The Ugly Un-American: The Politics of Words
Posted by Ray Church on 05.19.2006
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names get me elected.
Look, I love words. I use them to write, to critique, and I even make a living by teaching other people how to use them. But when words exist without ideas and actions to back them up, they are worthless. Poetry, prose, criticism, comedy and even political speeches without great ideas (or emotions, in the case of poetry) beneath them are impotent.
So it pisses me off that politics, which should be about guiding our collective lives, has become about words and not about ideas. We are so obsessed with certain words that we forget all about what they actually mean.
He Who Controls the Label, Controls the Dialogue.
Dehumanising the victim makes things simpler… It eases the conscience of even the most conscious and calculating violator.
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy "Language of Violence"
In the book of Genesis, one of the rewards Adam was given for being the alpha male (quite literally) was that he had the right to name things.
"That is a rat" he said. "That is a pig. That ugly thing I think I will call a sloth". Or, at least, so the story goes.
The prize that is given to the alpha male in politics is the right to define what words mean. Why, for example, is the word "liberal" used in the same way you might call someone "a person who has sexual relations with their mother"? Why is it so terrible to be called a radical? Surely, if the world is as bad as people say it is then surely a radical change is what is needed? Reactionary? Wouldn't it be worse if someone didn't react? If something is biting your kneecap off, and you keep your knee there, then surely non-reactionary would be the insult. What they object to is "bad" reactions, or reactions that take place without thought (knee-jerk reactions).
This is all a game of words, obviously, just as how I inevitably had to use the words "Conservative Christian" and "Extreme Right" in previous columns. We need to call the group something…
The problem is that many words in politics have become a short circuit to actual thought. How many times have we heard someone called "the most liberal (or conservative) man (or woman) in politics? How do you measure that?
Well here are a few quick pointers on how that happens. If you vote with the Democrats, you must be a liberal, and if you vote with the Republicans, you must be a conservative.
In reality? This means a Republican who confesses they believe in balancing the budget is actually a liberal when they vote against tax cuts. A Republican who cries about big government is actually a liberal if they vote against the Patriot Act. I've been trying to look for a liberal equivalent, but 6 years out of power it is a bit hard to remember here, so forgive me (or remind me).
It's not a new thing. America still cringes at the word "Marxism", even though the cold war has been over for 15 years. Did you ever read about Marxism? Communism? Chances are you were told (as even I was in the supposedly liberal New Zealand) that communism was about the government controlling everything, about totalitarianism and Godlessness. Were there elements of that? Well, Stalin sure was a prick and Mao did some ugly things, but Marx was a philosopher. He didn't make the system, just the ideas. By dismissing Marx because of those who came after him, we miss a relevant critique of capitalism.
Ah, and there's another word: Capitalism. A word we apply to the evil empire and Enron and companies that leave oil slicks across the seas, but for some reason we don't apply to the small family owned superette (drug store, I believe you Americans call it) on the corner.
The point is that a simple word can silence a true debate. Kerry, of course, was a "flip flopper", so we didn't need to actually know what he voted for or why. McCain? Well Bush eliminated him from the Republican primaries by insinuating he was insane and that the "black daughter" you may see by his side was illegitimate.
And McCain is another example. The Maverick? The Straight-talk Express? People are up in arms at the moment because he is selling out to the right. Guess what? McCain is a not a Democrat. Democrats wish he was but guess what, he's a Republican and he's a politician.
This is a guy who, after all, endorsed President Bush instead of John Kerry, even though Bush basically took his reputation and dragged it through the mud. He stood beside him and when reporters asked why he basically responded "well, that's all in the past now".
Have You Stopped Beating Your Wife Yet?"
Thank you in advance to Jason Easley for some references on this part of the column. He pointed me in the direction of some excellent materials on the process known as framing.
Look at the question above. There is no way you can reply to it and not be an asshole. You are either a former wife-beater, or an unrepentant wife-beater. There is no way to answer without incriminating yourself.
Likewise, most politics is framed in such a way that you cannot answer without incriminating yourself further. If you are against abortion you must be against the reproductive rights of women. If you don't believe in the death penalty you are soft on crime. If you are for or against affirmative action, you must be a racist of some form.
I could go on. In fact I will.
If you don't give clean needles to drug addicts, you must be against poor people, and if you do want to give clean needles to drug addicts you must be for drugs. You don't have tax cuts; you have tax relief, implying that taxes are an unfair burden. When you die, you're not subject to an estate tax; you will be hit with a death tax which unfairly prevents you from passing on your billions to your descendants.
