Americans will never be hungry again?
for Resonance Magazine by Evan Pritchard


"Americans will never be hungry again?"

Its not clear who actually said these words, but they appear at the head of a recent November 16th, 2006 article in the Washington Post by Elizabeth Williamson. The story behind it is rather fascinating, and was reported again by Amy Goodman on WBAI just after Thanksgiving. In fact, more Americans than ever, 35 million Americans this year, (12%) are going hungry, or have experienced what we all can recognize as hunger, but the USDA is basically saying that we don't know if they are feeling hungry or not, that's not our department, we just know they were unable to eat.

Well, excuse me but it seems to me that most people who are involuntarily deprived of food for two or three days normally feel what we all experience as hunger.

Yes, those who VOLUNTARILY don't eat may also experience hunger. In fact, some protesters may soon be VOLUNTARILY staging hunger strikes in their jail cells in solidarity with Americans below the poverty level who can't find or aquire food through legal means involuntarily. Thank you USDA for making this astute distinction. Not all who are hungry are unable to find food, and not all who don't eat experience hunger, and some who experience hunger may, who knows? Enjoy it!

The USDA is now saying to us that hunger is a subjective experience. Next they'll be saying "Hunger? Its all in your mind! Think positive, and you'll get over it." Hunger is now considered not scientific. Jesus fasted for 40 days in the desert, but never said he was hungry, at least not in the Bible. So taking that source as a "scientific" document, not eating has little or nothing to do with hunger.

In fact, if you don't eat for more than forty days, you are likely to starve to death and death is very scientific. True, death is black or white in some cases, but there is a long road to it by starvation and it is measurable by degrees.

All that aside, we can now look forward to a dismissal of "The War On Hunger," or any and all staged "Hunger Strikes," and feeding "the hungry and homeless." Too subjective! We will soon be changing the name of the country of "Hungary," to the country of "Unable to Secure Food Sources." That is the new term the government has come up with for people who can't afford to eat or are cut off from supplies due to the crumbling infrastructure of America.

In surveys this past year, millions of Americans told surveyors that they were going hungry. The USDA's message is clear, "Shut up about this hunger thing. Are you experiencing low nutritional security?"

In terms of rhetoric, it is a classic example of "governmenteze" which is like "legaleze" but with a Beltway spin to it. It takes something we all have a gut reaction to such as hunger, and rephrase it in words that have no emotional impact; often involving twisted, convoluted or abstract concepts or phrases that are devoid of immediacy. They are "anti-septic." Instead of "short people" they would have us say "vertically challenged." Perhaps "nutritionally challenged" will someday replace hunger, but that's more direct than what these guys have come up with.


Here is an excerpt from the Williamson article:
The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security."

Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year.


Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."

The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.

The United States has set a goal of reducing the proportion of food-insecure households to 6 percent or less by 2010, or half the 1995 level, but it is proving difficult. The number of hungriest Americans has risen over the past five years. Last year, the total share of food-insecure households stood at 11 percent.

Less vexing has been the effort to fix the way hunger is described. Three years ago, the USDA asked the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies "to ensure that the measurement methods USDA uses to assess households' access -- or lack of access -- to adequate food and the language used to describe those conditions are conceptually and operationally sound."

Among several recommendations, the panel suggested that the USDA scrap the word hunger, which "should refer to a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness, or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation."

To measure hunger, the USDA determined, the government would have to ask individual people whether "lack of eating led to these more severe conditions," as opposed to asking who can afford to keep food in the house, Nord said.

It is not likely that USDA economists will tackle measuring individual hunger. "Hunger is clearly an important issue," Nord said. "But lacking a widespread consensus on what the word 'hunger' should refer to, it's difficult for research to shed meaningful light on it."

Anti-hunger advocates say the new words sugarcoat a national shame. "The proposal to remove the word 'hunger' from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and their families," said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy group. "We . . . cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens."

Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 16, 2006; Page A01

Defining Terms

Bush just blamed the violence in Iraq on Al-Qaida....wait, does that make sense or not? This is one for further investigation. While in Estonia, Bush landed a rhetorical attack on Al Qaida that has triggered reprisal attacks of rhetoric on both sides of the aisle in Washington. As Abbott and Costello might say, Who's "Al Qaida?"

Bush implies that Zirqawi is with Al-Qaida, and that he and Al-Qaida bombed the Golden Mosque on February 22nd, and has been causing the violence in Iraq. Is this really true? No one seems to be sure. Some say it was, some say it wasn't, some say our presence in Iraq opened the door to Al Qaida for terrorizing Iraq for the first time.

