David Sirota: A New Standard for Oxymoronic Newspeak

[marmar]

from truthdig:



A New Standard for Oxymoronic Newspeak

Posted on Jun 28, 2012
By David Sirota


If there was an ongoing contest in the art of self-contradicting newspeak, a quote from a U.S. military official during the Vietnam War would be the reigning victor for most of the modern era. In describing the decision to ignore the prospect of civilian casualties and vaporize a Vietnamese village, that unnamed official famously told Peter Arnett of the Associated Press that “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

Epitomizing the futility, immorality and nihilism of that era-defining war, the line has achieved true aphorism status—employed to describe any political endeavor that is, well…futile, immoral and nihilistic.

But now, ever so suddenly, the Vietnam quote has been dethroned by an even more oxymoronic line—one that perfectly summarizes the zeitgeist of the post-9/11 era. As Wired’s Spencer Ackerman reports, “Surveillance experts at the National Security Agency won’t tell two powerful United States Senators how many Americans have had their communications picked up by the agency [because] it would violate your privacy to say so.”

In a letter to senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall, the agency wrote: “A review of the sort suggested would itself violate the privacy of U.S. persons.” .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_new_standard_for_oxymoronic_newspeak_20120628/?ln

[xchrom]

1. ...

[Doctor_J]

3. I would invite the teabaggers to join us in putting an end to this crap, but

they would just turn it into an attack on the president. They believed government snooping and detention was fine in 2001-2009.