Trump’s Seven Forbidden Words

In a homage to George Orwell’s Newspeak, the Trump administration has compiled a list of words that are banned from use in budget requests, reports Lawrence Davidson.

By Lawrence Davidson

There is a scene in George Orwell’s famous dystopian novel 1984, where the protagonist, Winston Smith, is having a conversation with a philologist by the name of Syme. Syme is involved in a government effort to restructure the language spoken by the novel’s upper classes, those who have power or work for the ruling party. The language is called “Newspeak.” Syme’s job is to get rid of dangerous words. Here is how he describes his task: “We’re destroying words – scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. … The whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought. In the end we shall make thoughtcrime [having unorthodox thoughts] literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”

Headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC. (Wikipedia Sarah Stierch (CC BY 4.0))

Now let’s shift to another scene, not a literary or fictional scene, but a probable real life one.

Sometime in the month of December 2017, somewhere in the bowels of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in Washington, D.C., a high-level appointee of the Trump administration moved to take ideological control of the agency’s budget-writing process. This official presented a directive to the agency’s departments, such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), listing seven words that were not to be used in budget preparation. If they were, they would be flagged and the document sent back for “correction.”  The seven “forbidden” words are: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

The higher-ups at the HHS have insisted that there is no “ban” in place. Departments like the CDC can still do research in areas to which these unwelcome key words relate. But this disclaimer is misleading. To do the research you need money, and the money comes from the budget. The “discouragement” of key words is meant to marginalize their related research agendas. If fully effective, this attempt at censorship – for that is what it is – could contribute to undermining several generations of cultural progress, and challenge the “science-based” methodology that serves as a foundation for the modern world.

We already know that President Trump has no time for facts that differ from his personal worldview. That is why the U.S. is not part of the “science-based” treaty to slow down global warming. We also already know that he does not think minorities (both racial/ethnic and sexual) deserve protection under the law. These and other prejudices, worn so publicly by the president of the United States, have let loose a revolt of religious and social reactionaries, perhaps numerically represented by the 33% of Americans who approve of Trump’s performance. These folks would take the country back to a time of discrimination, segregation, and scientific know-nothingness. And for Trump these folks are the only ones who really count. He has recently declared that unfavorable polls are “fake news.” This is Trump “making America great again.”

It appears that one way Trump and his allies think this can be done is by censoring the language used by the people in power and those who work for them. As the computer engineer and writer Jem Berkes points out in reference to 1984, “the ultimate aim of Newspeak is to enclose people in an orthodox pseudo-reality and isolate them from the real world.” Sounds a lot like what is happening at HHS.

Can Censorship Work?

Can this work? It probably already has among the roughly one-third of adult Americans who are sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s ultimate aims. These include many Christian fundamentalists and various racist conservative sects, the Alt-Right and Fox TV talking heads. Among those who are of the opposite point of view, both cultural and political progressives, there is no chance that this proposed “orthodoxy” will go unchallenged. Many of this latter group are old enough to remember what the president’s “great America” once looked like – for instance, what life was like before the civil rights acts. And many of those who can see through Trump’s double-talk, of whatever age, have an instinctive preference for equality, fairness and clear thinking.

However, between these two opposing groups lies the insulated masses – the millions who pay little attention to politics and know little of the importance of science. These folks, focused on their day-to-day concerns, are essentially isolated in their localness. They have no sense of what is presently at stake, and therefore find it difficult to think critically about the Trump agenda. For this group, skewing language may well result in skewing their worldview. It is probably from the thinking of this segment of the population that Trump and his agents want to ultimately eliminate the values represented by the “seven forbidden words” and all that they mean for social policy.

Thus, the end game is to have no more thinking of society and its problems in terms of a citizen diversity, minority vulnerability, or entitlement based on proven need. For instance, citizens are not to think that sexual minorities are in need of legal protections. Indeed, the country’s LGBT population turns out to have less right to protection than an unborn fetus. In addition, citizens are to no longer pay heed to evidence-based and science-based arguments when they may call into question the practices of alleged societal customs.

Author George Orwell.

Donald Trump’s Use of Language

You might find the scenario laid out above farfetched. Yet it correlates well with the way Donald Trump uses language, as well as his devaluing of any objective standard for truth. Thus, President Trump’s persistent combination of gross exaggeration and “alternative facts” gives many of his public statements an Orwellian odor.

In his ghost-written book The Art of the Deal, Trump is quoted as stating that “if you tell people a lie three times, they will believe anything.” No doubt he has told himself this more than three times, for he now seems to live his public life by this tenet. There are fantastic and untrue self-aggrandizing claims such as, because of the changes Trump is initiating, “our children will grow up in a nation of miracles,” and “we have done more in five months than practically any president in history.”

There are also fantastic and untrue negative claims such as some 3 million votes were cast illegally in the presidential election – all of them apparently for Hillary Clinton- and “[President] Obama founded ISIS, literally.” According to the Washington Post’s Fact Check project, “President Trump has made 1,318 false or misleading claims over [his first] 263 days [in office]. Many of these claims are repeated over and over again – significantly more than three times.

Turning Back the Clock

Forbidding specific terminology from the budget language of HHS departments constitutes one avenue of attack against those who refuse to believe Trump’s innumerable lies. You might not believe his fantasies, but you are not to use “evidence-based” counter-arguments if you operate within the executive branch bureaucracies he ultimately controls.

Of course, the implicit censorship inherent in ideology has always played a role in U.S. politics. And the ultra-conservative ideology behind the “seven forbidden words” gambit has been around for a long time. It dominated economic policy until the New Deal and social policy until the Civil Rights Movement. By modern standards it brought disaster in both realms. So why would anyone want it back? Maybe because the aims of greater economic and racial/ethnic equality make some white citizens feel disempowered and uncomfortable. One way to address that discomfort is to turn the clock back. To do this, you just restructure reality by labeling those parts that you don’t like as “fake.” Trump does this almost daily.

The strategy of eliminating the official use of words like “diversity,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “transgender,” “evidence-based,” “science-based,” and “fetus” is part of this effort to turn the clock back. Maybe then, so the story goes, with no words to express these concepts, the uncritical minds of our time will be – as Syme the philologist predicts – unable to think unorthodox thoughts.

Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America’s National Interest; America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; and Islamic Fundamentalism. He blogs at www.tothepointanalyses.com.

91 comments for “Trump’s Seven Forbidden Words

  1. Rohit
    January 10, 2018 at 09:20

    I am afraid in THIS situation, the Trump administration is right and you are being divisive. Terms which are controversial should be kept out of government documents. In particular, a fetus after three months is referred to by many people as a baby.

  2. Zachary Smith
    January 10, 2018 at 02:30

    There aren’t as many essays around these days, so I’m putting this here:

    Whilst Israel gaoled a 16 year old Palestinian girl for slapping the soldier who nearly killed her cousin a Settler walked free for the same ‘crime’

    Both Ahed Tamimi and Yifat Alkobi were questioned for slapping a soldier in the West Bank, but little else about their cases are similar — simply because one is Jewish, the other Palestinian

    Noa Osterreicher 05.01.2018

    This slap didn’t lead the nightly news. This slap, which landed on the cheek of a Nahal soldier in Hebron, did not lead to an indictment. The assailant, who slapped a soldier who was trying to stop her from throwing stones, was taken in for questioning but released on bail the same day and allowed to return home.

