GOP's Word Magic!
By Leonard Pitts -- Sacramento Bee
Oct.23, 2006 -- The first time I was called a member of the "media elite," I was driving a 10-year-old minivan with close to 200,000 miles on it. I was many things. Elite wasn't one of them.
That episode, many years back, was one of my earliest lessons in the Republican Party's preternatural brilliance in the use of political language. From "family values" to "culture of life," to "death tax" to "Patriot Act" to "No Child Left Behind," the party has demonstrated a phraseological agility that jargon-bound Democrats can only envy. "Social Security lockbox," anyone? Some might argue that what the GOP has really mastered is the language of obfuscation and misdirection, a willingness to unmoor words from their meanings -- as in its shameless attempts in recent years to co-opt the language of the civil rights movement as a weapon against affirmative action. Good point. But the truth of the language is not what I'm here to talk about. Its efficacy is.
Consider the party's masterpiece. Of all the terms it has arrogated unto itself (values, tradition, patriotism) and all those it has used to jab the competition (secular, culture wars, moral relativism), its best work is embodied in one word: liberal.
Truth is, we're all pretty liberal -- at least if you're using the word as historically defined. It's hard to imagine even Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter coming out in favor of racial segregation, child labor or male-only workplaces. To the degree the word no longer evokes the fight against those things and connotes moral squishiness and effete elitism instead, Republicans have been astoundingly successful in deconstructing it, rebranding it, making it unusable.
If you're a word person, you watch this with a sense of appalled wonder and ask, Is anybody else seeing this? Geoffrey Nunberg is. He's a linguist at UC Berkeley and the author of a new book on political language, "Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism Into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show."
In a nutshell, he told me in an telephone interview, the GOP has learned to deftly exploit a "bogus populism, the invention of the red-blue divide as the crucial division in American life." Democrats, meantime, are left looking for "word magic" of their own, failing to understand that it's not the words per se that have the power, but the deeper narrative of hopes and fears they represent.
Liberal is the perfect example, having been transmuted from a perfectly viable political ideology into a sort of birth defect.
Indeed, the word is used now in much the same way as a certain racial epithet: to mark not simply political disagreement, but native and irreparable deficiencies. The N-word becomes the L-word.
"I think that's right," Nunberg said. "That formula's been extended to those two terms, those two 'unspeakable' terms. The N-word really is unspeakable. The L-word, they sort of pretend that it is. It's been going on for 25 years now and it's really become a word that denotes not a political philosophy, but this self-indulgent, effete lifestyle. It's become ... if you're not born in it, it goes very deep in the bone." Thus, liberal becomes "a word that ... you don't have to say anything more than that. It carries its own moral weight."
So where are the Democrats' words? Their narrative? It's an urgent question waiting for an urgent answer.
Granted, the party stands to make major gains in next month's elections, but those will not be votes for Democrats so much as votes against Mark Foley, Iraq and Republican hubris in general. As such, they might produce a majority, but not a mandate. For that to happen, Democrats must first figure out two things: What they believe in and how to express it.
Say what you will about them, but the Republicans already know.
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Comments: 16
It has been a deliberate, well financed, cleverly organized and ruthlessly executed campaign to discredit anybody with liberal leanings. And it has been very successful.
Whoa, Barbara. The root cause of the electrical power shortages and astronomical prices goes back to a Republican Governor, Pete Wilson, who deregulated our power industry long before Gray Davis came on the scene. The huge deficits were caused by rapacious power companies who "gamed" the system and ripped us off. There wasn't anything Gray Davis could do about that. As for the deficits, our current "governator" is trying to add some huge debts as I speak...and he's a Republican!
As for "personal responsibility" in electrical usage...um, could you explain that please? Is this something you claim is some kind of problem we liberals have?
And what, pray tell, does "socialist forms of government" have to do with this topic? This topic is about truth, as I read it. Do you claim that the current federal government is a bastion of truthtelling?
Great article, as usual! It's been rather obvious to many for quite some time that the GOP could never get enough people to vote against their own bests interests to gain a majority, unless they presented their agenda falsely.
"Maybe you could stroll down memory lane in your own state of California to the time when you had rolling blackouts, caps on your electric bills, no personal responsibility in electricity usage, major deficits in your state's budget, these are what come to my mind."
Those were the direct result of republican deregulation.
"Socialist forms of government are not working, have not worked, and will never work."
