We were wrong, folks. Simply wrong. All these songs and slogans and articles and speeches about peace and love et al - did that stop anything? - Exactly. Wrong tactics.
As we've learned recently, it's all about using the right word.
Well, "we" might be the wrong choice of word as well, I am actually talking about YOU, if you happen to be American.
The magic word progressives should have used in America throughout the past years turns out to be "scrotum". "Scrotum", it seems, can stop a book from being bought by a library or parents, even if it has just been awarded the Newbery Medal, America's highest honor for children's literature. "Scrotum" can make a difference. "Scrotum" can change the world. In case you are still unaware of the mayhem triggered by this word, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2283917.ece (for example) can tell you more.
Since I learned on this occasion that once again (the last memorable efforts on this front included the sight of Janet Jackson's nipple at the Super Bowl) America's children's innocence is being saved by the untiring courageous efforts of the combined army of Conservative schoolteachers, librarians and parents, I've been meditating on the power of the word "scrotum" in America. If reading about a dog's genitalia can unleash such frenzied activities, this word has so far clearly been blatantly underestimated and underused in American political strategy.This has to change!
So my newly gained insights amount to the following strategic theory : You take an incident - in that childrens' book a rattlesnake seems to bite a dog's genitals - and you describe the scene by using the S-word: Like in magic, the event becomes taboo! An absolute no-no. Disgust, anger, outrage - the works.
Seems to me like we have discovered the magic button.
Try this for size: "Shock and Awe" rephrased as "America Hits Baghdad's Scrotum" - immediately, this action would of course have endangered the innocence of America's children! I am convinced that the Republicans themselves would have stopped the bombings and the entire attack. Immediately. Never-ending apologies to America's parents, school-teachers and librarians. Why did nobody think of it at the time??
Or else: A recent CNN headline like "U.S. planning for possible attack on Iran", rephrased as "US plans to bite Iran on the scrotum", is bound to lead to genuine outrage in conservative regions of the US! Angry schoolteachers, parents and librarians - start counting, that's a huge crowd! - might march on Washington in utter dismay. Demanding impeachment.
In my opinion, the sky's the limit when it comes to the many suitable usages of the word "scrotum". This word might change American politics forever.
So my humble advice to politically active American citizens is simply to stop using harmless words like "war", "invasion", "bloodshed", "murder", "attack", "bombing", "Guantanamo", "torture", "deriched uranium", "famine", "rape", "land mines", "dead" and the like in order to reach out to Conservatives. None of that is seen as a threat to the innocence and purity of American children, as we have learned.
Please try to squeeze the word "scrotum" into your future messages instead. THAT will surely cause a riot!
Brigitte Schön (b.schoen@chello.at) an Austrian conference interpreter and occasional writer. She lives in Vienna, Austria.
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