Here's Bush's statement at a highly visible speech before the President of Estonia.
reported December 1st, 2006
“No question it’s tough, no question about it,” Bush said at a news conference with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. “There’s a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented in my opinion because of these attacks by al-Qaida, causing people to seek reprisal.”

"The president dated the current spike to the Feb. 22 bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra, which triggered attacks and reprisal counterattacks between the Shiite majority and Sunni minority, and raised fears of civil war."

If you think that's confusing , just wait. At very least, we can flip back to "mission accomplished" rhetoric and say, "so if our mission was accomplished, how did Al Qaida get in there?" (And how did our oil get under their sand?)

Here is an article that shows how dubious this Zirqawi connection might be, a complexity in direct opposition to Bush's simplistic statement, which uses the word Al Qaida with a bold sweep of his famously glib tongue to blame a comlex and ongoing disaster, with hundreds of Iraqi dead per week, on this suddenly ambiguous group.

Excerpt from an article by Gordon Corera

An October 17th (2004!)statement posted on an Islamist website and published in al-Qaeda's military journal Mu`askar al-Battar claiming to be from the Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (JTJ) group led by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi began with a personal pledge of allegiance from Zarqawi and his fighters to Osama bin Laden: "[Let it be known that] al-Tawhid wal-Jihad pledges both its leaders and its soldiers to the mujahid commander, Sheikh "Osama bin Laden"... Numerous messages were passed between ‘Abu Musab' (God protect him) and the al-Qaeda brotherhood over the past eight months, establishing a dialogue between them. No sooner had the calls been cut off than God chose to restore them, and our most generous brothers in al-Qaeda came to understand the strategy of the Tawhid wal-Jihad organization in Iraq, the land of the two rivers and of the Caliphs, and their hearts warmed to its methods and overall mission." [1]

After this, JTJ began issuing statements of responsibility under its new name Tanzim Qai'dat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (al-Qaeda in Iraq). At the time, some Islamist circles expressed doubt about the statement's authenticity suggesting that it was part of a US-inspired campaign to associate the violence in Iraq with "international terrorism" rather than "legitimate" nationalist insurgency. [2] But the identities of the posters as well as the language and style indicated that the messages were from Zarqawi's group. U.S. intelligence sources say they are confident of the validity of the original pledge.

The statements marked a surprising twist in the long, complex and disputed tale of Zarqawi's links with al-Qaeda. Few have doubted that there has been contact, but the generally accepted view so far has been that Zarqawi constructed his own parallel network which may have in some ways been in competition, or at the very least independent of, al-Qaeda.

Historically, the links were limited. According to an interview in Al-Hayat a former Afghan jihadist claims that Zarqawi was not a well-known or significant fighter in Afghanistan during the late 1980s and early 1990s. [3] He participated with a number of jihadi fighters in the battlefront at Khost, where a number of Jordanians fought, but had no identifiable links to al-Qaeda as it began to emerge.

After spending some time in a Jordanian prison, Zarqawi returned to Afghanistan and subsequently established a training camp in the western city of Herat. Though he apparently assembled 80 to 100 people, largely Palestinians and Jordanians committed to jihad but with no formal name for the group, there is not thought to have been any links to al-Qaeda at this time. Evidence gathered from Shadi Abdullah, an Islamist arrested in Germany in 2002, even points to competition between Zarqawi and bin Laden for recruits during this period, though Zarqawi seemed far more focused on overthrowing the Jordanian regime and recruited almost exclusively Palestinians and Jordanians.

After the U.S. attacked the Taliban, Zarqawi moved first to Iran. He was then pressured to move on and traveled just over the border into Iraqi Kurdistan as the only available place for refuge. Here he developed links with a new generation of Salifists who had not fought in the original Afghan jihad, including Ansar al-Islam, which had established itself on the Iranian border and taken control of a number of villages. Reports from militants claim that Iran was concerned over their location and asked them to move three miles from the border to avoid any direct contact between Iranians and the Ansar forces. Jihadist fighters then flowed into Northern Iraq from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Iran. [4]

In his February 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council, the U.S. Secretary of State described Zarqawi as "an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants." Although Secretary Powell was careful not to call him a formal member of al-Qaeda, Zarqawi was depicted as a key link in the evidence designed to outline an association between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. But firm evidence of strong links either way – to Saddam on the one side and to al-Qaeda on the other – is largely absent.

