This morning I had occasion to hear King George W’s address to the American people repeated ad nauseam on Norwegian state radio. The adjective that came immediately to mind was coined by George Orwell in his dystopic description of an England of which he saw signs forty years before the date he gave his fantasy. Now, some nineteen years later, we are there !
O yes, the adjective—newspeak. Surely this word merits the status of WotD, today, and for many days to come….
Henri
PS : Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck is said to have remarked that <Never are so many lies told as before an election, during a war, and after a hunt>. One wonders if King George W is given to hunting ?
PPS : Any Agorist here who knows how Bismarck’s aphorism goes in the original ? I’d love to have it in German….
[quote author=M._Henri_Day link=board=wordsuggest;num=1048176984;start=0#0 date=03/20/03 at 11:16:24]PPS : Any Agorist here who knows how Bismarck’s aphorism goes in the original ? I’d love to have it in German….
"Es wird niemals so viel gelogen wie vor der Wahl, während des Krieges und nach der Jagd"
[quote author=M._Henri_Day link=board=wordsuggest;num=1048176984;start=0#0 date=03/20/03 at 11:16:24]One wonders if King George W is given to hunting ?
yes, but the hunt isn’t over yet… the prey has inconveniently gone underground spoiling his sport so he probably figures he can fiddle with this war in the meantime
I find it rather ironic that you would refer to President Bush
as King, when there are still countries in the civilized world
that have retained their monarchs as pets. Though vestigial
and impotent, these monarchs somehow command the
respect of their countrymen as symbols of their nationhood.
The United States of America does not have royalty, nor do
we think of our President as a symbol.
I don’t trust any government agency or representative to tell
the American people the truth about anything. The secrecy
and deception of any ruling force is obvious to any thinking
person.
Although I support the US in deposing S. Hussein and his
cruel, oppressive regime, I do not like very much about
our President Bush. I do not like his voice. I do not like
his manner. I do not like his "sincerity," but there is not
a President that I can remember that I truely liked.
Our democratic republic is not based on liking or disliking
personalities. It is usually the choosing of the lesser of
two evils. In this instance I feel that our President’s
choice to invade Iraq is less evil than to turn our backs
on the present and future dangers that this regime engen-
ders.
Perhaps I base my view too solidly on the horror stories that
I have heard from my Iraqi friends who have escaped Iraq,
which echo the brave Iraqis who give their testimonies on the
radio. I have heard nothing good about S. Hussein from
anyone outside his grasp.
I believe that it would be more appropriate to call him king!
King Saddam the Torturer!
Besides, isn’t Little George more like a Crown Prince to you?
Remember, also, that the world that Orwell described was
a totalitarian socialist utopia.
Yes, I understand what you mean by "newspeak," such as the
liberation of Tibet by Communist China, or the liberation of
France by Nazi Germany. I do not believe that that is what we
are saying concerning Iraq and regime change.
Though none of us may be your intellectual equal, I can see no
reason for you to condescend.
[quote author=Sitran link=board=wordsuggest;num=1048176984;start=0#3 date=03/20/03 at 18:53:10]Though none of us may be your intellectual equal, I can see no reason for you to condescend.
I hardly think it fitting to characterise references to King Bush as condescending… for what makes a king if not the power to wage war? and here this creature is, supposedly elected in a supposedly free society, conducting war.
I say supposedly because neither was his election to office clearly the choice of the people nor do Americans today really have a choice in waging war.
[quote author=KatyBr link=board=wordsuggest;num=1048176984;start=0#5 date=03/20/03 at 19:14:28]2/3 of Americans according to the current Gallop Poll are behind this war and PRESIDENT Bush has still over a 50% confidence rating.
polls are statistical samplings whose outcomes are so susceptible to manipulation that resting an opinion on them emasculates the opinion.
besides, it makes little difference what Americans think or whether they are "behind" Bush since they have no choice whatsoever about what he does.
