Brutally Honest Rant - 07/05/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: He Who Controls The Language…
Audio Transcripts
07/05/06

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

They say that history is written by the conqueror. Well apparently it’s not the only thing that is.

In fact, there’s a pattern of how viewpoints are controlled by those in charge. "To the victor goes the spoils." You’ve probably heard that one a couple of times.

I heard someone say that he who controls the language controls the culture, and I happen to think that he’s right in that regard. Take a look at the abortion issue. Those who support abortion see the battle as being between "pro-choice" and "anti-choice", while those who are against abortion see it as "pro-life" versus "pro-death". Now when you see it between those two perspectives, you can understand why there doesn’t seem to be a middle ground on this matter. And you can also see why the opponents of abortion seem to be on the LOSING side of the argument, because "pro-life" versus "pro-death" sounds very extreme as opposed to "pro-choice" versus "anti-choice".

Liberals have successfully managed to morph the words "tax cuts" into "tax cuts for the rich", and that was pretty much done all through the eight years of the Bill Clinton regime. And the liberals made sure that the message was conveyed over and over and over again thanks to their friends in the air-fluffed, ego-driven alphabet soup media. So today, you can’t even SAY the words "tax cut" in Washington without everyone and their ugly twin brother exclaiming "TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH" in a way that would make Pavlov proud.

Conservatives then one-upped the liberals by turning the very word "liberal" into an obscenity. Nice trick, huh? They can’t even call themselves "liberals" anymore… now they have to call themselves "progressives". Conservatives, meanwhile, are still considered "conservatives"… although now there are a couple of new factions to the category that the conservatives REFUSE to admit even exist. I’ll get back to those in a minute.

With that in mind, I thought I’d spend tonight going over a few of these new definitions for you, just in case any of you might be confused about what they mean.

And let’s just go ahead and start off with the word "progressive". Now the word "progressive" means forward-looking. You’re looking AHEAD, as opposed to conservatives and their tendency to look to the past. And I find that somewhat hypocritical since "progressives" have their own fixations on the past, which they ALSO look to with rose-colored lenses. They think that Bill Clinton was the greatest president that ever held the office. They think that the country prospered specifically BECAUSE of him. And they believe that HE was the one who PERSONALLY balanced the federal budget when in fact the budget surplus of the late 1990’s caught EVEYRONE by surprise, including the White House!

Let’s put it this way: if "progressives" are really as "forward-looking" as they claim to be, then WHY do they keep on putting Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd back in office??? These are two of the most BACKWARD-looking people you can find in politics, and yet you couldn’t get them out of those senate seats with a firehose!

That brings us to the previous word for "progressive"… namely "liberal". What is a "liberal" in the 21^st century?

Well let’s get brutally honest here… a liberal is an ugly slur uttered by conservatives and other like-minded people to denigrate anyone who doesn’t agree with their position or with their way of thinking.

It goes something like this: "Oh, you don’t agree with me? Well then you must be one of those filthy LIBERALS! You must hate GOD and JESUS and AMERICA! YOUR KIND doesn’t belong in this country!"

And don’t think that this kind of hatred and loathing is just an over-exaggeration! I’ve seen this kind of rhetoric in the online discussion boards. And they WILL use that arrogant, pompous tone when they say "your kind"! It’s the same tone that Germans used to have when referring to anyone they considered to be inferior.

Now let’s look at the conservatives. Since they were able to transform the word "liberal" into a social obscenity, they believe that they can also get us to accept that certain words just do not exist. Like the word "neo-con".

Conservatives and their allies, like Neal Boortz, believe that the word "neo-con" just does not exist! And they will exercise the theory of a certain infamous Austrian that says if you tell a lie enough times, people will believe it to be true. But the truth is that THERE IS such a thing as a neo-conservative in America! They DO exist!

A neo-conservative, or a "neo-con", is someone who believes in a free market, but also believes in big government. They liked the idea of going back to the past, but only if that past was the repressive McCarthyist 1950’s, or perhaps Dick Nixon’s early 1970’s. They believe that government can solve EVERY problem, and they have no problem with big business doing whatever they like as long as that business doesn’t go anywhere near sex!

There’s also such a thing as a "theo-con", which is a theocratic conservative. You know how I talk about theocrats running roughshod in America? Those are the people I’m talking about. They may not want the all-out theocracy like we see in Iran, but they want as much of it as they can get for their own religious beliefs. Again, these folks DO exist, no matter how many times people like Boortz continue to deny their existence. Then again these are the same people who refuse to see certain words in the US Constitution, so it’s pretty much par for the course that these folks have a hard time with reality.

Let’s put it this way, if the "progressive" side can be broken down into its various factions, such as the feminists and the environmentalists, then the conservative side can also be broken down into its own factions. You can’t have it both ways, people! That fits another word that I like to throw out there called "hypocrisy"!

Don’t worry, I’m not done yet! There are a few more new post-9/11 definitions out there to talk about!

Definitions like "necessary tools". I’m sure that you’ve heard THAT one uttered a few times by the Bush Imperium! Basically it’s a phrase that the Imperium uses to excuse any and all abuses of power. Circumventing constitutional rights, torture, detaining people without providing any cause, it can all be excused as a "necessary tool in the war on bad guys."

