Baby it's cold outside, analysis of George Bush’s state of the union address

Following my previous post on Adam Curtis’s documentary the power of nightmares, I am going to elucidate in this post some real examples on what he does mean by politics of fear, baby it’s cold outside strategy, in other terms how politics do scare the public in order to keep them under their control. I can’t think of a better example than George Bush (although many politicians do the same, but he does it extremely well ;) I will analyze some sentences from his last state of the union address.

We know with certainty that the horrors of that September morning were just a glimpse of what the terrorists intend for us, unless we stop them.

The evil that inspired and rejoiced in 9/11 is still at work in the world. And so long as that is the case, America is still a nation at war

In these sentences, it is clear his manipulation to keep the panic spread among the Americans, so he can justify any military budget or the continuous losses in the American army in Iraq. It is very interesting how he uses the analogy of good and bad, evil and God to appeal to one specific sector of the American society, this sentence is directed to some of the religious groups that do support him, they see the world in this perspective God vs. evil, we are the good and they are the bad. (this applies to any religion fanatics as we see in Al-Qaeda discourse)


Our success in this war is often measured by the things that did not happen.


This is one of my all-time favorite logical fallacies, how one can measures success by something that has not occurred?? Like saying: I am successful person because I overcame my handicap which I have never had.


Al Qaeda and its followers are Sunni extremists possessed by hatred and commanded by a harsh and narrow ideology.

These men are not given to idle words, and they are just one camp in the Islamist radical movement. In recent times, it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East.

The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat.

Bush distinguish between Shia and Sunni for the first time ever, this is a very interesting point, I think this is just a maneuver to let people believe that the number of USA’s enemies is greater than ever, and all of them are actually planning to do harm to the Americans. So instead of al-Qaeda, there are Sunnis, Shiaas and much more people who want to do harm to them.


Take almost any principle of civilization, and their goal is the opposite.


To start, what are the principles of civilization? And which ones “the extremists” are against? This logic is suitable for bed time stories for 5 year old children, because it actually encourages their imagination ;)


They want to kill Americans, kill democracy in the Middle East and gain the weapons to kill on an even more horrific scale.


So, they want to kill the Americans, kill the democracy in Middle East and after that they will kill on much horrific scale!! What a nice fairy tale ;)

Actually, many of these political discourse’s strategies are well known psychoanalytic defense mechanisms as splitting and projective identification, maybe I will explain this point in the near future…

Andre