Fun_People Archive
28 Aug
Language Goes Dead in the Hands of the Powerful

Date: Mon, 28 Aug 95 11:55:16 -0700
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Language Goes Dead in the Hands of the Powerful

From: tompar@world.std.com (Tom Parmenter)
Excerpted-from: DESPERADO


				WOUNDS


 At one point in a good college education you run a chance of being
 convinced by reading Proudhon that "Property is theft".  Although I
 don't see what I can do about it (and I love working in my yard) the
 old French anarchist was probably right.  My corollary is,
 "Government is murder".  I don't know what to do about that either.
 These are two principles that make the world work.  


 Last week the family of "white separatist Randall Weaver" was paid
 $3.1 million for the shooting death of Weaver's wife, Vicki.  The
 government move was announced in a press release and did not mention
 that Weaver's 14-year-old son had been killed with a shot in the back
 nor that Vicki had been holding a ten-month-old baby when a sniper
 blew off half her head.

 The government press release stated, "By entering into a settlement,
 the United States hopes to take a substantial step toward healing the
 wounds the incident inflicted."

 This is what people mean when they say language goes dead in the
 hands of the powerful.  When you're dead, your wounds never heal. The
 wounds the press release was speaking of were the merely metaphorical
 wounds suffered by the government in this disgraceful "incident".

 The only white people Randall Weaver ever separated were members of
 his own family.  The crime that led the US Marshalls and the FBI to
 his door was selling two sawed-off shotguns to an undercover agent
 who then unsuccessfully attempted to blackmail Weaver into informing
 on others.  Weaver's refusal to do so led to all the other charges
 and to the unprovoked attack on his home.  Just as with the Branch
 Davidians, the feds started by shooting the dogs around the house.

 This stuff has been much on my mind since Waco and very much so since
 the Oklahoma City bombing.  Other words will tumble out sooner or
 later, all about what it means to die for your country.

				  =*=				  


 I've been slow to publish it because it's going to offend people I
 love and attract people I hate.

© 1995 Peter Langston