    Yifat Alkobi – a violent settler who slapped a soldier protecting children from rock throwing settlers – nothing happened to her

    Prior to this incident, she had been convicted five times — for throwing rocks, for assaulting a police officer and for disorderly conduct, but was not jailed even once.

    There is an old saying to the effect that

    “Military Justice” is to Justice as “Military Music” is to Music.

    Given this story and ten thousand similar examples, we can paraphrase that into something like

    “Israeli Justice” is to Justice as “Israeli Democracy” is to Democracy

    Both “justice” and “democracy” look very different from Palestinian viewpoints, no matter what the hand-wringing Zionist Trolls here are constantly saying.

    http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2018/01/send-postcard-to-ahed-tamimi-let-her.html

  3. Zachary Smith
    January 8, 2018 at 20:10

    Just check out what Seinfeld did in 2017: He raked in around $70 million, making him the highest paid comedian, according to Forbes.

    Jerry Seinfield makes a lot of money. Given his wealth, he doubtless has a large group of full-time armed guards to protect himself and his family. So why did the man take his family to an Israeli “anti-terrorist training camp”? I can’t think of any other reason than to play out his personal fantasies of murdering Palestinians.

    According to the newspaper, “Caliber 3 offers a basic package which includes a simulation of a suicide bombing in a Jerusalem marketplace, immediately followed by a stabbing attack, a live demonstration with attack dogs and a sniper tournament. The cost of this basic package is $115 per adult and $85 per child, with discounts available for large groups.”

    One wonders if they have pictures of Rachel Corrie and Ahed Tamimi on the targets for that sniper tournament. Do they have photographs of crippled Palestinians sitting in wheelchairs?

    Rachel Corrie was a terrorist, you know.

    03 March 2010
    RACHEL CORRIE THE TERRORIST

    h**ps://irish4palestine.blogspot.com/2010/03/rachel-corrie-terrorist.html

    And so will Ahed Tamimi when the prosecution gets done with her.

    Israeli prosecutors try to make Ahed Tamimi a terrorist

    h**p://mondoweiss.net/2018/01/israeli-prosecutors-terrorist/

    This Seinfield fellow is wealthy. He is like Trump in not giving a hoot what people think of him.

    Come to think of it, there MIGHT be another reason to go with his family to that mil-tourism camp. To teach his kids the finer points of slaughtering Palestinians who have the gall to resist having all they own stolen from them.

    h**ps://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/08/disgust-follows-pictures-seinfeld-anti-terror-fantasy-camp-occupied-west-bank

  4. Zachary Smith
    January 7, 2018 at 18:21

    There is a surprising Non-Trump example of banning free speech. And for the life of me I don’t understand the motive. From January of 2017:

    Fordham University’s Ban On Palestinian Rights Group Sets Dangerous Precedent

    On Nov. 19, 2015, four students at Fordham applied with the university’s administration to register an SJP club at the school’s Lincoln Center campus.

    By all accounts, they did not expect the grueling ordeal that lay before them.

    Their plans finally ground to a halt on Dec. 22, 2016, when Keith Eldredge, dean of students at the Lincoln Center campus, informed several SJP activists in an email that he had overruled a vote by the school’s United Student Government to recognize the group a month earlier and denied it registration as a student organization.

    “According to sources within student government, he has never even reviewed a club for veto, let alone actually vetoed one, in his entire ten years here at Fordham,” Sapphira Lurie, a senior and lead campus organizer for Fordham Students for Justice in Palestine, told MintPress News. “This is a clear example of the Palestine exception to free speech.”

    Fordham is supposed to be a Catholic school. What on earth does Israel have on them?

    h**p://www.mintpressnews.com/fordham-universitys-ban-palestinian-rights-group-sets-dangerous-precedent/224421/

    Now 2018:

    Students Await Judgment in Suit Over Fordham University Banning of Pro-Palestine Club

    I guess we’re going to soon learn if Israel also owns the US Court System.

    https://theintercept.com/2018/01/07/palestine-israel-fordham-sjp-lawsuit-bds/

  5. Rohit
    January 7, 2018 at 17:15

    We all would agree that the word “bitch” should not be “banned”. Does that mean that Trump is allowed to use it to address a foreign leader who is female? Of course he is not allowed and he has been widely criticized for using language towards women (and others) which is not appropriate.

    Banning words from budget requests is not the same as banning them. Lawrence Davidson needs to understand the distinction.

  6. Zachary Smith
    January 6, 2018 at 00:59

    It’s Colder in Florida Than Alaska: Climate Disruption Hits Home With a Chill

    It’s a shame that the White House pinhead won’t see that headline. The coming chaos has started to arrive. It’ll get worse. Lots worse.

    http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43124-it-s-colder-in-florida-than-alaska-climate-disruption-hits-home-with-a-chill

  7. Delia Ruhe
    January 5, 2018 at 18:41

    The limits of your language are the limits of your world.

    • Rohit
      January 7, 2018 at 17:15

      So Delia would you say that the N word should be allowed?

  8. Zachary Smith
    January 5, 2018 at 14:07

    h**ps://www.desmogblog.com/john-christy

    https://archive.is/4LD36#selection-2929.0-2945.290

  9. Annie
    January 3, 2018 at 16:42

    You submit the work of John Christy, and his article appears in Investor’s Business Daily. Not surprising. I know that he is a highly regarded climatologist from Alabama, but one man’s work in this field does not discount the work of the vast majority of climatologists who would disagree, based on their findings. I’ll go along with the 98% who would disagree with him.

    • Zachary Smith
      January 5, 2018 at 14:07

      Annie, John Chrisy is, despite doing some decent early work on the climate, a denier of reality. How else can this quote be explained?

      I am one of those climatologists who builds datasets so we can measure what the climate system is doing and why. In my reading of the results, I don’t see disasters ahead – the world’s atmosphere has warmed little since satellites began estimating global temperatures and extreme events like droughts and hurricanes aren’t increasing.

      To be sure, others see it differently. However, I tend to focus on the fundamental metrics that, according to theory, should be measurable if the extra carbon dioxide we are emitting into the atmosphere is actually causing huge changes. The real world simply doesn’t align with the theory. Whether you are a Baptist (like me), a Buddhist or a Baha’i, the numbers come out the same … and “science” is all about the numbers.

      The moral question is differently addressed. In science we measure things, but we cannot take a human life to the laboratory and measure its real value. Here is where the Pope, my Catholic friends, and I stand together by understanding that our faith is the source of our belief (yes, belief) that human life is of infinite value.

      Therefore, we are not morally bad people for taking carbon and turning it into the energy that offers life to humanity in a world that would otherwise be brutal (think of life before modernity). On the contrary, we are good people for doing so. As the Indian Environmental Minister P. Javadekar stated in 2014, “The moral principle … cannot be washed away. India’s first task is eradication of poverty … our first priority”, so that “… our CO2 emissions will rise.”

      When I look at the scientific results I and others generate, and then hold fast to what my faith earnestly speaks, I view sensible carbon-use as today’s liberator of precious humanity from the dangerous vagaries of nature. Carbon becomes, therefore, a positive moral imperative to consider.