Really? Explain. I can think of quite a few things that some of the socialist countries in Europe have going that seem to be working out very well.
"You can't reward people for doing nothing."
Really? How do you explain George Bush then? He's failed, drank, snorted, and smoked his way right up to the white house, not to mention the enourmous wealth that he'll inherit when Poppy is finally called back to the dark underworld. He seems to me like the poster boy for being rewarded for doing nothing.
I couldn't have said it any better myself. Hey, cliches come from somewhere, ya know..........LOL.
Libs deserve the skewering. They've done all this to themselves - Conservatives just noticed it, then wrote about their empirical observations.
I don't have far to stroll to remember the nasty, sneak attack orchestrated by Enron, helped along by Dick Cheney and others regarding California's energy problems, resulting from De-regulation...engineered by Repulbicans, and helped along by Republican appointees on the energy commission. I'm sure you may need some help getting your facts straight. And though I am also very busy and tired; I have taken the time to gather a few articles...easily accessible I might add, that you can read excerpts of here; and then follow the links I've provided for more detailed information.
And just for laughs, you may want to re-read the original post. It has nothing to do with the Cal energy gang bang....but instead illustrates how the GOp uses word games to mask and dumb down important issues. Calling the inheritance tax a "death tax"??? Calling the secret surveillance act a "Terrorist Surveillance Act" plus all the other illogical word games over thte past few years. They pay consultants and pollsters to focus group which words work or "play" well with their easily misled constituents.
Here are the articles:
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Enron Tapes Anger Lawmakers
Call For Action After Tapes Reveal Enron Role In Calif. Power Crisis
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/02/eveningnews/main620795.shtml
LOS ANGELES, June 2, 2004
CBS) During California's rolling blackouts, when streets were lit only by head lights and families were trapped in elevators, Enron Energy traders laughed, reports CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales.
One trader is heard on tapes obtained by CBS News saying, "Just cut 'em off. They're so f----d. They should just bring back f-----g horses and carriages, f-----g lamps, f-----g kerosene lamps."
And when describing his reaction when a business owner complained about high energy prices, another trader is heard on tape saying, "I just looked at him. I said, 'Move.' (laughter) The guy was like horrified. I go, 'Look, don't take it the wrong way. Move. It isn't getting fixed anytime soon."
California's attempt to deregulate energy markets became a disaster for consumers when companies like Enron manipulated the West Cost power market and even shut down plants so they could drive up prices.
There was quick reaction in Washington to the Enron audiotapes first aired by CBS News last night, and the tapes have become part of the debate over the President's massive energy bill.
"People were talking about market manipulation. People were talking about schemes, people were making jokes," said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
"While the president would like to have an energy bill, I'd like to have an energy bill that protects consumers," said Cantwell.
Consumers like Grandma Millie, mentioned in one exchange recorded between two Enron employees.
Employee 1: "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?
Employee 2: "Yeah, Grandma Millie man.
Employee 1: "Yeah, now she wants her f-----g money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her a—for f-----g $250 a megawatt hour."
It's clear from the tapes that Enron employees knew what they were doing was wrong, and now lawmakers are responding.
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THE CALIFORNIA RECALL PLOT
http://www.hermes-press.com/recall2.htm
By Michelle Mairsse
It was an extraordinary moment. Congressional Representative Darrell Issa stood before a press microphone array and wept. He had just spent two million of his estimated $300 million fortune gathering signatures and running campaign ads urging citizens to recall California Governor Gray Davis and replace the governor with Issa himself.
Issa had reason to hope. Ben Ginsberg, the attorney who headed the Bush team in the Florida courts in the 2000 presidential election, had been Issa's advisor during these months of importing, organizing, and deploying petition circulators from out of state. Then a thunderclap came out of the blue and Issa's dream collapsed: The night before Issa cried on camera, a movie star announced on Jay Leno's Tonight Show that he, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was preparing to be California's next governor.
Issa's resume neglected to mention that, like several of Bush's cabinet members, he had been charged with four felonies and convicted of one, but he thought his neoconservative outlook and his rags-to-riches immigrant's story would compensate for any past mistakes. He was wrong. Although the Republican wheeler-dealers kindly allowed him to pick up the recall tab, they never considered backing his run for the statehouse. Arnold was their boy from the beginning--and had been for years.
Think back to the manufactured electrical power crisis of 2001. While Gray Davis was unsuccessfully trying to get through to Vice President Dick Cheney, Enron official Ken Lay, Texas energy traders, and Bush and Cheney cronies were conferring with Vice President Cheney in Washington and scheming to create power shortages in the golden state.
