Against Euphemism

Here’s a handy translation guide for people who have the misfortune to be exposed to U.S. media and government propaganda. Some of these noxious obfuscations of reality have spread to other nations, whose rulers and elites find them useful for their misrule. (Perhaps dishonest people think alike at times. Certainly people with the same or similar class and/or political interests do.)

“Leader:” Boss, either of a corporation or country. Also “world leaders” for country political bosses. (On the other hand, heads of labor unions are usually “labor bosses.” That’s virtually the only time the word “boss” appears in U.$. media, to refer to union officials. As if THEY dominate and control workers. You’d think the workers all worked for the unions, not for the REAL bosses.)

“Leadership:” Power or domination, as in “American leadership,” or “corporate leadership.”

“The international system:” U.S. world domination.

“Responsible stakeholder” in “the international system:” A nation that bows to U.S. aims and wishes and conforms to U.S. policies. So for example, for Russia and China to behave as “responsible stakeholders” in U.S. policy towards Iran, they have to go along with U.S. punitive sanctions and the U.S. drive to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Another example: Russia has to meekly submit to the expansion of NATO to its very borders.

U.S. “intervention:” invasions or bombings by the U.S.

“Assertive [U.S.] foreign policy:” U.S. aggression, bullying, intimidation.

“Isolationism:” Wondering if maybe the U.S. shouldn’t be so aggressive and imperialist, but not couched in such “anti-American” terms of course.

“Anti-Americanism:” Any criticism of the U.S. that is not on pragmatic but pro-imperialist grounds, but instead has a moral basis.

“Anti-communism:” Frequently used as code for fascism. So when the U.S. “supports anti-communism in El Salvador,” for example, it is supporting fascist death squadders.

“Western democracy:” Bourgeois class dictatorship with more than one political party in which carefully controlled elections are staged that are designed to make meaningful change or challenge to the existing order impossible.

“Human rights abuses:” Torture and murder by government agents. Government atrocities against the people they rule. Lumped together with other forms of repression, oppression, and state surveillance. By this mechanism, mass torture and murder in the U.S. empire gets minimized, while at the same time Soviet harassment and persecution of dissidents was implicitly equated with torture and murder by the use of the same phrase, “human rights abuses.” The term is still rampant today. Its vagueness acts as a thick fog obscuring the crimes of state criminals. Like many catch-all terms, it muddies instead of clarifies, obscures rather than identifies, and as a mushy generality it narcotizes moral outrage. It is designed to neuter moral condemnation so as to make “advocates” for “human rights” respectable guests in the foyers of the chambers of power- which is as far as its spokespeople ever get. (Unless they’re totally phony sellouts like Samantha Powers.)

“Enhanced interrogation techniques:” U.S. torture.

“Intelligence agency:” Secret police organization. (In Western parlance, “secret police” is only used to refer to the secret police of enemy/adversary states.)

“Law enforcement and intelligence agencies:” Secret police. “Law enforcement” also refers to regular police, who are not law enforcers in any neutral sense, but enforcers of the existing social order. They selectively enforce SOME laws, and also make false arrests under cover of “law,” bringing false charges to suppress/repress low social status people and political activists who are acting outside establishment-approved boundaries.

“Security service:” See “intelligence agency.”

“Homeland Security:” Domestic repression.

“Corrections:” Imprisonment.

“Correctional Facility:” Prison or jail.

“Detention Facility:” Prison or jail. Less euphemistic than “correctional facility.”

“Housing unit” in a “correction facility:” Cell.

“Detainee:” Prisoner.

“Counterterrorism:” U.S. and other state terrorism and repression.

“Special Forces:” U.S. military death squads.

“Defense:” Military, offense, war.

“Justice:” Imprisonment, execution, or assassination.

“Core American values:” the mendacious and false grand rhetoric of U.S. imperialism. U.S. propaganda, in short, designed to con the world’s population, including Americans.

“Border security:” Hunting down poor would-be immigrants, including murdering alleged rock-throwers in Mexico shot by U.S. Border Patrol agents. Also systematic harassment and seizure of electronic devices of dissidents when attempting to enter the U.S., including U.S. citizens.

“Issue:” Problem. As in “there are issues to overcome,” or “imprisoning people without trial comes with its own set of issues.”

“Spin:” Distortion. This is a term used by American establishment propagandists to refer to politicians’ feeding them versions of events that put the politician or regime in a more favorable or less negative light than the actual facts might. It could also apply to what these so-called “journalists” do too, but of course they don’t apply it to themselves. “Spin” is rather like special pleading. Trial lawyers do something similar in court, especially in opening and closing statements, where they put forth a story that omits, downplays, glosses over, or explains away facts harmful to their case, and that highlights, exaggerates, or invents facts that are favorable.

