On Saturday morning, just before Barack Hussein Obama stepped out from behind the temple veil to reveal his plan to make each of us happier people, MSNBC's Chris Matthews ejaculated that Abraham Lincoln, the great statesman who once governed in Obama's home state, would be dancing for joy at the familiar site of Springfield, Illinois' capitol building; and how it now served as the backdrop to an "African American" announcing his candidacy for the President of the United States. Remember, Matthews gushed, this is where Lincoln said "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Moments later, deep into his own emancipation proclamation -- calling for an end to poverty, promising resolution in Iraq, and freeing us of our fearful dependence on foreign oil and its attendant destruction of the atmosphere -- Mr. Obama said (in bold) this in a list of wondrous deeds Americans have performed as ONE:
"In the face of tyranny, a band of patriots brought an Empire to its knees. In the face of secession, we unified a nation and set the captives free. In the face of Depression, we put people back to work and lifted millions out of poverty. We welcomed immigrants to our shores, we opened railroads to the west, we landed a man on the moon, and we heard a King's call to let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream." [emphasis added]
Of course, the "King" referred to is Martin Luther King, the fallen and iconic civil rights leader.
Perhaps in this age where some do not respect the fences erected around us by the scribes of copyright laws, by the good manners of attribution and the love of one's neighbors' own genius, it is easy to honor the wrong men, the wrong women, even the wrong gods; or to steal for oneself the giftedness of others. Lakes steal from springs and rivers, and rivers abscond with lakes' blue riches, only to find poverty in the sea that robs from the sky as the sky steals back. So great leaders, apparently existing unto themselves where all greatness is apparently shared, are remembered for the great things they have said, even though they did not say them.
Abraham Lincoln may have said, "The house divided against itself cannot stand." And I may have said the same thing in a speech as vice-president of my high school senior class. But I was not quoting Lincoln, and Lincoln was not quoting himself: we were both quoting Jesus Christ the Plagiarized.
And then dear Mr. King, who surely gave the right attribution in his original speech, acknowledging his mentors' gifts to him and their own genius, never did say a thing about "justice rolling down." The Jewish prophet Amos did, a fact Mr. King learned as a Christian in Sunday School.
Clearly Mr. Obama and Chris Matthews have both missed out on these apparent trivialities. Who cares if religious language is stolen for political purposes; who cares if the fullness of genius was found in the prophets who uttered what the world most likely had never before heard? What matters is that it takes a certain amount of genius to plagiarize for political gain; to forget that true justice is rooted in the heart and language of God, and to take His honor for oneself.
(It matters not the source, but the outcome, if you but believe in "destiny.")
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Showing posts with label Politics - Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics - Language. Show all posts
Monday, February 12, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Two Annunciations: MSNBC Supports Barack Hussein Obama, And He Is Not Black (or so says someone)
In a matter of minutes from now (30 minutes), Barack Hussein Obama, the handsome and well-spoken senator from Illinois, shall officially announce his candidacy for President of the United States. Assisting him in this proclamation, and no doubt a supporter of his candidacy, is MSNBC, the cable network featuring such notable political wisemen as Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, and Keith Olbermann. My saying that MSNBC is assisting him is due entirely to the fact that MSNBC is hyping its "live coverage" of Mr. Obama's annunciation with undue alacrity at this moment: MSNBC is giddy about this man. Even Mr. Russert's words on an Imus in the Morning program, words replayed during Mr. Russert's testimony in court the other day -- in the Scooter Libby perjury trial -- are perfectly apt: It was "Christmas Eve" in the newsroom when Libby was indicted. No doubt it is Christmas morning today.
Alas, I have proven rather incompetent in my coverage of the Obama story. For I have not properly secured the facts, though, in this digital age of plastic facts, it is not likely that I could ever pin down any fact, for facts vanish in a flash-media second. But please note that on October 24, 2006, in an essay I wrote about Mr. Obama, I noted that his September 2005 essay posted on the Daily Kos, the influential, self-described leftist blog, had as a banner advertisement the following image:
Please note Mr. Obama's placement in this advertisement. Please note that this ad was present at Mr. Obama's Daily Kos essay months before Mr. Obama even announced his exploratory committee for the presidency. Please note that MSNBC not only placed an advertisement for itself on Mr. Obama's Daily Kos diary, but MSNBC placed Mr. Obama's image adjacent to President Bush's, suggesting, perhaps, that both men are in some sort of great struggle. To MSNBC, Obama is a contender, and this MONTHS before he was indeed a contender. Amazingly, MSNBC threw Mr. Obama's hat into the presidential ring before he had himself.
Or so it looks. Or so it feels.
