[nukkad] fwd: THE SPEECH GEORGE W. BUSH COULD GIVE:

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THE SPEECH 
GEORGE W. BUSH COULD GIVE: 

By Doug Morris

Good evening, my fellow Americans. 

St. Augustine said that “hope has two beautiful
daughters: anger and courage. Anger at the way things
are, and courage to struggle to create things as they
should be.” These acts perpetrated against humanity
today were acts of anger at the way things are. They
were not courageous acts, but horrendous atrocities,
acts of anger laced with hate. Our first response must
be support and compassion for the victims, and
families and friends of the victims. But, in addition,
we should ask ourselves “what conditions led these
fellow humans to develop such anger and hatred, led
them to commit such abominably inhumane acts, and why
was it directed at these particular targets in the
United States?” 

 

We should not repress our anger and indignation at
these hateful and callous acts, or our anger and
indignation at all hateful and callous acts, but our
anger must be accompanied not by hate, but with love,
and by the courage to struggle to create a more just
world, and THAT my fellow Americans will require a
major effort to question, understand, challenge,
change and raise OUR national consciousness. Please,
my fellow Americans, listen with open ears, open minds
and open hearts. 

 

While no loving and decent human will tolerate acts of
terror, we must try to understand the extremely
difficult question: why? For example, what is the
symbolic significance of the Pentagon and the World
Trade Center in the eyes of the world? And here, my
fellow Americans we must search deep into our own
history, our own policies, our own pursuits, our own
impositions, and, our own hearts. It is painful, but,
let us be blunt: the war against terrorism has begun,
violently. The two most potent symbols of global
military and economic violence, global military and
economic terrorism, have been struck. These were
cowardly and unconscionable acts, to be sure, and, as
in most acts of terror, the innocent suffer most, the
working class, the toiling class. We must launch a war
against terrorism, non-violently. A.J. Muste,
committed pacifist, advised us that in a world built
on violence “we must be revolutionaries before we are
pacifists.” That is, we must work to abolish the
institutions of violence, non-violently. 

 

However, make no mistake, my fellow Americans, the
Pentagon IS the center of world military violence and
terrorism. The US is the world’s leading exporter of
tools of death and destruction. Let us be honest, we
have been committed to violence as a way to address
international conflicts for many, many years. And a
PARTIAL list of the results of our commitment to
violence includes: Korea – millions killed. Vietnam –
millions killed. Cambodia – hundreds of thousands
killed. Laos – hundreds of thousands killed. Iraq –
hundreds of thousands killed. Guatemala – hundreds of
thousands killed. Hiroshima and Nagasaki – hundreds of
thousands killed. East Timor – hundreds of thousands
killed. Nicaragua – tens of thousands killed. El
Salvador – tens of thousands killed.  Colombia – tens
of thousands killed. Dominican Republic – thousands
killed. Somalia – thousands killed. Haiti – thousands
killed. Yugoslavia – thousands killed. Panama –
hundreds killed. And let us not forget the ways in
which we have mistreated the Cuban people for over 40
years now with our embargo and repeated acts of
terrorism. Let us remember my father’s words during
the buildup to the US attack on Iraq: “there will be
no negotiations…what we say goes.” “No negotiations”
simply means we prefer violence. “What we say goes”
expresses the arrogance, chauvinism and mystique of
invincibility that has separated the US from the
world. Both views express the notion that the US is
above international law and the UN Charter, outside
the family of nations. Is it any wonder that Harvard
professor Samuel Huntington said that in the eyes of
most of the world the US is seen as “THE rogue
superpower,” considered “THE single greatest external
threat to their societies”? The world quakes in its
boots wondering when we will attack, and what form of
violence will ensue: cruise missiles, helicopter
gunships, chemical or biological agents, nuclear
bombs, F18’s, F22’s, B52’s, fumigation campaigns,
IMF/World Bank “Structural Adjustment Programs,” or
“Austerity Programs,” embargoes, sanctions,
disappearances, assassinations, massacres, tortures,
cultural cooptation or erasure, etc., etc., etc. 

 

The Bible warns us: “what ye sew, ye shall reap.” 
Today, sadly, we have experienced what we have sewn on
much of the world. Today, as a country, we have
learned that raining death and destruction on another
country creates a toll far higher than simply
destroyed buildings and dead bodies. Today our freedom
came under attack. We thought we were free to impose
military and economic violence anywhere we chose, with
impunity. The freedom from impunity appears to no
longer exist. The World Court attempted to sanction
the US for our commitment to violence but the Reagan
Administration claimed that the World Court had no
jurisdiction over our actions. Yes, we have been, and
we are a rogue state, and, my fellow Americans, it
must stop! 

