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January 25, 2005
NewSpeak

This is getting really disturbing.

Listen to this exchange between Josh Marshall and Frank Luntz. -- mp3 (90 seconds).

Basically, Marshall asks Luntz if, now that the president and his followers have stopped using the terms 'privatization' and 'private accounts' in favor of 'personal accounts,' journalists should be now expected to adopt this phrasing. (As they are already doing in droves - NY Times, NBC's "First Read")

Luntz's response? Yes. If journalists use the now retired words, they are signaling their bias and taking sides in the debate.

The fact that this is ludicrous seems pretty obvious to me, but that's not stopping Republicans from pushing this stance all over the place. It makes no difference that the president himself used these words many, many times to describe his plan. They've decided they prefer to describe it in a different way, and all who do not comply are enemies of the administration.

The glaring error in this logic is of course that if using the old terminology signals a bias against the administration, why doesn't using the new terminology signal a bias for them? How exactly is one to know one's bias if the party line keeps changing? This is the kind of slippery slope argument one runs into when dealing with fascism. We're all a little new to it, Mr. Bush, so please bear with us while we adjust.

Comments

Previous Comments

I don't know if I can agree with you on this. I mean, we need to draw some boundaries here, between what we WANT to do and what we OUGHT to do. Of course, we WANT to call the president's Social Security plan, "privatization." But what we want is not the only consideration. If we're going to have a healthy exchange of ideas in this country, we have to use a common vernacular and agree to a certain set of terms. I think this is a case where we should let the Republicans choose the terms. If they want to start calling the president's plan, "personal accounts," instead of "privatization," that should be fine, and we should all go along with them. And in return, they can start calling the president, "Dookyhead." It's only fair.

Yeah, perhaps we should anoint some impartial body to determine what noncommittal and nonpartisan phrases we should use to discuss certain issues. Maybe the U.N. could handle this for us.

Fuck that. It's about time to rightly assign negativity to the "privatization" and "deregulation" practices of our government over the last 25 years.

Come on - how much longer can Americans sit idly by on the couch as more and more of our tax dollars get redirected into the hands of increasingly unaccountable corporations through such "privatization" and "deregulation" boondoggles as:

Amtrak?

Savings & Loan deregulation?

Telecommunications deregulation/radio spectrum privatization?

Media ownership deregulation?

Electric powergrid privatization?

Military outsourcing?

All of the above swindles were variously peddled to the public using the language of "choice" and "competition" - get the gummint outta the way and "let the market decide" 'cause gummint is the problem, "Privatization" is the solution.

And now were all paying artifically-inflated costs for the shitty lowest-plausible-denominator services that "the market" provides; meanwhile fuckheads like Bush's brother Neil get to build their own personal fortunes by sucking dry an S&L and leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab.

Just do an Internet search for "privatization" and you'll find a vast array of websites that represent the media outlets of the "privatization" industry - showing how carefully "privatization" has been steadily sold as an unquestionable good since the days of President sleepy.

Now that the republicans are shying away from discussing their intention to giveaway social security to the "private" money managers as an example of "privatization" in action, they should be exposed as the frauds that they are.

Don't be fooled by yet another stale "choice" argument.

They don't care about social security because they're rich enough that it doens't matter to them. They see it only as yet another untapped source of gummint cash that can be exploited to further engorge their corporate patrons - if only they can make the sale to the American people.