Immigration, the topic de jour is one that is entirely about framing the question. One side has played the "moral equivalency" game; if you support illegal immigration then you must support other illegal activities as well. They equate jumping the border with murder and theft as if they are equal crimes. The other side has played the racism card, accusing people of being anti-immigration because they were anti-hispanic. (This is a non-sequitor, but unfortunately has a degree of truth behind it. See "Open Mouth, Insert Foot" below).
Conservatives, of course, have been far more successful on the whole thing. Liberals talk about the "right to choose" as if children are a commodity. Like hotdogs. You can choose if you want a hotdog and you can choose if you don't want a hotdog. You can choose to have pickles and mustard and onions on that hotdog. You can even choose to have vanilla ice cream on that hotdog and if, half way through the hotdog you decide you don't want the hotdog you can choose to throw it away.
Conservatives chose a far more powerful word, life.
This right to life, of course, only seems to apply to abortion and euthanasia. It has nothing to do with deaths caused by poverty, disease, or capital punishment. It definitely has nothing to do with the rights to life of people in foreign countries that your government has declared war on.
The Democratic response is often to play into the word games and try to argue within those ideas. Witness Hillary Clinton proving that she is Patriotic by attacking flag burning, or demeaning kids these days "think work is a four letter word" because that will prove she has moral values. (You mean it isn't a four letter word? Are you going to make me write the word potato with an "e" again?)
Using the opponent's definitions simply doesn't work.
Here's what I would do. Call their bluff. You want to talk about moral values? How about poverty? How about corporate greed? How about the gap between the rich and the poor? How about the people who can't afford healthcare? What are you going to do about them? What about the minimum wage? What about the education system? Aren't these moral issues as well? How about the 1% of the population that controls 40% of the wealth?
You want to talk about patriotism? How about making America something worth being proud of? How about improving the system in America so people won't feel the need to burn flags? How about removing corruption in Washington DC so that you can talk about the values of the founding fathers without those pangs of guilt you feel?
There I go, a foreigner telling American's how to be patriotic. I tell you what, I'll go back to slagging off politicians.
"He's a Man Who Calls a Spade a Digging Implement.
Politics is a place where phrases are redefined. Like recession to necessary downturn. Crude oil on a beach to mousse. Civilian death to collateral damages. And being killed by your own army is now called friendly fire.
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy "Television: The Drug of the Nation"
A euphemism, for those who don't know, is where you say something in such a way that it ceases to be offensive. Like saying "passed away" instead of died.
On one level it's a way to avoid those nasty things we don't want to talk about, but the knock against politicians is they do it so often that they never really say what they mean.
Take John Kerry, for example. I almost believe that he deserved to lose that election. Yes, Bush is a terrible president. He's incompetent. He makes terrible decisions. He's a weak thinker. He's a liar. But Kerry? He couldn't even answer a simple question.
"Knowing what you know now, do you regret voting for the war?"
The answer is yes. Any reasonable thinking person would regret it. It was a stupid decision. You didn't demand enough from your president. You regret it. End of story.
So what does Kerry say? "I voted against the war before I voted for it"
Or how about the word mislead? Bush never lied, he mislead. Look up those words in a dictionary. They are synonyms. It's like saying "it's not blue, it's azure". No politician could bring themselves to use the word "lie" when it came to George Bush.
He lied. He lied about WMD's. He lied about his service in the National Guard. He lied about the connection between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. He lied about his arrest for drunk driving. He lied about funding for No Child Left Behind. He lied about knowing Jack Abramoff and how well he knew Ken Lay. He lied. He lied. He lied.
But Democrats were so scared of offending people that they have all but become liars themselves. Take the whole furor about investigating the president if they gain control of the House of Representatives? "Impeachment is off the table" Nancy Pelosi said.
Is it? Surely what you need is an investigation before you say that the President is not worthy of impeachment. What if you investigate and find out that the guy stabbed a milkman to death with a toothpick? That he secretly ordered the military to nuke Canada? That he secretly caught Osama Bin Laden, partied with him and released him in the hills of Pakistan? Is it still off the table?
The real question is not "should we impeach George Bush?" The real question is "did he do anything that is worthy of impeachment?"
It's one thing to feed the world excrement. It's another thing to feed the world excrement and call it ice-cream. Politics has become a game of not offending people and getting all the voting block ducks in a row. Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil, but that also means speak no truth.