Unfortunately, I only took a screen shot of the actual ad. I failed to take, and preserve, a screen shot of the ad on the actual Obama page. And as you can see, the ad has been removed from Mr. Obama's essay posted, as it was, on the world's largest blog, a blog entirely devoted to political and sociological liberalism.
But who cares, right? This is, after all, the deliverer we are talking about. The great hope. And in just a little less than an hour, there will be a star over the silent little town of Springfield, Illinois. You know, where Abraham Lincoln once lived.
This is all shaping up to be a perfect little fairy tale, the kind America just loves to tell itself.
MY SKIN IS CLEAR (I think)
Curiously related to all of this mythmaking, and jarring our senses, is this essay ("Colorblind") about Mr. Obama (and race in America in general). It is published on Salon. com, and it is written by a "black" woman, Debra J. Dickerson. Perhaps you saw Ms. Dickerson on "The Colbert Report" earlier this week (in a brilliant interview). Ms. Dickerson's thesis, in case you did not know, is that Mr. Obama is NOT BLACK. I kid you not. His mother, apparently, is a white woman from Kansas, while his dad is from Kenya. That Ms. Dickerson defines blackness in political terms is astonishing: to be black in America means, strictly, to be a direct descendant of former African slaves. During Ms. Dickerson's interview with the thoroughly enjoyable Mr. Colbert, she said that Mr. Obama would be better served if he defined himself -- and I am NOT MAKING THIS UP -- as an African African-American. But he is definitely NOT black.
That this woman, who wrote the book, The End of Blackness, is ruining the great idea of a man with dark skin announcing his presidency from Abraham Lincoln's hometown, you know, the town of that great president who clearly made the first great step for the emancipation of slaves so they could become -- eventually -- candidates for President, is a fact too interesting to let pass unnoticed.
But I ask you: if being black is a political-linguistic term denoting only those who are descendants of actual African slaves imported to America, does it NOT FOLLOW that "white" is equally political, denoting only those who have descended from white slaveholders who imported African slaves to America? I think it does. And if that is the case, then, since there were no slaveholders in my ancestral gene pool, I am not white.
There you go then.
I am not white, and Barack Obama, should he become president, will not be America's first black President.
Go figure.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Alas, I have proven rather incompetent in my coverage of the Obama story. For I have not properly secured the facts, though, in this digital age of plastic facts, it is not likely that I could ever pin down any fact, for facts vanish in a flash-media second. But please note that on October 24, 2006, in an essay I wrote about Mr. Obama, I noted that his September 2005 essay posted on the Daily Kos, the influential, self-described leftist blog, had as a banner advertisement the following image:
Please note Mr. Obama's placement in this advertisement. Please note that this ad was present at Mr. Obama's Daily Kos essay months before Mr. Obama even announced his exploratory committee for the presidency. Please note that MSNBC not only placed an advertisement for itself on Mr. Obama's Daily Kos diary, but MSNBC placed Mr. Obama's image adjacent to President Bush's, suggesting, perhaps, that both men are in some sort of great struggle. To MSNBC, Obama is a contender, and this MONTHS before he was indeed a contender. Amazingly, MSNBC threw Mr. Obama's hat into the presidential ring before he had himself.
Or so it looks. Or so it feels.
Unfortunately, I only took a screen shot of the actual ad. I failed to take, and preserve, a screen shot of the ad on the actual Obama page. And as you can see, the ad has been removed from Mr. Obama's essay posted, as it was, on the world's largest blog, a blog entirely devoted to political and sociological liberalism.
But who cares, right? This is, after all, the deliverer we are talking about. The great hope. And in just a little less than an hour, there will be a star over the silent little town of Springfield, Illinois. You know, where Abraham Lincoln once lived.
This is all shaping up to be a perfect little fairy tale, the kind America just loves to tell itself.
MY SKIN IS CLEAR (I think)
Curiously related to all of this mythmaking, and jarring our senses, is this essay ("Colorblind") about Mr. Obama (and race in America in general). It is published on Salon. com, and it is written by a "black" woman, Debra J. Dickerson. Perhaps you saw Ms. Dickerson on "The Colbert Report" earlier this week (in a brilliant interview). Ms. Dickerson's thesis, in case you did not know, is that Mr. Obama is NOT BLACK. I kid you not. His mother, apparently, is a white woman from Kansas, while his dad is from Kenya. That Ms. Dickerson defines blackness in political terms is astonishing: to be black in America means, strictly, to be a direct descendant of former African slaves. During Ms. Dickerson's interview with the thoroughly enjoyable Mr. Colbert, she said that Mr. Obama would be better served if he defined himself -- and I am NOT MAKING THIS UP -- as an African African-American. But he is definitely NOT black.