      Normally I wouldn’t pay any attention to the fact he calls himself a Baptist, but combined with the nonsense above, I suspect the man is a Fundamentalist End Timer who positively welcomes the end of the world. The man isn’t old enough to be senile, and is too well educated to be an ignoramus.

      I’ve quite a lot of well educated relatives who have chucked everything they learned at the University to embrace Genesis and Exodus and the rest of it. Yes, some of them visit the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky and marvel at the dinosaur with a saddle and other wonders. They’ve simply discarded their education and have embraced what their bible-thumping preacher says.

  10. Vesuvius
    January 3, 2018 at 13:55

    I was waiting for this; wondering how long it would take for some little help in the WH to direct the Boss’s attention to George Orwell’s brilliant “1984” — of course he never read it himself.

    Controling the present you can control the past.
    Controling the language you can control the minds.
    (Not exact quotations, but the essential meaning.)

  11. Lucy
    January 3, 2018 at 11:22

    Dear Mr. Davidson:

    First – let me say this – the climate change argument is missing important ingredients that have made it impossible for people that are not scientists to separate fact from fiction because they do not understand feedback loops in the climate system – example – recent work by John Christy – Another Global Warming Study Casts Doubt On Media’s Climate Change Fairy Tale – https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/another-global-warming-study-casts-doubt-on-medias-climate-change-fairy-tale/. The notion that greenhouse gases are causing warming does not jive with current facts known in geology and planetary science. You would have to be up on the current state of the science to understand that – basically the Sun is the heat engine and albedo and geological processes play a major role that current climate models do not capture. This is fact and is the reason many of us in the science community know that the argument on climate change has some major holes. In fact, there are so many holes and so much money being sucked away from poor people due to energy price gouging and carbon taxes that some of us view this entire global warming agenda as a way to steal money from the poor while lining the pockets of the rich – same as it ever was.

    Second – the US has a problem and it is this – The US spends more time worrying about minority groups than it does on solving problems that need to be addressed – example – there are millions of people in this country with mental illness and there are millions of people that are homeless and hungry – and homelessness is growing in major cities across this country – and so is unaffordable housing. Instead of focusing on the “blacks” and “latinos” and “gays” and “transgenders”, we need programs that focus on the actual problems of people of all colors and creeds – not by gender and race splitting. Perhaps the nature of the problem here is a problem created by past administrations – where focusing on “subcultures” and the rights of certain groups is actually causing more problems than it solves. The US government is known to ONLY enforce laws if they apply to minority groups – examples – EEOC, Department of Justice, US courts – while millions are still starving and hungry – not because they are “gay” or “black” or “latino” but because this government is BROKEN! So in the land of the free where all people are equal, programs must be implemented that help EVERYONE – and that includes the constantly shamed white male – many that have committed suicide since the last financial crisis because the US government was too busy catering to minority groups to give a damn about them.

    Third – Fast and Furious is the proof that Obama and Hillary and the Deep State did fund ISIS. Google Tosh Plumlee and Matthew Smith-Meck and you can learn for yourself. The Deep State is evil and they have destabilized countries all around the world and destroyed lives and have now created a slave trade in Libya where people are sold daily as slaves – Where you can buy a slave for $400 – http://www.cnn.com/specials/africa/libya-slave-auctions – The US GOVERNMENT is responsible for this human trafficking and the actions of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and the Deep State in destabilizing Libya and destroying that country are to blame! – and Libya is just one example. Syria is a another – but it was brought about to help the Saudi’s with an oil pipeline and shut out the Russians. Do yourself a favor and Google the map of the pipelines in the Middle East and those planned by Russia and you can start to put the pieces together of what is actually going on in these “war plans” and the humanitarian crisis of immigration brought about by these evil jerks in our government.

    The next time you write an article, I think it would be good for you to read something outside your comfort zone so you can come to understand the this country, like every country on this planet, is an abject failure and this failure did not start with Trump – Trump inherited the failure. These failures are global and stem from the global banking system. The central banks and BIS are the root of the problem. Thus far, Trump is the only person I see working to resolve any of these problems in government. Previous administrations (the Bush’s, Clinton, and Obama) have been abject failures. Trump on the other hand, seems to understand the type of evil he is dealing with – inside and outside this country.

    For your education, in preparation for your next article, I suggest doing some digging on the following web-sites: Zero Hedge, Infowars, Wall Street for Main Street, and X22 Spotlight and Report for starters. You really need to open your eyes to the death agenda that is all around you – brought to you by the globalists whose main goal is to divide people by race, etc. so they can create a slave society. That is their plan, but it is not going to work because it is evil – and for this good of this planet this evil must be defeated.

    Best regards, Lucy

    • Annie
      January 3, 2018 at 17:13

      I don’t think there is any one on this site who would disagree that prior administrations have failed miserably in addressing issues that impact the lives of the American people.. There is plenty of blame to go round. The democratic party, once a party of the working class, is now a party that represents the top 10%, and I think it’s why they lost this election, and by putting up someone like Clinton who like most democrats sideline their progressive base. However I would disagree that the Republicans and Trump are not going to be the saviors of this country, or it’s people.

    • Tannenhouser
      January 3, 2018 at 17:47

      Lucy. Trump ain’t doing shit previous administrations didn’t. It’s the exact same shit only ruder. Most of the rest I am 100% onboard with.

    • mike k
      January 3, 2018 at 18:24

      Lucy – I’ll keep it short; you are full of climate denier BS.

      • Lisa
        January 3, 2018 at 18:46

        Sorry, Mike, Lucy has presented a very worthy comment. Please don’t use this unclear wording “climate denier”. Nobody claims that climate does not change, the question is, first, are we in a cooling or warming period, and second, does the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere play any role. The disagreements are about these questions, or rather, answers to them.

        There is a serious scientific argument that we are approaching a cooling period, due to the sun’s weaker activity.

        But we are wandering away from the original topic.

        • mike k
          January 3, 2018 at 22:35

          Lisa, that argument about a “cooling period” has been standard fare for human caused dangerous climate change deniers. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists have rejected it as invalid. You are free to believe or doubt what you will, but the community of climate scientists disagrees with the global cooling hypothesis as a solution to our very real near term climate disaster.

          Also “Lucy’s” argument that global warming is a scheme to profit the rich is the exact opposite of what is happening, with the Koch Bros. and other billionaires spending tons of money to prop up the phony climate problem deniers.

        • Annie
          January 3, 2018 at 23:27

          Lisa, most agree that they should have never called it climate change which is used interchangeably with global warming. There is an area of scientific study called paleoclimatology that investigates the changes in climate throughout the earth’s history, and indeed climates change. However, global warming has occurred at a rapid rate in the past 6 or 7 decades and it’s due primarily to the increased amounts of carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere as a result of the use of fossil fuels. Methane is also a culprit, but CO2 is the primary one. So if you refer to what is going on as global warming it will be less confusing.

  12. fudmier
    January 3, 2018 at 10:59

    https://southfront.org/yemeni-foces-captured-saudi-autonomous-underwater-vehicle-video/

    i think this new focus in modern journalism shows some real promise.. here the authors have not said it was NORWAY that provided these high technology submersible units to Saudi Arabia to kill more Yemeni with, instead the journalist named the Norway company by name and the USA company by name. Who are these companies and why were their weapons being used against the Yemeni

    Herman and Mr. Davidson are on to something. Words matter and so do details. No longer should the nation state be the front for privately initiated intrusions.

