PCMatic: at war, the people’s militia, resistance .. and metaphors?
[ by Charles Cameron — an ad that blew my mind, mil metaphor piled on mil metaphor, and various ways to name theenemy, eh? — troika, wolf pack.. ]
.
Here we go.
I was staggered to see the number of military / militant references inj this commercial —
our country is at war, a cyber war the enemy, ransomeware, is rapidly growing in sophistication the enemy is exploiting a hole in our defenses we are pcmatic, the people’s militia to defeat the ransomware empire patriots of the resistance we believe we can build an army we will defeat this enemy and win the war join the ransomware resistance.
This is the largest cluster of related metaphors I’ve seen in an ad, and I’m curious as to its rhetorical intent..
**
Tina Nguyen has written a fascinating piece for Vanity Fair’s Hive on the metaphors we use for The Enemy, better known perhaps as Them:
Axis of evil Network of death Troika of tyranny Triangle of terror Sordid cradle of Communism in the Western Hemisphere Wolf pack of rogue states Cabal of Crazies Circle of Scoundrels League of Extraordinary Villains
Oh so much more potent than calling them Hostile states — Wolf pack of rogue states is superb!
The first set above presents ye actual efforts by various pols to provide metaphorical aid to the othering of our enemies — propaganda at its most succinct — whereas the second set consists of jokers’ parodies & the like — second order propaganda at the expense of the first.
**
I’ll be using the comments section of this post for further “collections” (metaphors of war, sports, etc, headlines, chyrons, misc items of interest), and may add some stellar examples — if they “fit” — here in this post.
January 22nd, 2019 at 7:52 pm
Panetta on Blitzer’s Situation Room, 6.14/15pm ET 1/21/2019:
**
.
Kamala, variously:
**
.
.. the showmanship and gamesmanship of the shutdown .. *** nice phrasing!
.
**
.
WaPo, Above all else, Trump is a bully:
America is at peace because the FBI is at war ..
now the greatest threat of all is coming from the Oval Office ..
January 24th, 2019 at 8:13 am
Blkitzer Sit Room 500 ET 1/23/2019
m 29 round one goes to them (ie trump’s intimidation of cohen works, cohen postpones)..
nancy pelosi just called his bluff ..
.
Ari Melber The Beat 1/23/2019
Cornell Belcher: the President of the United States acting like Michael Corleone ..
.
Cummings and Schiff Statement on Intimidation of Michael Cohen:
As we stated previously with our colleague, Chairman Jerry Nadler of the Judiciary Committee, efforts to intimidate witnesses, scare their family members, or prevent them from testifying before Congress are textbook mob tactics that we condemn in the strongest terms.
.
.
Chyron: “home stretch”
Chyron “”
.
Nunberg: I think Roger colluded against himself .. (ourob!!)
Corsi vs Roger Stone?: “tit for tat”
Corsi: the gotcha games and the memory games started from day one ..
Corsi, “my religion” (also good cop bad cop), Numberg “yeshivas and so on .. rapid fire .. he reminded me more like a rabbi..” in above clip –whole interview with Carter Page, Michael Caputo, Sam Nunberg & Jerome Corsi was fantastic television.
Carter Page m50/1 re Chris Hayes: “the back and forth with him was probably one of the best trainings you could get of getting hit over the head” ..
Nunberg on Mueller’s team: “what they’re really going to go for is Pay & Play” ..
Hardball:
Chris M: But today the Speaker hit back with a loud and clear, No You Can’t ..
let’s start with the toxic ping-pong between President Trump and Nancy Pelosi ..
January 24th, 2019 at 5:59 pm
Hardball 1/23/2019 cont’d
Robert Costa: he believes in political theater ..
Gwenda Blair, author, The Trumps: if you’re not winning, you’re losing, in his rule book ..
m12 chris m: “she must understand the calculus here” re SOTU / shutdown ..
David Cicilline “not appropriate to have a State of the Union while the state of the Union is shut down” ..
Joyce Vance quoted:m 27/8 awful but lawful ..
Elliot Williams: the hearing can .. into a circus ..
m37, Mitch Landrieu: he had some hard words [?] but it was __ and respectful ..
m53 WaPo chyron “counterpoint” ..
m54 chyron ” conservatives target freshman rep ocasio-cortez ..