That this woman, who wrote the book, The End of Blackness, is ruining the great idea of a man with dark skin announcing his presidency from Abraham Lincoln's hometown, you know, the town of that great president who clearly made the first great step for the emancipation of slaves so they could become -- eventually -- candidates for President, is a fact too interesting to let pass unnoticed.
But I ask you: if being black is a political-linguistic term denoting only those who are descendants of actual African slaves imported to America, does it NOT FOLLOW that "white" is equally political, denoting only those who have descended from white slaveholders who imported African slaves to America? I think it does. And if that is the case, then, since there were no slaveholders in my ancestral gene pool, I am not white.
There you go then.
I am not white, and Barack Obama, should he become president, will not be America's first black President.
Go figure.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
American Eidola
You can laugh at me if you want, but I cannot be overly ashamed of myself for watching American Idol last night. It's not like I watched the whole thing, nor is it like I've watched every show thus far. I did not, and I have not. But I did see a good chunk of last night's broadcast of auditions from New York City, and I must say that the Big Apple seemed quite sliced and cored.
My thoughts are varied and probably contradictory about the morality of presenting to the world people who clearly have psychological issues. But this is, lest we forget, America, the home of the free to be equal and the land of the politically correct; so to handicap anyone for being, well, handicapped, is to be both illiberal and harsh. At the core of America's great progressive mythology is the idea that anyone can be whatever they dream themselves to be; and much political debate is spent on arguing how such dreams are to be achieved. I confess I have little patience for all such theorizing and haggling over terms and ethics, for it all, eventually, seems to be so much theater no matter how it is sliced and diced, drawn and quartered.
Two things strike me as sad. First, that it would seem very likely that many contestants could easily be self-promoting saboteurs. While this may seem a crazy oxymoron, it is not: there are contestants who seek to make themselves known by making a mockery of the process, and the very show, itself. American Idol's success surely has inspired its detractors, both within the entertainment industry and the culture at large. I would not be surprised if Idol encounters all sorts of guerilla-types: those who would subvert the popularity of perceived pop-star idolatry, and those guerilla theater-types who have a political axe to grind. Surely there are the Julliard-type aspiring actors who need to play a role; why not a role as an Idol contestant? Surely there are the Sacha Baron Cohen wannabes who stay in character at all costs, begging for attention from their acting peers, their fellow protestors, their fellow iconoclasts. Are many of these personae even real, even genuine, that walk or flit through the doors to face Idol's well-known judges? At times the whole thing reeks of camp, and it reminds me of the millions of face-less, nameless bloggers parading around the internet pretending to be what they are not.
My innocence, I am sorry to say, regarding "reality" programming was finally shattered when I called into the popular NPR show, "Car Talk" several years ago. How naive I was to think the show was at all spontaneous. Find out for yourself by calling 1-800-Car-Talk; the spontaneity is sheer artifice. You think those guys are brilliant diagnosticians when it comes to cars? Think again. The show is built on your phone call to an automated system wherein you provide the details of your car, its apparent problem, along with your home phone number and a convenient time for them to call. In other words, your problem is researched days, perhaps weeks, in advance.
That American Idol is nonetheless a worthy myth with doses of reality is completely satisfactory. It is, after all, a show meant to entertain.
But the saddest thing is not that Idol is a myth. What is sad is that another network (I will not mention which one, but you can guess: For you satellite TV customers, it's the network just two doors down from Fox News), has taken to the tawdriest form of journalism. Two different "news-based shows," both hosted by middle-aged men in ties, tonight had segments on American Idol. Both segments were all about denigration. And both segments were clearly born of jealousy and were meant to steal viewership -- and important ad revenues -- from a very successful and overall mostly harmless show (more on this some other time). In fact, I have seen several news segments over the last few months on said network in which Fox News, or some Fox personality, is the featured fodder for fun: even one particular commentator seems quite inexplicably obsessed with Bill O'Reilly. What we are witnessing in such TV programming is not the creation of superior art that trumps less successful fare; we are not witnessing a better team beat its opponent. What we are seeing is the talk-news, talk-TV equivalent of mere trash talk, of merely talking smack. One network in particular seems predisposed towards this sort of thing, and it is clear it is not Fox.
But forgive me for sounding like a shill for Fox and its news outlet. I am hardly that. But I am paying attention, and what I see is quite sad all around. But the saddest thing -- and it is even a little creepy -- is that other networks are doing stories about another network's shows. It is a sign of the times, Orwellian in language and Randian in import.