    Clearly since 1913 no matter which nominated clown American voters believed, voted for, and elected to one of 527 seats that directs how the USA is run. nothing ever changed. For years I and many everywhere have marveled at the fact that no one would admit to having voted for the activities which the elected actually did or became a supporting part of.. In other words no matter the pre-election candidate promise, those elected rarely responded in any measurable way to keep their campaign promises.

    Seems we might have a break through in understanding. and that break through is beginning to be implemented across the globe.. Instead of talking about the private initiatives which result in the atrocities of war, regime change, invasion, genocide, infra structure demolition by external armed forces and so on, as if the instigator were the leaders of a particular nation state (country) or armed rebellious group, the reporters and journalist are now starting to identify the big bad corporations and other private instigators that spawn the effort that result in such wars. Trump may not be planning the next war, but maybe a corporation has planned one for him, and ..The 527 clowns have little choice but to adopt the plan and allow themselves to be the propaganda front people for it.. Of course why the clowns have little choice remains undetermined at this moment. This new focus to find and report on the instigators instead of the national fronts may actually educate the voters. We shall see.

    Its good to Mr. Perry doing once again informing us. ..

  13. January 3, 2018 at 10:26

    Mr. Davidson’s point is well taken that language is important to imposing the will of individuals or groups on others. For instance, treating some class of citizens equally means you are discriminating against them, suggesting that Palestinians are treated badly is bigotry, cutting the military budget is an attack on our freedom, defending Putin is treason and on and on. Trump may take a different tack but he is little different in trying to circumscribe thought and language than those leaders and their supporters before him before him.

    Too, I think Mr. Davidson needs to be evidence based on the memo supposedly produced at the new HEW. That’s the old name for DHS. The memo does have the appearance of a straw man.. It is an odd mixture of terms and if true would be Orwellian, little different in intent, however, than might be produced by other more progressive folks

  14. z
    January 3, 2018 at 09:34

    Maybe more men use this site at the moment. Its’ an observation for sure. Was it a necessary observation given the topic? Let’s encourage more women to come here. Could it ever be the situation that less woman come here because less women are interested?
    I just tried to have a conversation with my girlfriend about some of the topics in this thread. She doesn’t seem to like it when I talk about some of these subjects. She seems to get angry if you talk about a topic that she doesn’t already have a bearing on. I like to tell her about the things I’ve been reading. I find it helps me to consolidate the information when I can describe it back to someone, and that someone usually being her. I suppose it is hard to take in information if you haven’t already read about it yourself. She is an intelligent woman but maybe not as intelligent as you Annie. Maybe she has a different intelligence. There are other traits that she has which, for me, make up for the disinterest she has with talking about some of these topics.
    Why do the partners of the other men on these comments not comment on this site? Maybe they do. Maybe they’re mostly gay. I don’t think my girlfriend will be reading and commenting on this site anytime soon unfortunately. I wish she would

  15. Noam Chomsky
    January 3, 2018 at 04:49

    It seems this is another story based on the WaPo story, which was based purely on anonymous sources corroborated by other anonymous sources. Have I missed something? If not I am disappointed to see such a flimsy story published here.

    • Lisa
      January 3, 2018 at 11:23

      Noam, I agree with you. I clicked the link provided in the article (the seven forbidden words) and was disappointed, being directed to a WaPo article. The commentators on that website seemed to be abt 50% (I read only the first 20) criticizing the contents heavily.
      I was wondering why a usually reasonable writer like L. Davidson would take up this story. Be so sure that it is flying around the world just in this WAPo version.

    • mike k
      January 3, 2018 at 12:17

      Are you the Noam Chomsky MIT prof that most of us are familiar with? Or is this just a name you decided to use on this site? To give yourself some gravitas you would not otherwise command?

  16. Science Rules!
    January 2, 2018 at 19:29

    Yeah, I lament the loss of Science Based government policy.

    Science Based: Eugenics
    Science Based: Homosexuality is Mental Illness
    Science Based: Sugar is great, fats are Bad.

    We had these things completely contained and nailed down,
    by SCIENTISTS. But now they are all changed. Sadly.

    We need to get back to the point where SCIENCE BASED,
    means the DISCUSSION IS OVER!

    • Steve
      January 3, 2018 at 12:34

      Science Based: Eugenics

      The Eugenics lobby is alive and well. They just changed their name to the Pro-Choice lobby. Margaret Sanger was a leading light in the Eugenics movement and founded what eventually became Planned Parenthood. It’s no coincidence that they abort black babies at five times the rate of white babies, and brown babies at four times the rate of whites.

    • Annie
      January 3, 2018 at 14:44

      Well, lets put it this way Science Rules, you wouldn’t have been able to post if it were not for science.

  17. Annie
    January 2, 2018 at 17:27

    Just wondering, but why is this such a male dominated site? Yes, there are some women who post, but it is mostly men.

    • Zachary Smith
      January 2, 2018 at 23:07

      There is the possibility that some women here use “male” names. For a long time I assumed (as I was supposed to) that the site owner of the Hullabaloo site was male, for there was a permanent graphic showing an angry man plus the name of “digby” was signed to all the posts. Eventually that person “outed” herself as Heather Digby Parton.

    • Jake G
      January 3, 2018 at 00:31

      Huh? Thats always the case. Now, if this were a website about how to care for your child or how to cook, you would see mostly women. Thats the reality. Just because some people dont like it, doesnt mean we should make a taboo out of it.

      • Annie
        January 3, 2018 at 00:37

        Jake, I guess you don’t know it, but that, was quite a chauvinistic remark.

        • john wilson
          January 3, 2018 at 07:20

          No Annie, just a sensible observation by Jake. I’m quite sure Robert Parry and his moderators don’t filter out women and anyway, as mentioned above, you can call yourself whatever you like. I believe there is a site called something like “mothers union or similar and I know that many men comment on it under a female name simply to make rude comments. Naturally, they are moderated out. Its the comments that count not who wrote them or what gender, race or other title one can attach to them

          • Annie
            January 3, 2018 at 07:44

            When I said this seemed to me a male dominated site, his reply is, “That’s always the case. Now, if this were a website about how to care for your child or how to cook, you would see mostly women. That’s the reality.” Women would be found at websites if it came to cooking and child rearing, and that’s always the case. That John is chauvinistic and as he said the reality. Sorry.

          • Annie
            January 3, 2018 at 14:38

            No one said Mr. Parry filtered our femalesJohn. Just an observation that most of the posters are men, that’s all. I would tend to disagree that women post using male names, especially those who repeatedly post here. It was an observation that’s all.

          • Gregory Herr
            January 3, 2018 at 22:12

            I took it as “just an observation” … one I’ve simply made for myself. I also tend to think that the ratio of female to male “sounding” names is most likely strongly correlated with the reality. But whatever the percentage of “female” posts may be, there are quite a number and the quality reflects well.

  18. willem
    January 2, 2018 at 13:48

    Average citizens are often in the position of having to take certain science on faith, because they cannot verify the validity of complex scientific findings unassisted. Thus it boils down to a matter of whether or not you can trust “experts” in government or “experts” whose interests lie in keeping you ignorant.