Open Mouth, Insert Foot
When you do hear the truth in American Politics it normally comes when it's not intended. A classic example is when Barbara Bush was asked about Katrina victims and responded:
"Almost everyone I've talked to says, 'We're gonna move to Houston.' What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas... Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality, and so many of the people in the arenas here, you know, were underprivileged anyway. This is working very well for them."
It was a faux pas, of course. A mistake. But realize that a statement like that reveals a lot about the speaker. Barbara Bush was disconnected from the people. She didn't see victims, she saw people getting a hand out. See! Compassionate conservatives do give people a hand up!
Ahh! Compassionate conservatism! I'll get to you soon.
It is often when they speak in error that politicians reveal the most truth. Bush's frequent tongue wrestling with English language? A man of the people? No, he's a shallow thinker pretending to be a deep thinker. Notice that his slips of the tongue happen most often when he is unscripted. When his lines are prepared, he is much more competent. When he doesn't have a script, or when he improvises, he talks about OBGYN's sharing their love. His incompetence has since been writ large in his public policy, but it was revealed much earlier by his language.
The tempest of racism lying behind the immigration debate? Just smoke by the pro-immigration lobby? Maybe, but the language of those most ardently opposed to immigration often exposes an unconscious level of racism.
John Gibson, for example, recently included a request for white people to have more children so white people will not become a minority in America.
The other way to say that, of course, is that white people must remain the majority. Minorities are bad things. That's for people of colour, not for white folk.
Did he even consider that there would be people listening who weren't white? (The irony for me is that I, even as a white person, would produce children of colour because, wait for it… my wife is not white).
Gibson, of course, is not representative of the vast majority of voices in the immigration debate. He's about as representative of the conservative voice on immigration as Ward Churchill is the liberal voice on 9/11.
So let's look at the Minute Men instead. The minutemen are the mighty force defending America's borders and they categorically deny any racism in their ideals, and that's fine. I am certain that many believe that they are trying to protect the country and doing the best that they can.
The problem is that there are really two forms of racism. There is the obvious and overt form; the KKK burning crosses outside the homes of African Americans, the people who attacked Hindus and Sikhs because they mistook Indians for the Arabs they blame for 9/11, President Nixon saying of Jews "you can't trust the bastards" and Pat Buchanan claiming that "the Communist Chinese government has the secret loyalty of millions of 'overseas Chinese' from Singapore to San Francisco".
But there is another form of racism, unconscious racism; the racism that lies underneath the veneer of politeness. The people that claim they have a good friend who is black, or my mother who once introduced my wife as "his Chinese wife" (I immediately took this up as an offer to marry one wife from each race on the planet). My mother is not a terrible person, but she does suffer from subliminal racism. She's learning, but she comes from a generation that made firm judgments about people based on their race.
Another example is Tony Snow, the White House Press Secretary who recently made a point that he didn't want to grab the "tar-baby". It's a great metaphor, the imagery obviously strong, but it ignores the fact that the word tar-baby is slang for African American's. Is Snow racist? Maybe. The fact that he is using a metaphor from the maligned "Song of the South", which painted a far too rosy picture of slavery is more evidence. He holds fond memories of what is, effectively, a racist story, just as my mother used to read to me stories about naughty gollywogs from the Noddy books. Does it make Snow a bad person? No, but he has issues to face.
And so I finally get to the Minute Men, who I believe are, likewise, unconsciously racist. In the space of one article on their Internet website, for example, I found no less than 5 different words used to talk about Undocumented Aliens; Undocumented Aliens, UDA's, Mexicans, Illegal Immigrants, and Illegals.
Now, I have no problems with the words Undocumented Aliens. Aliens, as sci-fi as it sounds, is the clinical term for what is happening and, yes, they are undocumented. UDA I'm OK with as well, but I never like referring to people as acronyms. It's like giving people numbers instead of names. However, they need to find a way to avoid typing the unwieldy Undocumented Aliens so I'll let that slide.
Some would argue, as wikipedia does, that the word Undocumented negates the idea that the immigrants are doing anything illegal, however I have my own views on the word illegal (see below).
"The Mexicans" is more problematic because it can be ambiguous. Do we mean that all Mexican's are potentially Undocumented Aliens? Are we painting an entire nation with the same brush? And then, of course, we have the point that not all of the Undocumented Aliens are necessarily Mexican. What do we make of those from other parts of Central America who also engage in the border crossing? What about the large number of Chinese who, reportedly, immigrate to Mexico just so they can sneak over the border?