The have-nots want to steal from the haves, and the egalitarians are squealing.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
My thoughts are varied and probably contradictory about the morality of presenting to the world people who clearly have psychological issues. But this is, lest we forget, America, the home of the free to be equal and the land of the politically correct; so to handicap anyone for being, well, handicapped, is to be both illiberal and harsh. At the core of America's great progressive mythology is the idea that anyone can be whatever they dream themselves to be; and much political debate is spent on arguing how such dreams are to be achieved. I confess I have little patience for all such theorizing and haggling over terms and ethics, for it all, eventually, seems to be so much theater no matter how it is sliced and diced, drawn and quartered.
Two things strike me as sad. First, that it would seem very likely that many contestants could easily be self-promoting saboteurs. While this may seem a crazy oxymoron, it is not: there are contestants who seek to make themselves known by making a mockery of the process, and the very show, itself. American Idol's success surely has inspired its detractors, both within the entertainment industry and the culture at large. I would not be surprised if Idol encounters all sorts of guerilla-types: those who would subvert the popularity of perceived pop-star idolatry, and those guerilla theater-types who have a political axe to grind. Surely there are the Julliard-type aspiring actors who need to play a role; why not a role as an Idol contestant? Surely there are the Sacha Baron Cohen wannabes who stay in character at all costs, begging for attention from their acting peers, their fellow protestors, their fellow iconoclasts. Are many of these personae even real, even genuine, that walk or flit through the doors to face Idol's well-known judges? At times the whole thing reeks of camp, and it reminds me of the millions of face-less, nameless bloggers parading around the internet pretending to be what they are not.
My innocence, I am sorry to say, regarding "reality" programming was finally shattered when I called into the popular NPR show, "Car Talk" several years ago. How naive I was to think the show was at all spontaneous. Find out for yourself by calling 1-800-Car-Talk; the spontaneity is sheer artifice. You think those guys are brilliant diagnosticians when it comes to cars? Think again. The show is built on your phone call to an automated system wherein you provide the details of your car, its apparent problem, along with your home phone number and a convenient time for them to call. In other words, your problem is researched days, perhaps weeks, in advance.
That American Idol is nonetheless a worthy myth with doses of reality is completely satisfactory. It is, after all, a show meant to entertain.
But the saddest thing is not that Idol is a myth. What is sad is that another network (I will not mention which one, but you can guess: For you satellite TV customers, it's the network just two doors down from Fox News), has taken to the tawdriest form of journalism. Two different "news-based shows," both hosted by middle-aged men in ties, tonight had segments on American Idol. Both segments were all about denigration. And both segments were clearly born of jealousy and were meant to steal viewership -- and important ad revenues -- from a very successful and overall mostly harmless show (more on this some other time). In fact, I have seen several news segments over the last few months on said network in which Fox News, or some Fox personality, is the featured fodder for fun: even one particular commentator seems quite inexplicably obsessed with Bill O'Reilly. What we are witnessing in such TV programming is not the creation of superior art that trumps less successful fare; we are not witnessing a better team beat its opponent. What we are seeing is the talk-news, talk-TV equivalent of mere trash talk, of merely talking smack. One network in particular seems predisposed towards this sort of thing, and it is clear it is not Fox.
But forgive me for sounding like a shill for Fox and its news outlet. I am hardly that. But I am paying attention, and what I see is quite sad all around. But the saddest thing -- and it is even a little creepy -- is that other networks are doing stories about another network's shows. It is a sign of the times, Orwellian in language and Randian in import.
The have-nots want to steal from the haves, and the egalitarians are squealing.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Friday, January 12, 2007
2007's Early Nominee: Senator Harry Reid
Since I began this day announcing the inaugural Contratimes annual awards (I shall be naming a few 2006 winners over the following days), I can't resist nominating US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, for the 2007 Soggy Turnip for Obscene Doublespeak. Please carefully read below what Mr. Reid said yesterday from the podium on the US Senate Floor. The context for these fine remarks is President Bush's apparently new plan for the Battle for Iraq; Democratic leaders have nearly unanimously rejected the President's plan for -- among other things -- increased troop levels in Iraq, while a few Republicans have expressed their own doubts. And both Democratic majorities in Congress are discussing whether they should not fund Bush's plan altogether.
Here is Mr. Reid's amazing articulation (the full statement is printed here):
"I will not prejudice the outcome of the vote on the President's plan, but I will say this: Putting more U.S. combat forces in the middle of an Iraqi civil war is a mistake."
There are mindbogglers, and then there are true mindbogglers. Though his entire statement is a criticism of President Bush's plan, Mr. Reid is nevertheless able to convince himself that he is not attempting to prejudice his colleagues: In fantasyland, he would never think of prejudicing anyone within earshot. George Orwell could not have written a more curious few lines. Perhaps I will consider Mr. Reid for the 1984 Soggy Turnip Award in Orwell's honor.
