Abu Wabu

I just read Jeff Goldstein's Brave New Worlds, in which he eloquently describes the confiscation of the language in service to Obama's "plans to shore up progressive Democratic power by building a permanent client state." I do my best not to begin with the conclusion when quoting from someone else's post, but I believe it fits here, with apologies to Mr. Goldstein:

To make progressivism work the way it is designed to work (and I’ve long pointed out that progressivism moves inexorably toward totalitarianism by virtue of its foundational assumptions), it is necessary to control language. One way to do that is to provide yourself the (philosophical) means to define terms and frame narratives (and post-structuralism and reader-response theoretics, along with a healthy dash of Said’s Orientalism, has provided just that, as the linguistic turn has become increasingly institutionalized). Another way to do that is to circumscribe speech — using inverted ideas of “tolerance” and “hate” to effectively turn the First Amendment into a stepchild of government-sanctioned speech.

Here, Obama sees a way to connect “torture” (ill-defined) to conservative legal thought (criminal and extreme) in order to taint all conservative thought by proxy.

This is all about perception, on one level — and about the rewards that creating a certain perception will reap in the long term.

So. What to do?

Refuse to comply. This will never happen — and even if it did, we’d be treated to endless “conservative” tut-tutting about rule of law and honor, etc, in addition to the predictable media spin about the Bushies being lawless and having something to hide, blah blah blah.

But at this point, I’d rather that come to pass than to lend legitimacy to such a pure political power play.

Arrest us or get bent, the answer should be. But they’ll be no public commission hearings where conservatives are required to prove they aren’t extremist criminals.

And fuck you for even trying.