It doesn’t matter to me what you call Dubya. The fact is, he was not elected by a majority of the populace; but then again, that’s not illegal. It’s called election by the electoral college. I bet it doesn’t matter to him what any of US here call him, in fact. We don’t actually count. Unless we have a professional lobbyist or the head of some wealthy conglomerate as a member of the Agora.
As I have not heard any of Dubya’s addresses to the public, I can’t address them.
[quote author=ekkis link=board=wordsuggest;num=1048176984;start=0#4 date=03/20/03 at 19:11:16]I hardly think it fitting to characterise references to King Bush as condescending… for what makes a king if not the power to wage war?
Our country’s founders won a very difficult war with unimaginable odds, because we didn’t want a monarch, thank you very much… So, what makes a king?
king
n.
1. A male sovereign.
2. One that is supreme or preeminent in a particular group, category, or sphere.
3. King
a. The perfect, omniscient, omnipotent being; God.
b. Christianity Jesus.
4. Games
a. Abbr. K A playing card bearing the figure of a king, ranking above a queen.
b. Abbr. K The principal chess piece, which can move one square in any direction and must be protected against checkmate.
c. A piece in checkers that has been moved to the last row on the opponent’s side of the board and been crowned, thus becoming free to move both forward and backward.
5. Kings(used with a sing. verb) Abbr. K or Kgs. See Table at Bible.
adj.
Principal or chief, as in size or importance.
tr.v.Gameskinged, king·ing, kings
To make (a piece in checkers) into a king; crown.
So, from this definition, we can only assume that any reference to Dubya in the monarchical sense is an expression of the adjectival form, and should be formed in the lower case, although a proper title may correctly carry it capitalized…
won a very difficult war with unimaginable odds, because we didn’t want a monarch
But if I remember my history correctly, the odds weren’t all that bad (a small English army fighting a war against a much larger colonial population) and the victorious Congress offered George Washington the regency.
A common sense letter from the creator of "Bowling for Columbine". Michael Moore
Monday, March 17th, 2003
George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC
Dear Governor Bush:
So today is what you call "the moment of truth," the day that "France and the rest of world have to show their cards on the table." I’m glad to hear that this day has finally arrived. Because, I gotta tell ya, having survived 440 days of your lying and conniving, I wasn’t sure if I could take much more. So I’m glad to hear that today is Truth Day, ‘cause I got a few truths I would like to share with you:
1. There is virtually NO ONE in America (talk radio nutters and Fox News aside) who is gung-ho to go to war. Trust me on this one. Walk out of the White House and on to any street in America and try to find five people who are PASSIONATE about wanting to kill Iraqis. YOU WON’T FIND THEM! Why? ‘Cause NO Iraqis have ever come here and killed any of us!
No Iraqi has even threatened to do that. You see, this is how we average Americans think: If a certain so-and-so is not perceived as a threat to our lives, then, believe it or not, we don’t want to kill him! Funny how that works!
2. The majority of Americans—the ones who never elected you—are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction. We know what the real issues are that affect our daily lives—and none of them begin with I or end in Q. Here’s what threatens us: two and a half million jobs lost since you took office, the stock market having become a cruel joke, no one knowing if their retirement funds are going to be there, gas now costs two dollars a gallon—the list goes on and on. Bombing Iraq will not make any of this go away. Only you need to go away for things to improve.
3. As Bill Maher said last week, how bad do you have to suck to lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein? The whole world is against you, Mr. Bush. Count your fellow Americans among them.
4. The Pope has said this war is wrong, that it is a SIN. The Pope! But even worse, the Dixie Chicks have now come out against you! How bad does it have to get before you realize that you are an army of one on this war? Of course, this is a war you personally won’t have to fight. Just like when you went AWOL while the poor were shipped to Vietnam in your place.
5. Of the 535 members of Congress, only ONE (Sen. Johnson of South Dakota) has an enlisted son or daughter in the armed forces! If you really want to stand up for America, please send your twin daughters over to Kuwait right now and let them don their chemical warfare suits.
