See the full article at http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16220 or http://truthout.org/docs_03/062403G.shtmlA Nation of Victims
By Renana Brooks, The Nation
June 22, 2003
George W Bush is generally regarded as a mangler of the English language. What is overlooked is his mastery of emotional language – especially negatively charged emotional language – as a political tool. Take a closer look at his speeches and public utterances, and his political success turns out to be no surprise. It is the predictable result of the intentional use of language to dominate others.
President Bush, like many dominant personality types, uses dependency-creating language. He employs language of contempt and intimidation to shame others into submission and desperate admiration. While we tend to think of the dominator as using physical force, in fact most dominators use verbal abuse to control others. Abusive language has been a major theme of psychological researchers on marital problems, such as John Gottman, and of philosophers and theologians, such as Josef Pieper. But little has been said about the key role it has come to play in political discourse, and in such "hot media" as talk radio and television.
A short paragraph at the end describes the author: Renana Brooks, PhD, is a clinical psychologist practicing in Washington, DC. She heads the Sommet Institute for the Study of Power and Persuasion (www.sommetinstitute.org) and is completing a book on the virtue myth and the conservative culture of domination.
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