We Don't Need No Thought Control

More education, though? Hmmm...

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

In a couple of my earliest pieces, I mused over words and language, and their meanings over time. In one, I focused on attaching prefixes like neo, and alt to old words, and presenting them as though they were some new ideas. In actuality, all that happened was a return to the original practices done by younger people in our current time. It was this one:

That complication is enough to muddy language as it is, that we don’t need anything else. Unfortunately, there’s a lot more lately happening that’s mangling language, meaning and how we understand each other. It’s not a mistake or misunderstanding. It’s purposeful, and as far as I see it’s the right-wing perverting the dictionary, subverting the very meaning of the words we use to try to get us to doubt we know what we know.

There are many days I wonder if I’ve awoken in the Bizarro World from the DC Comics; everything is the reverse of normalcy.

I hear and read people who talk about freedom, but they’re chomping at the bit to abduct and imprison anyone who doesn’t look like them. They speak of liberty while siccing rabid, masked thugs to blanket American cities in armed patrols, terrorizing residents under an unannounced martial law. Our residents watched roving gunmen in balaclavas jumping out of trucks with machine guns in other countries and derided it as tyranny. Today, the same people and representatives who would appeal to the nation to dispatch our military to countries abroad whose unidentified gangs roughed up residents, cheer the dispatch of agents doing the same here and call it law and order.

Law and order. There’s another victim of inversion. What law? What order? A Republican party that sanctimoniously lectured liberals and progressives about the preciousness of the Constitution, ignores and micturates on it daily. People are illegally searched and seized, in defiance of the Constitution, the legal foundation for the nation’s existence. People are denied the due process they’re guaranteed under the Constitution, the country’s supreme governing document. State agents are breaking down people’s doors without warrants, abducting people half-dressed or completely naked from their homes without charge or cause.

In Chicago during September, an ICE gang descended on an apartment building in the middle of the night that has mostly Black and Brown residents. In an operation that looked like they were capturing bin Laden, they rappelled down from choppers, broke down doors with battering rams, men streamed through hallways and into units wearing tactical gear and brandishing machine guns. They broke into every unit, zip-tied men, women and children, dragged them all outside barely dressed or naked, ransacked their apartments and did thousands of dollars in damage. No criminal charges were filed against any of them. How lawful or orderly is it to break into people’s homes willy-nilly, rip them and their children from their homes in various states of undress, drag them into the night streets and parade them around outside, zip-tied like criminals on a speculative hunch? It’s neither. It’s a travesty.

On January 6, 2021, a riotous mob was called to the Ellipse by the then outgoing President of the United States. He claimed he was robbed of the election, it was rigged and they needed to go down to the Capitol to “take our country back.” The roused hooligans tromped down the boulevard, clambered onto the Capitol from all directions, beat police officers, broke down its doors, broke windows, climbed inside, chanted to hang the outgoing VP and members of Congress, roamed the halls threatening harm to any congressperson they found and some even smeared their feces on the walls. They wanted to overturn the certified vote of the Electors, expressing the will of the people’s cast ballots.

Over a thousand of the miscreants were found guilty, either by plea or court conviction, for various criminal charges. Republicans called it a gathering, sightseeing and other benign adjectives, in complete denial of the actual shit-smearing disgrace it was. Everyone who was either crestfallen or enraged at the sickening spectacle knew what they just watched. It was an insurrection.

About a week ago, six Democratic congresspeople with a combination of CIA and military experience from various armed forces, cut a video addressing the country’s enlisted. They reminded them of the oath each takes to protect and defend the Constitution of the US, and that the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) they also swear to uphold, demands that they refuse to comply with any order that’s illegal or unconstitutional.

This is a timely reminder, especially as the current regime is engaged in a real-life game of Battleship, but instead of targeting destroyers and frigates, it’s obliterating poor fishermen from Latin America and the Caribbean in boats powered by outboard motors. The White House claims they are drug traffickers, but no one has seen proof. None of the slaughtered have been named, had their faces revealed, been charged in any court proceeding we’re aware of, and no evidence was presented to Americans. A number of legal scholars have written their doubts on the constitutionality of these actions. With such a cavalier deployment of men and materiel lately, this sure seems like servicemembers were given sound advice.

Not according to the orange-tinted maniac burdening the chair behind the Resolute Desk. Encouragement to honor their oaths was met with accusations of “seditious behavior.” Stephen Miller, the angry little presidential adviser whose facial expression always looks like he’s battling diaper rash, also cried foul. He claimed that encouragement for soldiers to follow legal orders, honor their oaths to the Constitution and UCMJ were, “openly calling for insurrection.”

So, let’s review, shall we? This crowd believes a mob of angry protesters breaking into the Capitol, flinging poop like primates, threatening violence and death to elected officials, ignoring the Constitution and demanding overturn of the popular vote isn’t insurrection. What in their view is insurrection? It’s elected officials encouraging our military to obey the law and honor their oaths, say the Bizarro-cans. Left is right and up is down.

At every turn, these people are twisting meaning inside out and backwards. If they’re not doing that, they’re poisoning other words.

