Rectification of Names

Confucius:
“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.”

So, what does an ancient Chinese philosopher have to teach us about our post-Modern world?

Quite a bit, actually.

Since the 2000 Election, we've seen our national language deteriorate into Orwellian NewSpeak, into transpositions of black for white and into lies parading around as fanciful conventional wisdoms. Propaganda and truth, until Katrina came and washed away the media's veneer of compliant patriotism, were fed to the American public, from the Administration by way of the news media, like MREs--a great Pentagon acronym for Meals Ready to Eat. Incidentally, the professional association of military reporters and editors is also called "MRE."

Isn't funny how sometimes people give us the truth unintentionally?

Anyway....

Confucius would marvel at just how completely we, the American people, have proven his axiom on "incorrect language." But even his genius couldn't foresee the power of the Corporate-American media. Still, he knew that a people who are propagandized cannot make judgments and, as we've seen for six years, "stand about in helpless confusion."

Now, it is true that Team Bush had to steal the first election and that there is plenty of evidence that the Team did it again in 2004. You can't fool all of the people...or even 51% of them, I guess. And it is true that at least 1/3rd of Americans saw through much of the propaganda offered up as truth since 9/11..and that number has grown. But those people also tend to hold their American brethren in contempt...for not being able to see through the often paper-thin tissue of lies that have been peddled by our Fearless Leaders and our Cowering Media. The Informed need to read Confucius. It is not so easy to stay informed when there is so much disinformation clogging the informational arteries...and for those who are struggling to stay afloat in this debt-ridden, fear-factored environment there is very little time to read all of the alternative news sources out there.

One of the great advantages Team Bush has is that it takes time and effort...and a serious dose distrust and cynicism...to wade through it all and make sense of it. They've cynically used cynicism to drive a wedge through the electorate.

It is true that the media is now more likely to ask questions, but it is still woefully inadequate to the Confucian task at hand. Team Bush is a disinformation machine...a prolific propagandizer and language engineer.

The Rectification of Names is a 24/7 job these days, and the confusion...along with the obvious deterioration of our morals and our art...is six years in the making (if not more, but let's do this one presidency at a time!).

Here are some examples that need Rectification:

War on Terror: If it is indeed a war on "Terror"--meaning terrorism (it's already imprecise language)--why do we support terrorism? We are supporting, through advisors in Pakistan and funding from Saudis like Prince Bandar, Sunni terrorists operating in Iran and Lebanon. And why didn't we identify the source of the money and personnel behind 9/11--Saudi Arabia--as a State Sponsor of Terrorism?

State Sponsor of Terrorism: As we see above, this is a name needing major Rectification. Iran is a SST, but isn't the US also a SST for supporting Sunni terrorist conducting a bombing campaign in Iran?

Terrorist: Anyone killing "innocent life" is considered a terrorist. How many innocents--women and children--have we killed in Iraq? What about Israel, which has killed dozens of children with indiscriminant bombs in the Occupied Territories since 9/11? Heck, they even helped to found Hamas, an organization labeled "terrorist" and who we are countering through Prince Bandar's initiative to fund Sunni terrorists in Lebanon. Well, Al Qaeda wouldn't even exist if the CIA hadn't helped to create it in 1979 to, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, to goad the Soviets into invading Afghanistan. So confusing.

Hostages: The just-released British sailors were hostages. Their confessions were coerced. So what does that make the hundreds of Muslims held for years in secret and not-so-secret prisons? What about their confessions? What's the difference between British sailors and the five Iranians we took and are still hold in Iraq? Or the confession of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to every plot imaginable?

Syria: Speaker Nancy Pelosi goes to Syria and sends the wrong signal. So, what was the signal sent to Syria by Team Bush when the CIA shipped "enemy combatant" Maher Arar (since cleared of all charges) on a private jet to Syria to be tortured?

Torture: We don't even know what this is anymore. No agreed upon definition. This has led to the kind of moral decay Confucius predicted, hasn't it? From Gitmo to Abu Ghraib, the US tortures because the language and definition of what torture is has been brought into question.

And on and on and on....

The "People" depend upon leaders, reporters and editors...upon the news media...to use language judiciously and accurately. They have an inherent need to trust those in power. A need that was multiplied by 3000 on 9/11, and magnified by the Anthrax Attacks and the continual drumbeats of war...on Terror, on Iraq...that followed.