    Today’s “science” often ends up being tomorrow’s “junk science.” One great example of this is the government’s nutrition guidelines, which were knowingly designed to suppress the truth about sugar and to vilify fat and cholesterol, all in the service of vested interests and the desire of certain scientists (e.g. Ancel Keys) to burnish or maintain their reputations.

    People are also regularly exposed attempting to “salt” the data in ways that tend to support their narratives. Every such episode weakens the credibility of those who are straight up about their research and conclusions.

    A large part of the public has thus grown to distrust those “experts” after being regularly misled, and now can no longer take such pronouncements on faith alone.

    • mike k
      January 2, 2018 at 14:53

      Average citizens in the USA are woefully undereducated. Specifically they are propagandized and taught not to think for themselves. A little easy research is enough to inform one of current reliable scientific thinking on most subjects of interest. Being able to discern the truth is the goal of real education, which is unfortunately really lacking in America. Often the truth in scientific “disputes” is not that obscure for one interested in finding it. It is a goal of real science to uncover biases that distort the truth. The argument that important truths are just too complicated for ordinary folks is a ploy meant to throw people back on having “faith” in the most emotionally persuasive voices. Just trust us…….. NOT!

    • Annie
      January 2, 2018 at 16:24

      Willem, I teach the subject, and yes you’re right that with new additional findings some long held scientific beliefs are no more. However, when it comes to climate change there is a major consensus among scientists based on highly substantiated scientific evidence that climate change is a reality. I would say the only reason people are doubtful of it’s validity is because there is a propaganda machine out there who have a vested interest in denying its reality. I would also agree that people in general are woefully ignorant in this subject area, but that could be said of any number of areas, including their own history.

      “Today’s “science” often ends up being tomorrow’s “junk science.” I think that statement is overstating things quite a bit.

      • Lisa
        January 2, 2018 at 19:53

        When I see the expression “major consensus among scientists” I remember a story, told about A. Einstein at his arrival to US. I think it was a newspaper reporter who asked him whether he knows that there are scientists who do not agree with his theories. Einstein answered: “It is quite enough to have just one person, who can prove that I’m wrong”. Scientific truths are not decided by a referendum.

        There are now two separate concepts, which should be kept apart, “climate change” and “global warming”. Nobody denies the existence of climate change. Climate is constantly changing, there is no normal or standard climate which can be preserved. The serious physicists I’ve heard on this subject say the following: “There are certain observed cycles with cooling and warming periods. NOBODY knows what triggers the change, one thing is certain – it is not the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The climate is a very complex and chaotic system and it is practically impossible to determine what causes the change, at least with our present level of knowledge.”

        As for the rest of the article, I’m getting a feeling that there is now going on, even among the esteemed readers and commenters of this website, a certain Trump-bashing. Sure, he is behaving in an inappropriate and unusual way for a president, not fulfilling the campaign promises. I remember him saying during a campaign speech: “I’ll always tell you the truth!” Meaning the people, the voters. Obviously, he was very naive in saying this. No president can tell publicly what is going on behind the scenes, what is being planned in a longer perspective, or what has actually happened in the past. He was probably schooled in this respect soon after the inauguration. He is not as eloquent and well-spoken as some of his predecessors, who were also lying but in more sophisticated expressions.

        No, I might not have voted for him if I had been eligible (which I’m not, being a Scandinavian), but never for Clinton either. Now I’ve seen list of possible Dem. candidates for 2020 and am horrified. But that is another topic.

        The claim that certain words are banned, seems like a non-issue, as it seems to refer to the text of the budget proposal, nothing like Orwell’s Newspeak. John Wilson made a very good point in an earlier comment, about calling the police after overheard, not acceptable comments. Is it really this bad in the UK?

        • Tom
          January 2, 2018 at 20:18

          All the measures thought to combat climate change are positive things where there is climate change or not. Think of it this way: when someone seals up a garage and starts the car’s motor, that person is committing suicide. When billions of cars, factory cattle farming and coal/oil power plants fill Earth’s closed atmosphere, that is also a form of suicide.

          • Tannenhouser
            January 3, 2018 at 17:58

            That’s a bit alarmist… no? A sealed garage has no carbon sinks, the earth’s atmosphere does. I do agree that most solutions are on the shelf and do no harm.

        • mike k
          January 2, 2018 at 20:54

          Lisa, I don’t mean to be argumentative, but consensual validation by one’s peers and their studies is a very important part of scientific method. And this is true of climate change due to human interventions, which has been confirmed by thousands of climate scientists and their supporting studies. That the overwhelming support or criticism of one scientist’s work has proved to be invalid in determining their theory’s value does happen, and is an acknowledged part of scientific method – it admits that consensus is not a perfect test of truth. But this consensual method is the best we have, and is another example of what quantum physics seems to demonstrate – that our Universe has very deep uncertainties at it’s very core, and that all our knowledge of the universe is only statistically true, not absolute.

          • Tannenhouser
            January 3, 2018 at 18:05

            You just provided more reason to be standoffish towards what you refer to as consensus. All the models contain factors that we don’t actually know yet, consensus isn’t good enough mike k. A model based on factors all agree to as FACT would go a long way.

        • Annie
          January 2, 2018 at 21:14

          To answer your question on climate change or global warming, since either term can be used, due to the industrial revolution and the use of fossil fuels and increasing atmospheric methane which has significantly increased over a short period of time the earth is warming, however CO2 is the main culprit. There has been a significant rise observed in the last 70 years, and there is no reputable climate scientist who would disagree. There are already observable changes, like the polar ice caps and mountain melts and they are attributed to global warming due to the use of fossil fuels. Lise from the way you posed your question and your explanation I can tell you are not familiar with this area of study, and I’m not saying that to be mean.

          I agree there has been a lot of Trump bashing, and too often related to petty things. I also think a journalist should go after his policies, but not use words that are derogatory which too often is the case. I didn’t vote in the last election because I really disliked Clinton on many issues and her militarism is something that was intolerable. However I think America as a country is on a war footing, and that will continue to go on. Sometimes I wish I lived in Sweden.

          • Jake G
            January 3, 2018 at 00:52

            There is no reputable scientist who would disagree that CO2 concentration has risen. But there are plenty who dont think it is doing much.

          • Annie
            January 3, 2018 at 01:19

            Jake, when 98% of the scientific community have reached a consensus that climate change is occurring that leaves 2% who don’t, and that 2% doesn’t translate into plenty.

          • Andreas Mytze
            January 3, 2018 at 09:40

            Why Sweden?

        • john wilson
          January 3, 2018 at 07:08

          Have you just woken up, Lisa? They have been bashing Trump since he first appeared on the political stage.

          • Lisa
            January 3, 2018 at 18:35

            John, I was a bit unclear in my statement. I was actually referring to the CN website articles and comments. Earlier there were somewhat positive sentiments about Trump here on CN. Now, as Annie mentioned, there is a lot of bashing on petty issues, like some crazy wording in his tweets or major issues like his wife’s choice of clothing.

            I spoke with a couple of US friends, Republicans, and they could tell me about several of his policy related achievements which are totally omitted in the media.

  19. Steve
    January 2, 2018 at 11:42

    This article is tripe.