Kamala: and if folk will have me, i’m prepared to lead that fight .. and i believe it will be a winning fight ..
all in chris hayes
m6.01 quasi-chyron “textbook mob tactics” ..
m3 cummings & schiff ..
11th hr with brian williams:
Michael, this is not billiards, nor is it terrapin football, but at the risk of having something thrown at the television inside the white house, was this advantage pelosi, did she just win a round?
m steele: she called his bluff. he thought he was calling hers, but she called his ..
11th hr: joe [biden] has been there, he’s done the race, he’s got the connection, he’s got the ground game, he knows the opponent ..
January 25th, 2019 at 5:43 pm
Campaign journalism needs an overhaul. Here’s one radical idea.
.
Four horse-race references in this one article:
.
January 26th, 2019 at 3:39 pm
Gambling as a metaphor (almost invisible, at this point) for risk:
.
.
**
.
quoted by marie: trump finally got his wall — nancy pelosi ..
brian williams: it’s really hard to see over the shoulder of a good c ard player, like mueller, to see what he has in his hand ..
ari melber — a joke qn — is it possible that trump is playing three-dimensional chess, and mexico will pay for the wall? ..
now it seems to hit a little bit higher .. the upper echelons of the trumppower orbit ..
clint watts: you’d think the master of dirty tricks wouldn’t leave an electronic trail everywhere ..
a defeat lap in the rose garden..
the beat: 1/25 m10: we got a legislative death trap ..
.
mtp 1/25/2019
mcconnell wanted to call it “the second kick of the mule” ..
he’s been negotiating aagainst himself for thirty-five days ..
.
ari melber:
stone lied about efforts to get stolen emails from the russians and the trump campaign was in the loop ..
07 seth waxman: if we presuppose that there was this quid pro quo, an offer of dirt on hillary clinton in exchange for a promise to reduce or eliminate sanctions ..
the trump cam;paign was in the loop with the russians ..
bill kristol m 11: i’m going to assert as a matter of probability that donald trump was in the loop on the effort to get the russians to help his election prospects by releasing the emails — whether here was a quid pro quo, whether trump was legally liable..
sam nunberg: i think he (roger stone) conspired against himself ..
ari to sam n: does it look to you as though the noose is tightening around the key politicalleadership of the trump campaign?
Whon Framed Roger
RabbitStone?does it look to you as thioough the nhoose is tightening ..
mueller has chosen to pick a fight with someone who knows, like trump, how to fight big, and loud, and clearly rough, that’s part of the allegation ..
look at it all already ending (?) in this brawl ..
.
hardvball
maya wiley re stone m6/7: he’s the one who said it’s better to be talked about than not, even if being talked about means being talked about as he stares down the barrell of a prosecutor’s gun .. ***
m 11: he’s like the pt barnum of public statements..
jonathan lemire:if the rt of the deal had been this negotiation, no-one would have bought this book .
.
?? sen kobachar m 6/7: to look at it as a win-loss game is.
.
all in chris hayes:
wittes: that does suggest a tightening of the circle, closing of the ring, whatever metaphor you want to use .. ***
marcy wheeler: roger stone was willing to go to great lengths to set up these cover stories insider cover stories inside cover stories, but what he didn’t do according to the indictment is delete these emails, delete these texts ..
.
1/26/2019 9 or 10ish am’there is a lot of smoke around roger stone ..
January 27th, 2019 at 3:10 am
Rachel Maddow gets her people to put up, andd then comments at length on — this visual DoubkeQuote:
.
.
She comments:
**
.
The President knew last week he was running out of runway here .. [nice phrasing]***
January 29th, 2019 at 2:01 pm
The Beat 1/28/2019
If you’re saying Gosh, itvfeels like we’re at a circus, well, it’s because we bought circus tickets and there are elephants everywhere, and obviously animal cruelty concerns as well, elephants, or randy credico’s dog ..
they’re all provocateurs.. this is what they do, it’s theater..
.
Hardball 1/28/2019
roger stone does.. he tiptoes up to the edge of the cliff and dances on it for a while while you watch him do it ..
the president now has to do kind of this very very fragile dance with roger stone ..
how can the president be stuck on fly paper — and he’s the fly?
when you go to war with ann coulter, you’re not having a good time in politics ..
the fight over the wall is the one corner he can’t figure his way out of ..
i compare him to sonny listeon, who couldn’t lose until he couldn’t win ..
every hand he gets, he shoot the moon.. nad that would be, a national emergency ..
willie nelson meets the godfather ..
if you’re going to act like pro wrestlers, we’re going to send you one ..
