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Welcome to my first political rant on Giors.com  In honor of the first amendment I'm putting some of my personal and political beliefs out on the web. That being said, I'd like to keep my posts from being incendiary and driving people who disagree with my point-of-view away. Since the launch of Giors.com I've had plans to create a politics section, a religion section and a philosophy section. I've since decided to roll those issues into one large section I call "Truth Seeker". I hope that any opinions I share and feedback from others will help us all move closer to the universal truth. Sure, that's a lofty goal but why not reach for the stars?
I have a bone of contention to pick with the Obama administration. Actually I have many bones of contention but I'm deciding to focus my ire on one in particular: Political Correctness as exemplified by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano creating a new phrase for terrorist acts; "man-caused" disasters.
Read Secretary Napolitano's interview with Spiegel International, particularly the following quote: "In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur." - J. Napolitano, Spiegel interview published 3/16/2009 Madame Secretary doesn't want to use the word terrorism so she coined a softball phrase, "man-caused" disasters! Isn't that all but announcing the arrival of the thought-police? Anybody who realizes the vast importance of language should be alarmed by what the Secretary of Homeland Security has suggested. If you ask me, the first step to expansion of power and control is to limit free speech, that is to narrow speech to specific definitions. Certain words and certain ideas if left unused will fall off the vine and die. Is the Obama administration trying to prune the word terrorism from the English language? Let's put political bias aside for a moment and take a look at the soft-speak otherwise known as "political correctness". "(PC) is a term applied to language, ideas, policies, or behavior seen as seeking to minimize offense to gender, racial, cultural, disabled, aged or other identity groups." - Wikipedia's definition of PC, partial. Whom are we afraid of offending? Terrorists? Actually I think the more transparent goal of Napolitano is to tidy up any language that would lead the American people to call for blood. She stated a want to move away from "the politics of fear." I take this to mean that she wants to disuse the word terrorism because of the political grip it has on the American populace as well as the national aggression the term fosters. Even if you consider those goals as worthy , they get us no closer to peace with folks from overseas who want to kill us. Napolitano, how about calling a spade a spade if our enemies employ terror - "violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands <insurrection and revolutionary terror>" - Merriam-Webster Your synthesized term "man-caused" disaster, as opposed to "terrorist act", bears the marks of social engineering. Why choose those exact words, Madame? Disaster as a term has some nuance to it as you were happy to point out. Disaster - "a sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, or destruction ; broadly : a sudden or great misfortune or failure <the party was a disaster>" - Merriam-Webster. Yes, misfortune is part of the definition of disaster. Look at synonyms offered at dictionary.com "mischance, misfortune, misadventure, mishap, accident, blow, reverse, adversity, affliction. Disaster, calamity, catastrophe, cataclysm refer to adverse happenings often occurring suddenly and unexpectedly. A disaster may be caused by carelessness, negligence, bad judgment, or the like, or by natural forces, as a hurricane or flood: a railroad disaster." When you consider that in common usage disaster is so often preceded by "natural" the word comes across as a blameless catastrophe. But terrorist acts are not blameless. Should we forget the myriad of sudden attacks on our citizenry and military throughout the last 40 years? Madame Secretary perhaps doesn't want us to forget that attacks on our people are grave misfortunes, but it seems she wants us to pretend that they are great "mistakes" or "acts-of-God" that permeate out of the blue. No! I for one will not forget that our enemies know what they are doing when they bomb our troops or fly planes into towers. I do blame terrorists for the acts of terror they premeditate and execute! I will not let your use of language, Madame Secretary, alter the truth as it should be heard. Terrorism is an important word in the English language. Your avoidance of it's use speaks clearly to that point. The word carries with it connotations of blame and responsibility. Speak truth, woman, lest your attempts to move away from the "politics of fear" create even more angst in this Nation of people and ideas. We have maintained a healthy and cautious attitude toward terrorism that has kept our country safe for many years. I and my fellow countrymen are afraid that you might want to handle new terror threats with kid-gloves and avoid holding those responsible to account. Even worse, you have unmasked your agenda to wrest control of the language from our people and press. You seem determined to command the exact words that you believe ought to be used in public discourse. Unless you refer to terrorism by it's proper name, many of us will be afraid, very afraid, that our liberties are being sacrificed at the altar of political correctness. Last update : 28-03-2009 12:16
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