"Fighting" -- legislative and otherwise

From: David Swanson <davidcnswanson@...>
To: m.mk@...
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2022 08:44:25 -0500
Subject: Re: Something like "Relentlessly advocate" instead of "fight"?

 
i agree

On Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 8:36 AM <m.mk@...> wrote:
Mr Swanson:
 
Remember at Trump impeachment II, the Repubs used the word "fight" against the Dems in an attempt to blur Trump's use of the word on Jan 6?
 
I was suggesting to a local Dem to not use the word fight. He was resistant to the suggestion.
 
I thought below might be of interest, perhaps especially the "Hollywood terrorism" anecdote near the middle, maybe you know it.
 
Regards,
Mark M Giese
Racine, WI, US(A)
(Deluded panentheist)

From: "Demske, Nick" <Nick.Demske@...>
To: "m.mk@...
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2022 00:36:36 +0000
Subject: Re: "Relentlessly advocate" instead?
 

Right on, thanks for your thoughts here, Mark. You are truly a relentless advocate yourself! Have a great night,

Nick


From: <m.mk@...>

Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 13:58:36 -0600
Subject: Re: "Relentlessly advocate" instead?
 
Nick:
 
Thank you for your considered reply.
 
My goal is not to "outrun" the Republicans in this regard, for, as you indicate, they can criticize, co-opt, etc.
 
My goal is simply to use, for lack of a better term, elevated language, for our own sake.
 
So often in this country "violent words" are used even though the goal is admirable:
 
War on Poverty
 
War on Drugs (I realize this was a bad idea at least from all the racist incarceration it led to)
 
etc.
 
There is even a brand of brownies called "Killer Brownie."
 
 
I realize this name is meant to convey that the brownies are really really good.
 
In Minneapolis, having breakfast with my brother once up there at a restaurant, a choice on the menu was called "Kamikaze Plate." I realize the actual word and practice is Japanese, but what an idea for a breakfast dish when you think about it.
 
Who, for instance, would name a plate, Suicide Bomber Plate?
 
I have long felt "fight" is not a good word to use when it comes to admirable causes.
 
For instance, I remember a good number of presidential races ago (ca. 1988 or no later than 1992) the driver of the bus I would take to/from work saying he liked Dem candidate X "Because he's a fighter."
 
And I thought to myself, "What? He deals with his colleagues across the aisle with his fists?"

Woke -- it's actually bad grammar, isn't it?
 
E.g.,
 
'We have a moral obligation to "stay woke"...'— Barbara Lee
 
;)
 
But the original idea behind it is good.
 
MLK -- that is interesting and I haven't read much by him or Gandhi, but, though these figures point the way, there is no reason we might not stand on their shoulders and see even further.
 
After all, in Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, as you may well know, a non-fiction book about race in the United States by the American historian Ibram X. Kendi, the author classed people on the issue of racism as follows:
 
              racists, assimilationists, and antiracists
 
and to my surprise, as I recall, classed MLK as "only" an assimilationist when the author writes of the better goal of antiracism.
 
Actually, I don't like the word antiracist because I think it's better to be, for instance, pro-peace than anti-war, but, offhand, I can't think of a handy pro- word to use instead of antiracist.
 
Just my thoughts and thanks for listening especially if you read thru the P.S.
 
Best regards,
Mark
 
P.S. So much of what comes out of Hollywood is violent, guns and all. It contributes to the problem of positively conceiving things as I see it since US/Americans are so awash in such images/narrative.
 
Alec Baldwin would have had no murderous mishap were he not making yet another H'wood film featuring guns.
 
We are inured to all that.
 
In comparison:
 

...The second thing I’ll share is about one of the non-warring and extremely internally peaceful societies, the Ifaluk of Micronesia. They are out in the Pacific with a low population density, living on this atoll and having some interaction with neighboring islands. They are extremely peaceful, according to various anthropologists who have described them. Catherine Lutz is the most recent anthropologist that I know of to observe them. When she did her fieldwork there, people told her how the United States Navy came by on goodwill visits and anchored their ship off the atoll. They brought projectors onto the beach and set up a screen, and they showed the people these lethal Westerns and other movies that were popular at the time—I think we’re talking 1950s, 1960s.

Catherine Lutz discovered, when she did her fieldwork in the ’80s, that people were traumatized by the films. It literally gave them trauma. Some of them said that they ran away in fear for their life. They refused to watch the movies after they saw what was going on. It led them to ask her questions like, “So in your country, people really do kill each other?” To which, of course, she answered yes. And they were just astounded at this. Three anthropologists that I’ve read, all on this same Ifaluk culture from different time periods, say that they could find no evidence of any rapes or murders. The most serious aggression they saw was when one time a guy was really agitated and put his hand on the shoulder of another guy, which was considered most inappropriate. This non-warring, peaceful Ifaluk culture was traumatized when they saw our Westerns, with people having fistfights and shooting each other with guns (I guess they didn’t quite know what a gun was but they could see the person fall over and the ketchup come out, Hollywood style). I think an extreme case like this just gives us some perspective to reflect back on our own society.

 
 
On Thu, 27 Jan 2022 11:05:08 +0000 "Demske, Nick" <Nick.Demske@...> writes:
That’s a good question and one I don’t know the answer to, but one which we could figure out easily just by reading the writings of Gandhi (which I’ve yet to really do in this life). I do however read the words of Dr King pretty avidly, who of course was a devotee of Gandhis (and other important non-violence resistance figures). He would use the word fight on a recurring basis. He would even say things like that non-violence was the greatest “weapon” the movement had available to it, etc. not saying it’s right or wrong—just saying that’s the historical record.

I appreciate a sensitivity to language—but I also know that political opponents intentionally misinterpret each other’s language all the time to the point of abuse. “Woke” for instance is a term so co-opted by the right, at this point, that they’re the only people who use it now, and to a hilarious degree. It can be done with any word, no matter how innocuous. No words on their own are inherently evil, it’s in the meanings we associate with them. And if a group has the political agenda to associate malicious intent into a word their opposition is using so they can pretend it demonstrates malicious intent in their opponents, they will do it. No matter what words their opponents are using. So I simply choose not to navigate my language off of made up rules that political opponents are always changing, since there’s no real chance of actually satisfying them. It’s a set up and the language is just a pawn—a distraction—in that set up.

Let me know if you do more research into whether Gandhi would use the term fight or not, though. I’d be curious to know myself.

Thanks again as always Mark.
Nick


From: m.mk@...
Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2022 9:04:45 PM
To: Demske, Nick <Nick.Demske@...>
Subject: "Relentlessly advocate" instead?
 

I wonder what word or term Gandhi would use.

Regards,
Mark M Giese

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