Buzzwords

Sangandaan '93
Richard James Mendoza
4/25/2011



As I searched the Internet for something to read other than news articles about religion, somehow it came to my mind that I should find the definition of “buzzword.” Using a little-known Google command (by typing define:word on the search bar) I found an interesting definition from http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=buzzword. In the link, buzzword was defined as “stock phrases that have become nonsense through endless repetition.” Suddenly, I remembered some phrases that are continuously being repeated through the media; phrases such as democracy, human rights, corruption, saving the planet, ad nausea infinitum. And perhaps these phrases have truly embodied the “buzz” in buzzword, as in the buzzing of the bees, except that these phrases are more deafening than the buzzing itself.

Democracy. It’s something that I often hear from the US whenever they invade—I mean, take a “visit” on a country. For them, it’s a magic word like abracadabra that enchants many people and perhaps fool them in the process. They often proclaim that they‘re going to bring democracy and prosperity on a country that is being ruled by a despot or a dictator. But the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions rings true in this situation. It’s what we’ve witnessed in Iraq in 2003 when the US did a military intervention in Iraq for the “search” of the so-called “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” which turned out to be nothing more than a shabby excuse to overthrow Saddam Hussein, steal its resources (in this case, oil) and ruin the country. Until now, Iraq is still reeling from the effects of the illegal invasion of the US military, with some areas still uninhabitable because of the radiation brought about by uranium bullets.

If you are looking for an example of “democracy” (or demo-crazy, for that matter) in our country, look no further. Twenty-five years ago, in what has been called “Edsa I,” the Yellows removed Ferdinand Marcos and installed their “Dear Leader” Corazon Aquino, thus “restored democracy” in our country. But what did their “democracy” really mean? Through the years, it only meant the return of the old ruling class and the worsening of living standards, all the while chanting “Demokrasya,” “Kalayaan” and other slogans which it had dulled the minds of many. It’s sickening to think that while the masses are toiling for their very survival, the oligarchy are enjoying the spoils through their legal extortionists such as privatized public utilities (how ironic) which are supposed to provide the basic needs for everyone and at the same time hypocritically mouthing on how life has “improved” after restoring democracy in this country. If democracy meant the rule of the minority and not of the majority, then I must be in a parallel universe but unfortunately, such is not the case.

These Yellows often claim to respect democracy and the rule of law but Edsa II proved otherwise. In broad daylight, they pulled off a coup d’état disguised as a “civilian uprising” on a democratically elected leader who brought hope to the masses. In the guise of removing a corrupt and immoral leader, they seized the opportunity and illegally sworn in GMA who never had the mandate of the people and thus strengthened the hold of the repressive ruling class in bleeding the country dry of its resources, all the while fooling the people that democracy lived once again and that justice had been served.

And then there was the real people’s uprising, Edsa III. This event was largely ignored by the media stations, with the exception of Net-25. The very same Yellows who claimed to love democracy suddenly became snobs as they berated the event and its participants, calling them “unwashed,” amongst other derogatory terms. The sinful cardinal bemoaned about the sacrilege of the sacred Edsa, hypocritically remarking Jesus’ first of the last seven words. A certain journalist even derided Edsa III, the title of the piece saying it all “Excuse me, please don’t call it People Power.” Twenty-five years after Edsa I, can it still be said that democracy rules the country? Well, I daresay that democracy died on February 25, 1986.

Saving the planet. If one thinks about it, there is really nothing wrong with saving the planet. After all, what could be wrong with planting trees and dreaming of a better world for the next generation? Nothing, except that hypocrites and knuckleheads are abound whenever the issue of “saving the planet” comes up, especially when it’s about global warming. Meet Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States of America and the so-called inventor of the internet who is currently on a world tour preaching the gospel of global warming/climate change/global climate change/whatever name they’re using. Because of his continuous preaching, he has become an expert eschatologist regarding global warming and its purported doom, more so than the climatologists themselves.

According to the gospel of Gore, if we humans do not stop emitting carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, the CO2 will worsen what is called the greenhouse effect. And he and his followers (read: alarmists) also preach about how the debate on climate change is “over” and anyone who presents a different point of view about global warming are compared to Holocaust deniers and should be sent to a “Nuremberg-like trial.” Regarding the so-called “greenhouse effect”, it turns out that the phrase itself is deceptive, according to W.R. Pratt in a booklet entitled “CO2: The Debate Is Not Over” which can be found in this link: http://www.spinonthat.com/CO2_files/CO2tdino.pdf (requires Adobe Reader to open).

According to Pratt, “The term was first coined in 1824 by Joseph Fourier to describe the way the atmosphere is warmed by the heat from the Sun. But it is John Tyndall, who according to some, it is claimed, is responsible for proving that the Earth has a greenhouse effect. It is strange then that in his book entitled Contributions to Molecular Physics in the domain of Radiant Heat written in the 1860s when he was professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution (previously known as the Hidden College) that the closest he comes to alluding to anything like a greenhouse effect is a reference on page 117 to the atmosphere behaving like a dam on heat energy from the sun.

However even this is an extremely inaccurate and unhelpful analogy because there are only two dynamics invoked in the example of a dam: The water flowing down hill and the wall of the dam across the path of the body of flowing water. However the dynamics involved in the heat energy from the Sun entering the Earth’s atmosphere are so numerous that they simply cannot be quantified” (emphasis added).

Added to the fact that greenhouse gases only compose less than one percent of the atmosphere, with CO2 being only less than a thousandth of a percent (a thousandth of a percent would look like this: 0.001). And most of the CO2 comes from the world’s vast oceans. These bodies of water store large amounts of CO2 and release it to the atmosphere very slowly. In fact, there are many graphs that show a different kind of correlation when it came to CO2 and the fluctuations in temperature. These graphs show that the rise of CO2 levels followed the rise in temperature, not the other way around.

Regarding the alarmists slogan of “The debate is over,” well I have bad news for them. The debate is NOT over yet and it will NEVER end. The scientific process is supposed to be about the discussion of different point of views; about debating and critical analysis. It’s certainly not about consensus. An example is the theory of Big Bang. Even though many believe that it was the Big Bang that started the universe, the theory is still being debated until the present day, even inventing the Large Hadron Collider to attempt to prove that the theory is correct. But such is not the case in global warming. Dissenting voices are silenced and are often accused of receiving money from Big Oil, which is uncalled for.

Truly, the spread of disinformation and agnotology continues to grow. The only antidote to such malaise is truth. Because the truth remains the same, while a lie does not. But what is the truth, anyway? That, my friend, is something that I’ll leave to the philosophers.