Could 'Rendition' Become the Next 'Ethnic Cleansing?'

I've lived through all of this before. The dilution of once-powerful terms. "Closure" and "do your own thing" in the spirit of the late Fritz Perls, to mention a couple. Happily, Fox Snewz' humping of "homicide bombers" never quite caught on. Gosh, I wonder if it might have anything to do with the fact that coupling "homicide" and "bombers" (as used) was kind of like changing "private accounts" into "personal accounts."

How do you become more user-friendly as you begin diluting and deluding? Let's go to the videotape! ~ Social Security ~ Your mission? Fronting for The Boy as he begins dismantling the program. Public posture? You get all warm and fuzzy as you slip 'em by, like Mr. Scotty did here as he "answered" a reporter's question:

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Q And secondly, Scott, on the Social Security privatization -- the President has said he would be very concerned in making sure that funds in the private accounts were not at risk for the people who wanted to place them there, but -- and he took the example of placing them in U.S. Treasury bonds. Now, the Social Security funds are already being placed in Treasury bonds. Why should the private accounts make a difference, unless people are allowed to put them in the stock market, which, of course, is a very risky undertaking?

MR. McCLELLAN: There was a bipartisan commission that looked at the problems facing Social Security. That commission outlined some options to consider, as we work to solve this problem. It was led by the late Senator Moynihan. And they recognized the importance of establishing personal retirement accounts where people -- younger workers could voluntarily set aside some of their own savings, if they so chose, in personal retirement accounts. And the President is strongly committed to that, as part of a comprehensive effort to strengthen Social Security.
(from Jan 12, 2005 press briefing)

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But that's not why I've called you here today. (note to self: increase dosage, SSRI) I wanted to rant about the spillover of CIA doublespeak into our everyday language.

Before Peter Jennings referred to the CIA's outsourcing of torture as "extraordinary rendition" (a practice going back to DaddyBush and the Gulf War), and last Sunday's 60 Minutes "rendition" segment, I'd begun to wonder if "rendition" wasn't about to become the next big thing! Most of us are familiar with artist's renditions, but torture and renditions? Somehow I don't think this one's gonna be an easy sell unless you happen to work for some" liberal elite propaganda machine" like CNN, known to some as the "Clinton News Network."

Days before I'd had enough of this latest foray into word fucking, I happened to catch a segment on BBC Radio that focused on solutions for the many problems facing Africa today. And here came a pleasant correspondent speaking with a crisp British accent. He was reporting on the difficulty of finding perpetrators where genocide and forced evacuations had occurred (not to say they aren't happening right this minute). The stalwart reporter spoke of "ethnic cleansing," and how difficult it was to find "those responsible for areas having been cleansed" because "those responsible for the cleansing" were no longer around. They were hard to find, darn the luck!

Again, many of us grew up familiar with "cleansing the soul" but not this. What an absolutely hideous term for horror.

In that spirit I might as well describe my anticipation of stopping by the drive-thru as "efforting closure on my Happy Meal."

It was touch and go for awhile with "homicide bombers." Perhaps, if we're conditioned enough through the overuse of "rendition," we can all fly the friendly skies of United, who might someday offer SuperSaver fares for AmeriKlans.
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[added March 9] Hungry for more provocative word-mongering? Who isn't! Lock & Load with Daniel Okrent's piece from NYTimes' The Public Editor ~ The War of the Words: A Dispatch From the Front Lines (from March 6, 2005)
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