The word illegal immigrant is problematic for me, but it is the accepted word in the debate. I'm not an apologist who disagrees with the word because it conjures up fear and loathing. I disagree because it makes no distinction as to the severity of the crime. If Arnold Schwarzenegger used steroids while he was in the United States, documents or no documents, he was technically an illegal immigrant. If a documented immigrant smokes a joint then technically he is an illegal immigrant.
Now, the word illegal immigrant infers that the illegal action is to do with immigration in some way, so I don't truly have a problem with this, but when you reduce a person down to the word "illegal" I cringe. If the only thing that designates a group of people is the fact they have done something illegal, then the group goes beyond people crossing the Border. Ken Lay is an illegal. George Bush is an illegal. Anyone who has shoplifted, downloaded from Napster, drunken alcohol before the legal age, jaywalked or driven drunk is an illegal.
Even worse was the reference in a later article to "illegal children". Just like illegal immigrant infers that the illegal action was to do with their immigration, illegal children infers that there illegal action has something to do with being children. (For clarification, the article was talking about children who cross the border to go to US schools).
So are the Minute Men the type of racists who will burn crosses or throw stones through a mosque. No. Are they the type that quietly judges a person by the colour of their skin? Who do a double take when they see an interracial couple holding hands? Who just feel uncomfortable because there are too many coloured people around? Some undoubtedly are.
The Key-word Here is Blackwhite
The key-word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of imprudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts.
George Orwell, "1984"
Forget truthiness. As much as I appreciate Stephen Colbert's additions to the English language, the word "blackwhite" had already been coined by George Orwell, and it had approximately the same meaning. What you wish to be true, as opposed to what is.
The best example I can think of for this is the word "Compassionate Conservative", the term Bush used to get him into power. Forget the fact that he failed to change anything about Social Security, or that his Medicare Bill had more to do with paychecks to drug companies than helping the sick. Let's look at his big win "No Child Left Behind".
"No Child Left Behind" did the exact opposite of what it claimed to do. Firstly, it did not receive enough money to do what it said it would do, guaranteeing that there would be children left behind. It encourages teachers to "teach to pass" rather than to "teach to understand". If schools do fail, there is no money given to help them succeed. Instead, if students fail, the school is punished rather than helped (which, again, guarantees that there will be children left behind). In turn this encourages the manipulation of test results (as it did in Texas), increasing the danger of everything from cheating to "roll flushing" (removing students from the roll who don't have a chance of passing).
Or look at the Governator's response to the complaints of the teachers union; he referred to the teacher's union as a "special interest group". A special interest group? What, like the tobacco union or the NRA? We're not talking about people who are paying big money so they can make big money. We are talking about the people who have to carry out the education bills you pass for the terrible money you pay.
But the is what blackwhite is: Defining one thing as something it is not.
How about another word from the same book: Memory Hole. The Memory Hole is where they adjust the records of the past to suit the needs of the present.
Look at Ronald Reagan, who, when forced to responding to his denial about the arms for hostages deal, claimed that "my heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not", or Clinton stating "I did not have sexual relations with that women, Miss Lewinsky." This is blackwhite, fiction as fact.
Compare this to Donald Rumsfeld, who when asked why he lied to get us into war responded he didn't lie and that it appeared there were Weapons of Mass Destruction. Then, this:
RAY McGOVERN: You said you knew where they were?
DONALD RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were, and we were --
Of course that was not what he said. History was revised to suit the message. Much as it did a week later when Bush's pick to head the CIA, Michael Hayden.
GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.
QUESTION: But the --
GEN. HAYDEN: That's what it says.
QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.
GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure
Yes, but it also says probable cause. He also went on to say that "if there is any article of the constitution [the NSA] is familiar with, it's the Fourth". That must make you scared. If the part of the Constitution the NSA knows best is the fourth, and they can't even get that right, just how well do they know that document?
This is, again, a memory hole, much like Bush claiming that all wiretaps require a court order, or O'Reilly stating that he never claimed he received a Peabody Award, or Al Gore claiming that he invented the Internet.
Actually, this last statement is another example of blackwhite. Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet, but he did claim he had a hand in helping to create it. It's a poor choice of words (advancing the Internet would have been better), but his opponents proceeded to say that he claimed to have invented the Internet, but look, the guys who actually designed the protocols went on to defend him so he must have done something right.
