washington under way this weekend, I wanted to give a call out to Dennis Kyne, veteran, activist, and member of the band Peace Machine, whose song Ain’t Goin’ Back Again has risen to #28 on Neil Young’s Living With War chart. Dennis is a friend and supporter of Lt. Ehren Watada, on trial for refusing to deploy to Iraq. (Learn more about him at www.thankyoult.org ) Incidentally, Big Green’s The President’s Brain is Missing is now up to #154 on that little list.
luv u,
jp