To think, George W. Bush can mangle a word or two and still make sense, and then be derided for his imperfect oratory; while Mr. Reid can speak with perfect eloquence and yet make no sense at all. It will be a cold day in hell before the popular press takes note of Mr. Reid's nonsense.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Here is Mr. Reid's amazing articulation (the full statement is printed here):
"I will not prejudice the outcome of the vote on the President's plan, but I will say this: Putting more U.S. combat forces in the middle of an Iraqi civil war is a mistake."
There are mindbogglers, and then there are true mindbogglers. Though his entire statement is a criticism of President Bush's plan, Mr. Reid is nevertheless able to convince himself that he is not attempting to prejudice his colleagues: In fantasyland, he would never think of prejudicing anyone within earshot. George Orwell could not have written a more curious few lines. Perhaps I will consider Mr. Reid for the 1984 Soggy Turnip Award in Orwell's honor.
To think, George W. Bush can mangle a word or two and still make sense, and then be derided for his imperfect oratory; while Mr. Reid can speak with perfect eloquence and yet make no sense at all. It will be a cold day in hell before the popular press takes note of Mr. Reid's nonsense.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Winning High Honors: Let The Awards Begin #1
Today marks the inaugural Contratimes awards celebration. It will be a quirky celebration; there might be nothing at all suggestive of consistency or decorum or excellence. Perhaps the awards will even wallow in mediocrity. Maybe I will fête the fetid and turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the truly glorious. I do not know, for this is all much more whimsical than it is analytical. I choose from the gut; I intuit rather than reason my way to these finalists: my viscera is far more active here than my cerebrum. And surely my vision will be sorely limited, as I can only see so far.
Note that I shall recognize the winners over a period of days.
At the end of 2006, I heard a radio personality calling out for listeners' nominees for "Jerk of the Year" awards. I found the category thoroughly cruel. And I did not wait to hear what listeners offered as viable winners. But if I choose to ignore "Jerk of the Year" categories, can I at least have something pejorative? How about "The Most Misplaced Scoffers of the Year"? How about the "We Are So Smart We're Dumb" award for 2006? Are these too harsh?
Well, for 2006, the winners -- because we can't name just one -- of the Soggy Turnip Award for Grotesque Prejudice belongs to those folks who don't know English as well as they might claim. These folks have even managed to create a small industry around their colossal ignorance, and they are totally blind to the irony of their actions.
You see, in mid-April 2006, President George W. Bush said the following during a press conference (read CNN's aptly titled article here):
"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense." [emphasis added]
One would think that President Bush might be derided for admitting that he hears voices. Alas, if it only were that easy. But rather than leaping on the President for his clairvoyance, critics leapt on his much greater offense: He used the word, "decider." Immediately the scoffers raised their voices, and the great thinkers among us set out to prove to the world -- once again -- that Bush was an aphasiac, anomic idiot. Bloggers' fingers were set to typing damnation with great speed; and T-Shirt makers and peddlers of bumper stickers hawked their wares: "I'm The Decider!" almost became a Democratic Party slogan. Not a few voters in this area of New Hampshire had their bumper stickers placed 'just so' in time for the November elections; and even an online linguist analyzed Mr. Bush's anomia, finding Bush's "locution" inexplicably bizarre (and the linguist never notes the following fact).
Of course, reality is glorious: "decider," in case you did not know, is a thoroughly normal English word. In fact, its first known literary usage dates back to 1593, or so reports the Oxford English Dictionary. It is not one whit aberrant, nor did President Bush use it in an odd way. I readily admit that it sounded odd, but that has everything to do with frequency rather than diction or syntax. We all hear new words every day: some are used correctly, others are not. Rarely is a word invented; and even words that are used correctly can sound strange in certain contexts. But "decider" is not even close to being anachronistic, since I can instantly find it in the 2004 dictionary installed on this fine computer.
Hence, the Soggy Turnip for Grotesque Prejudice goes to all those intellectuals out there who did not know that "decider" is as common a word as chooser, picker, and pedantic.
(For a more complete essay on my thoughts regarding sundry Bushisms, see "The Seinfeld Administration".)
Peace, somewhere, if but for a moment.
(PS. Please see the first comment in the comments thread below. Thanks. BG)
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Note that I shall recognize the winners over a period of days.
At the end of 2006, I heard a radio personality calling out for listeners' nominees for "Jerk of the Year" awards. I found the category thoroughly cruel. And I did not wait to hear what listeners offered as viable winners. But if I choose to ignore "Jerk of the Year" categories, can I at least have something pejorative? How about "The Most Misplaced Scoffers of the Year"? How about the "We Are So Smart We're Dumb" award for 2006? Are these too harsh?
