In both politics and advertising -- if there is any difference -- what you call a thing, or a strategy, can be everything. So, if you want to grab a bunch of power, you don’t call the laws that will pave the way “The Power Grab Act.”No, you call it “The Patriot Act.”
Now we see that some folks in the mainstream news biz are struggling with what to call the escalating mayhem/chaos in Iraq. Is it a “liberation,” or an “occupation,” or a “civil war?” Or what?
While at this late date that may seem to be a somewhat cynical dilemma, it remains a quite laughable dilemma to some of us. Naturally, that made me try to think of something silly to offer to such an undignified process, which thankfully brought to mind Frank Zappa’s Sheik Yerbouti album.
So, in Zappa’s spirit, and since “civil war” won’t work for the apologists-in-denial and the right-wingers who support the lost cause of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, here’s my take on the naming contest:
How about we call this ongoing unpleasantness in Iraq the “War Between the Sheiks”?
Zappa photo from Wikipedia
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