And let’s see every member of Congress with a child of military age also sacrifice their kids for this war effort. What’s that you say? You don’t THINK so? Well, hey, guess what—we don’t think so either!
6. Finally, we love France. Yes, they have pulled some royal screw-ups. Yes, some of them can be pretty damn annoying. But have you forgotten we wouldn’t even have this country known as America if it weren’t for the French? That it was their help in the Revolutionary War that won it for us? That it was France who gave us our Statue of Liberty, a Frenchman who built the Chevrolet, and a pair of French brothers who invented the movies? And now they are doing what only a good friend can do—tell you the truth about yourself, straight, no b.s. Quit pissing on the French and thank them for getting it right for once. You know, you really should have traveled more (like once) before you took over. Your ignorance of the world has not only made you look stupid, it has painted you into a corner you can’t get out of.
Well, cheer up—there IS good news. If you do go through with this war, more than likely it will be over soon because I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of Iraqis willing to lay down their lives to protect Saddam Hussein. After you "win" the war, you will enjoy a huge bump in the popularity polls as everyone loves a winner—and who doesn’t like to see a good ass-whoopin’ every now and then (especially when it ‘s some third world ass!). And just like with Afghanistan, we’ll forget about what happens to a country after we bomb it ‘cause that is just too complex! So try your best to ride this victory all the way to next year’s election. Of course, that’s still a long ways away, so we’ll all get to have a good hardy-har-har while we watch the economy sink even further down the toilet!
But, hey, who knows—maybe you’ll find Osama a few days before the election! See, start thinking like THAT! Keep hope alive! Kill Iraqis—they got our oil!!
[quote author=Sitran link=board=wordsuggest;num=1048176984;start=0#3 date=03/20/03 at 18:53:10] ... The United States of America does not have royalty, nor do
we think of our President as a symbol.
But it seems to be precisely the symbolic function of the President which lies behind Katy Byr‘s characterisation of my reference to King George W as a
particularily ugly charge to an American
—for surely, to call a man a king is not to insult him ? If I understand Katy aright, that which she finds particularly ugly is rather my suggestion that there has now occured a basic change in US polity, and that relations between the Executive and the other branches of the government—and, indeed, between the government and the people, have been altered so fundamentally under the present administration that it is more correct to refer to Mr Bush as King George W than as President Bush. To me, a staunch republican (who nonetheless is a citizen of one monarchy (in Sweden we no longer say undersåt—subject, but use the term medborgare—and resident in another), it is indeed an ugly charge, but one—alas—which I find fully justified. It is not so much (pace Patricia !) the manner in which he came to power—other US presidents have been known to tweak election results, although none, perhaps, in the last hundred years quite so boldly as Mr Bush—but rather what he and his men have done since assuming office. Let us remember what the Constitution of the United States http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html has to say about the power to go to war
ARTICLE. 1.
...
Section. 8.
...
Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power
...
Clause 11: To declare War, ...
Other US presidents have, of course, usurped Congress’s exclusive war-making powers—in fact, as many of you are surely aware, no president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has gone to the Congress and asked for a Declaration of War, despite the fact that the US has been continually engaged in making war on other nations since, as we erroneously tend to say here <the last war> (i e, WW II). But there is something about the cavalier manner in which this is now being done that is special for this Administration and which tastes more of a Monarchy (of the type of Englands George III, Sitran, rather than our present, more restrained European monarchs—but they are not all that restrained ; I don’t know if the latest doings of Hans Adam II in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg have been reported widely in the US) than of a Republic—at least the Republic envisaged by (some of) the Founding Fathers (like Palewriter, I also understand that another George W was offered the kingship, but he was, I think it fair to say, a man of a rather different caliber than his present namesake). Besides this Drang nach Krieg(e) (which I fear, will hardly be satisfied by a mere two wars, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq), we also see the constant erosion of civil liberties at home, all this which to my (perhaps overly suspicious ?) mind indicates strong monarchist, not to say imperial tendencies on the part of some of the leading lights of the present Administration. Just to compare an earlier King George with the present, it might be of interest to see what Thomas Jefferson wrote about him (http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html)
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
…
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
...
