It's amazing how the 1950s Cold War rhetoric has come back with a vengeance (along with Reagan-era Cold War rhetoric). The Dulles brother also talked of "liberating" the enemy.[*] The big change is that the USSR has been replaced by a terrorist phantom. People in the US interpret Bush's rhetoric in their own terms, for example, filling the "phantom" with meaning based on racist assumptions about the Middle East (e.g., al Qaida = Saddam = camel jockeys = rag heads). I believe that Rove and Bush's other handlers are aware of this phenomenon.
[*] It's possible that the neo-cons assumed that it would be easy to run Iraq after the conquest -- oops, I mean "liberation" -- because the countries of Eastern Europe were relatively easy to run after the fall of the USSR. ------------------------ Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine Jurriaan writes: > BUSH'S SPEECH > > On 16 August I posted a report on PEN-L on a pulpit speech > that Bush held in > California. One way to look at this text is to say "well, > it's all bullshit, > GWB is at it again, waffling along in the predictable manner, > I am going to > switch to another channel". But another way to look at it, is > to say, "what > is really going on here, and what can I learn from this, for socialist > politics". > > Let's explore this second option for a moment. In this case, > we start out > from the hypothesis, that Bush is not trying to fool people and is > deliberately talking bullshit, that he is trying to be sincere in his > convictions, on the basis that he genuinely believes he is > doing the right > thing. > > 1. PRAISE > > The first thing to notice then, is that Bush is praising and > positively > rewarding his own troops. He says "You served with honor. You > served with > skill. And you were successful". Qualities he likes to see. > He is saying, > you are good at something, you are good people (positive > reinforcement). And > because you are good people, you will fight for me, > presumably (loyalty > factor). > > He then gives an explanation for this: "Before you went in, > Iraqis were an > oppressed people, and the dictator threatened his neighbors, > the Middle East > and the world," "Today, the Iraqis are liberated people, the > former regime > is gone, and our nation and the world is more secure." So the > military have > successfully done their job already, they've done something > good already, > there is no indication that they have to do some work in > order to be good....
