100 monkeys typing.

Whiney Cartography

It’s Our Map! Give it Back!
Gary Aldrich

or, we won and we're still cranky

Everyone’s seen the electoral map by now. It’s unsurprising that so much of it is colored in favor of Republicans, but I have a question: If it’s our map, why don’t we get to pick the colors?

Conservatives have little to no aesthetic taste. In an attempt to keep it simple and within the ROY G BIV, the use of primary patriotic colors seemed the way to go.

Who are these mystery people (I’ll call them MP’s) who control how the important matters in our lives are presented to us? Over the years, I have marveled at how certain words are chosen to soften or harden a circumstance depending on the desired outcome. And, just like my checking account where alterations rarely fall to my favor, the words the MP’s choose are rarely in favor of the Republican or Conservative way. For example, matters related to immigration. When foreigners crossed our borders without having stood in line, made application for a visa, and waited their turn, well, we used to call these persons illegal aliens.

And before that, you called them wetbacks, it's called linguistic evolution.

(...) more after the jump

But the MP’s could see that the continued use of the words “Illegal Alien” would cause ordinary folk to actually shun the hoards that move into our cities and onto our lists of the disadvantaged and entitled. So, the MP’s decided that they should be called “undocumented workers”, which of course implies something totally different. In fact, the label “undocumented worker” suggests that the person who used to live in, say, Mexico and now lives in, say, Los Angeles simply forgot to fill out some forms and is gainfully employed, or at least actively seeking work.

It's at this point the audience becomes confused as to whether Gary's more afraid of immigrants or the "Mystery People" he speaks of.

Did you or I get a phone call or a letter in the mail seeking our approval for this change of words and phrases that took an entire class of people from lawbreakers to objects deserving of sympathy and respect, not to mention our tax dollars?

Of course not.

Just like no one was ever contacted when the word liberal suddenly became synonymous with pariah, pinko and "tax you till your ass bleeds".

We weren’t asked about that any more than we were asked when the MP’s painted the entire country Red to represent how many counties Republican voters controlled. I personally like the color red, but only if it’s painted on a fast sports car, like a Corvette or a racing Porsche. I don’t like it painted on an entire country. It looks, well, bloody. Maybe that was the not-so-subtle point that the MP’s were trying to make.

Theories have ranged from association to 70's era speed to the stereotypically described behavior of menstruating woman. Maybe it has something to do with the color people's faces turn when they see something they despise and are yet powerless to control.

I was raised to think Reds were bad people, Communists in fact. Why all of a sudden is it appropriate for Republicans to be Red, while the actual group that is sympathetic or at least passive about Communism gets to be the more pleasant, Blue? Shouldn’t they be the Red ones, or at least Pink? Maybe we should have a new color called Pinko?

Maybe it's not regulated by a belief or creed but by behavior. Restrictive and intrusive government, national spying, rampant nationalism, treatment of parts of the populace as second class citizens.

It’s our map. We own it, and we worked hard to get it. Doesn’t the winner get to define the terms? I think the country should be painted Green and Pinko. Don’t you think that would look neat? So, let’s do it.

Yeah, cute. Like a fucking madras shirt. 51% of registered voters who actually voted is a. not ownership and b. green is the last thing a neocon would like to be associated with.

Here’s another example: Shouldn’t we now get to call bums, bums again? We used to call them bums, but then the MP’s couldn’t use them as a political football because nobody could really be sympathetic toward those living on our streets and urinating in our alleyways who refused to do a day’s work for a day’s pay.

bum = ass, bum = hobo, bum = girly men who are all whiney and unemployed in this new economy of ours. Gary, when you're out late at night, beating them up for fun, you can call them what ever you want.

And when all those seriously mentally ill were released to the streets because somebody said they were being treated unfairly in mental institutions, MP’s could not use words that implied mental sickness, could they? Because if these walking wounded were truly mentally sick, they would belong in a hospital for the mentally ill, am I right?

No, they'd have a column at Townhall and we'd be callling them retards.

Because the MP’s had been winning for a long time, in fact thirty years, and pretty much controlled the way things were done and said in most every important institution, they were able to rename this pathetic group of human misfits “The Homeless.” As a result, instead of these poor souls getting the real help they needed, they were treated as if an evil force in the universe – the Republicans – were forcing the homeless to live on the streets.

