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Loaded Language and Loaded Guns: The Meaning of Opposites
by Charles Sullivan
 One can no longer understand US governmental policy on the basis of conventional language or traditional wisdom. Language itself and its long-established meanings were long ago twisted and distorted in order to deceive the people.
Now war is peace and terror and occupation is liberation. In order to make sense of what is happening, it is important to understand everything within the context of a specific economic philosophy, and the distorted capitalist system that spawned it.
That ideology was crafted by a diminutive economist named Milton
Friedman, at the University of Chicago some five decades ago. The holy
trinity of Friedman’s version of capitalism—privatization of the public
domain, corporate deregulation, and deep cuts in social spending—has
resulted in enormous societal inequity and socio-economic classes. It
has given us the haves and the have-nots, the haves and the have-mores.
Friedman
and his disciples, collectively known as ‘The Chicago School’ do not
believe in a minimum wage—much less a living wage, unions, worker
rights, environmental protections, worker safety, or any other kind of
restraint imposed upon corporations. In Friedman’s view, the market
should rule and profitability should be the guiding principle, the end
results always justifying the means.
The implementation of
Friedman’s version of unfettered capitalism relies upon munificent
corporate welfare, tax cuts to the wealthy, exploitation of workers,
and the outright theft of other sovereign nation’s natural wealth
through military force—including oil and minerals, water supplies and
other societal infrastructure; cheap labor, and a procession of
consumers of goods and services without limits — an impossibility in a
closed ecological system.
Convincing the public to support
policies that are, in fact, detrimental to them, requires enormous
marketing skill, as well as a corporate owned and operated propaganda
apparatus that is second to none. This is accomplished by cloaking
harmful policies in patriotic language, and other forms of seduction.
In
order to achieve this objective, which is really nothing less than
unqualified global corporate dominance, the public domain must be
privatized and run not for use, but for profit; and the unparalleled
might of the US military brought to bear against any nation or people
who stand in the way.
It is this thinking—the dominant economic
paradigm that shapes all US policy—that has brought us an endless
succession of wars and other human tragedies; exacerbated global
warming, and unprecedented rapacious planetary destruction, including
the mass extinction of much of the world’s flora and fauna — all for
corporate profit.
Decades ago, in order to field test the
economic theories that were formulated by the right wing think tanks at
The Chicago School, Friedman and his disciples descended like locusts
upon Latin America. The results were devastating: Democratically
elected governments were systematically overthrown and brutal dictators
friendly to US business interests were installed in their place—all of
which were subsidized by US tax dollars with the complicity of the CIA.
As
a result, US-trained death squads roamed the countryside torturing,
murdering, and disappearing dissidents, union organizers, and
indigenous land holders—a process that continues to this day. The
corporate media, itself, an essential cog in Friedman’s capitalist
machine, referred to these death squads as freedom fighters, and
canonized the likes Ronald Reagan as champions of liberty.
But
the recipients of US policy in Latin America—those who survived
them—know better. Now the same policies are being implemented in the
Middle East, and with the same disastrous results. Elements of
Friedman’s policies have been in play here in the US for decades, and
the intent is to do to the US what was done in Latin America and Iraq.
Language
is a tool that can be used to either conceal or reveal truth; it can be
used to inform or to distort. Given the track record of private
enterprise, it is not surprising that everything associated with Milton
Friedman’s capitalism has been hopelessly perverted, and language is no
exception.
Understanding the role played by Friedman and his
disciples in shaping US policy—a doctrine adopted and praised by
Republicans and Democrats alike, is critical in order to bring the big
picture of world events, including our own domestic policies, into
clear focus.
The disciples of Friedman’s economic theorem have
skillfully manipulated the language to deceive the subjects of those
policies. Stripped of the garments of seductive language, the hidden
kernel of truth is clearly seen: unregulated corporate power that
masquerades as free market trade. The nations that have undergone
Friedman’s economic shock therapy: Chile, Argentina, Brazil and
Indonesia, and many others, were opened up to privatization and
corporate plunder that soon left them impoverished and wasted.