Since the formal end of the Iraq war in April 2003, many of the most high-profile attacks, in particular suicide bombings and kidnappings have been attributed to Zarqawi's organization. But some question whether Zarqawi is really as significant in organizing the insurgency as portrayed. It is helpful for the U.S. to personalize the insurgency and emphasize the role of foreign fighters because doing so provides a link to al-Qaeda while obscuring the essentially "nationalist" character of the Iraqi insurgency. For the Iraqi interim government it is also helpful to emphasize international links because it diminishes the sense that there is a domestic Sunni-led insurgency against the state and that Iraqis are willing to kill each other.

Though Zarqawi and his fighters numerically make a small proportion of the resistance (estimates run from 50 to 500), they exercise an exaggerated degree of influence due to their coupling of extreme violence with an acute understanding of the power of the media; tactics which have developed in symmetry and through close observation of other international terrorist groups including al-Qaeda and its offshoots in Saudi Arabia. Over the summer of 2004 with Osama bin Laden yet to appear and Zarqawi carrying out increasingly bloody and high profile attacks, some began to question whether Zarqawi was beginning to rival or even succeed bin Laden.

So what explains the October 2004 pledge of loyalty? The message claims that talks have been going on for eight months between al-Qaeda and Zarqawi which encountered many interruptions as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad explained its strategy before the final offer of loyalty. Zarqawi is alleged to have sought al-Qaeda support in the past but without success. In January 2004, an individual was captured carrying a 17-page letter on a CD thought to be written by Zarqawi calling for help from al-Qaeda in fomenting a sectarian war in Iraq. The implication was that Zarqawi's group was independent but nonetheless looking for support as the tone was at once supplicatory but also written as if from one equal to another.

The letter said that Zarqawi's group had "our backs to the sea, the enemy before us" and "we do not see ourselves as fit to challenge you," but instead seek to "work under your banner, comply with your orders." U.S. officials said they believed al-Qaeda had rebuffed these advances but there are some doubts over the provenance and authorship of the letter...."

Our analysis:
If US officials believed then that Al Qaida rebuffed these people, why doesn't Bush know that? Or is there a new definition for Al Qaida in Iraq that includes splinter groups and anyone who wants to call themselves Al Qaida? Bush's statement makes it sound like this new Al Qaida is the same one he incorrectly said was in Iraq under Saddam. A war of definitions. If the Venezuelans renamed themselves "The Real United States of America," would that make them our allies?

In one sense, blaming Al Qaida for the Golden Mosque incident would be like accusing Trent Lott of assassinating Lincoln because he clearly sympathizes with the south. After all, John Wilkes Booth was a southern sympathizer too.

As Bush blames Al-Qaida for the acts of people they hate and refuse to acknowledge, it might be better to say its like blaming New Hampshire Senator John Hale for killing Lincoln because John Wilkes Booth wanted to marry his daughter Lucy and was refused...Those New Hampshire people, they're all alike!

A spiffy answer would be: "Sir, in order to blame the violence in Iraq on Al Qaida, it would be good to define Al Qaida and who they are. Are they 1. people trained by Al Qaida's network and under their direct command? 2. people who would like to be trained by Al Quaida's network and under their command? 3. people who use Al Qaida's name and likeness without permission? 4. anyone who wants to blow up buildings and kill people and who have such license as long as they call themselves "Al Quaida?"

Once we hear back from Bush, we'll be able to continue the discussion.

Al Qaida, tag you're it.

Change the Subject


December 20th, 2005
ABC's Terry Moran asked Dick Cheney, "Are you troubled at all that more than 100 people in U.S. custody have died -- 26 of them now being investigated as criminal homicides -- people beaten to death, suffocated to death, died of hypothermia in U.S. custody?" The vice president replied, "No. I won't accept your numbers, Terry. But I guess one of the things I'm concerned about is that as we get farther and farther away from 9/11, and there have been no further attacks against the U.S., there seems to be less and less concern about doing what's necessary in order to defend the country."

Wait a minute...if he won't accept the numbers, what ARE the numbers? And how did we get from there to here? He seems to equate concern for the deaths of dissidents with a lack of concern for the deaths of the workers in the World Trade Center. Is that a "change the subject" trick, or is it truly a logic trick x = y because I say so? Or is he saying that we know for sure that those 26 people were responsible for the World Trade Center attack, and that capital punishment is okay for them even though it is outlawed in most states and countries?

Interesting technique there, Richard....

