Writing under the headline The Divider vs. the Thinker in the Wall Street Journal of the Saturday/Sunday October 29-30 2011, Peggy Noonan outlined some of Ron Paul’s recent statements about Corporate America, and concluded, “If more Republicans thought – and spoke – like that, the party would flourish. People would be less fearful for the future. And Mr. Obama wouldn’t be seeing his numbers go up”. At first, Peggy captivated one with her method of thinking which took off from the beginning of the article. But the point where one begins to notice that the article is politically actuated, Peggy pegged herself.
Very much like her, one could see that most writers in Wall Street Journal are anti-Obama. But while they have the right to hold any position on public matters, the readers have the right to take them seriously or not. And here is where I take my stand; for sure not against Peggy, but against where she stands with regards to President Obama’s handling of his job. What exactly did Ron Paul say that captivated Peggy? According to Peggy, Ron Paul, speaking on “The American Idea”, at the Heritage Foundation in Washington had said, “…rather than raise taxes on individuals, we should ‘lower the amount of government’s spending the wealthy now receive…the true sources of inequity in this country are corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless.” Now this is the kind of speech that Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal writer applauds to high heaven and wanted the Republicans to give more of.
There is no amount of fact distortion that would make us forget that exactly what President Obama is talking about and attempting to do is what Ron Paul has stealthily rubberstamped in his speech. One would have expected that when these corporate job creators received tax breaks, bail out and subsidies, they would be compassionate to create job and help stimulate the economy. But it didn’t happen that way. Now that the president is asking the wealthy people to pay their fair share of tax, the Republican(t)s are stalling and crying wolf. Safe for the beautiful rhetoric he employed, Ron Paul has said nothing new and different from what president Obama is asking for. Could it be that finally one of the Republicans addle heads is now reasoning beyond his personal political gains?
President Obama cannot create jobs all by himself. No President can create jobs all by himself if other actors in the collective job creating force refuse to play their parts. The Republicans are aware of this, and since the vast majority of them head and control the corporate world, they find it easy to sabotage the good work and well-intended action of President Obama.
One rather unseating thing about Peggy Noonan however is her use of words or should we call it her war imagery in describing a subtle and innocent expression. She wrote further in her article, “Twenty twelve won’t be ‘as sexy’ as 2008, he (Obama) said this week. It will be all brute force. Which will only add to the feeling of unease.” She draws this statement from what the President had said on Jay Leno’s Late Night Show. Again, fact distortion and Wall Street Dedication to Propaganda is too glaring. If the president accepts the fact that his 2012 campaign will not be as rosy and fun as it was in 2008 (and no one can deny that 2008 was fun for Mr. President, indeed) does that statement alludes to the president using brute force in 2012? Quite frankly, it is a shame to find people we think should be able to reason above a GED level committing this kind of blunder on an international newspaper. May be it’s not a blunder after all, but the result of being blindfolded by what Peggy seeks to achieve – blur people’s vision to the truth. I wouldn’t turn myself into such a mediocre in the use of language element.
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, eleventh edition gives the meaning of ‘Brute’ in five distinct ways: 1) Of or relating to beasts, 2) Inanimate, 3) Characteristics of an animal in quality, action, or instinct, 4) Purely physical (brute force, brute strength), 5) Unrelievedly harsh (brute facts, brute necessity). Out of these five definitions, Peggy has concluded that since President Obama’s 2012 campaign won’t be sexy, it’s definitely going to be purely physical, her choice of words ‘brute force’. In order words, the campaign would be riddled with physical fights, use of machetes and guns, and essentially anything that would involve blood spillage and defined as ‘characteristics of animal in quality and action’.
It is no doubt clear who is making people uneasy – the self branded elitist journalists and writers, the sort of Peggy Noonan paraded by Wall Street Journal on its Opinion pages and the kind that Deborah Tannen abhorred so much that she has to come up with her “Culture of Critique”. War imagery does nothing to improve the lots of the people of the United States of America. Rather than distort facts and manipulate people by the deliberate use of substandard thinking, we should, at this time, seek to tell the truth with the language and think along the timeless line the late President J F Kennedy left behind. Thinking what one can do for the United States of America at this moment of her history will help make the USA even greater.