Crusades: License to Kill. Label: Evildoer: the Non-Human

Code Words for Warfare: Target Words.


From Crusades, targeting "Evildoers";

To "Heretic" - Forcing Conversions by Inquisition; and 
Other Contemporary Ethnic, Religious Targets


Say a magic word for the era, and License to Kill, Exterminate;

License to Torture,
Follows.

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Evildoer. Name it, and license to kill follows. Here: a simple ursa in silva.

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Labeling facilitates exclusion, extermination, exploitation, war, domination. Is that true, or are labels merely neutral shortcuts to objective information.

The everyday.

In political warfare. Some code words or phrases are geared to suggest a preset meaning to some listeners to trigger a negative response to the target, while concealing the speaker's true meaning to outsiders who might not notice. See recent label-promoters, in the "war" known as politics, at ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGgKBY61X0Y; and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ_v3T0HVXY/

• Sometimes the code is so heavy-handed it detracts from the plot - as in the film, "Taken."  At the end, the purchaser of the goods for a half-mil is not only fat, old, and a slob, lolling in his near-birthday suit, but also specifically referred to multiple times as "the sheikh" - and this on a yacht in Paris, so that, in that setting, any ethnicity would have sufficed for the sake of the story alone. Shame, Hollywood.  
• And must we identify a nationality as a source of the problem? Is Albania as a nation so expendable that we refer to it in film in the most pejorative of terms. Absurd dragnet, and dysfunctional.  Are there connections? Perhaps. But the sales of these goods also occurs here, rather freely. Do a search. Target words, acts of war? Then recall history:  the "Alba" are among the earliest and most enslaved white people on earth, see the discussion of white slavery at ://www.electricscotland.com/history/other/white_slavery.htm (there discussing the enslavement also of Pics, Scots, Irish, and the citations).  Is there a cycle of abuse - is it what the Alba know from experience. Are we complicit.
  

Leaders use code words as shortcuts. Saves them from explaining all the time. After the right amount of repetition, like Pavlov's dog salivating at the sound of the bell, instead of waiting for the food pellets, people respond as taught. Is that right? Consider.

Code words allow the speaker to use a term sounding more agreeable to the average person; codes are subtle, may pass undetected to many uninitiated, except for the effect the speaker knowingly is trying to mislead large groups of the initiated. See Code Word definition at ://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-28,GGGL:en&q=define%3Acode+word/

How did Code words get so poisonous? By repetition; and fostering action after the speech. Promote the connection in the inattentive brain. Persuasion management. Propaganda. See techniques at ://www.propagandacritic.com/.

The traditional war.  

Here we look at traditional settings for code words in "war."

Objective: death to the identified enemy. Crusades, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Inquisitions, Iraq, era, exacerbaated by President Bush's use of "evildoer." Or evil-doer.

Evil-doer as Code

Defining evil-doers. This took a deadly turn in the 1100's when the term evildoer was used to promote the crusades, and exonerate those who killed in the name of the crusades.

A. St. Bernard of Clairvaux. The evildoer code made explicit:
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In 1140 AD: St. Bernard of Clairvaux defined evil-doers in effect as non-Christians and pagans. They were the embodiment of evil, and not even humans. Is that the root of our ability to see concentration camps that were filled with persons defined as non-human, and just move on, deny. Brains are complex.

Knights of Malta, Prague, Maltese Cross

Even Christians who had not been converted by the Roman branch, but instead were converted by the Eastern/ Orthodox Branch, as in Eastern Europe including Poland; and the Balkans, were not "Christian" enough. See chronologies, including at The Knights Templar Chronology at ://www.georgesmart.com/ktc2c2.htm; and Nationmaster on the Teutonic Knights at ://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Teutonic-knights/.

St. Bernard:  He was promoting the new Knights Templar, see St. Bernard on Evildoers, at ://www.smom-za.org/bgt/bgt_1_1.htm/. This particular treatise, "The New Knighthood," was geared to promote the Crusades, and is printed at this site. Scroll down past the pictures and other text to St. Bernard.

Read about the Fourth Lateran Council, called by Pope Innocent III, for a more complete treatment at the Medieval Sourcebook at ://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-select.html/. What is the connection between the idea of a nonbeliever as evil, and torture, inquisition.

Gist: An Evildoer is not a human, and killing him is justified for the "Christian," as the killing not of a person but a killing of "evil."

Where from here? We substitute one label for another among all the possibly Christian types. From one crusade, or holocaust, to another.

B. Today, evildoer used against other ethnic and religious groups. Pattern under the Bush.

Use of labels, especially evil-doer as a label, has been virtually equated with Muslims. Dehumanize and label. Call people evildoers, the Code, then use that to justify whatever you wanted to do in the first place.

The Christian code of evildoer: once it was descriptive, to warn you to stay away. Now it is a tool for the enforcers of something that may not be related at all - just related to the enforcer's drive for power. Each group calling the others It. Code words, now used against Muslims who are Americans. Us. US.