    It wasn’t Trump or his appointees who banned those terms in some Orwellian plot. It was career bureaucrats in the department who ‘banned’ those terms in budget proposals because they felt it might improve their chances to get approvals from a Trumpian Republican majority in Congress.

    http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/12/there_is_no_ban_on_words_at_the_cdc.html

    “Meanwhile, anonymous sources at the Department of Health and Human Services told the National Review’s Yuval Levin this week that any language changes did not originate with political appointees, but instead came from career CDC officials who were strategizing how best to frame their upcoming budget request to Congress. What we’re seeing, his interviews suggest, is not a top-down effort to stamp out certain public-health initiatives, like those that aim to help the LGTBQ community, but, in fact, the opposite: a bottom-up attempt by lifers in the agency to reframe (and thus preserve) the very work they suspect may be in the greatest danger.”

    http://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/366644-downsizing-vocabulary-by-the-cdc-illustrates-a-desire-to-manipulate

    CDC Director Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, apparently feeling the pressure, tweeted on Dec. 17, “I want to assure you there are no banned words at CDC. We will continue to talk about all our important public health programs.”

    Instead, Fitzgerald explains, “the language changes were merely suggestions to help make the agency’s budget more palatable to some Republicans and ease its passage” during the budget formulation process. HHS spokesperson Matt Lloyd agrees with Dr. Fitzgerald’s explanation.

    This type of word manipulation suggests that some government officials, intentionally or not, are beginning to bemuse the public. The CDC director has commented that these words haven’t really been banned, but that their use is discouraged. That, in conjunction with the HHS spokesperson agreement, minimally seems to acknowledge that these government agencies want to be careful about using specific words.

    • mike k
      January 2, 2018 at 14:43

      So you are persuaded by “anonymous sources” hearsay in the National Review? Doesn’t sound like much evidence to me. More like tripe.

    • January 3, 2018 at 10:41

      Steve, right on. High level career bureaucrats are good at the game. I was there for almost twenty years Outwitting political appointees was a sign of competence Discussions about language is not out of place in that environment. It makes sense and could might have been a stupidly circulated memo, but doubtful that the careerists were that stupid. They are survivors.

  20. mike k
    January 2, 2018 at 11:16

    The source of most of our critical problems is in our minds; and correspondingly, the solutions to those problems will involve changing our mind’s functioning and contents. Our survival depends on clear, reality based thinking. Unfortunately some among us seek to distort people’s thinking to take advantage of them. This is called advertising, propaganda, or lying. An example of this is the way patriotism has been conflated with aggressive militarism. At he same time pacifism is stigmatized as weakness. In this way people are tricked into doing evil things that have been rebranded as “good.” Those conforming to these corrupted values are said to be “heroes.” Awakening is becoming aware of how we have been conned to believe a lot of lies about ourselves, our culture, and our world. This is a crucial step in giving birth to a new mind, capable of envisioning and creating a new world.

  21. Rohit
    January 2, 2018 at 10:18

    This is nonsense. The words are not being banned from the public. They are merely being banned from budget requests.

    How about an item saying,

    “We request an allocation of $10 million for the ni…s”?

    Or

    “We request an allocation of $50 million to improve women’s boobs.”?

    Unless YOU are in favor of allowing ALL words, including those which would offend progressives and feminists, you are just being hypocritical.

    • mike k
      January 2, 2018 at 11:23

      What you are saying is nonsense. It shows zero understanding of the issue the article deals with. Your pretense that the article is nonsense is just your own nonsense. Your imagined examples are irrelevant and meaningless. The crucial human and societal problem the article discusses is far from “nonsense” – you just don’t get it, and hence to you it is nonsense.

      • Jake G
        January 3, 2018 at 00:18

        Oh please, you have showed many times how biased and one-sided you are. Sometimes I ask myself what you are even doing on this side.

      • Rohit
        January 4, 2018 at 13:06

        “You just don’t get it” is simply short for “you do not share my biased views.”

        The truth is that if we are going to respect freedom of speech then we have to oppose the attacks on freedom of speech coming from the left. You.mike k, do not want to OWN up to your responsibility. But that is your issue.

        When a speaker is not allowed to speak and his host is manhandled causing injury, which happened at one of our colleges, that is a serious attack on the first amendment. And THAT attack came from the left.

        https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/middlebury-free-speech-violence/518667/

        And incidentally, Charles Murray, the putative speaker had earlier suggested a guaranteed income for every American. But you could hardly find that out if you did not allow him to speak.

        “A Guaranteed Income for Every American
        Replacing the welfare state with an annual grant is the best way to cope with a radically changing U.S. jobs market—and to revitalize America’s civic culture” Charles Murray, June 3, 2016.

    • john wilson
      January 2, 2018 at 14:54

      I do so approve Rohit and if you lived in England you would know why. We have a law that states that ANYONE can call the police to anyone they over hear making ANY kind of comment about religion, gender, ethnicity women, men, fat people, small people etc. The person making the complaint doesn’t have to be ethnic, women, gay etc etc they just have to be offended by the over heard comment. Laws like this make Winston Smith’s plight seem not so bad after all !

      • Joe Tedesky
        January 3, 2018 at 01:41

        If our little boro had that law my racist neighbor would have already dropped a dime on my ass. That’s a horrible law John, I hope it gets repealed.

        Sunday nights C-Span has England’s Parliament televised, and as much as these English politicians entertain an American like me, in the end I come to the conclusion that your political class is not much that different than our American one, and that is that they are all but bull shitters. Excuse my language, but it needs said. I’ll be praying for you John. Joe

    • bobotheclown
      January 2, 2018 at 15:25

      The issue is really the banning of concepts, not the banning of words. In your example, replacing “boobs” with “breasts” would convey the exact same meaning, but changing “fetus” is more difficult since there is no other word for the early development human embryo. Banning “fetus” eliminates the concept of an incomplete, unformed, non person and logically allows the rights of citizenship to morph into the nebulous area of the womb. Eliminating the word “fetus” eliminates argument, and that is the point of such censorship. The point about who is “offended” by these words is irrelevant. The point is who is allowed to think about the subject at all.

      • Tannenhouser
        January 2, 2018 at 22:38

        Not sure using unborn young instead of fetus eliminates the EDHE concept from discussion.

      • Rohit
        January 4, 2018 at 13:10

        “Fetus” is not a word for an embryo. An embryo represents an early stage if pregnancy. A fetus represents a later stage at which it is common to use the word “baby”. If you have a woman friend who is six months pregnant and is planning to have the child, you do NOT say, “And how is the fetus?”

        And note that no one is being stopped from using the word fetus. You used it and I just did.

        It is only advised against in budget requests.

  22. john wilson
    January 2, 2018 at 06:06

    The notion that only one third of Americans (Trump supporters according to the Author) are mesmerized by “new speak”, political correctness and even a kind of outlawed thought process, seems far short of the mark to me. From a British perspective there is now a wholesale ban of certain words and opinions. As Parry points out in an earlier article, we now have a situation where only “approved opinion” is tolerated. I believe most Americans and people in other Western countries, already control what they say, feel and think if not deliberately, then unconsciously. I’ve read Orwell’s great novel several times and I truly think Winston Smith is alive and well in all deep state organisations. Winston Edward Snowden Smith is one of the lucky ones’ that got away, but the rest of his associates remain well and truly brainwashed.

