writing in the 21 June edition of the London Independent:[Following the latest in semantics on the news? Journalism and the Israeli government are in love again. It's Islamic terror, Turkish terror, Hamas terror, Islamic Jihad terror, Hezbollah terror, activist terror, war on terror, Palestinian terror, Muslim terror, Iranian terror, Syrian terror, anti-Semitic terror...
But I am doing the Israelis an injustice. Their lexicon, and that of the White House – most of the time – and our reporters' lexicon, is the same. Yes, let's be fair to the Israelis. Their lexicon goes like this: Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror, terror.
How many times did I just use the word "terror"? Twenty. But it might as well be 60, or 100, or 1,000, or a million. We are in love with the word, seduced by it, fixated by it, attacked by it, assaulted by it, raped by it, committed to it. It is love and sadism and death in one double syllable, the prime time-theme song, the opening of every television symphony, the headline of every page, a punctuation mark in our journalism, a semicolon, a comma, our most powerful full stop: (emphasis added)
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/fighting-talk-the-new-propaganda-2006001.html
Terror has become so ingrained in our lexicon and used to cow people into obedience by propaganda on left and right that has become bereft of meaning.
Just peruse latest headlines where empty suits and generals say, "We have to WIN in Afghanistan."
How do they define winning?
By denying safe refuge in Afghanistan to the Taliban to prevent terror from happening in the USA, the land of red, white, and blue--the land of milk and honey.
Even Wikipedia reflects the battles: a search for "Taliban" yields "Taliban Insurgency."
A rhetorical question for y'all: did King George III consider the Americans fighting his rule as insurgents or patriots? So what do you think their brother Pashtuns think of the Taleban?
Consider the case of the poor apostrophe ('), "The text character ’ (used to mark the possessive or to show the omission of letters or number," (emphasis added) now used by every charlatan. huckster, and national nabob when they write or say "the nation's interest."
A nation, by not being a person, cannot own anything that an apostrophe can indicate possession of.
At least "nation's interest" has a bit more meaning than "American self-interest," as the former presumably includes specific institutions like the US government whlie the latter has an amorphous connotation commentators can stretch the metaphor into whatever suits their political or world views.
"American intersts," the "interst of America" and the uber leader of cliches "US national security," all amount to fictions, words strung together to impart some meaning to whatever argument advocated by the person making it.
Whose America indeed? The poor, the sick, the lame, the downtrodden without campaign cash to bribe legislators like can companies endowed with personhood by the Supreme Court?
Just because one writes 'tis does not make it so.
Do not fool yourself into thinking this an unimportant analysis for, "Opinions have caused more ills than the plague or earthquakes on this little globe of ours." (Voltaire as translated at Wikiquote)
Consider, the metaphors above lead to wars.
Wars kill people, human beings whether or not one uses the fiction of "collateral damage" rather than "collateral murder."
Politicians decry and civilians and soldiers--warning, graphic photo of a casualty comes with this link--and insurgents die.
Casualty? Casualty my ass. Ain't nuthin' casual about death or maiming.
As Little Steven said, "True patriotism means questioning every m**********r everytime." (Sis, sorry 'bout the12 letter imprecation; Little Steven said it.)
Image from Anarchtees
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