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Tags: Cold War, military, NATO, treaty

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Lloyd Marcus at Renew America, June 28, 2010: “Again, I say charges that the movement is racist are absurd. Here are a few of my personal tea party experiences. Keep in mind, I have performed at well over two hundred tea parties across America. Before singing my “American Tea Party Anthem,” I say, “Hello my [...]

An article by Nicky Hager at Cryptome.org from Covert Action Quarterly (1998) about Echelon. Hager’s book on the subject, “Secret Power: New Zealand’s Role In the International Spy Network,” is dated 1996, so I’m a little confused by the dating of the article. Echelon is/was a global espionage and interception system coordinated by the [...]

Anatoliy Golitsyn - New Lies for Old: The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation

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From The Search for the Manchurian Candidate - John Marks Chapter 8.   Brainwashing: In September 1950, the Miami News published an article by Edward Hunter titled ” ‘Brain-Washing’ Tactics Force Chinese into Ranks of Communist Party.” It was the first printed use in any language of the term “brainwashing,” which quickly became a stock phrase in [...]

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The Daily Bell on the tensions between Israel and the world as an elite manipulation: “The creation of the tiny theocratic state of Israel was not something that came about because of an upsurge in sentiment that such a state was needed. Even Dr. John Coleman, who has written a recent (fairly vituperative) history of the Rothschilds, explains that [...]

I got an email a little while ago from an acquaintance who I’ve never met in person, asking for some help with English terminology. I provided an answer, she accepted it, and wrote back saying something to the effect of: “Oh! Silly me! I’m just a stupid blonde.”

I replied, saying that it is NOT OKAY to refer to herself in that fashion. Her query back was difficult to read: “Why? Should it be someone else who so describes me?”

My reply:

When I see you use language like that, I think: [My interlocutor] has internalized some evil. She tells herself regularly that she is stupid, even though that’s only a set of lies handed to her by other people. She tells herself that she’s a “stupid blonde” because that’s also a set of lies handed to her by other people. And the “stupid blonde” label simply translates into “stupid woman” or, more exactly, “fucking bitch” by means of the cultural attachments it has.

I don’t know you at all, but I know some patterns. Maybe you are just making a light joke here, but I reacted (in your defense) to what I feel is a terrible aspect of our shared world. Maybe you don’t think of yourself, regularly, as “stupid”. Maybe you don’t think of yourself, regularly, as being well characterized by the simple word “blonde”. But when I see a woman apply that description to herself, I would like to interrupt her and ask her why she is doing so.

The language we use is important. It shapes our worlds, and it shapes ourselves. Use better language. Now, damnit.

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Tags: feminism, language, women

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