Managing The Language
"Don't misunderestimate me."
"Is our children learning?"
"Putting food on your families."
For a long time the country was treated to the hilarity of George W. Bush's mangling of the language. Collections of his malapropisms even made it into book form. It's been a long time, however, since Americans found the president's speechifying funny. While he still occasionally peppers his pronouncements with bizarre neologisms, he seems to have shifted from mangling to managing the language. It turns out that he and his administration are quite adept at using the language not to convey information, but to hide it.
"Mistakes were made."
"The Clean Air Act."
And with this shift, such governmental agencies as the CIA have been freed up to do the same. One of the preferred language management techniques is the euphemism, and an article written by Jon Henley and published December 13, 2007 in the UK's Guardian provides a brief glossary of some of the euphemistic terms used by the CIA.
Waterboarding, according to the CIA ...is merely an "enhanced coercive interrogation technique". ...
Special methods of questioning Essentially indistinguishable from "enhanced coercive interrogation technique", this seems to be a broad-brush term covering a range of interrogation methods likely to arouse disquiet in the kind of people who worry about such matters as the Geneva Convention, the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Black sites The secret CIA prisons and/or interrogation centres where the above techniques are practised.
Illegal combatants The people to whom the above techniques are applied.
Sleep management Deluded liberals may prefer the term "sleep deprivation".
Stress position Detainee is forced to stand erect for several hours. Or forced to stand erect for several hours, with his arms held out to the side. Or shackled to the ceiling with his arms extended, sometimes without his feet touching the ground. Whichever, it's certainly stressful.
Special renditions Er, kidnapping.
Fear up Ranges from leaving a truncheon on the table to throwing furniture around or, as the website Slate has pointed out, if the prisoner is religious, allowing him to think that he may face eternal damnation by threatening to show him pornographic images.
Sexual humiliation Detainee forced to strip naked, or adopt sexually explicit poses.
Mild, non-injurious physical contact A cuff round the ear. Or - whoops, we never meant to go that far - a broken leg. [Emphasis in the original]
The list is certainly not exhaustive, but it does give some pretty good evidence of how our government now operates in terms of managing the language in order to manage the populace here in America and around the world. Apparently our bumbling president is a quick learner when he wants to be. He's obviously been well-schooled, but then there is a fairly recent historical precedent:
Refined interrogation techniques Actually, that was the Gestapo's favourite euphemism. But then, they didn't practise torture either, did they?
"Is our children learning?"
"Putting food on your families."
For a long time the country was treated to the hilarity of George W. Bush's mangling of the language. Collections of his malapropisms even made it into book form. It's been a long time, however, since Americans found the president's speechifying funny. While he still occasionally peppers his pronouncements with bizarre neologisms, he seems to have shifted from mangling to managing the language. It turns out that he and his administration are quite adept at using the language not to convey information, but to hide it.
"Mistakes were made."
"The Clean Air Act."
And with this shift, such governmental agencies as the CIA have been freed up to do the same. One of the preferred language management techniques is the euphemism, and an article written by Jon Henley and published December 13, 2007 in the UK's Guardian provides a brief glossary of some of the euphemistic terms used by the CIA.
Waterboarding, according to the CIA ...is merely an "enhanced coercive interrogation technique". ...
Special methods of questioning Essentially indistinguishable from "enhanced coercive interrogation technique", this seems to be a broad-brush term covering a range of interrogation methods likely to arouse disquiet in the kind of people who worry about such matters as the Geneva Convention, the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Black sites The secret CIA prisons and/or interrogation centres where the above techniques are practised.
Illegal combatants The people to whom the above techniques are applied.
Sleep management Deluded liberals may prefer the term "sleep deprivation".
Stress position Detainee is forced to stand erect for several hours. Or forced to stand erect for several hours, with his arms held out to the side. Or shackled to the ceiling with his arms extended, sometimes without his feet touching the ground. Whichever, it's certainly stressful.
Special renditions Er, kidnapping.
Fear up Ranges from leaving a truncheon on the table to throwing furniture around or, as the website Slate has pointed out, if the prisoner is religious, allowing him to think that he may face eternal damnation by threatening to show him pornographic images.
Sexual humiliation Detainee forced to strip naked, or adopt sexually explicit poses.
Mild, non-injurious physical contact A cuff round the ear. Or - whoops, we never meant to go that far - a broken leg. [Emphasis in the original]
The list is certainly not exhaustive, but it does give some pretty good evidence of how our government now operates in terms of managing the language in order to manage the populace here in America and around the world. Apparently our bumbling president is a quick learner when he wants to be. He's obviously been well-schooled, but then there is a fairly recent historical precedent:
Refined interrogation techniques Actually, that was the Gestapo's favourite euphemism. But then, they didn't practise torture either, did they?
Labels: Torture
posted by Diane at 4:39 AM
1 Comments:
Nice post. Good to see some clear examples of what I've suspected for a while: that he's getting better with the language, but for more nefarious reasons.
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