The
once sustainable and vibrant local economies, most of them
characterized by broad public ownership, were thoroughly globalized, as
capitalism was forced upon those who had rejected it at the ballot box
or through armed revolution. Local manufactures were no longer
protected from multi-nationals: prices soared, wages fell, workers lost
their jobs, unemployment rose astronomically, and the infrastructure
that once provided inexpensive or free public services—among them,
potable water and inexpensive food—were privatized and rendered
unaffordable to the multitudes.
Shared prosperity quickly gave
way to abject poverty and misery; while predatory US corporations bled
nation after nation of their natural wealth, and kept the profits to
themselves.
Here in the US, the people of New Orleans and other
Gulf Coast cities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina experienced the same
economic shock and awe as Latin America. The poor were relocated and
resorts for the rich quickly supplanted affordable public housing. The
public school system was virtually dismantled and privatized.
Contractors such as Halliburton and Blackwater reaped enormous profits
on the misery and suffering of the Gulf Region’s working poor.
Corporate profits mattered more than the lives of the people. New Orleans will never be the same.
All
of this was accomplished by stripping language of its traditional
connotations and perverting it into its opposite meaning. Thus lies
became truth and predatory capitalism morphed into beneficent public
service. The new definitions are designed to conceal the real intent of
the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, and are employed as
marketing tools to make blatant theft and exploitation appear palatable
to the multitudes, and to the helpless victims of unfettered capitalism.
Had
the hidden agenda of our elected officials been widely known to the
public, the people would likely find these policies not only
objectionable, but morally reprehensible and offensive. Now Orwellian
doublespeak
is the norm, resulting in the enforcement arm of capitalism—the police
state and an emerging Gestapo society, perpetrated in the name of a
democracy that does not even exist.
The dictum of freedom, as
understood by rational and conscientious human beings everywhere, has
traditionally been applied to people and refers to their treatment by
one another and their respective governments. However, when free market
capitalists speak of freedom and democracy, as we are witnessing in the
catastrophic situation they have created in the Middle East, they are
not referring to human freedoms at all—but to unfettered capitalism,
absolute corporate rule, and human servitude to wealth garnered at
public expense—essentially a global terrorist slave state. That is what
is meant by so called free markets as it pertains to the human
condition.
Thus democracy, rather than meaning self-government
of the people, by the people, and for the people, is perverted into
support for deregulated corporations that are accountable to no one,
the ultimate arbiter of all forms of power—the market as a Holy
Grail; the decisive triumph of private ownership over people and the
public welfare by the global elite.
And that, in a nutshell, is
what we are fighting for not only in the Middle East, but in 135
nations around the world. These are the American interests the military
is protecting; these are the freedoms they are defending from democracy.
In
the idiom of free market capitalism, all things—whether soil, mineral,
plant or animal, including human beings (wage slaves), are diminished
and commodified, and valued only in proportion as they can be
privatized and exploited by the champions of Laissez-Faire capitalism.
Furthermore,
let it be understood that the president and his cabinet, as well as
every member of Congress (with one exception), are disciples of
Friedman’s economic paradigm. Not only are they doing everything in
their power to implement Friedman’s policies, they have been doing so
for a very long time.
This perception certainly demystifies the
remarkable homogeneity of US policy that has sent countless young men
and women dressed in military uniforms to their deaths, and disappeared
millions of leftist dissidents around the world. And it will continue
unabated unless we the people put a stop to it.
Author’s
note: Anyone wishing a more complete understanding of these policies
should read Naomi Klein’s authoritative new book, The Shock Doctrine:
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. I cannot underscore enough the
breadth and importance of Ms. Klein’s work in understanding capitalism,
corporate globalization, and the grossly distorted governmental
policies they have spawned. Every citizen, regardless of nationality, should read this book. It is that important.
Charles
Sullivan is a nature photographer, freelance writer, and social
activist residing in the Ridge and Valley Province of geopolitical West
Virginia. He welcomes your comments at csullivan@phreego.com
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