Obama’s “Secure Communities” Program: A repression program designed to spread fear and insecurity in immigrant communities targeted for deportation. (This one’s Orwellian.)

“Conservative:” Reactionary.

“Ultraconservative:” Fascist.

“Liberal:” This one has various meanings. In the mouths of “conservatives,” it means “devil.” Also a label used for hand-wringing sugar-coated reactionary type who sheds crocodile tears for victims of the system they defend. Can also denote a well-meaning would-be reformer who ultimately sells out or provides the system with humane cover. Useful for preventing people from becoming militant or taking action instead of relying on bourgeois politicians to rescue them.

“Mistakes,” or the even harsher “Blunders,” in reference to U.S. foreign policy actions and policies: CRIMES.

“Troubled:” Meaning something is horribly wrong. For example, when referring to some American police department with a record of chronic brutality and regular murders of (mostly black or Hispanic) people, the New York Times inevitably uses the adjective “troubled,” a particularly noxious euphemism to employ in such cases. Or a thoroughly corrupt or inept government agency will be called “troubled.” Like something is bothering them, or they have problems not of their own making. They mean well, they just can’t seem to get it together. So the Federal Mineral Management Agency, a body as corrupt as any on earth, whose employees partied and slept with corporate people they were supposed to be regulating (but didn’t regulate at all) is “troubled,” not “extremely corrupt” or “(literally) in bed with those it was supposed to regulate.” Rarely, if an organization completely breaks down, it will be called “dysfunctional,” like it’s just functioning badly.

“Disadvantaged:” Poor and usually oppressed.

“Inequality:” Grotesque accumulation of massive wealth by a tiny minority of people accompanied by erosion of economic

“Bias:” Racism.

“The most fortunate among us:” The rich.

And we mustn’t forget the number one culprits who purvey this brainwashing propaganda, who have their own euphemism, “The mainstream media:” The corporate oligarchy’s propaganda system.*I9

BONUS EPITHET. This one’s not a euphemism, but necessary to know: “Conspiracy theorist:” Someone who exposes the crimes of the U.S. state, particularly of the fascistic, criminal deep state.

See also "Against Euphemism II."

Bad History: The Myth that the Versailles Treaty Caused Nazism and World War II

One of the pernicious myths of “history” as created by ideologues called historians is that the blame for the rise of Hitler and the ensuing Second World War is down to the “unjust” and “harsh and punitive” Treaty of Versailles. That is to say, when dealing with obvious criminal psychotics like the Germans, if you are only NICER to them, they’ll leave you alone.

But who made Germany attack an invade France in 1890? Who made the Germans ravage and lay waste to France from 1914-1918? They won the previous war with France, and got what they wanted. Wasn’t that “fair” and “generous” enough for them? No, they went on and did it again in 1914, on the pretext of some Austrian aristocrat getting bumped off by a Serb nationalist! (“Grand Duke Ferdinand,” was the puffed-up title of the imperialist parasite who bit the dust.)

Does appeasing aggressive psychopaths placate them? I think the evidence of concession after concession handed to Hitler disproves that. And the Germans only paid a small fraction of the reparations they agreed to pay for the destruction they wreaked when they signed the Treaty.

Remember that in World War I Germany invaded neutral Belgium, to carry out the Schlieffen plan, a grand flanking maneuver aimed at annihilating the French army. While in Belgium, they busied themselves committing atrocities, murdering civilians, and committing cultural genocide But the Germans were “provoked,” you see. The Belgian army had the effrontery to resist the invasion of their country. What arrogance! Why, the Germans HAD to kill Belgian civilians and burn a historic library down, destroying irreplaceable manuscripts, to teach the Belgians a lesson. The lesson being, don’t resist invasions by psychopaths.

The fact that British propagandists during the war invented fake atrocity stories has for years been trotted out by U.S. (and other) “historians” to discredit the FACT that Germany committed REAL atrocities in Belgium- not to mention the crime of aggression by invading a neutral country in the first place. This is mendacity disguised as history. People who do that should be called propagandists, NOT historians. When you deliberately falsify history to advance a covert political and ideological agenda, that makes you a propagandist, not a historian. Unfortunately, most well-known “historians” seem to fall into this camp to some degree. This creates a huge burden on people who want an accurate understanding of the world. You have to read so much, and study for years, just to find out more or less what really happened. Needless to say, the average person does not do this and is thus an easy mark for the professional brainwashers to dupe. And professional brainwashers are what propagandists really are.

And what about the Holocaust? Did the Treaty of Versailles cause the Holocaust? I guess the “historians” should say yes- although few seem to have the nerve to do so. But if the Treaty “caused” the rise of Hitler, and "caused" the Second World War, then it must follow that it is to blame for all of Hitler’s works, including the Holocaust. Now you truly enter the arena of ludicrousness.

