Pixelated Semantics

A better brand for death

The 'War on Terror' is now officially 'rebranded' as the 'Long War', according to the BBC and others (following a concerted recent PR effort from the Pentagon.) The BBC writes 'It sounds eerily like the Cold War - and that is no mistake' - a change in terminology presented as unplanned and reactive that justifies maintaining military-industrial dominiation of civil society and continuing shadow wars against ideology and threat as it ever was since 1945. The name is probably deliberately kept vague (for semantic wriggle-room as much as having ill-defined enemies that may be expanded at will)--as William Safire writes for the NYT, 'War-namers, stand down: what was euphemized after the US Civil War as "the late unpleasantness" will not get a name until it's over.'

Item posted by AutoEditor at 1:29 pm ::