an orgy of redescription

Therapists call it re-framing. Orwell calls it Political Language. Naomi Klein wonders, "Can Democracy Survive Bush's Embrace?". From her recent column in The Nation:
"Brand USA is in trouble. . . it's a problem for business," Bono warned at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The solution is "to re-describe ourselves to a world that is unsure of our values."

The Bush administration wholeheartedly agrees, as evidenced by the orgy of redescription that now passes for American foreign policy. Faced with an Arab world enraged by its occupation of Iraq and its blind support for Israel, the US solution is not to change these brutal policies; it is, in the pseudo-academic language of corporate branding, to "change the story."

Brand USA's latest story was launched on January 30, the day of the Iraqi elections, complete with a catchy tag line ("purple power"), instantly iconic imagery (purple fingers) and, of course, a new narrative about America's role in the world, helpfully told and retold by the White House's unofficial brand manager, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.
Ooo, snap! (Channeling Jon Stewart there.) To think Friedman used to pass himself off as liberal. Now he'd probably say those labels are meaningless. Sure, once you lose all integrity, everything is meaningless. Klein concludes:
George W. Bush likes to say that democracy has the power to defeat tyranny. He's right, and that's precisely why it is so very dangerous for history's most powerful emancipatory idea to be bundled into an empty marketing exercise. Allowing the Bush Administration to fold the liberation struggles of Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine into its own "story" is a gift to authoritarians and fundamentalists. Freedom and democracy need to be liberated from Bush's deadly embrace and returned to the movements of the Middle East that have been struggling for these goals for decades. They have a story of their own to finish.
The stuff in between is really good, too. It's here.

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