But it has been in the interest of Zionists to lay the blame for the Holocaust on historical anti-Semitism (obviously appropriately, but that isn’t sufficient explanation by itself), and the Zionists have dibs on Holocaust-causation. And there’s the uncomfortable fact that the “Western democracies” barely lifted a finger to save Jews, and in fact blocked their escape from the Nazis’ clutches for the most part.

Now what was the motive for the distortion of history claiming Versailles as causative for World War II? It is to exonerate Germany, because Germany after World War II was part of the U.S.-bossed anti-Soviet bloc in Western Europe. The former German enemy had to have a heavy coating of ideological make-up applied to make it attractive to Western publics who had been put through two major, costly wars by Germany. (The Soviet Union, on the other hand, NEVER invaded Western Europe, NEVER declared war on the U.S. or bombed its ships at anchor as Japan did- another rehabilitated foe turned subaltern nation to the U.S. The Soviet Union was invaded by two dozen western nations right after the Bolshevik revolution, in a failed attempt to reverse that revolution. And of course Germany invaded in 1941 and caused horrendous carnage and wreckage. But the Soviet Union was the Bad Guy.)

The end of the Cold War has changed nothing, since now Russia is still viewed as an adversary- apparently because it won’t let itself to be so reduced in power that its influence ends at its own national boundaries. For this it is faulted for “behaving like the Soviet Union” and “restarting the Cold War” or “acting like the Cold War never ended.” (Hey, Western imperialist propagandists, would you like me to lend you a mirror?)

In fact, to accept the Versailles Treaty as leading to World War II, because it embittered fanatical German nationalists like Hitler, is to imply Germany had a legitimate grievance to start World War II.

Well then, given that Germany suffered far worse destruction in World War II (its cities weren’t systematically bombed into rubble in the First World War, nor was it occupied), plus Germany was shrunk in size, permanently lost Prussia (the heartland of its militarism), Danzig, and more, and the truncated remainder was divided into two, logically Germany had an even BIGGER grievance after World War II than after WW I. So they should have armed themselves with nuclear weapons and started World War III!

The thing is, taking the irrational grievances of fanatical German nationalists at face value is like taking their stated grievances against Jews as having “caused” the Holocaust. I don’t hear those historians who blame World War II on Versailles (because German fascists used it to rile people up) blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. But by the same logic, they could. The point is, Versailles was just an excuse, used as agitprop by the Nazis, the same way they used anti-Semitic propaganda as agitprop. Quite simply, the Germans (many or most of them) were pathological people with burning imperialist ambitions combined with a virulent sense of “racial” superiority. They dehumanized most of the rest of humanity and had no compunction about slaughtering and enslaving most everybody else on the planet. Versailles had NOTHING to do with it. If there had been NO Versailles Treaty, Hitler would STILL have risen to power, and STILL have started World War Two in Europe. It’s idiotic to argue otherwise if one has read deeply about Germany between the wars (as I have). Who could seriously believe that the Versailles Treaty made Germany invade Russia yet again, killing twenty million of the people there, with the intention to ultimately annihilated fully THREE QUARTERS of the “subhuman” Slavs and make slaves of the rest, working on giant German plantations? Russia didn’t impose the Versailles conditions on Germany. Germany defeated Russia in World War I, and imposed onerous peace terms on it! So by the logic of “Versailles made Germany do it,” the Soviet Union should have invaded Germany in World War II, not the other way around. After all, Germany imposed an unfair peace treaty on Russia. Whereas the Versailles Treaty was fair, and should have been enforced. Hitler should not have been allowed to break it by increasing the size of the German army and by remilitarizing the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty. [1]

No, the fault lay in the pathological German character. Thankfully that character has changed to a large degree, mainly in the younger generations.

1] World War I started in 1914. Russia was defeated in 1917. The U.S. then entered the war, because New York bankers fretted about getting their war loans to Britain and France repaid if Germany won. With fresh U.S. troops on the Western front, Germany sued for peace in fall 1918. The slimy and cowardly German general staff, headed by Field Marshals von Hindenberg (who appointed Hitler chancellor in 1933, opening the door to Nazi dictatordship) and von Ludendorff (who participated in the 1923 coup attempt by Hitler to overthrow the Weimar Republic government, for which he was not prosecuted for treason and subversion, not imprisoned or shot- as Hitler should have been) pulled the weaselly and cunning move of making civilians take the rap for the defeat, claiming the military was never really defeated and promulgating the “stab in the back” canard, that traitors at home (in a dictatorship- remember Germany was a monarchy headed by the Kaiser, or “king,”) made Germany surrender. The Nazis heaped a lot of the blame for the “betrayal” and “treason” on “the Jews.” In World War II this was a big factor in the Allies insistence on unconditional surrender, and occupation, so the Germans wouldn’t once again pretend that they weren’t actually defeated.