The Misuse Of Language

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul" -  Socrates

Socrates wasn't talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean.

I wish we were only talking about grammar. Grammar is easy. It has clear, indisputable rules, but if you misuse them it won't be catastrophic. Whether you do it on purpose or because you aren't aware of the rules, it won't impact your  livelihood or your neighbor (unless she's a grammarian!), and you can still be an honest, hardworking, good person, and a good neighbor. 

The deliberate misuse of langauge is another animal. As in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four with its Newspeak, Doublethink, and  Thought Police, we have the same authoritatian decrees popping up like chickweed, by different names but hiding under the same cloak. Orwell's fictional world had banned books, control of news outlets and intimidation of the press, government control of universities and curiculums. When I first read Nineteen Eighty Four, I thought it was creepy but bizaare and ridiculous and could never happen here.

But truth is hard to discern when it is under constant attack. Is that an apple or an apricot? A spider or a cockroach? How long will we have three branches of government, separate but equal? How long before the pillars cave under the slow grinding down of the truth? What about freedom of speech and peaceful assembly? Separation of church and state? 

Federal agencies tasked with guarding the Common Good—food inspectors, for instance, (that can of tuna you've never worried about opening) are being shackled and dismantled. Cuts to our Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) with firings of thousands of food inspectors to be replaced by sycophants or by nobody is the latest blow to food safety protections and incredibly dangerous.

The latest insult is the gutting of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the agency responsible for distributing federal funding to libraries. Four of the Big Five publishers just sent a letter to Congress, asking them to reject the executive order signed on March 14th calling for the elimination of the IMLS and rescinding the library grants appropriated by Congress. More about that on Nathan Bransford Blog. 

Why would I write something so bleak when spring is knocking at the door and the daffodils are up? I write it for my ancestors who immigrated to this country because it embodied all of the before mentioned freedoms, none more so than freedom of religion, which if we would have it, also means freedom from it. 

If you want a prescient glimpse of what our world might look like with a ruling billionaire class, read I Cheerfully Refuse by Lief Engler, set in a not-too-distant America.  

Historians have said, "When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving the cross.” 

Drones Over America

Yesterday, on my way to work I saw two drones circling the highway. They were flying low in a menacing way. I had no choice but to drive underneath them. 

The creepiest thing about The Hunger Games was the constant surveillance that citizens were subjected to, the hover crafts that dropped out of the sky without notice at their doorsteps. Lois Lowry used a similar device in The Giver, though of course she did it first.  

It surprised me to see drones in the relatively rural area I drive through. According to the Washington Post, there was little to no opposition this winter when Congress quietly opened up U.S. airspace to aerial drones. A big push came from the military, which is preparing to bring home drones that were used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't care what "experts" say. I see their only purpose as surveillance and I don't like it. Law enforcement is using them under the banner of "keeping us safe". But sinister aircraft operated by unknown entities in remote locations seem to have an ulterior purpose.

I think it's that element that makes them seem creepy. Give me the thrill of watching a kid fly a kite, or a hot air balloon floating overhead with a person at the helm, or a fighter jet steaming through the clouds under the command of a gutsy pilot. Give me the human element, someone invested in the risk and the thrill of human achievement. A drone does not convey that. It doesn't feel like the sort of achievement we will be proud of in the future. It seems ironic that at the same time our manned space program has stalled, unmanned drones are flying overhead.

Have you seen a drone? What do you think of them?