Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Words from the US Government

I used to believe what the government and its leaders said much more than I do now. Growing up, it almost seemed to me like respect and trust of the government was akin to that of God or holy people.

That said, a kerfuffle is brewing on the Korean peninsula. This latest round was (seemingly) started by North Korea by sinking a South Korean military boat. Many people died. The war of words have started.

Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State, has gone into the breech to help. This article, from Yahoo, relates some of what she has said:
Clinton said the two sides share the objective of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula. "Now we must work together again to address the serious challenge provoked by the sinking of the South Korean ship."
To me that sounds like a bunch of nonsense. The North wants nothing of the sort. Yet, she must say it to promote peaceful relations and hopefully successful negotiations. She is a diplomat with more responsibility than to simply tell-it-like-it-is. Maybe she is saying this in the hopes that the North will adopt this attitude. Maybe the North will go along with that charade and bloviate and threaten with demands in the hopes for peace (wink at Clinton) - as that is their negotiation style.

I don't know what is best here. I do understand that language from the government is not always what it seems.

(Afterthought) I guess that, technically speaking, North Korea, does want peace and stability on the peninsula . . . the same kind of peace that ancient Rome wanted with the known world.

4 comments:

  1. T-
    Great use of kerfuffle, dude! And bloviate- what the heck is bloviate?

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  2. Yeah . . . what IS bloviate? Gotta look that up. But I'm pretty sure the North Korea wants peace (wink, wink :-).

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  3. Bloviate . . .

    To bloviate is to speak about about something with an (undeserved) aura of pride, superiority, and (inflated) indignation. It usually involves some type of threat, physically, militarily, or economicly.

    Bloviate . . .

    kinda like blowing hot air

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  4. Ha! You used "kerfuffle"!

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