Well, for 2006, the winners -- because we can't name just one -- of the Soggy Turnip Award for Grotesque Prejudice belongs to those folks who don't know English as well as they might claim. These folks have even managed to create a small industry around their colossal ignorance, and they are totally blind to the irony of their actions.
You see, in mid-April 2006, President George W. Bush said the following during a press conference (read CNN's aptly titled article here):
"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense." [emphasis added]
One would think that President Bush might be derided for admitting that he hears voices. Alas, if it only were that easy. But rather than leaping on the President for his clairvoyance, critics leapt on his much greater offense: He used the word, "decider." Immediately the scoffers raised their voices, and the great thinkers among us set out to prove to the world -- once again -- that Bush was an aphasiac, anomic idiot. Bloggers' fingers were set to typing damnation with great speed; and T-Shirt makers and peddlers of bumper stickers hawked their wares: "I'm The Decider!" almost became a Democratic Party slogan. Not a few voters in this area of New Hampshire had their bumper stickers placed 'just so' in time for the November elections; and even an online linguist analyzed Mr. Bush's anomia, finding Bush's "locution" inexplicably bizarre (and the linguist never notes the following fact).
Of course, reality is glorious: "decider," in case you did not know, is a thoroughly normal English word. In fact, its first known literary usage dates back to 1593, or so reports the Oxford English Dictionary. It is not one whit aberrant, nor did President Bush use it in an odd way. I readily admit that it sounded odd, but that has everything to do with frequency rather than diction or syntax. We all hear new words every day: some are used correctly, others are not. Rarely is a word invented; and even words that are used correctly can sound strange in certain contexts. But "decider" is not even close to being anachronistic, since I can instantly find it in the 2004 dictionary installed on this fine computer.
Hence, the Soggy Turnip for Grotesque Prejudice goes to all those intellectuals out there who did not know that "decider" is as common a word as chooser, picker, and pedantic.
(For a more complete essay on my thoughts regarding sundry Bushisms, see "The Seinfeld Administration".)
Peace, somewhere, if but for a moment.
(PS. Please see the first comment in the comments thread below. Thanks. BG)
©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Straining At Truths, Swallowing Lies
Consider it the new Puritanism. It's the new state religion manifested in great public displays of pain, shock, and disgust. It's as common as news print; as rarefied as membership in the Myopia Hunt Club. In short, it's everywhere, and it is ruining our lives. For it's the moral shock, the umbrage, at the wrong things.
Take two examples. The first, from a small New Hampshire town, is the story of a police chief who arrested a known illegal alien for trespassing. In minutes, it seems, human rights groups, on Monday, descended upon New Ipswich, New Hampshire, to protest the abuse of a Mexican illegal wanton in his dislike of America's immigration laws. Protesters screamed and squirmed about 'profiling' and the alleged abuse profiling invokes.
In short, the police chief is evil, though he did nothing wrong; and the lawbreaker is good. (One protester's sign read: "No human is illegal"; while a letter drafted by the Human Rights Task Force stated that "Everyone in the United States of America, regardless of immigration status, is entitled to equal protection under our nation's laws." Everyone, apparently, except a person who enforces those laws.)
The second example was reported moments ago. A 97-year-old Massachusetts woman, from Boston's Jamaica Plain, was found beaten to death in her home. Her "LifeLine" button had been pressed to alert authorities of trouble. When police arrived, she was found wrapped in a rug.
The juxtaposition of these stories is telling. For there is not, nor will there be, ANY protest outside this woman's home by the Human Rights Task Force. She might as well have died at the hands of Muslim terrorists.
But arrest a Mexican for committing a crime prompts the 'sensitive', truly moral among us to cry out against 'racism' and 'profiling'. Of course, no one screams about the profiling done by criminals against 'women' alone at night or the elderly 'rollovers' whose cashed Social Security checks are easy pickings. After all, profiling is fairly standard practice for criminals.
There is a slew of other glaring examples of America's increased Puritan fastidiousness. Here are a few more presented in no meaningful order:
1) Americans are concerned that the Koran was mishandled by US military servicemen at Guantanamo Bay, with even the commanding Brigadier General speaking in apologetic tones. Of course, desecration of the religious rights of Christians in Africa, of Buddhist artifacts in Afghanistan, or of crucifixes (soaked in urine) in American art circles prompts a mere callous dismissal. Moreover, no one reproaches Muslim fanatics for abusing the Koran in order to justify murder.
