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the statement to which the term was attached is a second-order claim based on premises which are pretty clearly worked out in the course of these quotes--which concern, in the main, the ongoing efforts on the part of the bush administration to protect the telephone companies which co-operated with the warantless wiretapping from prosecution for having done so. the arguments that the administration has advanced in defense of its position rely fundamentally on the notion of some "crisis"
the linkages move from this particular sequence of arguments to a more general point concerning information control on the part of the administration in de facto collusion with the "free press".
one of the main characteristics of modern authoritarian regimes is control of information. you generate consent by shaping the frames of "legitimate" interpretation and contents to which these frames are applied. that this administration has been able to do this since 9/12/2001 is self-evident. that it's expansive claims concerning executive privilege have been of a piece with this seems to me also pretty clear---if there is a logical problem, it is that these are *parallel* situations rather than identical situations.
but that doesn't seem to me the point here.
it seems to me that you are basically making a claim about rhetoric and not logic.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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