 

Tonight, my fellow Americans we must raise a call of
humility, a humility that does not in any way diminish
humanity, but a humility that raises the respect for,
and dignity of, all people, a humility that allows us
to celebrate all human life. It is time that we joined
the world, not as its major purveyor of violence and
destruction, but as a peaceful participant who will
work to end violence, end racism, end classism, end
sexism, rather than increase them.  The proposed
Pentagon budget, the “violence” budget, for next year
is $330 billion dollars. I am tonight proposing an
immediate 50% decrease in this spending that promotes
violence, and calling for a redistribution those funds
to help ameliorate problems of hunger, poverty and
poor-health around the world.  It is a call to reach
out with love, and a call to find the courage to
struggle to create a more just, peaceful, healthful
and equitable world, a world in which human creativity
is celebrated rather than the human capacity for great
violence. 

 

Tonight we must call on the world to forgive us OUR
sins, forgive us OUR sordid and calamitous acts of
violence that we have pursued without pause for over
50 years. Let this be the beginning of our
reconciliation with the world. We now, to some degree,
understand the pain, misery and suffering we have
caused, the turmoil we have perpetrated, the hate we
have elicited, the destruction we have imparted, the
physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual scars
and unconscionable hurt we have created and that much
of the world has endured because of our rapacious and
destructive pursuit of wealth, power and privilege at
the expense of human concerns and human lives. We
humbly beg the forgiveness of all humanity, as we pray
that you will offer your support, your compassion,
your understanding, and your love in our time of
suffering, mourning and loss. 

 

This is not a time, as it is never a time, to seek
vengeance, but a time to seek the courage to forgive,
to harbor the power of anger to be used in acts of
love, and to uncover insights that will allow us to
direct our indignation at the institutions of power,
violence and greed, many of which, sadly, are centered
in the US, and begin to transform them in order to
increase our love for the victims of that power,
violence and greed, including those who died and were
injured in the attacks on the Pentagon and the World
Trade Center.

 

When I attended the G8 meetings in Genoa recently I
saw a banner in the street that said “you are 8, we
are 6 billion,” and it struck me deeply. We have
pursued for too long the interests of the few at the
expense of the many. Wealth, privilege and power
inequalities exacerbate every day. We have created,
protected, endorsed and now imposed on the rest of the
world an economic system, symbolized by the World
Trade Center, and protected by the Pentagon, that must
produce and expand in order to profit and survive, an
economic system that treats everything as a commodity
to be exploited whether it is water, food, air, soil,
the rest of the environment, animals, fish, or our
fellow humans, a system that puts corporate profit
interests above human interests. This must stop. We,
who represent and serve power, should have listened
sooner. Let this horrible tragedy serve as our wake up
call. Let us begin tonight to transform this monster
before it is too late. This act of terror, infamous
and abominable, will pale in comparison to the growing
terrors of increasing global militarism of which we
are the primary cause, increased global warming of
which we are the primary cause, and intensifying
environmental destruction of which we are the primary
cause and which may soon make much of the world
uninhabitable for humans, and surely increase human
suffering, misery and death. 

 

If we are to overcome these acts of terror, and more
importantly prevent future acts of terror against
humanity, we must act out of a sense of hope and faith
that the future is unfinished, that it is there to be
created; and, we must be driven by a judicious anger
at the way things are, anger at the monster we have
created, anger that can be harbored in momentous acts
of love, and the courage to struggle in cooperation,
understanding, support and solidarity with the rest of
humanity to create a world in which all will be happy
to live.

 

Tonight, and in the days and weeks to come, we must
find the courage to not only reach out with love and
understanding, but to find the courage to self-reflect
honestly about what WE have done to the world so that
we can understand why things are the way they are, and
what we can and will do to struggle to create things
as they should be – a world of less violence and
greater peace; a world of diminished arrogance and
greater humility; a world where more people do not die
of hunger every two years than were killed in both
World Wars combined, but a world in which all people
have access to the great and nourishing bounties of
the earth; a world of less disease and greater health;
a world of less hate and greater love; a world of less
vengeance and greater understanding; a world of less
greed and greater sharing; a world of less destruction
and greater creativity; a world of less disparity and
greater equality; a world of less fundamentalism and
more progressivism; a world of less mysticism and more
humanism; a world of less criminality and greater
justice; a world of less separatism and more
solidarity; a world in which we live both an examined
life and a committed life; a world of less militarism
and more artistry; a world of less vilification and
more celebration; a world in which life is worth
living; a world in which we understand well the lesson
of Rousseau who said “the fruits of our labor belong
to us; the fruits of the earth belong to everyone;
and, the world itself belongs to no one.”

 

So, in closing, my fellow Americans, allow us to
support one another in our quest through hope, and
anger, and courage, to make love our aim during this
time of crisis, and in the future. And, let us
remember and reflect upon the words stated in
Corinthians 13:1-3: “though I may speak with the voice
of angels; though I may understand all the mysteries;
though I may have all the knowledge; though I may give
all to feed the poor; though I may give my body to be
burned…if I have not love, I have nothing at all.” 

 

Thank you. Good night, and blessings, peace, justice,
solidarity and love for all humanity. 

 

And now, my fellow Americans, in order to assist us in
developing a much deeper understanding of all of these
issues, I have invited MIT professor Noam Chomsky to
share his views. Professor Chomsky will have unlimited
time. Thank you. Professor Chomsky, welcome…


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