A Valuable Lesson In Perception

A Valuable Lesson In Perception

By Dick Kazan (posted with permission)
http://saneramblings.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=165&sid=f60f63fbc78f1930ab13fa103feeb213

When my eldest son Kyle was a police officer, one afternoon he was called to a home in which a 77-year-old widow was sitting on her couch watching TV, and her neighbor was unable to wake her.

Upon examination, Kyle knew this woman had died, and as he and his partner waited for the coroner to remove her body from the home, he stepped into the kitchen to write the police report.

Until then, this was a routine matter and Kyle was largely unaffected. But as he sat at this woman's breakfast table, he saw her family pictures from the prior Christmas. In those pictures this woman was surrounded by her loved ones and smiling merrily.

He then looked at other pictures she had on display and began to see her life unfold before him. He saw her as a young pretty woman with her whole life ahead of her. He saw her school pictures and he saw her as a youthful bride.

Kyle saw her with her husband and with their children and he could see his own life in her's for those pictures had humanized her. And she reminded Kyle of his grandmother. Now he was deeply touched by this woman's life.

Repeatedly I've been reminded of this lesson in perception as I read the news about the Iraq war and I can see the extensive effort to subliminally influence what you and I and others think about that war.

Our government wants to keep this war a sterile and distant affair rather than let us humanize it. A crucial aspect of that subliminal effort is the choice of words, which make terribly ugly concepts easily acceptable.

For example, "Shock and Awe." In pictures and written descriptions, it appears to be a beautiful show that lights up the sky in a spectrum of reds, whites and blues, almost as if it was a 4th of July celebration.

And many people who see film or photos of it marvel and cheer aloud at its beauty. But what is actually happening is men, women and children are being blown to bits and everything around them is being incinerated.

As "Shock and Awe," it's beautiful. As death and destruction, it is horrific. So those who want to sell it to us present it as the former rather than the latter.

I've selected some of the other key words that are used to sell us horrific concepts and I thought you might find them of interest:

"Extraordinary rendition," sounds meaningless and seldom does it bring a public reaction. What it is is the highly secretive and under U.S. law, illegal practice of seizing suspects and sending them to 3rd-party countries or to U.S. military bases to torture them to gain information. These suspects seldom face charges, may be held indefinitely and may die while in captivity.

"Enhanced interrogation techniques," for this definition, please see "Extraordinary rendition" in the prior paragraph.

"Precision air strikes." For its definition, please see "Shock and Awe" above.

"Collateral Damage," The killing and maiming of innocent men, women and children during "Precision air strikes," and other forms of combat.

"Bringing Democracy to Iraq," a long-term military occupation of Iraq as the U.S. government unsuccessfully attempts to run the country. In fact the Iraqi Parliament recently asked the U.S. military to leave, a request ignored by the U.S. Government.

"We are liberators." For this definition, please see "Bringing Democracy to Iraq."

"Surge," an escalation of the Iraq war. But "surge" sounds temporary and therefore not so bad. When does a "surge" become an escalation of the war? That is anybody's guess, as the word "surge" slowly disappears from use and the additional troops remain.

"Support our Troops," means to Support the War. It means to support the killing, the destruction and the chaos taking place in Iraq. It seems odd to me that those who most claim to "support our troops" are often the ones who send them off to potentially die or be seriously wounded, and in many cases, then provide them with poor medical care when they return home.

"We're fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here," is often used with "we will stand-down when the Iraqis stand-up." As the Iraqis have yet to "stand-up" by an unstated U.S. government definition this means the U.S. has given itself permission to conduct endless war in Iraq and presumably anywhere else it claims "terrorists" are.

"Betrayer," applied to anyone seeking a cease-fire and a peace negotiation in Iraq.

"Militants," "Insurgents," "Terrorists," and other derogatory terms such as these are used to mean the "bad guys." Defacto, we are the "good guys." But to anyone whose family has been the victim of "Shock and Awe," or had their doors kicked in by heavily armed U.S. troops anxious to fire on their enemy or simply been caught in the middle of a fire fight between warring factions, we are all the "bad guys."

"Axis of Evil," another derogatory term to identify "bad guys," and define us as "good guys."

"The source of the problem." This phrase is applied to those who strongly oppose the U.S. over Iraq. Currently this is being applied to al-Qaeda and to Iran, rather than to the U.S., who brutally invaded and for four years has occupied Iraq.

"Religious zealots," Muslims who visibly oppose the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Rarely is it applied to any other religion.

"Take out" "Target" or "Remove." This means to "kill" but no-one's bible seems to like that word. It was applied to Saddam Hussein and is used for Osama bin Laden and to any other "terrorist" leader. Each time, as soon as one of these people is "taken out," the U.S. will assuredly prevail and the problems in Iraq will quickly be solved.

"Security crackdown." Any repressive action the U.S. military chooses to take in Iraq.

"A Hotspot." This now includes most of Iraq.

"God Bless America." This definition has God taking sides in support of the "good guys." In fact, May God Bless Us All And Bring Peace To Iraq.

http://saneramblings.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=165&sid=f60f63fbc78f1930ab13fa103feeb213

Dick

May God Bless Us All And Bring Peace To Iraq.

Amen to that.

and initiatives (such as shock and awe) is very odd, and I guess it comes out of the media. Great for soundbites.

Not so great for humanity.

what happened to that?

It's all about slogans, what is really happening, does not matter.

who made up the deck of cards thing?

Every one of them should be memorialized in the press. Remember when the war started? The lives of those lost would be highlighted on the network news. We all got a feel for the people we were losing. Now, it's just a body count. And an ever-increasing body count at that. They are all just commas, as * so famously said.

:kick: