By The Numbers

About six weeks ago I published a blog post that cited George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language,” which discusses the nefarious use of euphemism to cover up war atrocities (https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2022/03/special-cover-up.html). I wrote:

Putin’s war against Ukraine can serve as an object lesson in euphemism. For one thing, the word “war” has been outlawed in Russia; Putin has called his invasion a “special operation.” What can be vaguer than something called “an operation”? What exactly goes on in “an operation”? . . .

Meanwhile, shells are landing on civilian targets, millions are fleeing their homes, or hiding out in improvised shelters—and the death toll mounts.

In the latest issue of The Atlantic Anne Applebaum has an essay entitled “UKRAINE AND THE WORDS THAT LEAD TO MASS MURDER: First comes the dehumanization. Then comes the killing” (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/06/ukraine-mass-murder-hate-speech-soviet/629629/). The essay enlarges upon the point I made in my blog, going into great detail on the history of Russian denigration of Ukraine and Ukrainians and the genocidal results therefrom. As Applebaum points out, “[W]hile not every use of genocidal hate speech leads to genocide, all genocides have been preceded by genocidal hate speech.”

I recommend reading her essay.

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I am sure that the following news will make you all breathe easier:

Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill Monday to create a police force dedicated to pursuing voter fraud and other election crimes.*

The Guardian notes, however, 

Voter fraud is rare, typically occurs in isolated instances and is generally detected. An Associated Press investigation of the 2020 presidential election found fewer than 475 potential cases of voter fraud out of 25.5 million ballots cast in the six states where Trump and his allies disputed his loss to President Joe Biden.

Despite the fact that there are few cases of voter fraud, here are two cases that made the news. First, in Florida itself:

Two men from The Villages—a Florida retirement community known for its staunch support of former President Donald Trump—have pleaded guilty to voting more than once during the 2020 election.** 

Second:

Mark Meadows—a former chief of staff to President Donald Trump who was removed from North Carolina voter rolls earlier this month—is still a registered voter in two other states, according to officials and a published report.***

I can’t wait until DeSantis’ posse begins rounding up all those Republican election cheaters.

*

While we’re stuck in the swamp of Florida, let me clue you in on why the state has banned 54 math books. It’s looking to find one that claims that 74,216,154 votes are greater than 81,268,924. That’s Republican arithmetic.

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* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/25/ron-desantis-florida-governor-bill-police-voter-fraud

** https://www.businessinsider.com/2-men-pro-trump-florida-the-villages-admit-voter-fraud-2022-4?inline-endstory-related-recommendations=

*** https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-04-22/mark-meadows-also-registered-to-vote-in-south-carolina

Special Cover-up

George Orwell’s most famous essay is “Politics and the English Language,” written in 1946.* He wrote out of concern that “the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language” and in hope that “one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.”

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. . . . Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. 

The workings of euphemism are wonderful: “pacification” has the root meaning “making peaceful”; “rectification” has the root meaning “making right.” Who can oppose such claims? And surely “elimination” of the “unreliable” has to be beneficial.

Euphemism is from a Greek word meaning "good speech.” The substitution of nice terms to cover up nasty deeds (as exemplified above) is one way to accomplish that mind trickery. Another way is the use of very general and/or abstract words to deflect audience’s attention from the dirty specifics.** 

Putin’s war against Ukraine can serve as an object lesson in euphemism. For one thing, the word “war” has been outlawed in Russia; Putin has called his invasion a “special operation.” What can be vaguer than something called “an operation”? What exactly goes on in “an operation”? The use of the term when applied to a surgical practice (probably the most used application of the term), although describing an action that is designed to have a beneficial outcome, is still a cover-up of the nasty work of cutting into a patient’s body. Beyond medicine, the vagueness of “operation” can denote any kind of action: the “operation” of a motor vehicle, for example. 

And the modifier “special”: the “operation” is not indiscriminate or ordinary, but purposely focused, like a “special” gift for a “special” person.

Meanwhile, shells are landing on civilian targets, millions are fleeing their homes, or hiding out in improvised shelters—and the death toll mounts.

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Vladimir Putin, the ex-KGB man, may be an expert in spycraft, but he is no historian. His arguments about the relationship of Russia and Ukraine (and Russians and Ukrainians) is fraught with error. In a speech in February, Putin asserted that 

Ukraine and Russia are, in historical terms, essentially inseparable.

“Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space,” he said. . . . “Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians.”***

Ok, let’s for the moment forget that what Putin said is not historically correct. Let’s instead consider that that is what Putin sincerely believes. Which is the real interesting thing. If Putin can unleash a war against a populace he believes to be his own people—that is native Russians—what carnage and destruction would he unleash against the natives of Ukraine if he believed that they were really Ukrainians?

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* https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/

** Consider here these two examples of Nazi euphemism:

“As part of the final solution…Jews fit for work” would be separated by sex and forced to do road construction, “in the course of which the majority will doubtless succumb to natural wastage.”

Dear Party Comrade Rademacher! On my return trip from Berlin I met an old party comrade, who works in the east on the settlement of the Jewish question. In the near future many of the Jewish vermin will be exterminated through special measures.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/03/24/wannsee-the-road-to-the-final-solution-peter-longerich/

*** https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/2/23/22945781/russia-ukraine-putin-speech-transcript-february-22

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End Note:

"The war is framed in Russia in terms of forcing peace upon Ukraine."

Masha Gessen

The New Yorker

Que Bella Voce

“Strange.”

The Economist admitted to perplexity earlier this year in its obituary of Charles Keating. He was “Mr. Clean,” a “moral crusader,” a “knight on a white charger—as he saw himself,” who waged war on obscenity and pornography. He was, said The Economist, “so doughty in this holy war that Richard Nixon appointed him in 1969 to the national commission on obscenity.” He was also a generous donor to the Catholic Church (“Sundays saw him devoutly at Mass”) and the University of Cincinnati and had given “at least $1m to Mother Teresa, who in return praised his good character.”

But here was the “strange” part (according to the magazine), he was also “the man who bilked 23,000 investors out of their savings. The total loss was $250m-288m, and the cost to the taxpayer $3.4 billion.”

He was eventually convicted on 17 counts of fraud and sent to prison.

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Is the case of Robert Brennan also “strange”? 

In 1973 he gave $10 million dollars to St. Benedict's Preparatory School in Newark, NJ (as well as a shedload of moolah over the years to Seton Hall University), only to find himself two decades later before a federal court judge and fined $75 million for defrauding investors. His legal troubles didn't end there. USA TODAY summed up his downfall:

He was arrested in 2000 for failing to disclose all of his assets on his bankruptcy petition. He was found guilty a year later of bankruptcy fraud, money laundering and obstructing justice and sentenced to nine years in prison.

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In this week's New Yorker, Rachel Aviv tells the story of Sam Kellner, an orthodox Jew, who sought justice for his son. The boy was sexually molested by “a prominent cantor,” who is a“descendant of a rabbinic dynasty.” When the boy first revealed to his teacher what had happened to him, “the teacher said that [Baruch] Lebovits [the accused] was a 'respected person' and instructed him not to think about the incident again.”

Lebovits was eventually brought to trial and found guilty on eight counts of sexual abuse. He served eighteen months before the jury's verdict was overturned on appeal on procedural grounds; later, however, Lebovits copped a guilty plea and received a two-year sentence, but he served only eighty-three days.

Aviv points out that before the original sentencing (which came to “a total of up to thirty-two years”),

nearly eighty people sent letters to the judge, requesting mercy for Lebovits. They described him as charitable, kind, blessed with a beautiful singing voice . . .

Is this case “strange” as well? Another religious, charitable person (of course it's real easy being charitable with other people's money) who was a malignant blot on society?

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As was often the case, George Orwell got there first:

Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.

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Sources:

http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21600648-charles-keating-moral-crusader-and-financial-snake-oil-salesman-died-march-31st-aged

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Brennan

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/07/lawsuit-robert-brennan-was-back-at-due-process/3471031/

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/10/outcast-3