"DISAGGREGATE?!" Isn't that pretty sesquipedalian?"

40th President Ronald Reagan was known as "The Great Communicator." Remember?

First, old business: you'll recall that back on January 18, I asked anyone who knew of anything that actually qualified Senator Hillary Clinton to be President of the United States to write and tell me about it.

Not one (no, Shana - "It's time we had a woman president" is not a reason; neither is being a woman a qualification—all the guys might like to see a nice set of boobs, great legs, a nice ass and a shapely figure every time the president held a news conference, but that wouldn't qualify their owner for the presidency).

Now I think that (not just Shana's remark, but the absence of any other comment) may tell us something. About twenty-five hundred people read this site regularly, and they represent a statistically significant section of the public. Not one could think - or was willing to argue - of a single thing that would qualified Hillary Clinton to be the Thief Executive. Interesting.

Oh, hey—we have a new word! Last night, supping with a group of lady teachers, none other than my Rita sprang it on us. "Disaggregate." Someone, she said, will have to disaggregate the data for something. When I said, “You must mean ‘dis-encollate,’” there were stony looks. "How about 'separate,'" I teased. "Dis-separate? No, that would mean "collate" and that would be the opposite of "disaggragate" - separate - wouldn't it? Let's try "disassemble." "Disintegrate?"

Oh, my god, this is education—what have I said?!

It got a laugh—a very tepid one, I thought. Ignoring me despite my usually surpassingly witty and debonair male charm, the ladies went back to their "issues" (no, nobody actually issued anything and they weren't arguing; it's just how girls—and what we now know as "metrosexual" males—talk these days).

"Disaggregate." It's actually in the dictionary—"to separate." God help us, education has gone Pentagon-warrior wannabe. Ladies, the next thing you know, you're going to be "ingressing" and "egressing." A door will be an "entry system," a window an "environmentally operable panel," and a toilet plunger a "hydro blast force cup."

Remember, anyone, "Pentagonese?" Words like "attrit"—meaning wear down by attrition, "slam"—an acronym for "seek, locate, and murder," "executive action"— meaning the same, but with presidential authority and, of course, protection? "Service the target"—blow it all to hell, "collateral damage"—everybody you killed or maimed while you "serviced the target"—et cetera?

If our teachers aren't more "situationally aware," the language of education will have gone the way of military communication, resembling something that started in some dark corner or recess, then spread like fungus. With time, you will have clever obfuscations (take that!) like "collateral damage" when you "slam" somebody, too.

When you "slammed" somebody, you see, you were "engaging" him, too. No honeymoon afterward, though. "Milspeak"—what the military and wannabe war heroes called their jargon, was considered cool as hell. You wore it like "fruit-salad"—those ribbons on a general's chest—and "tiger suits" (Vietnam-era camouflage fatigue uniforms). There was "Spookspeak," too, and it told you a lot about the world of the shadow warrior. Of course, the language of covert operations people was even more meant to assure that the outsider knew nothing. It worked, too. About forty guys spoke it, you see.

I'd forgotten most of it until I wrote my quasi-memoirs ("Letters to Aaron, the Hal Luebbert Story"). Then, too, jargon like Milspeak, Femspeak, and the like—mustn't forget Newspeak, now must we?—are everywhere. Stuff like "disaggregate."

"Spookspeak" (now "Secret Squirrel-talk") had bon mots like "Abnab"—All Balls, No Brains—and "Abner." That's "All Balls, No Expertise Required." You have to admit that sounds a lot like just about everybody in "Ear"—Echelons Above Reality (interesting that our intellectual giant, patrician government is still referred to in that manner, what?). "Rummies Dummies?"

As the society, nation, and it military-controlled government became more and more innumerate, terms like "A4"—Anything, Anybody, Anytime, Anywhere—fell out of use. Gone are "C3CM"—Command, Control, and Communication Countermeasures (other than our own citizenry, we don't seem capable of that anymore, anyway, do we?), and, of course, the old favorite, "F4"—F----- by the Fickle Finger of Fate (what the U.S. citizen—especially the white male—seems invariably to get from his government these days).

Now, there will be those who say I'm exaggerating, Chicken Little afraid the sky is falling. Maybe. But I've been watching this happen—watching educators like English teachers (for crying out loud) descend into crap like "disaggregate." As long as it's been this way with the military and the military industrial complex, it's understandably not so scary to learn that when the Pentagon says it wants to help "stabilize" an African or South American government, it really means the latter will be "destabilized."

But when you realize that "no child left behind" means that all the kids will be held back until the "challenged" catch up—well, then I get a little jumpy (how's that for an arcane expression?). Back in 1948, you see, I was already paying attention to what George Orwell would one day call "Newspeak." So it was that I noticed when the U.S. "War Department," became the "Defense Department." I knew, in other words, something was afoot long before I heard about Operation Mockingbird, and the military industrial complex-CIA plot to behaviorally alter and condition the public mind.

Thirteen years old, I knew that what that really meant was that we were going to go to war a lot, and that every time we committed an aggression, we intended to claim self defense. I said so, and wrote it down. A grandmother actually recorded it in her diary. When Ronald Reagan observed decades later that the most terrifying words in the English language were, "I'm from the (U.S.) government and I'm here to help," he may not have realized that his wisecrack was as applicable to our foreign policy as it was to our domestic relations. A whole lot of people recognized then that it had long since become clear that when any nation heard that the U.S. was coming to stabilize things, the people of that nation had better run for cover.

It may have been a Freudian slip, but Iraq makes it thunderously obvious that Mr. Reagan was right, doesn't it?

"Disaggregate." Last night, ladies, I was teasing. Today, I'm not. How long do you think it will be, before you call smoke a "universal obscurant," or tent a "frame-supported tension structure?" How long before "no child left behind" will mean "every child left behind?"

To “disaggregate” (break it all down, that is), I definitely have "issues" with what's issuing from education of late.

Comments

[Ken Larson]

Great post!

Politicians make no difference.

We have bought into the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) ever since we took on Russia in the Cold WAR.

Through a combination of public apathy and threats by the MIC we have let the SYSTEM get too large. It is now a SYSTEMIC problem and the SYSTEM is out of control.

I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.

There is no conspiracy. The SYSTEM has gotten so big that those who make it up and run it day to day in industry and government simply are perpetuating their existance.

The politicians rely on them for details and recommendations because they cannot possibly grasp the nuances of the environment and the BIG SYSTEM.

So, the system has to go bust and then be re-scaled, fixed and re-designed to run efficiently and prudently, just like any other big machine that runs poorly or becomes obsolete or dangerous.

This situation will right itself through trauma. I see a government ENRON on the horizon, with an associated house cleaning.

The next president will come and go along with his appointees and politicos. The event to watch is the collapse of the MIC.

For more details and a look at where all the money is going see:

http://www.rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com