Speech Pathology: Rain Puddles in Heaven, Hellfire on Earth

[Karmadillo]

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2076-speech-pathology-rain-puddles-in-heaven-hellfire-on-earth.html

Speech Pathology: Rain Puddles in Heaven, Hellfire on Earth
Written by Chris Floyd
Friday, 14 January 2011 01:07

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. ... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for 'the universal brotherhood of man' -- with his mouth. -- Mark Twain, The Damned Human Race

As President Barack Obama consoled the nation Wednesday with talk of "rain puddles in heaven," his agents were murdering four more people in his illegal war in Pakistan. The incongruity was excruciating; you could almost feel your neck snapping from the moral whiplash induced by the contrast between word and deed.

But of course this contrast remained totally obscured. Instead, the media was saturated with bipartisan praise for Obama's heavenly puddles and "transcendent" rhetoric about "aligning our actions with our values" and measuring our lives by "how well we have loved and what small part we have played in making the lives of others better." Naturally, in the midst of so much self-congratulatory afflatus, there was not much room for a short story from the Associated Press noting that Wednesday saw yet another attack by American drone missiles on a remote village in Pakistan.

Yet even this report was itself drenched in the mindset of righteous murder that lurked behind the treacly tropes that Obama was delivering to a rapturous crowd. You can see it in the language of the very first paragraph:

Suspected U.S. unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at a house in a militant-infested area of northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least four people, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

An "infested" area -- the language used for vermin, for insects, for filthy creatures fit only for extermination. These insects are what is being killed in the wilds of Pakistan: not human beings, not sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. Just strange, worthless little creepy-crawlies called "militants." And if you think this is too extreme an extrapolation, not truly representative of the imperial mindset, recall the words of Admiral William Fallon.

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[RandomThoughts]

1. I thought Rain Puddles was an interesting choice of words.

It has many potential implications. Stargate used the same metaphor. Also in Singing in the Rain clip.

Also the name of the ships in Stargate Atlantis, so that metaphor is used in many places.

[Ozymanithrax]

2. Actually, Chimpanzees fight wars...

War is not just a human failing.

http://news.discovery.com/animals/chimp-war-behavior.html

[dimbear]

3. Exactly correct. And the wars the ants fight make human wars seem gentle. n/t

[stray cat]

4. Freepers is dehumanizing language

[Ozymanithrax]

5. Yes, and when a freeper calls himself a freeper...

he is assuming power over the word and thus deligitimizing the word.

[WinkyDink]

6. No, actually, it isn't. It is a contraction from "FREE REPublic." As we here (most) are "DU'ers."

[mdmc]

7. ..