by Bryan Zepp Jamieson 6/26/02 http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/VRWC/newspeak.htm
The RNC fax machines spit out an imaginative one last week. No longer were the Palestinian suicide bombers to be referred to as “Palestinian suicide bombers.” They were to be referred to as “homicide bombers” and all the minnows on the right dutifully veered as one and started using this ridiculous new phrase.
Some genius thought that since the intent of the bombers was to kill Israelis, they should be called homicide bombers. That way, they could be simply dismissed as being cowardly criminals, and nobody, particularly Israel, would have to deal with the embarrassment of explaining why they are so fiercely hated that young women and children are willing to give their lives in the hopes of killing some Israelis.
It isn’t nasty, like the clowns who say that anyone who asks, “Why are there suicide bombers?” is being sympathetic to the bombers. It’s just stupid. It takes the most glaring example of the depth and intractability of middle east hatred and tries to make it a marketing problem, and of course, it fails miserably.
There’s been a spate of Newspeak from the right wing of late. In itself, that’s nothing new. This is, after all, the party that delivered such memes as “Peace with Honor,” and “You can’t solve social problems by throwing money at them.” The GOP has always been a party that floated on a sea of fatuous crap.
But as things worsen, the amount, richness, and ph balance of the GOP propaganda has reached truly bovinian proportions. So other recent examples:
When the EPA produced its report a couple of months ago that stripped away the last pretense that global warming was anything other than a pending disaster caused by our own actions, even that was couched in Newspeak. It wasn’t a disaster that might kill millions and perhaps billions of people: it was an opportunity; an opportunity for American ingenuity and adaptability and stick-to-it-iveness, a clarion call for us to rise above the petty annoyances of a few extra warm days and stride forward, led by our brave captains of industry.
OK, it wasn’t quite that over the top, but the tone was along those lines. Global warming wasn’t a problem, it was an opportunity.
Opportunities like that don’t come along often, you know. Thanks to the Republicans, we’ve had the opportunity to toughen up the old lungs with everything from diesel exhaust to asbestos fiber. Oh, the Republicans didn’t directly cause those things, don’t get me wrong. But they just want to show us how we can appreciate them better. Some capitalist took risks and worked hard to give you the opportunity to cope with nuclear waste. The least you can do is show a little appreciation, young man.
The EPA did show a little intelligence in their propaganda, though. They needed to talk about possible effects of global heating, so instead of talking about coastal cities drowning, entire cultures in the Pacific and in the north being annihilated, millions of deaths from disease, and even more from starvation, they talked about how global warming could cause some wetlands in the Rockies to dry up.
Yes, the Rockies has wetlands. Mountain meadows.
But right wingers see wetlands as everything that’s wrong with environmental protection. They all have sob stories about some developer who couldn’t bulldoze because there was some sort of snail unique to the wetland, or whine piteously about some small beleaguered farmer – ADM or Tyson, perhaps, who can’t plant potatoes in the swamp because it’s a wetland. Cue sounds of loud Republican sobbing. Right wingers hate wetlands. And love farmers who plant potatoes in swamps.
And in the Rockies, where there are a lot of brain-damaged pseudo libertarian types who listen to Rush all the time and think the Patriot Act will keep government off their backs, they REALLY hate wetlands and environmentalists.
Funny that the EPA would pick THAT as an example, isn’t it?
The joke goes that among the dour Presbyterians of Scotland, a favorite saying is, “It’ll imprrrrove yer moral character.” This catch-all phrase is administered to anyone sharing in one of life’s little tribulations, like a broken back, or finding out that your old lady has been entertaining the French army on the side.
Republicans don’t mind the concept of suffering, just so long as it improves yer moral character. Why, they could spend all day watching you suffer, and as for your moral character, well, they will be wanting to give yeh a wee bit o’ help there too, laddie.
Nothing wrong with their moral character, of course. And they can prove it. They’re rich, aren’t they? Well, there you go! Proof of superior moral character.
If the attitude of the Republicans that we should be prepared, as loyal patriots, to rise above the challenges they have dropped in our laps seems a bit condescending, hypocritical and flamboyantly stupid, imagine this:
Christine Whitman is prepared to defend toxic sludge in the Hudson River. Most Republicans, at the most, have no opinion on toxic sludge in the Hudson River. They don’t live in New York, and unless they happened to die in the Twin Towers disaster, they don’t much care if New Yorkers live or die. But most of them wouldn’t defend toxic sludge, even if it was profitable. They would just study their shoes, and after a few minutes, start talking about what a moral disgrace Clinton was.
But Whitman, who is rapidly turning into a Goering-like buffoon for this administration, has a new take on it.
Toxic sludge is good for the fish in the Hudson river because it reduces their appetite (eating toxic sludge apparently will do that for you – perhaps they should consider making diet pills from it) and as everyone knows, fish that aren’t hungry don’t get caught by fishermen!
Personally, I think the Republicans are missing a bet. They should combine the two rationales, and explain that the sludge will provide the fish with a challenge, and improve their moral character! Not only are the fish being protected from the sort of people who would want to eat a fish filled with toxic sludge, but they are learning to avoid foods that are bad for them, and of course, the stress of their physical involvement will cause them to evolve, and grow poisonous tentacles and lasers and become intelligent, and someday rise up and overthrow the evil land dwellers.
Actually, Christine might want to soft-pedal that last one a bit. A lot of her followers don’t believe in evolution and get annoyed if you suggest it might actually exist.
We won’t even talk about the twin meltdowns in the economy and foreign policy, and will have to leave domestic policy until a time when I have time to write a couple of hundred pages.
But in keeping with proud Republican tradition, let’s give you an utterly absurd example so you, too, can pass it along to your fellow drunks at the bar while complaining about Hillary Clinton:
When we get to the point where intelligent fish are walking along the streets of New York wearing bombs with which they are blowing up passersby, it is incorrect to talk about suicide fish who are pissed and desperate because we screwed up their environment. They are positively-challenged Piscean -Americans who have availed themselves of the opportunities presented by American industry to become homicide bombers.
What do you mean, “that’s crazy”? Look, I don’t see what is so hard about this...
************************************** "The trouble with capitalism is that it has capitalists.
They're just too damned greedy"
-- Herbert Hoover
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