Everett Does Bait and Switch on Promise to Cucinich

House Republican from Alabama, Terry Everett Promised A Future Debate on Space Weapons....and now promises to debate space intelligence instead. Can't we call false promises a form of abusive rhetoric?
read this Space News report from June of 2005.



Here's what he said in 2005;

......Floor debate on the appropriations bill also featured an amendment seeking to ban the deployment of ground- and space-based anti-satellite weapons as well as research and development on those systems. The amendment, offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), also called on Bush to negotiate an international treaty banning such weapons.
Kucinich, a former presidential candidate who has offered similar legislation in the past, expressed concern during floor debate that recent rhetoric from senior Air Force officers indicates that the service hopes to move aggressively towards fielding anti-satellite weapons.
“Our largest possible adversaries, China and Russia, have agreed [to] a global ban on space weapons,” Kucinich said. “Yet moving forward with plans to weaponize space would most certainly create an arms race in space, and it would certainly be counterproductive to the national security of the United States to give potential adversaries reason to accelerate development of space weapons technology.”
However, Kucinich’s amendment was ruled out of order after Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, objected to it on the grounds that an appropriations bill cannot change current law.
Doug Gordon, a spokesman for Kucinich, said that the congressman was aware that the amendment could not be included with the bill, but chose to offer it on the floor as a way to draw attention to the issue. Kucinich plans to work on building more support for the legislation amongst his colleagues, Gordon said.
Theresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information, a think tank here, commended Kucinich for raising the issue on the floor. But sufficient debate has not taken place yet on Capitol Hill to bring the issue to the attention of enough members to pass the legislation, said Hitchens, a vocal advocate against space weapons.
Rep. Terry Everett (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, has promised during hearings earlier this year to begin briefings and hearings on the topic this year, which may help to raise its profile on Capitol Hill, she said.
By JEREMY SINGER
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 27 June 2005
02:18 pm ET
Comments: jsinger@space.com

Here's what he's saying now that he's elected.

'As chairman of the House Armed Services Committee on Strategic Forces Subcommittee, Congressman Everett is tasked with leading the first national debate on space control and the protection of valuable space assets. The United States depends greatly on activities conducted hundreds and thousands of miles in orbit through constellations of satellites and their ground stations back on earth. Yet, for all their sophistication, these cutting-edge systems which make our lives much easier and our country safer are also vulnerable to enemy attack.

Congressman Everett recognizes this threat and seeks to take action to prevent chaos at home and on the high-tech battlefield. Our military, especially our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, depend on space every moment of the day. Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites guide munitions, aircraft and vehicles through the theater of battle. Other satellite systems enable our war fighters with real-time communications, intelligence, and weather monitoring capabilities. Our space assets provide national policy makers critical intelligence necessary for ensuring compliance with arms control treaties, tracking weapons proliferation activities, and monitoring disaster relief operations." (House of Reps website, November 20th 2006)

Notice the switch from promising to talk about Americans' grave concerns about hideous space lazers and other invisible killing machines over our heads, to promising to talk about how wonderful intelligence satelites and gps positioning devices, all of which have been used for years without major need for debate,and then strongly implying that we need space weapons to defend these robots against attack.

That's a false promise combined with a bait and switch device. You offer to sell heffers and you deliver goats.

Proper response: "Sir, speaking before Cucinich, you promised us a debate on the control of space weapons over a year ago, and now you are saying you are "tasked" (by who?) to discuss control over space intelligence, which is not an issue, and clearly implying that you already know the answer to the debate on space weapons, that we need them to defend our space technology. What kind of debate is it when you already have the answer?"

False Similitudes: War Hero John Murtha Under Attack From Chickenhawks


As the first of our Raunchy Rhetoric Report (from the Stupidity Factor Series), we present a recent case of abusive rhetoric by the White House. We call this technique "False Similitude."

This is when you find one feature of the "victim" that is similar or the same as someone who has already been demonized by previous abusive rhetoric, such as saying Ted Turner is an Adolph Hitler because he has a mustache.

From CNN REPORT (November 18th, 2006)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House accused a senior House Democrat -- and a decorated Vietnam veteran -- who called for a swift withdrawal from Iraq of advocating surrender, comparing him to anti-war filmmaker Michael Moore.

In a broadside issued Thursday night, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said that it is "baffling that [Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha] is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party."

McClellan called Murtha, a retired Marine colonel who earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam, "a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting America."

But McClellan added, "The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists."

A senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Murtha had supported the resolution that authorized the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

But Thursday he called the Bush administration's management of the conflict "a flawed policy wrapped in illusion," and said the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is "uniting the enemy against us." (Watch Murtha's take on 'flawed policy wrapped in illusion' -- 8:11)

"It's time to bring the troops home," he said, noting that a withdrawal would take about six months to complete. (Read more on his statement)

He also took a swipe at Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush, who have accused Democratic critics of playing politics during a war.

"I like guys who've never been there who criticize us who've been there," Murtha said. "I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and sent people to war and then don't like to hear suggestions that what may need to be done."

Cheney avoided military service during the 1960's Vietnam era with a series of draft deferments, and Bush served stateside in the National Guard during Vietnam.

Murtha was wounded twice in Vietnam.

White House Counselor Dan Bartlett called Murtha's position "out of the mainstream of his own party," and said that "immediate withdrawal would be, as one general on the ground put it, a recipe for disaster."

Bartlett also called Murtha's reference to Cheney's draft deferments "unfair" and "beside the point," noting there is a long list of wartime presidents who served ably without military experience."

A response here would be, "Sir, first you make a false similitude between an award winning film maker you have demonized, and the senior house democrat, based on one opinion that they share, and in fact share with 54% of the American people, most of whom have never seen a Michael Moore movie. Ted Turner has a mustache, but that doesn't make him Hitler. Then you make a false similitude between Bush and several real presidents based on the common experience of not going to war. If you could provide that list, which is actually pretty short, you would see that the other presidents were actually elected to office and are dissimilar in countless ways. Their success and good judgment in war does not excuse Bush's incompetence. That's like saying "Me and Jesus both wear sandals, so I must be the Son of God." (The article continues..)

Not all Democrats are lining up behind Murtha.

Fellow veteran Sen. John Kerry, who also voted for the Iraq resolution, disagrees with Murtha's call for a swift withdrawal, arguing instead for a phased withdrawal linked "to the success of the election."

But Kerry, who lost to Bush in last year's election, blasted the administration, saying that it was engaging in scare tactics by equating criticism of the war to encouraging the insurgency. (Read interview)

Nearly 2,100 American troops have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein -- a war that top U.S. officials said was needed to strip Iraq of illicit stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and efforts to produce a nuclear bomb.

No such weapons have turned up since Hussein's government collapsed in April 2003.

(In fact one new biological weapon did show up in Iraq,a powder that causes Acute Hemmoraging Conjunctivitis, and is now being used against U.S. citizens who are considered dissident.)


Of Current Interest (from same article)

Divide over the war
Public support for the conflict has dropped sharply over the last few months. Only 35 percent of those surveyed in a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll published Monday supported the Bush administration's handling of the conflict, and 54 percent said the invasion was a mistake.

The poll also found that 19 percent of Americans want to see the troops come home now, and 33 percent said they wanted them home within a year. Only 38 percent said they should remain "as long as needed."

Republicans in the House said the United States was making progress in the conflict, with Iraqis voting in October to ratify a new constitution and elections for a permanent parliament scheduled in December.

CNN's Dana Bash and Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report.

The Rhetoric Report
December 1st, 2006
copyright c 2006 by Evan Pritchard
Resonance Magazine


This blogzine is not just about rhetoric, (the art of using heightened speech to motivate people) its about what might be called "raunchy rhetoric," the unbridled abuse of the art of elevated speech to motivate people in the wrong direction.

As debate is essential to democracy, the abuse of debate is the main enemy of democracy, and abusive rhetoric is the devil's toolkit! (How's that for rhetoric? I managed to demonize the devil himself!)

These bombasitc verb-bombs, weapons of mass deception, are quite rampant these days, especially since the midterm elections, and I am hoping to receive lots of articles from readers with sourced quotes from our elected officials in Washington and witty but respectful comebacks to their statements, complete with a chilling clinical analysis of their technique. In other words, all you BSDs, (Bull Shit Detectors) let's hear from you as you catch these slick politicians in the act.

All rhetoric has three essential factors, recognized by the ancient Greeks as Pathos, Ethos, and Logos; in other words, emotional appeal, appeal to morals and ethics, and appeal to logic and reason.

Raunchy Rhetoric abuses these three in some effective way to skew the results or conclusions of the debate: to appeal to the base emotions such as greed, hatred, vanity, anger, prejudice, etc.; to use flawed logic in every case so that the conclusion comes out wrong (2+2 =5) and those conclusions lead to ethicially questionable outcomes, possibly leading to moral dillemmas, which is of course avoided in the discussion, placing certain ethical problems outside the realm of "fair" discussion.