• President Bush on evil-doers: A political potpourri, see ://www.answers.com/topic/potpourri. His era of leadership is over, but the pattern needs analysis, lest it re-erupt.

The word "evildoer" was once used infrequently. Now, in the recent administration, it was enough to get the phrase nationalized. Chronology of the use of the term shows its tie to policy: watch the words any president uses. They are code for a base.  Just as code in a battlefield triggers responses in the commanders, the soldiers.  The war du jour.

• Example 1.
  

Here are four references in one Bush II speech. There are four references to "evildoers" in this 10/4/2001 Economic Recovery presidential speech at ://beta.blogger.com/:http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/speeches/20011004_President_visit_to_DOL.htm">10/4/2001 Economic Recovery presidential speech.

"The evildoers struck, but they may have hurt our buildings, and they are obviously affecting some family lives in such a profound and sad way. But they will not touch the soul of America. They cannot dim our spirit."

"There are many Americans on bended knee from all different religions, praying to an almighty God. We’re a nation united in our conviction that we must find those evildoers and bring them to justice. We seek not revenge in America, we seek justice."

"The evildoers cost America a lot of lives. And for the two here in the Labor Department, I say, we will get justice, and we grieve with you-two good folks who suffer as a result of September the 11^th. I can’t tell you how many people are praying for you and praying for the victims all across America; people you can’t even imagine, can’t even-will never know are on bended knee."

"I strongly believe we need to make sure that consumer confidence stays high, by giving people more of their own money back. We need to counter the shock wave of the evildoer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates."

• Example 2.
  

See this Bush II speech: "That as a result of the evil-doer, not only are we responding militarily and not only have we put this broad coalition together that says we'll rid the world of 5. terror, but here at home people are saying, gosh, let me reassess my life. It's so important for moms and dads to know that the most important job they will ever have is to love their children with all their heart and all their soul." See the evildoer as reason for military response to terror at ://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020105-6.html"> Evil-doer as reason for military response to terror.

• Example 3.
  

The Dracula Club, Bucharest, Romania

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Bush II speech: "But nevertheless, Americans must know that their government is doing everything we can to track down every rumor, every hint, every possible evil-doer." ://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushtext_100301.  

Mr. Bush and evil-doer. The pattern entrenched. Even though use of the word diminished, the damage was already done.

• Example 4.
  

Axis of Evil: See the Bush II State of the Union speech. Axis of Evil ://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html/

Some ears perk up when hearing certain terms. A website on code's use: evildoing. "The perpetrators must be demonized in the harshest, medieval terms. ("Evildoer")" More code on evildoer at ://www.blogger.com/%20http://webserve.govst.edu/pa/Political/Not-So-Great%20Expectations/war_words.htm/

• C. Torture - the logical extension of warfare-type labeling.

1.  Labeling facilitates torture. The next step.

The "inhuman" evildoer, or terrorist, is not worthy of human considerations. The code means that people can ignore their other views. The authority says it is ok, so people do whatever.

If the authority says to do it, people do. See the Milgram Studies, see discussion of that and more recent studies, at ://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11283475?source=most_emailed/; where persons told by an authority to inflict pain, do so and feel no remorse because the authority has taken responsibility, they assume. See the Milgram study and its progeny discussion at ://www.cba.uri.edu/Faculty/dellabitta/mr415s98/EthicEtcLinks/Milgram.htm/
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Buchenwald, Labor Camp, Germany

This is Buchenwald. See ://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005198/ Somebody - here Hitler - labeled other people as the equivalent of evildoers - non-Aryans, non-human, and set out to exterminate/torture/work-to-death them, and others fell in line. 

From small beginnings, small acceptances, small looking away. Those in Weimar, Germany, see ://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/BuchenwaldEng.html/ apparently said they had no idea. See://www.scrapbookpages.com/Buchenwald/Liberation0.html/.

2. Torture - its history, its fascination.

What is it and what has it been? 

Your children probably already dote upon it, in their computer games.

See Torture, history, exhibits, at ://www.torturamuseum.com/this.html. 

We treat torture as entertainment. There is an appalling list/account of exactly what people have done to other people for over two thousand years at Teaching Hearts, see one religious view of how history unfolded, at ://www.teachinghearts.org/dre04historynotes.html#martyrs/. This is cited to show the numbing effect just reading all this has - not to endorse the organization or its goals. Torture becomes just ho-hum here. 

There are counter-views. See Beyond the Myth of the Inquisition at ://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0027.html/.

Amnesty International is against it. See ://www.amnestyusa.org/stoptorture/index.do So is the World Organization against torture, ://www.omct.org/index_en.cfm?CFID=4312519&CFTOKEN=19028267/. Others like the Museum can be found with a simple search for "torture."

 3.  What does it take to inculcate values, labels so pejorative and adopted without vetting, so that someone becomes an aficianado of torture as to those people.

Aficionado at ://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary/ Who is a torture aficionado.

Include those who vote for it. 

Punishment becomes addictive.