Monday, March 19, 2012

Untruth in Labeling: Both sides are the same!

There's really no difference between the two parties, so it really doesn't matter which one you support.  Of course, the two parties I'm talking about are the Professional Left and the Tea Party.  Which parties did you think I was talking about?

 I increasingly cannot tell the difference between the two.  One turns right, and one turns left but they both arrive at the same destination: that Democrats - especially Barack Obama (neither side ever refers to him as President Obama) -are rotten sonsofbitches.

If you read any column by Glenn Greenwald he will tell you how President Obama has claimed the extraordinary right to Kill "American Citizens" without due process.  If you read any article by any right winger or listen to any right wing radio for any length of time they will tell you about the cosmic unfairness of the "death tax".

The use of the term "death tax" and "American Citizen" are both propagandist mislabels designed solely to hide the fact that we are referring to infinitesimally small groups.


Of course there's no such thing as the "death tax"  it is in fact the estate tax but when you call it  the death tax it makes it sound like it could apply to me and you.  After all, we all die, we don't all have estates.  So we have some poor shmoo making $30,000 a year, getting taxed at 30% mad as hell because some kid who's never worked in his life may have to pay some tax on  five million dollars of free money which his father- or great grandfather- earned.  Because taxing someone because they died is so unfair!    Voila!  The beauty of labeling!

Similarly, labeling Anwar Al Alaki as an "American Citizen" is as dishonest as labeling Osama Bin Laden "a father of five".  Yes both labels are technically true, but they have nothing to do with the reason they were killed.    Contrary to Greenwald's propaganda, PBO has not claimed the right to "kill American Citizens" just as he has not claimed the right to kill "fathers of five".  He has claimed the right to kill Al Queda operatives.  It was being Al Queda operatives that got both men killed.   The fact that one was born in the USA is irrelevant to PBO and, I believe, irrelevant to the law. 

President Obama and the Congress of the United States has made it clear that they want to make being a member of Al Queda an extremely dangerous "occupation".   They want to discourage people in the strongest possible way from from joining that organization regardless of where you were born.    If you are part of Al Queda you can expect Americans and American Presidents to try and kill you.  If you happen to be a member, you'd best quit or turn yourself in if you don't want to die.  And if you know an Al Queda operative, you'd best not hang around him.  Both Osama Bin Laden, Anwar Al Alaki and all their acquantances- including Al Alaki's son-  knew this.

But Glenn Greenwald doesn't want to call Anwar Al Alaki what he is- an American born Al Queda operative.  Instead he calls him an "American Citizen" in the hopes that he'll delude you into thinking that it can apply to you as well.  After all, we're all American Citizens.   If you call Anwar all Alaki an American born Al Queda operative that brings up a whole lot of unpleasant nuances that Glenn would prefer you not think about.  Like the fact that Congress did declare hostilities against Al Queda  on Sepetember 14th 2001.  Then there's that whole 911 thing.

So the GOP changes the name estate tax to death tax to make you think that it applies to everyone instead of the .001% of the population it actually applies to.  And Glenn Greenwald changes American Born Al Queda operative to "American Citizen"  to hide the fact that President Obama is talking about an extremely small segments of society. 

And getting smaller all the time thanks to President Obama.

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