The Language of the War on Terror, Pt. 2

Bill at Thoughts on the Eve of the Apocalypse points out a well-reasoned, passionate and reconstructive look at the language of the War on Terror

It reminds me of the series of essays by the linguist George Lakoff at Alternet that looks at the metaphors of the War on Terror.

Dion Dennis over at CTheory has been similarly examining the imagistic language of the current regime.

Bill, after my first posting of this piece, also suggested that the interested reader consult a pair of essays by Renana Brooks, PhD, who according to a Nation bio, is a "clinical psychologist practicing in Washington, DC. She heads the Sommet Institute for the Study of Power and Persuasion and is completing a book on the virtue myth and the conservative culture of domination." The essays, The Character Myth and A Nation of Victims, examine the carefully constructed myth of George Bush as the "moral" hero and Bush's mastery of "emotional language as a political tool."

This gross manipulation of language and symbols for political ends has become so blatant that many staunch defenders of America have abandoned the Bush cause because they realize that this position only further radicalizes groups of people to oppose the U.S.