This is incredibly horrifying, dark, and disturbing. And this is the news we need to know! To the degree that we are ignorant and uninformed, is the degree that we are all imperiled. ― Molly
 |
| "In a set of parallel moves of betrayal, the dismemberment of agencies created to honor and protect peacefulness and basic civil liberties at home or abroad is ongoing." |
Down the memory hole.
by
Consider
us officially in an Orwellian world, though we only half realize it. While we
were barely looking, significant parts of an American language long familiar to
us quite literally, and in a remarkably coherent way, went down the equivalent
of George Orwell’s infamous Memory Hole.
This
hit me in a personal way recently. I was asked to give a talk at an annual
national security conference held in downtown Manhattan and aimed largely at an
audience of college students. The organizer, who had pulled together a
remarkable array of speakers, encountered problems in one particular area: his
efforts to include representatives of the Trump administration in the
gathering. Initially, administration officials he dealt with wouldn’t even
divulge the names of possible participants, only their titles, leaving who was
coming a mystery until days before the conference opened.
In
addition, before agreeing to send speakers, his contacts at Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, known by the acronym ICE, had not just requested but
insisted that the word “refugee” be removed from the conference program. It was
to appear in a description of a panel entitled “Refugee Programs, Immigration,
Customs and Border Protection.”
The
reason given: the desire to get through the administration approval process in
Washington without undue delay. It’s not hard to believe that the
administration that wanted to slow to a standstill refugees coming to the
U.S. didn't have an allied urge to do away with the very word itself. In order
to ensure that ICE representatives would be there, the organizer reluctantly
conceded and so the word “refugee” was dutifully removed from the program.
Meanwhile,
the actual names of Department of Homeland Security officials coming to speak
were withheld until three days before the event. Finally, administration
representatives in touch with the conference organizers insisted that the
remarks of any government representatives could not be taped, which meant,
ultimately, that none of the proceedings could be taped. As a result, this
conference was not recorded for posterity.
For
me — and I’ve been observing the national security landscape for years now
-- this was something of a new low when it came to surrounding a previously
open event in a penumbra of secrecy. It made me wonder how many other
organizers across the country had been strong-armed in a similar fashion, how
many words had been removed from various programs, and how much of what an
American citizen should know now went unrecorded.
Please
go here to continue this article: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/05/17/dismantling-democracy-one-word-time
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