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
The Buck Stops Where?
For almost as long as the Iraq Civil War raged post-invasion, critics have called for (now former-) Defense Secretary of State's resignation. Ultimately, it came. "Scooter" Libby was just convicted for lying about the revelation of a CIA operative's identity. The White House blamed the CIA for "intelligence failures" regarding the status of Iraq pre-invasion, yet when one puts together all the information available it is quite clear that they knew this going into the matter. The NSA has got into trouble over its warrantless wiretapping, and now, FBI surveillance has been found to have transgressed the already broad powers provided by the Patriot Act. Then, of course, there is the flap over the federal prosecutors fired for not persecuting democrats. (And don't get me started on how this affected my Congressperson, William Jefferson.)
So when is America going to ask who's responsible? Are all these high-level secretaries and chiefs of staff just rogue agents, acting alone? Or is it an orchestrated theater of deception and misuse of power? Personally, I see a pattern, and it doesn't take a genius to see it. When Democrats stormed back to control of both houses of Congress, Republicans first response was well, you better not use this as a bogus political haymaker to impeach Bush. Why not? Clinton lied about where he put his penis-an act that physically hurt no one and emotionally hurt only a few-and his credibility was so under attack that he was impeached and almost forced from office. Bush's lies (yes multiple) put this country into an unnecessary war, killing thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis, created civil war in a country where order had once ruled (albeit not the best kind of order, but most likely more importantly here an order that was opposed to American goals). Now the whole Middle East is destabilized while the U.S. reels from a series of high level political scandals, and economic fraternizing that led to commercial favoritism over results, which left America with problems like substandard construction in military projects overseas (to aid companies friendly to the White House) and amazingly poor health care for those men and women who have sacrificed in those same places (e.g., the Walter Read situation).
So when do we ask where the Buck stops? And when do we decide that where a man or woman puts their private parts and who they decide to share such experiences with, are much less important than waging wars on other countries and affecting the outcomes of real people's lives just to make a few bucks on the side, to make a friend happy (so he can make the money), or even through misguided good intentions? Even if wholeheartedly done to better America and the world, when do the rest of us get to say, you've gone to far and betrayed everything you were trying to protect?
I say now.
So when is America going to ask who's responsible? Are all these high-level secretaries and chiefs of staff just rogue agents, acting alone? Or is it an orchestrated theater of deception and misuse of power? Personally, I see a pattern, and it doesn't take a genius to see it. When Democrats stormed back to control of both houses of Congress, Republicans first response was well, you better not use this as a bogus political haymaker to impeach Bush. Why not? Clinton lied about where he put his penis-an act that physically hurt no one and emotionally hurt only a few-and his credibility was so under attack that he was impeached and almost forced from office. Bush's lies (yes multiple) put this country into an unnecessary war, killing thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis, created civil war in a country where order had once ruled (albeit not the best kind of order, but most likely more importantly here an order that was opposed to American goals). Now the whole Middle East is destabilized while the U.S. reels from a series of high level political scandals, and economic fraternizing that led to commercial favoritism over results, which left America with problems like substandard construction in military projects overseas (to aid companies friendly to the White House) and amazingly poor health care for those men and women who have sacrificed in those same places (e.g., the Walter Read situation).
So when do we ask where the Buck stops? And when do we decide that where a man or woman puts their private parts and who they decide to share such experiences with, are much less important than waging wars on other countries and affecting the outcomes of real people's lives just to make a few bucks on the side, to make a friend happy (so he can make the money), or even through misguided good intentions? Even if wholeheartedly done to better America and the world, when do the rest of us get to say, you've gone to far and betrayed everything you were trying to protect?
I say now.
Labels: Bush, impeach, Iraq, politics, responsibility
|| posted by mW @ 12:30 PM[top]
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