    • Brad Owen
      January 2, 2018 at 10:19

      John, opinions are going unexpressed because of moderator censorship. It happens even here. This is actually the desperate last stand of the the Old Paradigm to hold on to Its power. The New Paradigm, helped along by powerful forces that have always intervened into human affairs, is relentlessly pushing on down and through the “birth canal” and will not be denied its time on the World Stage. Rest assured, the “good guys” will prevail, as the Forces of Darkness have had their inning.

      • mike k
        January 2, 2018 at 16:30

        Will the good guys prevail? I’m not so sure. If they don’t start doing some things a lot better than we have done in our long history so far, it’s going to be game over – and no replays, very soon.

        Our previous history and current performance really do no give any solid assurance for optimism. Of course one may choose to be optimistic, but that in itself is not as predictive as past performance. Never has been. The optimists were in full voice prior to WWII, and now with WWIII looming ever closer, they are at it again. As they say, denial is not just a river in Egypt……….

        • Brad Owen
          January 3, 2018 at 13:27

          My point is we are all so poorly informed. We think we know what is going on, without examining the censored pieces of the big picture, most people not even being AWARE that there are many censored pieces, safely discarded in the “disreputable” pile, where we must “dumpster-dive” for the Truth. All one is left with is a detective’s hunch, and faith in “The Good”, that it is the ultimate “Author” of what is unfolding before us.

    • mike k
      January 2, 2018 at 11:31

      Agreed John. The state of mesmerism and groupthink is far more pervasive than a third of Americans. And this is not a problem confined to America either. And isolated Winston Smiths will not save us either. Orwell’s novel ends as it does largely because Smith lacked a group for support of his awakening, and to carry out the undoing of the false culture nearly all his fellow citizens were victims of. Exactly what we need today.

    • Bob Van Noy
      January 2, 2018 at 12:30

      Thanks for the thoughts john wilson and mike k, I would like to add the thought that, within the bureaucracy, there is also the very real trap that is retirement. I live in a State Government town where the underlying conversation is always “how much longer until your retirement?”. The great divide in America that goes largely unmentioned, is the disparity amongst retirement “plans” and the lever that creates between the management class and the working class.

      Many thanks for CN and Robert Parry…

      • mike k
        January 2, 2018 at 15:05

        Good insight Bob. The basic mechanism of capitalism is “do as we say, or starve.” Crude but effective. They seek to make everyone a slave to a system erected to enrich the wealthy, and impoverish everyone else. Our chains are made of little green slips of paper with pictures of our leaders on them. These are the instruments and documents of our enslavement. To overthrow the entire system it is only necessary to enforce equal distribution of these instruments, with strict laws against their accumulation.

        • mike k
          January 2, 2018 at 15:15

          The law of a future better society will be that money represents an individual’s equal share in the total wealth of humankind, which is calculated and distributed regularly to everyone with the stipulation that it cannot be transferred to others, but only spent by the recipient. No loans, no debt. Society arranges together to meet the basic needs of everyone, regardless of any contribution they may make. Simply being born into that global society means that it will love and support you, from the cradle to the grave. It’s simply the fair and loving way to be. It results in a quite different world from the one we are presently suffering. No war, for instance……….

          • mike k
            January 2, 2018 at 15:16

            Or maybe you think our present nightmare is more “interesting”?

          • Bob Van Noy
            January 2, 2018 at 16:48

            Thank you mike k, I’ve thought long and hard about a just and sustainable life system that above all leaves no one without food shelter and the best health care. Money is a concept that might even be eliminated in environment of expansive thought where resource consumption and sustainability were openly and honestly addressed. What interests me at this time is that the internet provides that kind of environment…

    • Annie
      January 2, 2018 at 15:08

      I think a very good example of an Orwellian mind-set, put into play by democrats, were those who were vehemently anti-Trump and got caught up in all it’s propaganda, like Russia-gate, and they were the ones who put the biggest damper on my freedom of speech, and on a number of occasions in ways that were abusive. Not to mention that some were willing to use these accusations, even if false, as a way to unseat a president, further undermining democracy.

      • Annie
        January 2, 2018 at 15:41

        Well maybe not Orwellian. Just crazy.

    • SteveK9
      January 2, 2018 at 20:04

      Far short indeed as ‘political correctness’ comes from Trump’s Progressive foes. And opposition to ‘science-based’ is not restricted to Trumpian troglodytes, but is well-represented in the effete circles of ‘liberals’ (if that still has any meaning). Opposition to nuclear power is in no way ‘science-based’, but is a simply part of that groups ‘religion’.

      • Tannenhouser
        January 2, 2018 at 21:24

        Nuclear as its run now? Or an alternative, say salt core, or some of the newer safer russian models? Either or. One way has untenable waste the other less tenable wastes. Untenable is untenable in my mind.

    • Jake G
      January 3, 2018 at 00:02

      I agree 100%. PC is worse than ever before. Some words will actually get you to jail, even though those were fine just a few years ago. Germany just got a new “hate speech” law, which makes corporations judges and executioners and makes people shut up instead of risking bans and worse.
      This article is extremely one-sided.

  23. Annie
    January 2, 2018 at 05:20

    I remember reading a while back that Trump called the National Institutes of Health terrible, but don’t remember his explanation for such an absurd remark. The elimination of the word fetus would appeal to the Christian Right, his base, but also main stream Christians who consider it is a human being from the point of inception, and imbued with a soul. The negation of the word transgender equally appeals to that base. I think all is a diversion away from the main issue which is climate change, where the phrases “evidence-based” and “science-based.” are the most significant. That would certainly put a damper on scientific investigation into this field of study and the health affects it already imposes on people. I don’t see this is so much as Orwellian as it is a tactic to protect the oil and coal industries and give them greater latitude in exploiting fossil fuels while it absolves them of all guilt in causing health issues to Americans.

    • Annie
      January 2, 2018 at 05:33

      I should have added that the smoking Lobby also referred to the findings of the scientific community that cigarette smoking was linked to a number of diseases, as junk science. Amazing that America holds itself up as an exceptional nation when it is willing to kill, in many ways, so many of it’s own people.

      • mike k
        January 2, 2018 at 11:43

        And the same PR firm that successfully delayed action on the understanding of the health issues of smoking, was hired by the Koch Bros. and their allies to work on the global warming issue. In three years this PR firm flipped the percentage of Americans from 60% thinking global warming was a serious problem with 40% thinking it was not a problem – over to 60% feeling it was not a problem, and only 40% thinking it a serious problem. The power of propaganda – for a few million dollars – anything is possible in influencing popular opinion. Those who are unable to think for themselves are easily manipulated. For instance thousands of people can be influenced to risk their lives and go forth to murder others because of some trumped up nonsense about “our evil enemies.”

      • Joe Tedesky
        January 3, 2018 at 01:13

        You are right Annie, and it’s true to what they say, ‘that Words have Meaning’. All to often we find in maturity how but just 1 word inside of a legal document changed the whole outcome of a legal dispute… like try your local zoning ordinance office, and you’ll see what I’m referring to. Besides that, why not feel free to ask, ‘why the change, or denial better said’?

