[lbo-talk] Language Against Language

Dwayne Monroe idoru345 at yahoo.com
Tue Jan 9 08:17:27 PST 2007


I've noticed that House Speaker Pelosi has intelligently insisted upon using the word "escalation" instead "surge" -- a Rovian, clever monkey term of art -- to describe Bush's newest, pre-failed 'strategy'.

Not long ago, there was a lot of head scratching about how to counter an apparently unstoppable Republican meme factory. Of course, there's much less gnashing of teeth about that these days: reality and harsh necessity are demanding their due.

Still, perhaps the best strategy was always the simplest: refuse to use the words they use and even better, refuse without explanation.

That is, don't argue over terms, quietly replace yours for theirs -- repeatedly -- and let the clashing definitions battle it out in people's minds.

.d.

We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas.

Larry Fine

...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/



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