Liberal. Progressive. Socialist. Woke. Trans. You’ve heard the way they say them. The words aren’t spoken, as much as spat like venom, intended to burn like battery acid on contact. They’re not labels or adjectives, as much as they’re hurled with the intent to hang them around your neck like some kind of moral failing or criminal conviction. What do those words mean, though, really? Let’s see what Merriam-Webster has to say.

• Liberal: inclined to be open to ideas and ways of behaving that are not conventional or traditional.

• Progressive: using, involving, or interested in new or modern ideas; characterized by continuous improvement or advancement.

• Socialist: one who advocates or practices socialism.

• Socialism: any of various egalitarian economic and political theories or movements advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

• Woke: aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).

• Trans: prefix meaning to change or transfer; a shortened form of the word transgender.

• Transgender: a person whose gender identity differs from the sex the person was identified as having at birth

Do any of those things sound evil? Are any of them terrifying? None of them strike me that way, but I’m also not invested in forcing people to see things through a narrow worldview either.

Diversity, equity and inclusion, i.e. DEI, is another “scary” right-wing boogeyman. It’s a go-to slur now for racists accusing anyone who isn’t a white man of being unqualified. The claim is that women, LGBTQ and BIPOC are getting hired or elected based on color or identity, not qualifications.

However, it’s the variety of perspectives and skillsets that come from a broad cross-section of people that enables organizations to cover the most ground and plan to more comprehensively prevent problems. The same people making the accusation of token employment look on as a nearly all white regime (Yeah, Marco, they’ll be honest after your use by date expires) presides over an inherited growing economy driven into contraction, leaks secret war plans over insecure apps, unravels the safety of air travel and medical care and pimps out the White House on every billionaire and autocrat corner it can find.

However, recent congressional review of naval strikes reveals that Admiral Alvin Holsey, the Black man and career Naval officer who retired instead of be party to war crimes, is a diverse voice that should have been included and given equal recognition to ensure compliance with the law. Instead of trying to invent criminal charges to remove Federal Reserve Governor, Lisa Cook because she’s a Black woman, they could have listened to her assessments and insights. Maybe the former Professor of Economics at Michigan State University and member in good standing of the American Economic Association, could have talked sloooooowly and used small words to explain to this klown brigade how tariffs work, including “Ron Vara”, so we continued enjoying economic growth instead of them bringing on a recession.

Yet, this is the resulting incompetence you can expect when people are not only animated by racism, but they disregard or try to overturn the actual meaning of words. A rogue’s gallery of serial adulterers and friends of child rapists, present themselves as defenders of children and champions of stable nuclear families. Self-proclaimed champions of stable nuclear families with both parents, dispatch masked gangs to abduct one or both parents, sometimes leaving their minor children unattended after abducting their parent(s) or guardian(s). The Vice President, changed his identity no less than three times, the final time conveniently separating him from any previous embarrassing associations as he began a career in venture capital. He now attacks transgender people for the single instance they change their identity to reflect who they are, accusing some for using it for advantage applying to Ivy League schools.

Communication succeeds when one person or representative, successfully conveys information to another person or representative. In order for that to occur, both parties need to speak the same language and the words used have to mean the same thing to those on both sides of the conversation.

People ignoring or subverting the established meaning of words make this impossible. When upending word use to create slang and idiom for expression, it’s harmless. When trying to completely erase or pervert the existing meaning of language, it’s nefarious. The imagery we allow words to conjure shapes language, and that language goes on to shape how people perceive their reality. Ceding that portrayal of the world to a crowd of greedy, selfish, lying bigots is not the move, not at all.

That’s why I don’t back down when someone is trying to tell me up is down and left is right. If they want to lie to themselves, that’s one thing. I’ll be damned if I’ll let them lie to me and nod along silently to embolden them to keep spreading foolishness. We’ve seen what leaving half-truths, barely true and completely untrue statements unchallenged does: it allows them to be portrayed as true. The longer they go unchallenged and the bolder the people become in pushing their distortions, the more unimpeachable the nonsense appears. I refuse.

I keep the link of that montage of the J6 rioters wreaking havoc on the Capitol handy, for whenever someone tries to redefine insurrection. I break it out and show them what an actual one looks like. If someone tries to tell me that a recently murdered podcaster debated in good faith, I’ll show them the nastily bigoted positions he staked his arguments on and ask them to explain how those stances display a good faith position. If someone rails on progressives or socialism, I’ll ask them what they have against pushing for continual improvement, or society working together to ensure the safety and security of everyone.

You see, those of us leaning left on the political spectrum have run from the things that are good and make our position worthy. We’ve allowed the other side to subvert and try to turn them into smears, but we don’t have any reason to be ashamed of any terms they try to use as an insult or to demean us. So many of them have been using them as smears for so long, I don’t even think half of them know what the words they’re hurling mean.

So no, we don’t need them grabbing, twisting and ruining language to control thought and perception. We need more education. Those of us who know the math are going to have to get down and take the ignorant to class. We’ll show them where they went wrong solving for “x” in their equations, and display how formulas that arrive at the truth are solved. We won’t win many. At times we won’t successfully inform any, but for every one we do correct, that creates a household with an ember threatening to catch a whole house on fire with knowledge. So, let’s go. Burn baby, burn.