I need a TV-B-Gone for the gym

[jbailey]

Dear CNN,

The US presidential election race between senators McCain and Obama is not a "battleground". Battlegrounds are where people get killed. Using the same words for what passes as democracy in this country as for the military massacres in foreign countries is incredibly sad and disgusting.

That, and it's only vaguely less stupid than Toronto's "War on Fire".

Comments

Re: Notsomuch

[qhartman.livejournal.com]

An election is quite reasonably a conflict; again, look it up. It's sad that our society has created a context in which your only emotional association with these words is with actual martial acts, rather than the multitude of other ways that they can be used.

If you believe that using these words in a context other than their most horrific trivializes those events you're free to not use them that way. However, expecting the rest of the English speaking world to narrow their means of expression to coincide with your world views is arrogant and self centered. It highlights the egoism of American society.One of the worst "values" that we have. A value that arguably contributed to our entering into the very war you're so concerned about.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this, but I'll leave you with one other thought to consider. If in fact this word choice lowers a persons comprehension of the horrors of war, perhaps the blame for that should lie with that person rather than the people who are using the language in perfectly legitimate ways. Or perhaps it should lie with the broken educational system that encouraged such a base and inflexible system of thought.