Clarke and Rwanda: Ten Years On [Mark Steyn on Clarke's "apology" to the victims of 9/11]

Steyn Online ^ | April 8, 2004 | Mark Steyn

[Bramuce]

Hey!!

[Rocky]

"It is the left that first presented itself as something good and later revealed itself as something monstrous. Today, I don't think they even have a mask. They have some rhetoric designed to disguise what they really are and anyone who calls them on the fact that words mean things is automatically the enemy."

Destruction of the English language is one of their goals. It's just like in Orwell's 1984. "Good" is the new word for bad things, "bad" is reserved for what we have traditionally considered good. The Ministry of Love is a place of torture and brainwashing. Reversing meanings is all part of the game. Or making the words become nonsensical: "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

They are unashamed in their crusade to destroy language. Once you have control of the media and the educational system, and you have the authority to make any word mean whatever you want it to mean at any time, and the opposite in the next minute (if it suits your purpose), you then don't have to say anything of substance. Just emote. "I feel your pain." People give up on trying to think, or to discuss ideas. It's too difficult in the shifting sands of the new English. All that remains for them is to take power and use force to disarm and imprison those who oppose them. They cannot win in the marketplace of ideas, so they will have to resort to force.

George Orwell understood the principle of control of language to control the minds of people. The Left is implementing it on TV, in movies, in books, and in our schools.

[hinckley buzzard]

Yes. Seriously. Liberalism is what you get when you have a person full of infantile narcissistic rage--who finds that rage to be a severe threat to his delusional view of himself as a wonderful, virtuous and morally superior person--and because it is unnacceptable, he denies it from his conscious awareness. Being unconscious, his rage is unmodulated, and finds expression by doubling back as a righteous entitlement to exude the most vile hostility against his fellow man. The same dynamic energizes the Islamic terrorists, by the way...

Ever noticed? Liberals feel about George Bush exactly the same as Islamofascists feel about the Crusaders who kicked their sandy butts out of Europe various centuries ago-- and in centuries to come, if there are still republicans and democrats, the dems will still be bitter about the 2000 election. Seriously.

[prairiebreeze]

The parallels between terrorists and liberals are very evident. And growing all the time.

Prairie

[lainde]

bttt

[Libertina]

I just love this guy! What a writer!

[aruanan]

"When you look at those children who greeted us," he said, biting his lip, as is his wont,

When he's not gnawing on someone else's.

[aruanan]

Don't hold your breath for any apologies Mr. Steyn

We could, though, hope that Mr. Clark run into the relatives of those he helped to kill. There are a lot of them in the U.S. now.

[finnigan2]

Quote from the article: " Turns out it's Mister Apology himself, Richard Clarke. He was the guy in charge of Rwandan policy for the Clinton team and, as far as I can tell, unlike the Pain-Feeler, he feels not even a twinge of pro forma remorse. As we know, regrets, he's had a few. But this isn't one of them. "It is not always the United States that has to answer the 911 call," Clarke said. "It is not always the United States that has to be the world's policeman."

When I read that, I suddenly recalled the speculation of a week or so ago that Clarkes charges against his boss, a black female, might be racially motivated resentment. When Steyn points out his refusal to recommend assistance to blacks in Rwanda, it makes me think their could be some truth in the speculation.

[optik_b]

On the recent PBS Frontline about Rwanda they recounted the telephone call from Richard Clarke to Madeleine Albright. He insisted that we do nothing to stop the genocide. He was the head of peacekeeping for the National Security Council.

[bondjamesbond]

Me, I am at a familiar point. Much like I felt in the late 1960s/early 1970s: everything is political.

Only this time I am on the other side. Or maybe not. I haven't changed at all. It is the left that first presented itself as something good and later revealed itself as something monstrous. Today, I don't think they even have a mask. They have some rhetoric designed to disguise what they really are and anyone who calls them on the fact that words mean things is automatically the enemy.

Man, it's like you read my mind...

[bondjamesbond]

George Orwell understood the principle of control of language to control the minds of people. The Left is implementing it on TV, in movies, in books, and in our schools.

I know it is a small thing, but have you read the nutritional label on a food package recently? "Nutritional Information" has become "NUTRITION FACTS". It's not just poor usage. Instead of presenting information having to do with nutrition, now the label is the be-all-and-end-all, the Alpha and Omega, the FACTS, by God!

And instead of the "Recommended Daily Allowance", the RDA of our youth, it is now the "Daily Value". Daily Value of what? Does this just today's value? Will it change tomorrow? Note that there is no longer a recommendation, which can be heeded or ignored. And there is no longer an allowance, with all of the implications of allocation of resources. There is just the Daily Value, a name which has no connection to anything. The Daily Value is what the label says it is. Live with it.

I know, it's a small thing. But somewhere in some basement over at the FDA, there is a small army of bureaucrats who looked at this language, and thought "Yes, that's much better." These are the people who are going to shape our society in a Million ways, large and small, for the forseeable future.