They gamed the system so successfully in California that they soon were raking in fortunes and flicking the lights on and off all over the state. After the third rolling blackout had occurred in California, Lay called a secret meeting of high Republican honchos at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He invited such notable Republicans as then-mayor of Los Angeles Richard Riordan, convicted junk-bond scammer Michael Milken, and steroid-enhanced movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.
At that time, Lay was collecting allies for his plan to bring even more deregulation to California while he and his "competitors" were busy creating a rigged market that was to cost California more than $7 billion. Mighty Enron, favored and well-connected as it was, overreached and crashed, but not before it had thrown myriad businesses into receivership, annihilated billions of dollars of its own assets and workers' pensions, and wrecked public utilities in several third world countries. For the record, more than a year after participating in the biggest corporate fraud in U.S. history, chief executives Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling are free men. Federal prosecutors say they may never face prosecution. "Kenny Boy" (Bush's nickname for family friend, funder, and advisor Kenneth Lay) knew all along that it pays to have friends in high places.
Not everyone was unhappy about the rolling blackouts. California Republicans gleefully announced their strategy on the Internet, with such conservatively compassionate messages as: "Use blackouts to break Davis, and use Davis to break the Democrats."
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Enron & The California "Rolling Blackouts" Conspiracy
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5503703206514675415
Proof that conspiracies do happen, and that normal people will do evil things for money (and enjoy doing it!) This 20 minute video tells the story of the fake "energy crisis" Enron engineered in California, and how it was used to by the Republicans to oust Gray Davis and bring Arnold Schwarzenegger to power.
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TAPES SHOW ENRON CAUSED ROLLING BLACKOUTS IN CALIFORNIA
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/020505A.shtml
In the midst of the California energy troubles in early 2001, when power plants were under a federal order to deliver a full output of electricity, the Enron Corporation arranged to take a plant off-line on the same day that California was hit by rolling blackouts, according to audiotapes of company traders released here on Thursday.
The tapes and memorandums were made public by a small public utility north of Seattle that is fighting Enron over a power contract. They also showed that Enron, as early as 1998, was creating artificial energy shortages and running up prices in Canada in advance of California's larger experiment with deregulation.
The tapes provide new details of market manipulation during the California energy crisis that produced blackouts and billions of dollars of surcharges to homes and businesses on the West Coast in 2000 and 2001.
In one January 2001 telephone tape of an Enron trader the public utility identified as Bill Williams and a Las Vegas energy official identified only as Rich, an agreement was made to shut down a power plant providing energy to California. The shutdown was set for an afternoon of peak energy demand.
"This is going to be a word-of-mouth kind of thing," Mr. Williams says on the tape. "We want you guys to get a little creative and come up with a reason to go down." After agreeing to take the plant down, the Nevada official questioned the reason. "O.K., so we're just coming down for some maintenance, like a forced outage type of thing?" Rich asks. "And that's cool?"
"Hopefully," Mr. Williams says, before both men laugh.
The next day, Jan. 17, 2001, as the plant was taken out of service, the State of California called a power emergency, and rolling blackouts hit up to a half-million consumers, according to daily logs of the western power grid.
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The latest outrage: California order to refund money to Enron by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
FERC order says Enron, others owed $270 million
June 16, 2004
In what state officials call a new outrage, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has ordered California to refund about $270 million to Enron and other electricity suppliers, the very companies that the state argues should be refunding $9 billion to California for market rigging during the power crisis three years ago.
A spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer called the order to refund money to the suppliers the "latest affront to justice" from the FERC, with which the state has been at odds since the crisis.
"It's really adding insult to injury," said Tom Dresslar, the attorney general's spokesman.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20040616-9999-1b16power.html
(Jackie- Sorry, no, my song was not inspired by you. LOL)
However this great article seems to have inspired at least one mental midget to stand on a box and try a see over the edge of the shallow end of the Gene Pool. LOL
I think it may be about time for Jehovah/Allah/Yahweh to sternly announce, "Okay, everybody out of the pool! You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!"
BTW I always try to eschew obfuscation whenever possible. ;-)
Still one of the great quotes of all time. LOL
Also, his administration is still recognized as one of the most corrupt in the history of our country.
People who revere him have either faulty or very selective memory.
You been drinking Uncle Rovey's koolaid again?