.
All In Chris Hayes 1/28/2019
04: there’s a whole shakespeare drama playing out in his eyes ..
there’s lots of people who want to talk like they’re in goodfellas ..
what is the deal with the culture around the current president of the united states that everyone is like a wannabe wiseguy .. why is everyone constantly acting like they’re in the mob .. if they are not?
rep katherine clark: it ieally is an emperor has no clothes situation, and we need the court jesters to remind him that this is real people, real lives, feal national security ..
conservative pundit / insult comic ann coulter was one of the driving forces directing the president during the government shutdown ..
in a fight between donald trump and ann coulter it’s so hard to know who to root for, but what if we throw in newt gingrich?
coulter vs giungrich is now the fight to watch ..
January 30th, 2019 at 4:55 am
1/29/2019:
Velshi: Carol Lam: This is your place on the chessboard, and you were moving in at this point and if you want to move your place on the chessboard, that’s up to you ..
Melber the Beat:
new back-stabbing inside the White House ..
Maya Wiley: Wew know that Roger Stone games the public court ..
>
Chyrons: Melber Dems play Hardball:
.
.
Melber Circus
.
.
Hayes All In war party
.
January 31st, 2019 at 5:58 pm
Just a nice Sbarro tweet:
_____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
.
Y’see, according to Wiki, “Sadio Mané .. is a Senegalese professional footballer” — so that’s a genuine game-changer..
.
MTP 1/30/2019
That rift between president trump and the intelligence community may be growing into a chasm .. the president lashed out at the intelligence chiefs after they contradicted him on threats posed by china, north korea, ISIS an iran ..
Ari Melber the Beat 1/30/2019
A new filing from bob mueller is shaking things up tonight right now, and this has new allegations against Russian operatives of trying to game the us legal system, mislead the American public and even to hinder the mueller probe .. [ourob]
robert mueller was digging into a foreign company war gamess for hacking elections ..
mueller’s back with a foreign company gaming out russian style election meddling .. [29,35-38]
this has a batman / joker aspect to it, where the us prosecutors, however aggressive they may be, have these rules [a set of very strict rules, the federal rules of evidence, federal rules of criminal procedure], and pointing out in these new filings that the Russians are breaking these rules ..
gameness .. grit .. determination .. fighting spirit .. compliments from none othere than steve bannon for AOC today ..
and what is it about the [hiphop] culture that encourages the motif of the friendly battle? .. *** you see thjat in battle rapping, you see that in a battle dancing, some people look at that from a distance and say, Are you mad atchyron: each other, does somebody have to win, what’s it mean?
fighting, you have to fight.. instead of fighting, letrt’s dance ..
.
hardball 1/30/2019
chyron: “feuds”
chyron: “attacks”
05: the world stage is a very complex one ..
chris m 22: it’s almost like an interrogation situation, there’s nobody else around, and he’s fly-fishing basically,to get whatever he can get out of trump ..
Rep Swlwell: Here we are on the even of Superbowl Sunday. If you keep throwing the hook and ladder and the defense isn’t stopping it, any great coach is going to have his team run that play over and over again until the defenses are put up to stop it. And this President will not confront Putin about it, despite saying he has, and so they’re going to keep running this play against us.
[header]
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/opinion/roger-stone-trump.html
it’s like a sopranos episode where Tony is going to a poorly lit parking garage and meeting with the leader of another mob ..
all in chris hayes:
this is extraordinary, the president in open warfare with his own intelligence chiefs ..
________________________________________________________________________
.________________________________________________________________________
From that article:
**
.
Hardball 1/31/2019, re Foxconn:
In “SHERYL ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE”: AFTER CRUSHING WALL STREET, FACEBOOK OPENS THE TRUMP PLAYBOOK TO GLOSS OVER ITS SCANDALMANIA
BTW, a sort of DoubleQuoting of sea and sky in The Challenger Explosion, New Yorker, from 1986.
