Language Tridaux
Of course, "Tridaux" is not a real word, but it doesn't matter anymore. Language is out of control. I wanted to watch something making breakfast in the kitchen, and so turned on the news. They were talking about "torture." And how the U.S. put out a position paper saying they do "not torture" people. Then months later a memo was circulating condoning several "interrogation methods" that were "not torture," like exposing prisoners to physical violence, psychological violence, and several methods that the global community generally consider "torture." And then the news (Fox) channel proceeded to not even talk about torture but "special interrogation methods" and when which was appropriate. Was it fair if there was a "ticking time bomb" situation?
Listen: torture, is torture, is torture, is torture. It is never an accepted policy. Never. First of all, it is unreliable. All you big patriots out there consider that. People will say anything under torture. I.e. Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Lots of our intelligence about Iraq was wrong. Why? Oh, prisoners overstated things. They had inflated egos. Or maybe they were tortured and said anything they could think of to make it stop. Listen, if you are a ground agent recognizing that impending disaster is there, might you desperately make the wrong choice for the right reasons? I can see it. I would probably even forgive it. But if people cannot see the difference between that and a blanket-pardon for any U.S. citizen doing what the rest of the world considers not just illegal, but immoral, then you need to think about it some more.
||
posted by mW @ 9:48 AM
Listen: torture, is torture, is torture, is torture. It is never an accepted policy. Never. First of all, it is unreliable. All you big patriots out there consider that. People will say anything under torture. I.e. Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Lots of our intelligence about Iraq was wrong. Why? Oh, prisoners overstated things. They had inflated egos. Or maybe they were tortured and said anything they could think of to make it stop. Listen, if you are a ground agent recognizing that impending disaster is there, might you desperately make the wrong choice for the right reasons? I can see it. I would probably even forgive it. But if people cannot see the difference between that and a blanket-pardon for any U.S. citizen doing what the rest of the world considers not just illegal, but immoral, then you need to think about it some more.
Language Redux
Again, this country has been hornswaggled by the power of language. And the biggest sucker of them all? The media. In the so-called effort to maintain "detached journalism" or "objective reporting" the media has been tricked into using the language of those who are smart enough to know that language controls meaning. What recently reinvigorated my loathing of our current administration and their continual attempt to control public perception is the Blackwater affair in Iraq.
Blackwater is an "independent security contractor." What the fuck does that mean? Come on, think about it. People that are paid to fight in a war? They are not "contractors." They are not a "private security firm." They are called "mercenaries." I'm sorry people, they are mercenaries. Use the right term. But this is nothing new. When the beginning is smoke and mirrors the perpetuation is too. Listen, how many times have you heard "The War on Terror" or "The War in Afghanistan" or "The War in Iraq?" Funny. Only Congress has the power to declare war. Yet Congress has NOT declared war. They authorized the use of force. There is difference. Therefore, there is no "war" in the legal sense. And do you want to know why? If there is a war, there are prisoners of war. If there are prisoners of war, the Geneva Conventions (to which the U.S. is a party) apply and we must respect these prisoners. But we want to torture them for information. But wait, maybe they are criminals and deserve constitutional rights. No. They can't be criminals, because we have no jurisidiction to arrest people out of our country. So thus we invented the "enemy combatant" classification. Yet it was an unconstitutional declaration. The president has no such power to invent such a classification. So before he could be sued, the Republican Congress, as a parting present to the President after being voted out of power, made legal this classifcation after the fact.
But then the "war" which wasn't really a war was declared won years ago when Bush made his triumphant speech before the "Mission Accomplished" banner (and "mission accomplished" is significant because it didn't say victory because there was no war) and we were winners. But then it became obvious the fighting wasn't done and so we had to pretend again we were at war. And at that time, the White House said, we're just "keeping the peace" (a nonsensical term in itself) and if there was "civil war" we're out of there, because we don't want to interfere in such internal disputes (another ridiculous idea considering our involvement there). No, the administration said, we don't want to interfere in that that kind of mess. But then everyone said there was a civil war in fact and then it was all about "insurgency." How convenient.
Is my point not obvious yet? They just keep changing the labels to hide the truth. George Carlin got it right when he compared "shellshock" to "post-traumatic syndrome disorder." The latter lacks the brutal punch of the former. And so the words change the perception. It waters down our outrage. Wake the fuck up America. You're being lied to every day by the words your own government chooses to use because these choice words change the meaning of the message they portend to portray. And the media, right or left, is complicit because they adopt the words verbatim as spoonfed by people who know better. So don't just listen when you hear or read or see the news. Think.
Blackwater is an "independent security contractor." What the fuck does that mean? Come on, think about it. People that are paid to fight in a war? They are not "contractors." They are not a "private security firm." They are called "mercenaries." I'm sorry people, they are mercenaries. Use the right term. But this is nothing new. When the beginning is smoke and mirrors the perpetuation is too. Listen, how many times have you heard "The War on Terror" or "The War in Afghanistan" or "The War in Iraq?" Funny. Only Congress has the power to declare war. Yet Congress has NOT declared war. They authorized the use of force. There is difference. Therefore, there is no "war" in the legal sense. And do you want to know why? If there is a war, there are prisoners of war. If there are prisoners of war, the Geneva Conventions (to which the U.S. is a party) apply and we must respect these prisoners. But we want to torture them for information. But wait, maybe they are criminals and deserve constitutional rights. No. They can't be criminals, because we have no jurisidiction to arrest people out of our country. So thus we invented the "enemy combatant" classification. Yet it was an unconstitutional declaration. The president has no such power to invent such a classification. So before he could be sued, the Republican Congress, as a parting present to the President after being voted out of power, made legal this classifcation after the fact.
But then the "war" which wasn't really a war was declared won years ago when Bush made his triumphant speech before the "Mission Accomplished" banner (and "mission accomplished" is significant because it didn't say victory because there was no war) and we were winners. But then it became obvious the fighting wasn't done and so we had to pretend again we were at war. And at that time, the White House said, we're just "keeping the peace" (a nonsensical term in itself) and if there was "civil war" we're out of there, because we don't want to interfere in such internal disputes (another ridiculous idea considering our involvement there). No, the administration said, we don't want to interfere in that that kind of mess. But then everyone said there was a civil war in fact and then it was all about "insurgency." How convenient.
Is my point not obvious yet? They just keep changing the labels to hide the truth. George Carlin got it right when he compared "shellshock" to "post-traumatic syndrome disorder." The latter lacks the brutal punch of the former. And so the words change the perception. It waters down our outrage. Wake the fuck up America. You're being lied to every day by the words your own government chooses to use because these choice words change the meaning of the message they portend to portray. And the media, right or left, is complicit because they adopt the words verbatim as spoonfed by people who know better. So don't just listen when you hear or read or see the news. Think.
Labels: Bush, Iraq, language, politics, representation, words
|| posted by mW @ 10:16 PM[top]
All Rights Reserved © 2005-2010