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
As I see it, the writing on the wall reads : Mene, mene, tekel, ufarsin....
Henri
PS : I regret, Sitran, if you find me condescending to you or to other Agorists ; that is not my intention. If you, however, find me condescending to Mr Bush, that is something that I am sure both he and I can live with….
Henri, with all due respect, what you have written is beautifully stated, but it is still insulting for a non-American to label our President a king. Many of us here may not have voted for him, but to insult him is an affront to our Constitution and to those of us who do take what little pride is left to take in the election process.
The fact of the matter is, if we want to change labels at all, we should relabel the Congress, who released their authority and responsibility in the matter last fall.
And Senator Robert Byrd’s remarks from last October, when the Senate was debating that issue (Joint Resolution 46), are revealing and impressive.
[quote author=Sitran link=board=wordsuggest;num=1048176984;start=15#15 date=03/21/03 at 10:29:12]Henri,
Whom or what were you mocking when you called our
President, King?
Sitran, I wasn’t mocking anybody or anything. What I was trying to do was to call attention to a change in polity—call it, if you will, a creeping coup d’état—the generals aren’t out on the balcony yet, but they’re coming—which scares the bejeezus out of me, as it will have consequences not merely for life in the United States, but also for all the world. I think if you reread my last posting, you will see this. But for my part, what I find hard to understand is why you would think that I had, or should now have, any intention to insult you. Can you point to anything I have said which could reasonably give rise to such a suspicion ?...
[quote author=Tim Ward link=board=wordsuggest;num=1048176984;start=0#14 date=03/21/03 at 09:26:14]Henri, with all due respect, what you have written is beautifully stated, but it is still insulting for a non-American to label our President a king.
Tim, I owe you a reply—and I wrote one, as well—alas, as is my wont, a very long one—but then with an inadvertant flick of the key, I sent it into electronic oblivion ! So can it go. Can I take a raincheck ?...
Thank you, by the way, for the URL which provides Senator Byrd’s address ! Let me, as I did in my earlier letter cite the perhaps most relevant part
The great Roman historian, Titus Livius, said, " All things will be clear and distinct to the man who does not hurry; haste is blind and improvident."
"Blind and improvident," Mr. President. "Blind and improvident." Congress would be wise to heed those words today, for as sure as the sun rises in the east, we are embarking on a course of action with regard to Iraq that, in its haste, is both blind and improvident. We are rushing into war without fully discussing why, without thoroughly considering the consequences, or without making any attempt to explore what steps we might take to avert conflict.
The newly bellicose mood that permeates this White House is unfortunate, all the moreso because it is clearly motivated by campaign politics. Republicans are already running attack ads against Democrats on Iraq. Democrats favor fast approval of a resolution so they can change the subject to domestic economic problems. (NY Times 9/20/2002)
Before risking the lives of American troops, all members of Congress – Democrats and Republicans alike – must overcome the siren song of political polls and focus strictly on the merits, not the politics, of this most serious issue.
The resolution before us today is not only a product of haste; it is also a product of presidential hubris. This resolution is breathtaking in its scope. It redefines the nature of defense, and reinterprets the Constitution to suit the will of the Executive Branch. It would give the President blanket authority to launch a unilateral preemptive attack on a sovereign nation that is perceived to be a threat to the United States. This is an unprecedented and unfounded interpretation of the President’s authority under the Constitution, not to mention the fact that it stands the charter of the United Nations on its head.
Representative Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to William H. Herndon, stated: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose - - and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, ‘I see no probability of the British invading us’ but he will say to you ‘be silent; I see it, if you don’t.’
"The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood."
If he could speak to us today, what would Lincoln say of the Bush doctrine concerning preemptive strikes?
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