Taking back our language serves a multitude of purposes. The Republicans and the (insert your favorite acronym here) media have mastered not just spin, but evoking strong emotion from the simplest of words. Liberal is a goner, like an albatross hovering overhead, but unless we continue to use it, we will have lost it forever. Many now favor progressive and it's variants and I truly don't have a problem with that, but why allow the principle of liberalism to be lost?
The days of "tax and spend liberals" as a label are at least four years gone...how in any real discussion of the current economy can that moniker hold true? The administration has shifted the tax base and spent us into oblivion. Likewise, while the majority party wants to spew venom on those that show the slightest bit of compassion for those in need in our country want the privilege of claiming to be the party of "smaller government". Am I nuts or has the current administration been responsible for the biggest growth of government bureaucracy since the 30's? Weren't 90 percent of the jobs the president claimed to have created over the last two years actually tied to government growth?
The president, his shills (paid, congressional and corporate) and journalists all use our words to cloud reality through emotional cage rattling. If this were not frightening enough, the corruption of our words and their meanings is sneaking into our legislation producing law that is impossible to interpret in any tangible reality.
Terror, terrorism and terrorists have as words been terribly abused by our president. He uses them to strike fear in our hearts, as a matter of sleight of hand when the moment suits him. But, if you can look beyond the "wag the dog", there are much more serious consquences. No matter how you feel about the media and journalists, they depend on words having finite meaning. We need our words to form concrete statements that convey specific meaning without having to do a rigorous interpretive dance to understand them.
Brian Montopoli has written a well constructed piece at CJR Daily which addresses the finite clarity of words and how the administration's emotional wrestling creates conflict not just for average joe citizen, interpretation of law, but the journalists who have to fight to avoid using normal words that have transcended into buzz words.
Here is a taste:
Of course, sweeping, logically suspect statements serve a purpose for politicians, for whom it may well be more important to inspire than to elucidate. Journalists have a contradictory mandate -- their goal should be to use clear, forthright language to evenhandedly convey important information. Thus while "freedom is on the march" may be a great phase for a president, it's an inexcusable one for a reporter. (Not to mention the fact that one citizen's freedom is another's horror -- as partisans on both sides of the abortion, gay marriage and gun ownership debates can attest.)
Which brings us to the word "terrorist" and its variants, most notably "terrorism." The president likes to invoke "terrorists" dramatically, in reference to people who "hate freedom," people who are members of "shadowy groups." He uses the word as a vessel for emotional response. Journalists, by contrast, need the word to have a logical foundation, so that when a news consumer reads or hears it, he or she can make some sense of it.
But reporters ultimately have a responsibility to overcome these obstacles, not brainlessly follow the lead of politicians or partisans whose goals are to convert, not to inform. So while we won't go so far as to call for a complete moratorium on the words "terrorist" and "terrorism" by reporters, there clearly needs to be much more vigilance on the part of the press in monitoring how they're used. As Bob Kerrey, Richard Clarke, and Maureen Dowd have all pointed out, the notion of a "war on terror" is absurd, since terror is a tactic, not a nation or a movement. Yet the press continues to use the phrase unquestioningly.
As long as reporters and editors can't resist the urge to adopt terms that are used by politicians to obfuscate instead of to clarify, they can hardly expect to win back the trust of an increasingly skeptical audience.
There is plenty more at CJR Daily
While the discussion of framing and semantics is hardly a new thing at dkos, this is an article worth a read and taking back our language is a mantra worth adoption.