War on the "War on Terror"
Talk America, WHRW Public Affairs 3.24.'06
WAR ON THE “WAR ON TERROR”
The phrase “war on terror” is a double reverse sign use that cannot stand for anything objective.
Grammar:
1. “Terror” - noun for a mental state of extreme fright, associated with trauma, torture; signals imperative to avoid (reverse).
2. “(to) terrorize” - verb for instilling the mental state
3. “terrorism” - noun for an act intended to terrorize.
4. “terrorist” – noun for a person or organization carrying out acts of terrorism.
Neither of these regular grammatical uses fits with “war”, which implies a win-or-lose conflict with an adversary.
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3.: the noun “terrorism” stands for a tactic, not an adversary. It’s use becomes rational when it deters attacks; then it’s non-use becomes suicidal. Thus, the phrase “War on terrorism” makes no more sense than “war on bombing”, both are means of war-making.
2.: the verb “to terrorize”, similarly, stands for nothing “war” could be waged against, though “MAD” (Mutually Assured Destruction) thinking could be tacitly assumed to be beyond the social contract defining humanity.
1.: “terror”, the short term preferred by Bush, only converts into an adversary confronted in “war” by making a great metaphorical stretch -- like making war on migraine. Who wouldn’t want to?
4,: “terrorist”: here is a personalized adversary --an enemy of all; criminal by definition (see meanings 1.,2.,3. to get to this noun). Those who would terrorize others? everyone opposes them. It self-evidently condemns while leaving the “what” open for interpretation. Thus, a bumper-sticker I saw today reads “US Terrorist hunter”, while medical clinics report a sharp rise of young males in minority ethnic groups of hysterical fear of being attacked by whites.
The phrase “War on terror” spins the grammar as the context requires.
What weds these terms so tightly? (“War”, “terror”). “911”, of course (and, by association, Pearl Harbor, 12/7, ’41; Rev. 12.14; Daniel 12.7….Sun =12. Moon =7
Hypothesis: The unconscious meaning of “war” as token of child sacrifice – a group sin-cleansing ritual whose deep motive is re-birth: to be re-born.
The arcane details are elaborated at great length elsewhere. Here, this hypothesis is invoked to explain the psychosemiotic connection – the glue, or ‘template” locking them together. The unconscious psychodynamic looped into common discourse by its use folds the motive of rebirth in group fantasy, into the interior personal domain – as if what was previously carried on externally, in confronting enemies of the group, is to be carried on by each person, internally, with the same religious fervor of achieving “salvation” – deliverance from Mother’s poisonous womb-placenta. Meanwhile, TPTB decide what causes and individuals qualify as “terrorists.”
If this is right it explains why “war on terrorism” can never be “won”. It is impossible in principle to eliminate all situations and circumstances in which an individual or group become obsessed with paranoid fears of being attacked and decide it is necessary to take preventive terrorist action.
What this war regime has done is install a permanent guilt-reduction, blood sacrifice ritual mechanism on the basis of the birth-rebirth trauma repetition-compulsion.
WAR ON THE “WAR ON TERROR”
The phrase “war on terror” is a double reverse sign use that cannot stand for anything objective.
Grammar:
1. “Terror” - noun for a mental state of extreme fright, associated with trauma, torture; signals imperative to avoid (reverse).
2. “(to) terrorize” - verb for instilling the mental state
3. “terrorism” - noun for an act intended to terrorize.
4. “terrorist” – noun for a person or organization carrying out acts of terrorism.
Neither of these regular grammatical uses fits with “war”, which implies a win-or-lose conflict with an adversary.
****
3.: the noun “terrorism” stands for a tactic, not an adversary. It’s use becomes rational when it deters attacks; then it’s non-use becomes suicidal. Thus, the phrase “War on terrorism” makes no more sense than “war on bombing”, both are means of war-making.
2.: the verb “to terrorize”, similarly, stands for nothing “war” could be waged against, though “MAD” (Mutually Assured Destruction) thinking could be tacitly assumed to be beyond the social contract defining humanity.
1.: “terror”, the short term preferred by Bush, only converts into an adversary confronted in “war” by making a great metaphorical stretch -- like making war on migraine. Who wouldn’t want to?
4,: “terrorist”: here is a personalized adversary --an enemy of all; criminal by definition (see meanings 1.,2.,3. to get to this noun). Those who would terrorize others? everyone opposes them. It self-evidently condemns while leaving the “what” open for interpretation. Thus, a bumper-sticker I saw today reads “US Terrorist hunter”, while medical clinics report a sharp rise of young males in minority ethnic groups of hysterical fear of being attacked by whites.
The phrase “War on terror” spins the grammar as the context requires.
What weds these terms so tightly? (“War”, “terror”). “911”, of course (and, by association, Pearl Harbor, 12/7, ’41; Rev. 12.14; Daniel 12.7….Sun =12. Moon =7
Hypothesis: The unconscious meaning of “war” as token of child sacrifice – a group sin-cleansing ritual whose deep motive is re-birth: to be re-born.
The arcane details are elaborated at great length elsewhere. Here, this hypothesis is invoked to explain the psychosemiotic connection – the glue, or ‘template” locking them together. The unconscious psychodynamic looped into common discourse by its use folds the motive of rebirth in group fantasy, into the interior personal domain – as if what was previously carried on externally, in confronting enemies of the group, is to be carried on by each person, internally, with the same religious fervor of achieving “salvation” – deliverance from Mother’s poisonous womb-placenta. Meanwhile, TPTB decide what causes and individuals qualify as “terrorists.”
If this is right it explains why “war on terrorism” can never be “won”. It is impossible in principle to eliminate all situations and circumstances in which an individual or group become obsessed with paranoid fears of being attacked and decide it is necessary to take preventive terrorist action.
What this war regime has done is install a permanent guilt-reduction, blood sacrifice ritual mechanism on the basis of the birth-rebirth trauma repetition-compulsion.
posted by Sid Thomas | 11:43 AM
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