The need to use the most accurate terms and not benign euphemisms is vital in most discourse where the unvarnished truth is crucial to communicating the facts.
When it comes to politics today the so belated to be useless “exposing” of so-called fake news is a case in point.
Even now, my contention is that the lamentations from Democrats and some of the MSM over the impact of fake news that was left to stand unchallenged before the election isn’t having as much effect as it should in part because of semantics.
Before Trump, fake news was what we associated with the creativity in The Onion and the wacky-toon covers of The National Enquirer. Rational people enjoy The Onion and essays by writers like Andy Borowitz. Only paranoid personalities and those who will never learn critical thinking skills believed the headlines in the later.
The most dangerous communication has always been in the form of PROPAGANDA. That word, and also when appropriate less frequently used terms like dis-information, sham news, and counterfeit news should be used because this put the onus on the believer to engage in critical thinking.
“Fake” is too easily dismissed. I’m not saying writers and commentators should eschew it’s use entirely. I am saying that propaganda is a stronger term. It is almost always considered a negative word.
Using words like propaganda “should” shame both the media and voters for blindly believing lies accidentally and insanely uttered by Trump, or deliberately and carefully crafted by his surrogates, to persuade them to follow a despotic leader.
And then while on the subject of semantics and politics, let’s briefly consider how long it took for the mainstream media to begin to use the word lie and liar.
Even now there is a kind of unspoken rule about calling Trump a liar when interviewing him or his surrogates. This especially frustrating for me when I watch Rachel Maddow interview Kellyanne Conway.
I could rant on about this but that would just be venting. Like all of the Kossacks who haven’t given up on her she continues to frustrate me the ways she avoids holding Kellyanne’s feet to the fire.
I hope she’s confronted her in private saying “how in the hell can you in good conscience be a propagandist for this monster?”
Lawrence O’Donnell is much better in calling a lie a lie; but I don’t think Trump surrogates dare go on his show. (Let me know if you’ve seen any.)
Wednesday, Dec 28, 2016 · 11:27:05 PM +00:00
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HalBrown
The term propaganda comes from the Latin phrase denoting a 17-century committee of cardinals charged with spreading — propagating — the faith. The word has an overtone of menace: This is what to believe; accept it, or else. It also implies the existence of an overarching philosophy, a consistent way of accounting for (or willfully distorting) facts. The authoritarian rulers to whom Trump-haters reflexively compare him to, primarily Mussolini and Hitler, caged their people within a rigid version of the world. Those who expressed unsanctioned opinions chose to dash themselves against those ideological bars, usually with lethal consequences.