The "Informed" should show some patience and spend more of their time attacking the purveyors of incorrect language and less time occupying an elitist perch above the "People." We are all in this sinking ship of state together and there are few lifeboats left. Those bobbing on the waves of propaganda should throw a line to those sinking into the depths of it. Don't blame the victim. Be Confucian and Rectify the Names under which all of this is being done.

Chiquita Bananas of Death

Bananas of Death.

Every time you eat a Chiquita banana, you are eating a blood-stained banana.

Is that too hyperbolic?

Well, although it has been generally ignored by anything but the business press, eight executives of Chiquita Brands International admitted to paying $1.7 million to right-wing paramilitary death squads in war-torn Columbia during a period spanning 1997-2004.

Let's go over that again.

To keep the bananas flowing, to keep "leftists" from taking banana fields and to keep workers' rights activists from unionizing banana pickers, Chiquita Brands paid right-wing death squads to...ensure the "free and fair" trade of bananas. With guns. Automatic guns.

Do you think we'll invade Chiquita's Headquarters in Ohio for supporting terrorism? Well, it's not like they are Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, after all. Bush can give them a pass, right?

The company agreed to pay a $25 million dollar fine. I mean, c'mon, $25 million paid to the US Government is surely enough to offset the terrorism and killing done in the name of Americans' access to that phallic fruit.

Who cares if hundreds, if not thousands, of brown people had their peasant lives disrupted or ended by this terrorist campaign against the enemies of banana freedom? Because there is no chance that any of the $25 million will ever see it's way to those who suffered at the hands of Chiquita's plan to liberate bananas from Pinko anti-bananaists.

Of course, it does not do anyone any good to set off a round of recriminations. To that end, the agreement reached with Chiquita kept the names of those eight executives involved withheld from the public. Now, next time you "liberate" snack foods from a local Mini-Mart, perhaps using right-wing gangs to do your bidding, you can rest assured that your name will be withheld from the public. Let's just hope you can afford the fine. We know that Chiquita can.

The funny thing about this? It's been going on for decades.

The United Fruit Company is the paragon of death-squad free trade, the historical blueprint of covert use of violence to ensure free access to bananas. Back in the 1950s, Guatemala elected a dude named Arbenz who thought that the Guatemalan people should own the land of...well...Guatemala.

Silly man.

The United Fruit Company, of which the Bush family was a major shareholder, proposed the idea that Guatemalans owning Guatemala smacked of Communism. What to do? Well, they overthrew the elected government of Guatemala...thanks to their friends in the CIA...and they made sure that the free flow of bananas remained the backbone of anti-Communist nutrition in American bellies everywhere.

Really, it's true. CIA documents prove it. Hell, they've even bragged about it.

And it's even funnier than that! Chiquita's old name, prior to 1985? The United Fruit Company! Isn't that cool?

Now, in Columbia the stakes are even higher. Columbia is still the world's largest exporter of cocaine. During Bubba Clinton's Administration, they got Congress to agree to Plan Columbia...a multi-billion dollar plan to take back the coca fields from the "leftists" and put them in the hands of pro-American right-wingers and the Government of Columbia. Of course, the "Plan" was supposed to "liberate" the fields from evil Pinkos and end the production of coca leaves.

Didn't happen.

In fact, the Columbian government...considered the most pro-American government in South America...is in the middle of a huge scandal. The scandal? Oh...well...those right-wing paramilitary squads hired by Chiquita? It looks like right-wing paramilitary squads like them were linked to members of the parliament and to President Uribe's Administration. The self-same Uribe using American Plan Columbia dollars to fund the "fight against cocaine."

Oh yeah, Columbia also has a huge untapped oil fields, but there is no way that oil would be something we would kill people for...is it?

What's really happening with Plan Columbia is that we are funding right-wing cocaine kingpins who are friendly to America in their fight against cocaine kingpins who refuse to pay any tolls or tariffs to American drug masters...in other words, they were Commies. It's sorta like the deal "we" had with the Contras...they were allowed and assisted by the CIA in their drug-running ops during the 1980s by the CIA and members of the Iran-Contra team in the White House. In return for that help, they killed Commies. Seems like a fair trade. Get it? Fair trade.

So what if it led to the crack cocaine epidemic? Yes, there is empirical evidence for this. Read Gary Webb. Read about Freeway Ricky Ross and the Meneses Brothers. It's all there. That is, if you want to know.

So here we are, some fifty years later and Chiquita is doing the same damn thing that the United Fruit Company did. But dammit if we don't have the freedom to buy bananas each time we go to the supermarket.

Isn't free trade fun, even if it isn't close to being fair?