Massacres and dates

[lahcen]

Dear listers,
First, I am sickened and horrified at the murder of human life in Madrid. My thoughts are with all the bereaved.

I don't know much about 20 Muharram. However, I doubt whether killers of that caliber need to pay much attention to religious or national symbols to deliver their inhuman blow. Nor do Critical Discourse Analysts need to try to find justification or explanation for a massacre in religious or other symbols. Nothing justifies the killing of humans.

Alvarez, perhaps inadvertantly, left "the PP's international policy toward Iraq" unqualified. He rather made it sound legitimate in his use of the term 'international'. As the word 'international' tends to collocate with such positive words as "community", "cooperation", "aid", "relations",
"sports", etc., the reader is led to believe that the PP's policy towards Iraq is another positive thing.

Regards


---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From:         Celso Alvarez Cáccamo <lxalvarz at UDC.ES>
Reply-To:     The Discourse Studies List <DISCOURS at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Date:          Fri, 12 Mar 2004 22:00:54 +0100

>Dear Maggie,
>
>Thank you for your information. As I said in the CRITICS-List, where I
>cross-posted my message, all I'm trying to do is understand public words
>being said about this tragedy. Even today, when apparently ETA has denied
>any involvement in the massacre, and there are other evidences pointing to
>a "Islamic" group, the Spanish government insists ETA is the main suspect.
>
>>I am sure that today everyone on the Discours list shares the pain and grief
>>of the people in Spain.
>
>It was horrible, undoubtedly. Spaniards have TV cameras to see to talk
>(rather, to listen) about it for forty-eight hours straight. Spain has no
>TV cameras in Baghdad, Istambul, Chechnya. Life is the more valuable the
>farther West.
>
>The conservative Spanish government is going to give the Spanish
>nationality to immigrant families of the victims. In Spain, in order to be
>legal, you have to die. "Entre los muertos identificados, hay 12
>nacionalidades", the TV has just said. The press already calls the massacre
>"11-M", parallel to "11-S" (September 11, 2001). The Melting Pot of Death.
>
>After the attacks, the Popular Party in power practically unilaterally
>decided the end of the electoral campaign for Sunday's elections. But it
>lied: Today it was the Grand Finale, with millions of people being led to
>the streets in demonstrations "Together with the Victims. With the
>Constitution. Against Terrorism", and all the other parties followed
>suit.  The Popular Party is trying to emphasize that the murderers were
>ETA, their necessary arch-enemy. The Socialist Party is leaving the door
>open to the possibility of Al-Qaeda, which would be a blow to the PP's
>international policy toward Iraq. It's a sickening funny game.
>
>-celso
>