I would be remiss not to comment, first of all, on the style and delivery of Trump’s second State Of The Union address this past Tuesday night. Plainly, he is terrible at reading from a teleprompter. I don’t know whether it’s a vision issue or some pathology further back in that thick skull of his, but man goddamn, what a horrible read. Beyond that, though, he obviously did not rehearse the speech to any significant degree. It was a rocky road, prosody-wise, for little lord Trump-leroy from beginning to end. An embarrassing performance all around.
As for the content, just a couple of points:
Immigration. Beyond the same lies, distortions, and barely concealed bigotry that usually erupt from his festering maw, Trump used the well-worn SOTU practice of using guests as rhetorical human shields in his argument for the Wall, greater immigration enforcement, and so on. This time it was family members of a U.S. citizen victim murdered by an MS13 member. Of course, Trump could bring in dozens of such cases if he can find them, and it would no more prove his case than this sorry demonstration. People get murdered in America, including a relatively small number at the hands of immigrants. Crucially, his “get tough” policy makes these victims less safe. By rounding up undocumented aliens by the thousands, Trump’s agents are creating a strong disincentive for members of that community to call the cops when they either witness or become victimized by gang activity. Just more evidence that bigotry is not only wrong and immoral – it’s just effing dumb.
Iran Deal. Trump had just told an interviewer a few days ago that he wanted to keep troops on an American base in Iraq to “keep an eye on Iran” – something he apparently failed to discuss with the Iraqi government. Then, in this remarkably poorly-wrought SOTU address, the old man railed against the Islamic Republic, calling it the most prominent state sponsor of terror and accusing it of doing “bad things” in the region. He has adopted the broadly-used imperial rhetoric on Iran, attributing every action carried out by Hezbollah to Tehran. And, of course, they hate Hezbollah because it is an effective fighting force that restricts Israel’s ability to strike Lebanon at will. That’s what we and the Israeli government call “terrorism”. Of course, his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear accord just scotches what was a great deal for the U.S. – a pledge to restrain themselves while we continue to occupy countries on either side of them and threaten them daily. What’s to complain about there?
Oh, right. Obama did it. And John Bolton wants war. How could I have forgotten?
luv u,
jp
Of course it bloody doesn’t! What, point hi-def video cameras at our superannuated faces? Nothing doing. And as far as the archival footage goes, what we have is so rough and so primitive I doubt anyone would be able to interpret the hazy dark shapes on the screen in a way that would suggest real human activity. What director is going to take a bunch of VHS tapes and make a documentary? The idea is ludicrous, and yet Marvin is married to it, much like that time he married that stamp vending machine over at the corner drug store. The only thing that worked about that marriage was when it came to putting postage on the wedding invitations. In that respect, it was a match made in heaven.
Abrams was an essential player in Reagan’s war on Central American peasantry throughout the 1980s. He worked to cover up the hideous El Mozote massacre in El Salvador at the end of 1981, then went on to flak for that murderous government for the balance of his tenure. He defended the mass murderer Rios Montt in Guatemala during that period under the banner of anti-communism – a position he has proudly owned up to ever since, even though the former Guatemalan dictator was posthumously convicted of genocide in his home country (and the United States was called out by the court for supporting him). He was convicted as part of the Iran-Contra prosecution, then pardoned by pappy Bush so that he could soldier on into junior’s administration and make a mess of our policy toward Haiti, Israel Palestine, and everything else he could get his greasy hands on.