Something there is about liberals, progressives, or whatever we want to call ourselves, that seems to compel us to allow others to frame the terms of our debate. This is a somewhat trivial example, but because it is so blatant, I have to point it out.
This mostly excellent post at Naked Capitalism argues that our current military adventurism and policy of endless war has its somewhat obscure origin in George Bush the First's invasion of Panama. This invasion, which cost an uncertain number of innocent Panamanian lives, was undertaken for the ostensible purpose of arresting Manuel Noriega, for drug running. In actuality Bush was probably just pissed at him for yanking Bush's chain, since it was entirely predictable, and I'm sure it's happened, that another drug runner, ignored to date by the U.S., took over where Noriega left off (if, indeed, he was ever that important a drug runner).
This invasion was given the propagandistic name of Operation Just Cause by Bush and his cronies. It is hard to imagine a name for an invasion that is more obviously propagandistic. Every time one uses it, one validates the “cause”, whether one wishes to or not. It seems to this humble observer that one could call it the Panamanian Invasion, or if one wants to be more specific, the 1989 Panamanian Invasion. This is a fairly neutral phrasing, much like “World War II”. Now, how does the blogger at Naked Capitalism refer to the invasion. Need you ask? The use of the term itself tends to undercut his argument. There is no law that requires us to accede to government propaganda, just as there is none that requires us to call people opposed to abortion “pro-life” (which they most assuredly are not). Yet we do it. Can you imagine the right agreeing to call Obamacare (which itself started as a derisive right wing term) the Healthy Outcomes Act, had the administration tried to hang that moniker on it? But we on the left (present company excepted) fall for it every time.
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