February 1st, 2019 at 4:42 pm
Chrons and headers to go with above:
February 2nd, 2019 at 4:53 am
Melber, the Beat 2/1/2019
he does not go away, he is the cockroach of american politics ..
manafort: roger’s relationship with trump has been so interconnected, you can’t ever tell them apart, it’s hard to define what’s stone and what’s trump — but it will clearly be a trump presidency, a stone philosophy ..
why should stone, who has his neck in the potential meat-grinder, be the one t
[mar-e-lago] this is his spiritual home, he has to be here — the frozen waste-land of his life in washington — he wants to get away from that ..
there were several ways that he used brass-knuckle tactics to deal with local rules, local officials ..
they get high on their own supply ..
does it surprise you how many of these political figures seem to tell on themselves — the evidence against them is their emails and their texts ..
.
hardbalkkl:
i think he thought he was leading this parade, but he’s the drum-major. he can be standing out front, but he isn’t leading this one .. [ann coulter is the leadere] ..
here we are with pure politics, mano-a-mano, him against the speaker of the house ..
it’s classic “bring down the temple” donald trump ..
it’s just like when joe lewis was in the ring, boxing, and he was beating a white figure, you know, when they’re in front of white people, o my god, how sad, but inside they’re cheering, when they went home they hoorayed, the reality is black people have always had to accommodate the vicious expression, the lethal intensity of racial passions that are against us .. ****
if we are going to criticize republicans for these instances of racial gestures, then we need to also call out our own in our party ..
the judge has an obligation, as all judges do, to prevent this criminal trial from becoming a circus ..
February 2nd, 2019 at 5:15 am
Chyrons and header to go with the above:
.
__________________________________________________________________
.
.
__________________________________________________________________
.
.
__________________________________________________________________
.
.
__________________________________________________________________
.
.
__________________________________________________________________
.
February 5th, 2019 at 5:22 am
2/4/2019
Hardball, Rev Al Sharpton:
All In Chris Hayes:
??:
.
__________________________________________________________________
.
.
__________________________________________________________________
.
.__________________________________________________________________
.
.
___________________________________________________________________
February 6th, 2019 at 1:47 am
Hardball 2/5/2019 SOTU Nnight:
Jon Meachum:
Meachum:
Chris M on Trump, like Bush before him, congratulating Pelosi on her re/election as Speaker]>
February 6th, 2019 at 4:38 pm
This must be about the most staggering chyron of all time. I gather CNN apologized for it, but even so — it’s an amazing indictment of the mentality that led to 11 deaths at the Tree of Life synagogue — horrific.
.
February 6th, 2019 at 4:39 pm
Full Transcript: Stacey Abrams Democratic Rebuttal:
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
.
.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
February 6th, 2019 at 8:55 pm
It was Trump’s “better angels of our nature” speech, and his equable delivery did seem like it was going against the grain of his usual tendencies. However, the speech was successful in eliciting vocal support from both parties. The white blazer battalion in that photo was cheering something Trump said directly to them, acknowledging their accomplishments. The room erupted in a cheer of “USA, USA”, to which the Congresswomen appeared to join, or at least tolerate.
The same chant prompted now retired Chicago Congressman Luis Gutierrez to storm out during last year’s speech
https://youtu.be/jYyAekM5mYs
.
It’s hard to imagine how this can lead to any bipartisanship, but the contrast between the jubilant Ocasio-Cortez and the defeated Gutierrez does signify that something different is going on for this congressional session.
February 7th, 2019 at 4:28 pm
2/6/2019:
?? some people view all of this as another game. it is not a game. the facts still matter, no matter what the score is ..
.
FedEx ad: what we deliver by delivering .. (ourob) ..
.
MTP:
some losely watched democrats are making announcements about their announcements .. (ie to run for presidency; ourob)
that spell (ie “socialist”) can’t be cast on my generation .. ***
.
The Beat Melber:
john flannery: he’s in a war, like a mobster, like the two-bit capo of some organized crime family
michelle goldberg: there’s a sort of kabuki that goes on at a state of the union ..
ourob?: i am falsely accused of naking false statements
“fight for your right”
.
Hardball 2/6/2019:
7 chyron if trum
25 rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime (ourob) ..
26/7 panetta cyron “fights” – book title?
33-5 3 states 2 nations (triple game)
34-5 you can’t tell the difference between .. where .. begins and .. ends ..
.