        It’s Orwellian Annie that’s for sure, and I’m not me. Joe

  24. Joe Tedesky
    January 2, 2018 at 01:58

    President Trump’s biggest asset to his political success, is that his enemies are that bad. That’s how barren the DC politicial landscape is that nothing of any good grows from that place. Talk about scorched earth would not be enough of a revolutionary strategy, if you set out to eradicate all that bad and choking weed that wastes away our Nation’s potentially quality soil. These swamp critters only need us for our credit, as along with that they sell their soul’s to the highest paying foreigners wishes over their own constituents civil liberties. Coming in the not to distant future the banned words will be, Liberty, Freedom, Privacy, Private Bank Accts, etc., etc.

    • Ol' Hippy
      January 2, 2018 at 12:18

      Lest we not forget the swamp dwellers need average folks for the all important vote. There’s no other way they can justify the expense used to generate the drama to rile up citizens to go and cast the all important vote. After that they serve their client’s(businesses) interests and mostly forget about their constituents concerns. There are some good congress people but most are swamp dwellers.

      • Joe Tedesky
        January 2, 2018 at 12:37

        You make a strong and valid point Ole’ Hippy. It is a shame that any good congresspersons who should be dwelling amongst the swamp critters will receive absolutely no publicity from the bought and paid for MSM. I should have included our puppet media into this collection of slimy filthy politicians. Also I’m a believer that there is always more good over the bad, so let’s just hope the good rises to the top, and that the good overpowers the bad. Thanks for your view Ole’ Hippy, and you have a great 2018. Joe

    • bobotheclown
      January 2, 2018 at 15:14

      I share the frustration that underlies your comment, but I think your narrow focus on the “swamp critters” misses the point that they are simply once normal people who are doing what it takes to survive in Washington. And to survive as a politician requires them to sell their votes for lobbyist money or they will be replaced by someone that does. I think there are many principled congressmen who want to use their power to do good but they understand (as we don’t) that they have to sell their soul to do that. It is a tricky balance that they are required to walk, they must be half corrupt to have a chance to do good. We see that many give up and just become all corrupt because it is the easier road. But how did a system of bribery come to replace the once sacred profession of public service? The answer is the fascist element that found a home in conservative politics after WWII. Unlike normal political fads that come and go, fascism is an ideology committed to destroying peoples government and replacing it with the rule of wealthy oligarchs. Socialism, and the democratic ideas that it created, are the opposite of the fascistic ideal: a strongman who defends the rich and persecutes the poor, who respects the wishes of the corporate elite and ignores the needs of the working majority. The hapless congressmen who are swept into the corrupt system of todays power politics will have no friends if they choose to openly represent the people. They must act like thieves to get along if they are to have any chance of sneaking through honest legislation. They still think a government of the people is possible, from your tone I assume that you think it is not. In any case, the people will be heard one way or another, if not now then sometime in a revolutionary future, but the first step to making that change in government is to name the enemy and not simply blame the victims who are powerless to effect a warped system. The enemy is the fascist and anti-American economic vision of the traitors within the conservative wing of the Republican party. They need to be named, targeted, reviled, and primaried. They need to be investigated and their anti American sentiments revealed to the American people. Brave politicians need to stand up for the ideals of the New Deal and the principles of the enlightenment and they need to lead demonstrators into the streets and into the voting booths. The voters need to understand that there is no swamp in Washington, there is instead an enemy out in the country living among us and that enemy must be destroyed.

      • Joe Tedesky
        January 2, 2018 at 16:13

        I’m all for saving the good politicians bobo, who may be drown out by the bad ones, but having been mislead all my American voting life I must say I have grown weary, along with frustrated to how the good politician almost always turns out to be just another bad one in disguise once in office.

        I like your perspective, for it would be a worthwhile project if only to pinpoint the slimy critters, and uplift the politician who always seems to be moving towards the good. Since I’m not for all out revolution, especially a violent one, I am willing to do anything other if for no other reason, but to bring about a responsible government for the people and by the people.

        I will reread your comment here, and try and contemplate your view that much further, but in the meantime feel free to help grace these comment threads with your well intentioned thoughts. Joe

      • Joe Tedesky
        January 3, 2018 at 00:18

        By the tenor of your persuasive argument attempting to locate the reasoning of a good politician turned bad, or at least our said politician were straying away from the middle of the straight line, is that this is acceptable due to the many compromises a struggling politician must make in DC, in order for them to stay relevant, is an argument which could be made by a repentant politician who’s coming in from the cold. By your tone you give a good defense to these politicians, so good, as we should at least consider them to be placed in a temporary purgatory of sorts and save them all from the burning pains of a forever hell. Funny thing is, I could go along with this line of thinking, if only I could receive some guarantee that these prodigal son & daughter politicians were truly reformed, and that their main objective was to represent their constituents, and do what’s necessary to give the American people the kind of government that would put it’s people first, would be no problem for me to accept.

        What I did like bobo, was how you ended your comment, and that was advocating for politicians who may respect the finer elements of a New Deal leadership, and it’s ideology. I also believe the fascist influence in our country is much like Princeton Professor Sheldon Wolin described as ‘inverted fascism’, and that as you may well know, is reverse of the standard fascism where government controls corporations, whereas in ‘inverted fascism’ corporations run government. So, bobo you and I may not be that far off from each other, as it would first appear.

        Again, I’m just tired of always being let down by politicians campaigning to make a better world, only for them to win and go in office and never do anything of what they promised. This is life, and I can accept it for the sake of continuity being what it is, but as a hopeless dreamer I can decry the system while still moving around within it. My biggest concern is my 2 week old 14th grandchild and what kind of America and World are we leaving her and her many cousins. Joe

      • Rohit
        January 4, 2018 at 12:57

        I started to like what you were saying until I came to the usual anti-conservative nonsense.

        “The answer is the fascist element that found a home in conservative politics after WWII.”

        I am afraid I stopped reading at that point. It is just a “mantra” on the left and has little correspondence with reality.

    • michael
      January 4, 2018 at 01:41

      “a high-level appointee of the Trump administration moved to take ideological control of the agency’s budget-writing process. This official presented a directive to the agency’s departments, such as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), listing seven words that were not to be used in budget preparation.”
      A real “journalist” names the person (presumably at OMB?) who is egregiously censoring people in the budget departments of all these agencies. Hopefully Lawrence Davidson will append the name of this villain!
      (Actually it is common practice for government agencies to discuss buzz words to add or subtract in their programs, summaries, agendas, etc depending on their likely reviewers, at least since the ’80s and ’90s when I was there. More pathetic partisan drivel.)

      • Joe Tedesky
        January 4, 2018 at 11:15

        In all fairness to Lawrence Davidson, was the name of the CDC wordsmith released? I don’t know, I’m asking.

        Also, you make a strong point about ‘word usage’ by other administrations in government, as being nothing new. Although that is true, should we not always question to what agenda drives a word ban?

        Regardless of the author’s overlooking, if that’s what he did, and the precedent set by other presidential staffers, the message being sent is of the most importance. I recall a time long ago when generals serving in the Vietnam Conflict would hide body counts, and many other vital war statistics in order to trick the nation into believing we were doing better on the battle front than what we were. Often what is even more important, is not what is said is the problem in as much as what is not said, is the bigger of the two problems. Omission, coincides with the banning of words, and if that doesn’t make you curious to what the government is attempting to hide, then you’ve wasted away in the basement for far too long. (This basement reference is not necessarily intended to you Michael, I’m just speaking metaphorically…have a nice day). Joe

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