Friday, February 20, 2015

So what does it mean

Not to "love" America?  The question is unanswerable without asking what is meant by love, because in the era of accepted error, of laissez faire definitions, it can mean anything. So why ask? Certainly the intended audience of the assertion that Mr. Obama does not "love" the country that elected him aren't asking because their reasoning is circular, or perhaps because their ability to question things has been eroded by the linguistic dumbing down of our speech. In the mouth of Rudy Guiliani, I'm deducing that love means something rather nebulous and involves jingoistic nationalism, selective memory, denialism, a dash of megalomania and a psychopathic lack of conscience. 

During the Vietnam years, the trope: 'loving America,' became a euphemism for blindly supporting the war, its conduct, it's stated goals, it's dishonest reasons against any and all criticism. It included defamation of all those who did not blindly follow. It included death threats, sometimes implemented against those who had doubts.  According to a large number, you either "loved" America or you were advised to leave the country. Some of us did. 

Many of us who were raised in the post war atmosphere of America as the savior of freedom and the leaders of the "free world" began to smell something as the flag marched by and the bombs fell and a generation was decimated and thought of Orwell.  Love is hate, war is peace and freedom is slavery.  Indeed, when people fling loaded words around like irritated apes fling dung, that famous quote from 1984 seems less cynical than it once did and more of a sad acceptance of hopelessness. Language has to change as the needs and wants of the oppressors and exploiters require it.  Freedom fries, pre-owned cars, processed foods, assault weapons: define and conquer.

Indeed anything can mean anything and so language no longer guides our thoughts or acts as a structure or armature upon which to build and with which to communicate the truth. Perhaps it never has been otherwise.  Arbeit macht frei, after all and it's our manifest destiny to take whatever we can get away with taking.


"Obama doesn't love America" is a statement without reference to evidence, dependent on idiosyncratic and plastic definitions and without any hint of supporting evidence.  It's so much like statements insisting he's a Muslim, or that he's just like a king or that he hates white people.  Such things depend on what the meaning of is is and nobody is asking.  Is is as likely to mean isn't as bad is to mean good.

Of course Rudy and many of his compatriots simply have so little in the way of valid criticism that they must keep their maledictions on the level of the subliminal. The half-unconscious associations that words are surrounded by become definitions. Just ask your kids' English teacher. Ask the people who tell you pornography is rape, who call a trailer an "estate Home" who call that package of bread mix artisinal.

Murdering two million civilians becomes a noble cause and we do it out of love. We love America, the greatest country that ever was, is or will be! We kill, exploit, deport and impoverish under the rubric of love and freedom.   Freedom?  Well it's what we support in any military activity. Hence  anything done to make our country safer, healthier more decent or anything else we associate with a loving attitude is by accepted definition: Not Loving America. No real explanations are needed, because love means anything the abuser intends it to mean. Language just has to change and if you question that?  Why, like that colored fella in the White House, you just don't love America!

5 comments:

  1. Rudy declared the other day that President Obama "doesn't love you" and "doesn't love me."

    That last part may be an insight into why Rudy haz a sad. He wasn't askin' much from President Obama. Just a bigga, bigga hunk o' love!

    I hope someone will give it to him.



    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. What makes Guiliani’s remarks especially cringe worthy is the ugly, dog whistle appeal to emotions that infuses much rightwing partisan rhetoric these days. To say “Obama doesn’t love you” recalls the deepest humiliations felt by children who have ever been taunted by a schoolyard bully: “Yo mama doesn’t love you!” It is also a cruel act of projection, context as follows (source: Wiki):

    Rudolph Giuliani was born in an Italian-American enclave in East Flatbush in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only child of working-class parents, Harold Angelo Giuliani (1908–1981) and Helen (née D'Avanzo; 1909–2002), both first-generation Americans, children of Italian immigrants.[15] He was raised a Roman Catholic. Harold Giuliani had trouble holding a job and had been convicted of felony assault and robbery and served time in Sing Sing; after his release he served as an enforcer for his brother-in-law Leo D'Avanzo, who ran an organized crime operation involved in loan sharking and gambling at a restaurant in Brooklyn.

    There is nothing in Obama’s background that even comes close to the thug legacy of Guiliani’s childhood.

    Shall we recall Guiliani’s callous treatment of wife #2; his philandering; the manner in which he created a public circus via press conference regarding his announcement to divorce Donna Hanover; the chauffeur services provided to his mistress at public expense; and his estrangement from both his son Andrew and his daughter Caroline!

    Some family man! This hypocritical rat skunk of a man, Rudy Guiliani!

    ReplyDelete
  4. If anything means anything, then how do we define hypocrisy?
    If loving America can mean anything at all, then love is hate which takes us back to Orwell once again. Control the language, control the masses.

    Sure Gingrich can honk about family values and so can they all -- what the hell does it mean anyway, but "do as I say?"

    Words are just there to prompt conditioned reflexes. Maybe Chomsky is right that language is more about how we think than about how we communicate. Degrade the language, degrade thought. Leaders grunt, we grunt in unison and ignorance is strength.

    Obama was raised in America by midwestern white people -- just like me. Rudy was raised by criminals and his family values are apparent.

    ReplyDelete

We welcome civil discourse from all people but express no obligation to allow contributors and readers to be trolled. Any comment that sinks to the level of bigotry, defamation, personal insults, off-topic rants, and profanity will be deleted without notice.