Iraqi Elections
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- vespa
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world…
"The election is like rearranging the Titanic deckchairs"
(Iraq watcher Toby Dodge, Queen Mary College, London)4 people killed this morning in the lead up to the first "democratic" Iraqi elections in 50 years. This morning on BBC breakfast they were talking about how Sunday's election will be taking place amidst "unprecedented security" - yet another mangling of language that really gets on my tits.
Why is it considered acceptable to imply that words mean their exact opposite? They weren't being ironic. As words, "freedom", "security" and "liberation" have had their meanings completely subverted. Can anyone think of any other words that politicians and marketeers have stolen from us?
- vespa0
rabattski, did you mean to link "Cartoon Star SpongeBob SquarePants Has No Gay Agenda" just then?
- paraselene0
too true. at the moment i've got a blinding weed hangover so the only concrete example that i can come up with is "pestilence".
the subversion of language is a classic dystopic trope, though, and it's always interesting to see this fictional convention bleed into political "reality". if you look at historical totalitarian dictatorships (particularly those in countries with splintered regional minorities, qua franco's spain) or futuristic dystopias (i don't get that coincidence feeling about the fact that burgess stuck a glossary into that one), the overwhelming logic of societal control demands linguistic control.
if you can't use the words, you can't think the thoughts.
equally, if through brutal media desviation of meaning, like you're talking about, vespa, the words mutate into new signifiers, this also is a bastardization of language that is effectively a form of censorship.
and it's not just semantics, either. any resident of the goddamned 20th century knows that semiology is equally at risk.
- _smk0
headache, headache too many wurds ;)
- paraselene0
sorry. i've been meaning to see a healthcare professional about it.
*wink
- _smk0
My God though missy, that's you on a weed hangover?
fu-uck...
;)
- vespa0
be gentle para my single cell is operating at the speed of sludge at the moment
wtf is a "dystopic trope"?!
- _smk0
sounds like a trance album...
- paraselene0
you have no idea, _smk. you should've been in my brain last night while i was still high. i was devising a mad plan to come into the office today and pour out all my fucked up thoughts into a series of linked threads. doing the endnotes first and then having to write the main text so that it would appear above them. it's not easy being green.
- paraselene0
by dystopic trope i mean a certain cliché or convention that is common to a large part of the canon of dystopic literature (we, 1984, blade runner, etc.).
sexual repression is one.
nightmare futuristic urban societies is another.
omniscient governments, that sort of thing.
- _smk0
The Paraselene Lecture™
Only on QBN...
- _smk0
pass teh spliffs...
- vespa0
fucks sake para have pity on my poor abused brain. type slowly dammit!
- paraselene0
it's in my nature!!!!!!!!!
wtf do you expect starting a braniac political thread with linguistic themes on a bloody friday?
- _smk0
aw poor wee Para - all she wants is to enlighten us and we give her a ton of shit for fer her trouble.
*hangs head in shame
- rabattski0
vespa, yeah i know, too many political threads here dude.
- vespa0
haha but you're like a high priestess delivering a latin sermon to the common people! we're all in awe but haven't got a fucking clue what you're on about! love you long time tho :)
- ribit0
more paraselene, more...
(we dont really understand it all but we want more)Actually that lecture series sounds like a good idea...
- _smk0
please; The Words, The Words - give us more...
- paraselene0
after lunch, mayhaps.
stay tuned, my lovelies.
*runs into the back lab to prepare another batch of soma