And, of course, there is the memory hole created by the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth (there name itself is an example of blackwhite). In a race between a Governor who never went to Vietnam and who never completed his National Guard Service, and a Senator who actually served in Vietnam and received a medal for doing so, how is it that the media focused on allegations against the Senator more than the Governor? Why were the allegations against the Senator given any credence at all when the allegations were proven by military records to be completely false?
So…
I'm trying to think of a solution to these problems. One that is quick, easy and universal. You know what? There isn't one. The only solution is to educate yourself so that you can smell the excrement when it comes. Learn the tricks that are used. You will find a good site here with a list of tricks to look for. All those fancy words like "non-sequitor" and "strawman" argument with nice, explanations of what to look for. And apologies to any scientologists who read this. I'll say hi to xenu for you.
Educate yourself and call the bluff. Challenge the generalizations and ask questions that really search for the root of the problem.
And remember to look for the ideas beneath the words.
Short Shot
You may have noticed from this weeks column that I am an Orwell fan (as well as a Michael Franti fan). Do I believe he predicted the future? In a way, but I'm beginning to think The Simpsons did a pretty good job of it as well.
Take two episodes where Homer is elected to lead a community organization, "Homer the Vigilante" and "Trash of the Titans". In both Homer gets himself elected with a populist slogan "I'm someone else" and "Can't someone else do it?" (Compare with Bush's promise to "restore honour and dignity to the Whitehouse"), and then proceeds to do more harm than good.
In "Homer the Vigilante", inspired by a rash of thefts in Springfield (compare: 9/11), Homer proceeds to impose his own brand of martial law on the town (compare: Patriot Act). Petty crimes are quickly silenced, replaced by brutal sack full of doorknob beatings (compare: Guantanamo Bay). When questioned, he manipulates the media (compare: Fox News, Jeff Guckert /Gannon) with my favourite line, "Statistics can prove anything Kent, 40% of people know that". When his gross incompetence is revealed and he fails to save the cubic zirconia (compare: Katrina), Homer becomes a Pariah and his old man proves to be right all along (compare: George H. W. Bush's decision not to topple Saddam). Oh, and he describes himself as "a doer: someone who will act without considering the consequences".
"Trash of the Titans" is a little more straight-forward. After being elected as the Garbage Commissioner, Homer proceeds to sink the entire budget in one small month (compare: U.S. deficit). After promising to do everything for everyone (compare: Bush's response to Katrina, Bush's response to immigration), quickly covers the entire town in garbage (a great metaphor for any of a number of Bush's failures). Unable to solve the problem, the entire town simply moves away and tries to forget the whole thing ever happened (compare: WMD's, Osama Bin Laden).
So, conclusion? The Simpsons may well be as prophetic as 1984.
"Shut the Hell Up" Award
I almost gave the award this week to John Gibson, who I mentioned earlier, but I couldn't slap him twice in good conscience, no matter how much he deserved it.
Actually I'm going to reach back a bit into last week, which is cheating a bit, but deservedly so. This one goes to Arianna Huffington.
She spent her article busting on John McCain and the Republicans for their political use of religion, and then goes on to say that Democrats have to find a way to relate to the spiritual.
So far, no real issues, but how does she prove her point?
I also looked to the powerful archetypes in my beloved Greek mythology for guidance in my life, especially to the goddess Hestia, as their symbolism is full of wisdom and universal insights.
Ms. Huffington, if you really want to relate to people of faith in America, Jungian references to pantheons that have been dead for 2000 years is not the way. The search for enlightenment, meditation and mysticism are fine for talking to certain sectors of the Democratic Party, but they are not a way for the Democratic Party to reach out to Conservative Religions, especially sectors of the Christian community that view meditation and mysticism as tools of the devil.
It's like a white urban professional thinking they can relate to the black experience because they watched the Cosby Show. If you want to reach out, stop talking, listen for a second and converse. Otherwise you'll come off as nothing more than a white teen pretending to be a black pimp.
Pimps and Ass Kissing
Well, he boss gave me a shout out so I better give him one. If you really think you can kick my ass, Easley, lets do this. Meet you outside at the next Fact or Fiction. One on one. Mano o mano. Let me at 'em. Let me at 'em.
The Individualist managed to find something in Bush that he liked. Bush on immigration? A perfect example of the politics of words.
And, of course, check me out again on this weeks Fact or Fiction. I can't say that Mr Baragona and I truly disagreed on much, which I guess is why we are all getting accused of being liberals around here. Maybe it's just because the answers are so obvious.
STAY CURRENT