“THIS IS HOW YOU TALK ABOUT RACE”: DEMOCRATS CAN’T FIX THE HEINOUS MESS THEY’VE CREATED IN VIRGINIA, BUT THEY SURE CAN LEARN FROM IT
February 7th, 2019 at 4:35 pm
Hi Grurray:
.
I was watching, and my impression was that Trump was praising the general notion of more women in the workplace, and that the white blazer brigade appropriated that for themselves, “yup, there are more of us here right in front of you — I don’t think they were applauding Trump but themselves, somewhat in defiance of him.
.
The Atlantic, How the Women of the House Flipped the State of the Union Script;:
So glad there is someone reading these various chyrons, headlines & quotes, Grurray — they’re fun / educational to catch and write, good to know I’m not alone in my obsession..!
February 7th, 2019 at 5:34 pm
Hardball:
use transcript for response
.
Nicolle Wallace 2/7/2019:
This seems to be a scandal wrapped in a scandal — I mean, this is the Justice Department ..
Jeremy Bash: I think he’s here to make the Department of Justice the DOKO — the Department of Justice Obstruction ..
If what he says tomorrow sounds like In expectation of Executive Privilege quack quack quack, we know he’s trying to hide something ..
It’s a different sheriff in town — they have the gavel, and it’s different ..
this will be his (whitaker’s) first time at the rodeo ..
He sees being President as King ..
You saw Nancy Pelosi essentially dog-walked him with stiletto heels for thirty-five days .. *****
.
When they ask the kind of questions they want to they’ll hear Executive Privilege and the subpoena is not a silver bullet, because it’s going to trigger a long, arduous and not necessarily successful court fight..
I think that’s what’s so interesting about this green new deal resolution is that it’s notnecessarily policy, and there’s not a path, a political path tomit becoming policy, but it’s a broad scope, as she said, and an outline to sort of move the chess pieces to get enough organizing power to get sponsors ..
.
the beat 2/7/2039
Alicia Menendez re AOC: She’s jiu-jitsued the Republicans in terms of taking their strategy around messaging and applying it to some of the issues she cares about ..
.
rachel 2/7/2019
rep swalwell on cttee interview acting atty general whitaker tomorrow:
the rolling slow-motion story thst mueller is telling us .. dramatic in each coiurt appearance ..
.
Trump, SOTU:
.
February 9th, 2019 at 5:14 am
misc:
football player .. run out the clock ..collins: dog and pony show ..
31 he hasn’t really had his hand on the throttlenof the (mueller)investigation ..
he came ready for a fight ..
he’s going to backwalk and equivocate and frankly be combative ..
he came out of the gate pretty hard ..
39 there are contingency plans on contingency plans ..
40 nobody is playing nice here ..
i don’t want to say one person’s Executive Privilege is another person’s Obstruction of Justice ..
55: this is the opening salvo of a long, long, long battle
.
14 he (POTUS) would not get into the question of whether there’d be a subpoena battle ..
.
2/8/2019 Ari Beat
Trump may have some moves ..
2/8/2019 Hardball:
I’m in Wahington where President Trump and his allies are under siege on multiple fronts and have launched new counterattacks ..
This story can be seen as yet another battle in a larger war between Trump allies and his critics ..
the company has acknowledgee using the practice called “Catch and kill”
prematurely dancing on his grave ..
it seems like trump came to office with this rogues gallery ..
13 he unleashes his dogs, his photographers, etc., and he puts it all together and he goes to war . .
21-2: all of our intelligence agencies also put the blood on the hand of MBS, puts the gun, the knife in the hands of MBS ..
52 [virginia scandals] : this is getting worse and it’s spiraling now worse and worse .. [spiral]
58: devin nunez who did cartwheels serving the interestss of this president .. ***
this country has been riding too long on one wheel ..
.
All In, Chris Hayes:
04 [Whitaker]: when he was a football player, and I can certainly see him as a football player, he was a tight end, and that’s generally a blocker, a tight end in the Iowa program. He was a blocker today too, he’s still in the same role he was when he played for the Iowa Hawkeyes .. *****
He was putting on a show ..
14/15: What happened today may look like a freak show to 50-60% of the country ..
.
Bezos:
February 9th, 2019 at 9:52 pm
What to Stream This Weekend: Zazie Beetz in “Sollers Point,” A Movie Prison Outside of Prison:
Ouroboros!
.
How SoftBank ate the world
Ouroboros!
.
________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
.