2) That Abu Ghraib abuses were considered "atrocities" (by Hillary Clinton, no less), and yet there is nary a candlelight vigil for beheaded Americans and Europeans (they deserve it, apparently, since they should not have been there in the first place, sort of like any woman raped in a dark alley at night), proves that we are increasingly morally indignant at the wrong behaviors.
3) Americans mock a President for stumbling over his words, but are apparently sophisticated enough to permit former KKK-member, and now senior senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia (in 2001, on FOX News): "My old mom told me, 'Robert, you can't go to heaven if you hate anybody.' We practice that. There are white n*ggers. I've seen a lot of white n*ggers in my time. I'm going to use that word...."† Misspell 'potato' or misspeak 'nuclear', and you're an idiot. But if you're a Democrat racist, that's not worth a single placard. When Trent Lott praised the former Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, his remarks led to a lynching. And his words were innocuous. But Byrd keeps on flapping without a a single Democrat crowing about his impropriety.
4) While attending the consecration of the first elected openly gay bishop in Christendom, I witnessed a dissenter read before the thousands gathered a description, replete with statistics and clinical terminology, of the behaviors of homosexual men. In short, the dissenter was reading MERE WORDS, you know, he was MAKING SOUNDS WITH HIS MOUTH. Suddenly the presiding bishop, the titular head of the American Episcopal Church, raised his hand and said, "Spare us the details and get to the substance." Odd, don't you think, that speaking of homosexuality in words is offensive, but the acts of homosexuals are not? If the details in words offend us, then why not the acts themselves? In other words, it is OK to do what no one wants to talk about it; but it's evil to talk about it.
5) Related to number 4, if a person ever expects a homosexual to 'change', note that such a person is instantly vilified as homophobic and abusive. However, no one seems to mind DEMANDING that homophobes MUST change. Of course homosexuals are born and homophobes are made, or so goes the new Puritanism. That few rarely point out that socio-biologists have insisted for decades that a person's genes are selfishly interested in procreation to preserve themselves in perpetuity; indicating that a strong aversion to homosexuality might actually be genetic, you know, in-born; reveals that the new Puritanism is only open to certain limited types of thinking.
6) When Reverend Jerry Falwell talks about making America great again, he is censured by the new Puritans who believe that religion has no place in politics. But when Reverend Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United For Separation of Church and State, speaks on America's greatness, the new Puritans fall dumbly silent. (No one notices, it seems, the colossal irony that Barry Lynn is a REVEREND interested in protecting America from religion.) They stop their ears to Falwell's evil rhetoric, and stand mute when Lynn rants with contradictions.
These are but a few of the many examples of the new puritanism. No one protested when Andrea Dworkin (now deceased) argued that men and women were different, essentially (and that women are better); but Harvard's faculty reeled and wailed when its president recently suggested that men and women MIGHT be different; proving that the new Puritanism is in the highest places.
It seems the Koran flushed down the toilet has prompted some, at least in spirit, to fly the American flag at half-staff, nay, to even burn it (Muslims burn our flag daily. Burned a Koran lately?). But the death of a pope, the head-of-state of the Vatican, a true defender of peace and justice, prompts many to wonder whether flying the flag at half-staff in his honor violates the U.S. Constitution. Muslims can flush American skulls down toilets in the name of the Koran; but Americans are to feel ashamed that their soldiers have not worn gloves when handling the same book. You get the picture, and that picture is a mess.
Welcome to the new Puritanism, where we strain at gnats and swallow camels. Or, more accurately, we strain at truth, swallowing everything else.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
†For the Byrd quote, see this link. Yes, Byrd did apologize publicly for his slur and gaffe. So too did Trent Lott. But Lott remains marginalized.
Take two examples. The first, from a small New Hampshire town, is the story of a police chief who arrested a known illegal alien for trespassing. In minutes, it seems, human rights groups, on Monday, descended upon New Ipswich, New Hampshire, to protest the abuse of a Mexican illegal wanton in his dislike of America's immigration laws. Protesters screamed and squirmed about 'profiling' and the alleged abuse profiling invokes.
In short, the police chief is evil, though he did nothing wrong; and the lawbreaker is good. (One protester's sign read: "No human is illegal"; while a letter drafted by the Human Rights Task Force stated that "Everyone in the United States of America, regardless of immigration status, is entitled to equal protection under our nation's laws." Everyone, apparently, except a person who enforces those laws.)
The second example was reported moments ago. A 97-year-old Massachusetts woman, from Boston's Jamaica Plain, was found beaten to death in her home. Her "LifeLine" button had been pressed to alert authorities of trouble. When police arrived, she was found wrapped in a rug.
