Language of the oppressor

I've had this post percolating in my mind for quite some time now and this post by D Cup got me to finally put it down on "paper" so to speak. I'm gonna warn you if you came looking for comedy in this post you may want to scroll down or up as the case may be but I'm telling you now this post ain't about making you laugh.

You may not notice it but I refuse to use some popular phrases in my writings on this blog. The main ones I refuse to use are "global warming" "red state/blue state" and now "Yankee/Rebel."

I refuse to use those phrases because they are linguistic constructs of the hate merchants who want to keep us divided and at each others throats so that they can continue to rape our country, steal our freedom, and subvert the Constitution. Let's take a look at each offending phrase and I'll explain why I'll not use it because if I did then I'd be helping the corporate media do it's job of keeping the smoke screen going.

"Global Warming" Ok, first off it's a misnomer. Yes, as the climate changes due to our pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere parts of the planet are indeed going to get warmer, very much so in fact. But while some parts of the globe get hotter and hotter and drier, others will get colder and wetter. When the Atlantic conveyor shuts down as a result of more and more of Greenland and Artic ice melting, parts of Northern Europe and Britain will get colder because no longer will there be a strong ocean current that pulls warm weather to that area. As a result winters there will last longer and they will be probably much wetter than they are now.

The corporate media continues to use the phrase "global warming" because it has a vested interest in keeping the status quo going. They want to keep it going because as long as they do they can keep counting on all that advertising money the oil and gas companies pay them.

So instead of helping ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and all the other corporations who are helping befoul our planet, I choose not to use the phrase that is misleading and wrong. I'll use the more correct phrase about what is happening to our planet and that phrase is: climate change. And if we don't actually get serious about reversing what is happening then that phrase is going to change to: irreversible climate change.

And one final note on climate change, Sparky and I don't have kids so the odds are overwhelming that we'll not have grandkids or great grandkids, so we're not leaving the planet to any offspring, but you know what? We still recycle and use fluorescent bulbs and buy organic so that your kids and grandkids and your great grandkids might have a decent world to live in one day. No need to thank us, that's just who we are, we're some nice people sometimes.

"Red State/Blue State" Because of the vagaries of the flawed Electoral College system that we have in this country, and let's be clear why we have that system, it's because the founding fathers did not trust people like you and me, the unwashed masses, to elect the President, they wanted to keep that in the hands of the rich white land owning elites, all the electoral votes of each particular state go to the winner of that state in the Presidential election. But just because Bush "won" Tennessee or Alabama or Ohio (and he only won that one because they cheated the African Americans out of their right to vote by not having enough voting machines in the urban areas) does not mean that all people in those states supported or voted for him. This nonsense burns my ass. It's as if the voice of the people who did not vote for the winner is not worth hearing. And many others, especially in the media, think that since a majority of Tennesseans voted for Bush, well gosh golly, ALL Tennesseans must support that bloodthirsty Constitution trampling tyrant. Well, that shit is simply not true, I never voted for him and neither did thousands of other people in this fine state. Those who keep this fiction of "red state/blue state" going do so in order to keep us divided. America is not red states versus blue states, it's, if I must use a color analogy, fucking purple. The breathless media idiots love to say, "Oh, the South is solid Republican, look how they voted in the last two elections, they all voted for Bush." Bull shit, Bill Clinton won Tennessee and Arkansas and Florida when he got elected, twice. America is a country not of "reds" and "blues." We're a country of people who's opinions shift as time moves on and one party becomes more odious than the other one at any given time, because if it wasn't then one freakin' party would win all the time.

"Yankee/Rebel" The war to keep the union together has been over for over a century and yet some small minded people love to use those words to describe and marginalize other people. They do it to make themselves feel superior to whatever part of the population they do not belong to.

As I've written before I was born in Detroit, Michigan, which is in the midwest, and I moved south in 1974. I grew up speaking the way others did around me and when I moved south my accent suddenly marked me as an outsider to some people and they told me I "talked funny." These days when I speak to relatives in Michigan they tell me my southern accent sounds odd and that to them I "talk funny" and the implication is I am not as smart as them because I now sound like one of those "hillbillies," and of course that way of thinking is not limited to my relatives, many people automatically think a person from the south is an idiot because they sound different than they do. You know what though? To me I sound normal and you sound normal too, even if you have say, a flat nasal Midwest accent, or a New England accent, or a Southern California surfer dude accent, or a Hispanic accent. You know what? No matter where we were born we all speak an American version of English and unlike the people who want to keep us apart, I like all the varieties of American English, I'm not afraid of folks who "talk funny" or who don't sound like me. In fact, I like it that we all sound different and I could care less if your great great great grandparents fought against keeping the USA together or if they fought to keep this nation whole. The war is over and has been for over a hundred years and you know what? We are all Americans whether we were born in Michigan or Texas or Mississippi or Oregon or Illinois.

Oh yeah, one more thing about the Yankee/Southern thing, is you fly the Confederate flag or wear a Confederate flag pin on your lapel or have a huge Confederate flag sticker on your 4 x 4 truck that has huge ass tires and a lift kit that keeps it five feet off the ground and you say that you do it as an expression of heritage and not hate, then you're full of shit. If you have to qualify whatever it is you're doing by starting with the phrase "it's not", then it usually is.

I for one have had enough of the division in this country and the groups who want to keep us divided, the corporate media, the multi national corporations, the Republican party, the Democratic Party, the evangelicals, the muslims, the NRA, the anti gay and lesbian groups, and whoever else I forgot to mention. I'm tired of people telling me that I'm part of some group they put me in so that they can marginalize me and my views that are different from theirs. I'm not whoever they say I am and I'm not going to buy into the ideas behind the language they use to oppress us with.

I refuse to use the language of the oppressor.