All of the sudden the media and blogs seem flooded with the word 'extremist'. Who'd ever heard much of it until Bush changed the wording of some of his key documents and replaced the word 'terrorist' with the word 'extremist'? And soon even Dems were working the word into their legislation. But this is a word with little meaning if first one does not define in relation to what the extremist is extreme! And yet, who is clarifying context in this flood of new appearances of the word? And beware! If unthinking, illogical people continue to use the word 'extremist' with such abandon like this, there will be only one safe place to be on the political spectrum, and that will be the 'centrist' position (whatever THAT means). Ick! Do you smell that? It's the stench of Totalitarianism.
When you hear the word 'extremist', just smelling there like some unidentifiable rotting gooey thing on the beachfront, resist the temptation to get too near it, not even to touch it gingerly with the toe of your shoe. No! Stand back. Even touching it with a long stick may not keep you safe. For to use the word 'extremist' will contaminate you and expose your gullibility to be sucked into using the latest psy-ops vocabulary flushing through the media like so much sewage, sewage rushing out from, from...maybe from Totalitarian Think Tanks.
'Extremist' as a major political noun is a non-word. Thinking, knowledgeable people know it cannot be used out of context. And, as it has been reinvented by Bush and Company as an epithet and excuse for making anyone who does not agree with them a candidate for detainee-hood, it's a word of entrapment -- both for the victim and the user of this epithet.
And don't allow Dems to pick up where Bush is leaving off with the 'extremist' excuse for closing down public debate and freedom of speech. (You won't have to feel bad about rejecting these Dems, because they are phony Dems in the first place if they insist on pigeonholing opposing views and dissent using a smearing weasel word epithet like 'extremist'.)
Keep your eyes and ears open, and keep in mind those who use the word 'extremist'. It may help down the road a bit when you wonder who helped close our Open Society. Or vice versa, who didn't use it and kept us living in an Open Society with a free flow of ideas!
[For some background on the creation of the BUSHSPEAK term 'extremist' and how it was born:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/...
it helps to see where it came from.]
P.S. Can we count on Obama to jettison the 'extremist' Bushspeak come January 20?