So if we applied the Bush White House definition of that term "necessary tools" to history, then raping and pillaging were "necessary tools" for Genghis Khan. Burning people at the stake was a "necessary tool" for the Salem Witch Trials. Drowning people and ripping out their fingernails were "necessary tools" for Torquamada during the Spanish Inquisition. The guillotine was a "necessary tool" for the French Revolution. Concentration camps and Zylon gas were "necessary tools" for Nazi Germany. The use of nerve gas on Kurds was a "necessary tool" for Saddam Hussein. Oh, and let’s not forget the multiple missile launches of North Korea these past few days. That too is a "necessary tool" for Kim Jong Lawntroll.

Speaking of the "war on bad guys", we have the unofficial White House definition of "terrorism", which is any kind of terrorist act – OR POSSIBLE ACT – that involves Muslims.

Now in December of 2001, after 9/11 and during the height of the anthrax attacks, President Bush declared that sending anthrax in the mail was terrorism, and so was anyone who send anthrax hoaxes in the mail. Then it was discovered that the person sending the fake anthrax in the mail was a fundamentalist Christian, so all of a sudden THAT definition had to be scrapped. And then there was Eric Robert Rudolph, who set off bombs in various places, including the 1996 Olympics. HE would be considered a terrorist too… except that he was apprehended AFTER 9/11… and, oh yeah, he’s also a CHRISTIAN! So all of a sudden he’s no longer a TERRORIST… just "a bomber". Yeah, tell you what, why don’t you go tell his victims that. Why don’t you tell the City of Atlanta that the man that ruined that city’s proudest moment isn’t really a terrorist? Yeah, I’m sure they’ll buy it.

Point is… if they’re Christian and they actually commit acts of terrorism, then they’re NOT considered terrorists. They’re considered bombers or gunmen or any other number of other crimes they may be guilty of. But if they’re Muslim and if they even THINK about doing anything even REMOTELY illegal, then they’re terrorists!

You know, I’ve got a real problem with this kind of religious bigotry. Seriously. It really ruins the government’s credibility in dealing with the problem of international terrorism. I’m not saying that Muslims aren’t guilty of the terrorist acts they commit or encourage, but they’re not the only group that uses religion to justify hate and carnage! If you want to go after Muslim terrorists, then you also have to go after the Christian terrorists. You can’t just sit back and let religious discrimination go on unchallenged in this situation. Again, that falls under the definition of the word "hypocrisy".

Of course we have the other favorite word of the conservatives… "Judicial Activism".

So what is it? Basically it’s any kind of court decision that is ruled AGAINST the government or against a popular opinion. THAT is how an "ACTIVIST judiciary" is being defined today.

You see, if you disagree with a court decision, you don’t have to come up with a legitimate reason for your disagreement. You don’t have to question how the law or the US Constitution was interpreted. You don’t have to question how the law was written or the legal arguments presented to justify it. No, you can just blame it all on the judge and call him or her "an ACTIVIST". You can question that judge’s patriotism, or question that judge’s mental competence. You can call that judge a renegade; a radical extremist carrying out his or her own personal agenda for destroying the country. You can call for a government investigation and try to have the judge removed from office for DARING to pose an opinion that YOU disagree with!

And in the process, of course, you will demonstrate the very mentality that justifies that decision. But that’s okay… you can blame it on the judge too, because don’t you have a right to not be OFFENDED? Yeah, it’s right there in the Constitution next to the promise of a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.

Okay, I got one more here tonight, and this one goes back to the liberals.

What is a "liar"?

A liar is someone who tells you something he or she knows is not true. Bill Clinton is a liar. He claimed he never had sexual relations and that was proven to be false.

Of course, what is required is that the person KNOWS that the information isn’t true before he or she can be called a liar, and that little codicil doesn’t work well when it comes to politics. Proof is something that is so damned slippery in politics. So liberals had to change the definition a bit. Now someone is called a liar simply because the information is false, no matter if the person knew it or not.

So you think, no big deal, right?

For CENTURES, mankind believed that the Earth was FLAT. That if you were to travel too far out, you’d fall right off the edge of the planet! That belief, of course, was later found to be false. But under the LIBERAL interpretation, every person who believed that the Earth was flat was guilty of LYING.

Now imagine applying that to a few religious beliefs. Would you be willing to accuse every follower of being a LIAR if what they believe turns out to be false? Probably not.

It’s not exactly a definition that you would want to be flippant about using.

(Computer – an interesting mix of stuff)
(Fade Music In – "In Amber Clad" by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)

We need to be mindful of the definitions we use when it comes to presenting an argument. Part of our credibility rests on not just the message but how it is presented. Morphing words to suit your stance and changing their meaning does not make your stance valid, no matter how many times you present it.

Eventually words like "liberal" WILL come back into social acceptance. Conservatives won’t be able to hide their own factions for long. And even now the excuses used to justify abuses of power are falling apart. The definitions they twisted and manipulated for their own use are not holding.

Look at the arguments used during World War II. Listen to the excuses and the justifications of the time. A lot of the evil that happened was sold to the masses as a way to maintain order and to create a perfect society. But in time, those arguments, those excuses, turned out to be empty.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best when he said, "Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an image, some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with them, and the cause is half won." That certainly does not apply to the definitions of our time.

So that makes me wonder… in fifty or a hundred years from now, when we look back at the arguments of this time to explain our actions and our stances, will future generations look at us and wonder if we’ve taken a leave of our senses? I would suspect that would be the case.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

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