The juxtaposition of these stories is telling. For there is not, nor will there be, ANY protest outside this woman's home by the Human Rights Task Force. She might as well have died at the hands of Muslim terrorists.
But arrest a Mexican for committing a crime prompts the 'sensitive', truly moral among us to cry out against 'racism' and 'profiling'. Of course, no one screams about the profiling done by criminals against 'women' alone at night or the elderly 'rollovers' whose cashed Social Security checks are easy pickings. After all, profiling is fairly standard practice for criminals.
There is a slew of other glaring examples of America's increased Puritan fastidiousness. Here are a few more presented in no meaningful order:
1) Americans are concerned that the Koran was mishandled by US military servicemen at Guantanamo Bay, with even the commanding Brigadier General speaking in apologetic tones. Of course, desecration of the religious rights of Christians in Africa, of Buddhist artifacts in Afghanistan, or of crucifixes (soaked in urine) in American art circles prompts a mere callous dismissal. Moreover, no one reproaches Muslim fanatics for abusing the Koran in order to justify murder.
2) That Abu Ghraib abuses were considered "atrocities" (by Hillary Clinton, no less), and yet there is nary a candlelight vigil for beheaded Americans and Europeans (they deserve it, apparently, since they should not have been there in the first place, sort of like any woman raped in a dark alley at night), proves that we are increasingly morally indignant at the wrong behaviors.
3) Americans mock a President for stumbling over his words, but are apparently sophisticated enough to permit former KKK-member, and now senior senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia (in 2001, on FOX News): "My old mom told me, 'Robert, you can't go to heaven if you hate anybody.' We practice that. There are white n*ggers. I've seen a lot of white n*ggers in my time. I'm going to use that word...."† Misspell 'potato' or misspeak 'nuclear', and you're an idiot. But if you're a Democrat racist, that's not worth a single placard. When Trent Lott praised the former Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, his remarks led to a lynching. And his words were innocuous. But Byrd keeps on flapping without a a single Democrat crowing about his impropriety.
4) While attending the consecration of the first elected openly gay bishop in Christendom, I witnessed a dissenter read before the thousands gathered a description, replete with statistics and clinical terminology, of the behaviors of homosexual men. In short, the dissenter was reading MERE WORDS, you know, he was MAKING SOUNDS WITH HIS MOUTH. Suddenly the presiding bishop, the titular head of the American Episcopal Church, raised his hand and said, "Spare us the details and get to the substance." Odd, don't you think, that speaking of homosexuality in words is offensive, but the acts of homosexuals are not? If the details in words offend us, then why not the acts themselves? In other words, it is OK to do what no one wants to talk about it; but it's evil to talk about it.
5) Related to number 4, if a person ever expects a homosexual to 'change', note that such a person is instantly vilified as homophobic and abusive. However, no one seems to mind DEMANDING that homophobes MUST change. Of course homosexuals are born and homophobes are made, or so goes the new Puritanism. That few rarely point out that socio-biologists have insisted for decades that a person's genes are selfishly interested in procreation to preserve themselves in perpetuity; indicating that a strong aversion to homosexuality might actually be genetic, you know, in-born; reveals that the new Puritanism is only open to certain limited types of thinking.
6) When Reverend Jerry Falwell talks about making America great again, he is censured by the new Puritans who believe that religion has no place in politics. But when Reverend Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United For Separation of Church and State, speaks on America's greatness, the new Puritans fall dumbly silent. (No one notices, it seems, the colossal irony that Barry Lynn is a REVEREND interested in protecting America from religion.) They stop their ears to Falwell's evil rhetoric, and stand mute when Lynn rants with contradictions.
These are but a few of the many examples of the new puritanism. No one protested when Andrea Dworkin (now deceased) argued that men and women were different, essentially (and that women are better); but Harvard's faculty reeled and wailed when its president recently suggested that men and women MIGHT be different; proving that the new Puritanism is in the highest places.
It seems the Koran flushed down the toilet has prompted some, at least in spirit, to fly the American flag at half-staff, nay, to even burn it (Muslims burn our flag daily. Burned a Koran lately?). But the death of a pope, the head-of-state of the Vatican, a true defender of peace and justice, prompts many to wonder whether flying the flag at half-staff in his honor violates the U.S. Constitution. Muslims can flush American skulls down toilets in the name of the Koran; but Americans are to feel ashamed that their soldiers have not worn gloves when handling the same book. You get the picture, and that picture is a mess.
Welcome to the new Puritanism, where we strain at gnats and swallow camels. Or, more accurately, we strain at truth, swallowing everything else.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
†For the Byrd quote, see this link. Yes, Byrd did apologize publicly for his slur and gaffe. So too did Trent Lott. But Lott remains marginalized.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)