No. The GOP creates policies that require the bums to wait 4-10 years for the benefits to "trickle down" to them, remember?

Republicans, like Ronald Reagan, were painted as mean, selfish, and incompetent because, if not for the Republicans, there would be jobs enough for everyone and, thus, homes for everyone. And if somebody just could not work for whatever reason, they would still have a home, see? People would not have to live on the streets, if only Republicans were not in charge.

Like Ronnie, a B-movie actor who fought honorably during WWII in a Hollywood backlot and transferred that same intensity to his finest role as President of the USA. Not all Republicans are like Ronnie. Very few, if any have babbled their way through a second term hoping to god no one noticed advancing alzheimers.

Lots of things have been said and written during the past thirty years that were unfair to Republicans, and we pretty much had to grin and bear it because we were not on the winning side. But, now we are. So when the MP’s, whoever they are, use words and phrases to bend and shape the news and the truth, we need to get right out in front of them and stop them before they have a chance to “install” the word or phrase into daily use.

Taking it on the chin since Nixon. Wearing the Red Badge of ....waitaminute, red is bad... One word, used to describe the mammal who so courageously carried Christ into Jerusalem is still the most appropriate and socially accepted adjective for you, despite all the MP involvement.

Right now I am thinking of the word “insurgent.” It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? It’s not too evil sounding, and, actually, it sounds more like something that cannot be controlled, like the tide, right? The tide surges in, and the tide surges out, and nobody can do anything to stop it – but the tide is neither bad nor good. The word “insurgent”, like the word “tide”, is a neutral word, and that’s my point.

Partisan, as used by the local fighters against the Axis powers in WWII was all used up. Insurgent actually, is interchanged between rebel, terrorist, former member of somebody's something, and local fighter. You know why? BECAUSE WE DON'T REALLY KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THEM TO FUCKING LABEL THEM!

Our fighting men and women are being killed in Iraq by insurgents, and the use of that word puts their death into a different context, doesn’t it? It lessens their sacrifice, because if our brave soldiers were being killed by terrorists, then their deaths would have so much more weight, so much more value.

No. Their deaths are a tragedy period. Linguistics are a smoke screen you're attempting use to cloud the argument. The ratio of soldier to citizen death in an unnecessary war is all a bad thing. Hyper focusing on the verbiage is a red herring.

If their deaths meant more to us as a people, then that collective meaning would fall to the favor of President George Bush, wouldn’t it? And the MP’s can’t have that happen, can they? Thus, “insurgent.”

What about the importance of the word citizen, non-combantant, or child? Oh yeah, we don't *count* those.

Except the MP’s are not in charge anymore, are they? We won, so we get to pick the words, don’t we? So, why is this still happening? The answer is there are three kinds of power. There is actual power, perceived power, and assumed power. The MP’s have long possessed all three kinds of power because they won elections and the general population accepted their rules. As a result, the MP’s got to pick the rules, and they also got to pick the words. But now, they only possess the assumed power. They still have the assumed power to choose words, because too few on our side have demanded that they give that power back. Power is never given away. Power is only seized, and it now belongs to us.

Seized up you mean. This coup as you so obliquely refer to it does not indicate power it indicates control. Call them all "different than us", cheapen their lives and ignore the impact of our actions over our words.

But we need to take it back, or we’ll never get it back!

The MP’s are probably laughing to themselves when they consider how dumb some of us Republicans really are. The MP’s still choose the words, and, like a bunch of idiot Parrots, a lot of us start repeating their word choices without giving a thought to how an important thing is being distorted with the use of a dishonest word or phrase.

No, it's actually sad. Especially since you are in control too.

Maybe too many of us, after having been losers for thirty years, cannot free ourselves from the mindset of a loser. Maybe that’s why we still allow the real losers to hold on to power –are we just too timid and polite to be winners?

Too timid and polite to exercise our free will and use the words god gave us the power to create? The GOP will not be the winners god wants them to be until they're able to fully express themselves calling people names and stereotyping. That, my friends, is goal-setting at its finest.

Posted by kerry at December 13, 2004 07:56 AM | TrackBack