Semantics

There has been a subtle shift in the semantics being used by Obummer and John Kerry when crowing about the squishy results of the Paris Climate Accord. Instead of talking about reductions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, they are now taking about targeted reductions in "carbon." Now this seems like a trivial difference but it truly isn't. Smoke is comprised mainly of unoxidized carbon and its reduction is a good thing ... with which most civilized people can agree. Whereas CO2 is the source of all life on Earth ... and its reduction is not necessarily a good thing. During the Carboniferous Period (360-300 million years ago) CO2 was 10 times higher than it is today, yet the Earth survived well ... thank you very much.

In fact this 60 million year period in our planet's formation is when most of the oil, coal and natural gas was laid down underground. Ponder on this for a moment. All the lush vegetation that was growing in this CO2-rich environment is the source of most all of the fossil fuels that we use today. 60 million years is 20 times longer than when the earliest man appeared on Earth and 30,000 times longer than the period of time since the birth of Christ. That's a good long time with a whole lot of vegetative growth ... and thus a whole lot of fossil fuels ... much more than I suspect we currently estimate. Yes, some day we will run out... but this is many lifetimes away ... and I believe that our sources of energy then will not be wind ... maybe sunshine ... but more likely safe fission and fusion.

So our administration's purposeful obfuscation of the term "carbon" to imply both smoke and CO2 is disingenuous and purposefully confusing. ... an attempt to lead the uninformed to its way of thinking. How very semantically Orwellian!

See also: Power Line Blog.

Language

Retail stores are going to school on our political establishment. They have learned that language or even just words can be used to influence the masses. Recently I received a brochure from Kohl’s that listed “performance tops” for $19.99 whereas its T-shirts were listed for $9.99. Essentially the same garment, Kohl’s has found a way with words to extract another $10 from its gullible customers.

Of course politicians learned this legerdemain a long long time ago. The “Affordable Care Act” (Obamacare) is anything but affordable. The only adjective that the Democrats seem to use is “extreme” or their noun is “extremists.” A number of years ago Republicans realized that “liberal” was a political killer and it was used to help defeat Dukakis’s presidential hopes. Rifles magically become “assault weapons.” When “global warming” started to lose its ability to sway, it was morphed into “climate change” … which was harder to debate. Such words are opinion-panel tested to a fair-thee-well and then disseminated to their apparatchiks to drum into the American psyche. The sad truth is that it works … facts be damned.

I have often opined on this subject under the term “Orwellian” … see: Red Flags, More Newspeak and Weasel Words. Once one’s ears are attuned to this political ruse, one cannot watch or hear a newscast or read a media message (mine included) without being bombarded with such subliminal syllabic slyness. “Illegal immigrants” become “undocumented workers.” (What happens if they are not working?) A terrorists attack at Fort Hood becomes “workplace violence.” Attempts to stop voter fraud becomes “voter suppression.” The Tea Party is besmirched (even by our President) with the smirked slur “tea baggers.” I sometimes wonder if Noam Chomsky is not on the Democrat payroll?

All I ask of you, dear reader, is please learn to filter out and ignore such blather.

Be a Clown

 

In the proud tradition of mocking our President, a rodeo clown at the Missouri state fair donned an Obama mask while he was doing his rodeo-clown antics … see: CS Monitor story.  The consequences have been Orwellian and, to me, frightening – this unnamed clown has been banned for life from the fair, the rodeo announcer and Rodeo President have resigned, and the rodeo clowns there have be asked to take sensitivity training … see: Washington Times story.  I say Orwellian because we all have seen many Nixon masks, George W. Bush masks, Ronald Reagan masks, etc. worn by past protesters of Presidential policies … most of which were well within Constitutional boundaries (both the past policies and the protests).  I even recall seeing political cartoons of Abraham Lincoln depicting him as a monkey.

Now we have a President who is shredding the Constitution with his extra-legal changes to Obamacare, his non-recess appointments of key governmental positions, his immigration law over-rides, and his numerous other circumventions of our founding charter … and we, the people, cannot protest these actions?  What is going on here?  Even Harry Reid can go on the radio and slyly ask if Congressional resistance to Obama’s actions is because he is African-American … see: The Blaze story.  This is not just playing the race card … the American people are now playing 52-pick-up with the entire race deck.

Many, including myself, believe that the legacy of white-guilt has had a great deal to do with electing Barack Obama twice to the White House.  And now this slavery stigma seems to be allowing him to slip the consequences of what, for any other President, would be anathema … and even (gasp!) impeachment.  Obama can sail the ship of state onto the reef and a too-large part of the American public will declare this good seamanship.  To me, his foreign and domestic policies have both been unmitigated disasters.  Yet there are some reading this blog posting who, seeing this criticism, will label me a crypto-racist.  This is an unfortunate consequence of what Condoleezza Rice has called our nation’s “birth defect,” slavery.  Will we never erase this stain?  Must we let Obama and his sleazy coat-tail riders destroy our nation in order to save it?

I cannot answer this question … perhaps if we were to send in the clowns?