I'm a bit hesitant to refer to this because I have not ever read it, but are you familiar with George Orwell's 1984? My understanding is that one of the most notable things in the book involves language and how it has been used to control people's reactions. Certain things are bad, certain things are good, you always, automatically stop when a police officer says "Halt!" because that's all you ever know.
Welcome to American politics. When I was in school it was taught to me very clearly- you had capitalism, which was best, and socialism, which was bad, and communism, which was even worse. I never quite got how we were both capitalist and democratic, but the USSR was only communist, but that wasn't important to the textbooks or the teachers. It was simply drilled into my head up til about the point the wall came down. The US was capitalist and best, the USSR was communist and worst, Europe was socialist and tragically misguided (and thus not as good as the US).
For some reason 'jingoism' never made it onto any vocabulary lists.
Communist and socialist and even liberal have all been transformed into words that cause a good portion of the American public to automatically think 'bad.' That's why the Republicans refer to the Democrats as liberals (and the RNC tried to relabel them the 'Democrat-Socialist Party'), but the Democrats use the term 'progressive.' If you're a liberal, you're far left. Out of the mainstream. Bad.
It's the same reason that 'facist' or 'totaltarian' or anything like that was ridiculous and unacceptable and offensive according to Republicans when applied to a Republican president, but held up as true and acceptable and free speech when applied to a Democrat president.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-09-03 02:27 pm (UTC)Welcome to American politics. When I was in school it was taught to me very clearly- you had capitalism, which was best, and socialism, which was bad, and communism, which was even worse. I never quite got how we were both capitalist and democratic, but the USSR was only communist, but that wasn't important to the textbooks or the teachers. It was simply drilled into my head up til about the point the wall came down. The US was capitalist and best, the USSR was communist and worst, Europe was socialist and tragically misguided (and thus not as good as the US).
For some reason 'jingoism' never made it onto any vocabulary lists.
Communist and socialist and even liberal have all been transformed into words that cause a good portion of the American public to automatically think 'bad.' That's why the Republicans refer to the Democrats as liberals (and the RNC tried to relabel them the 'Democrat-Socialist Party'), but the Democrats use the term 'progressive.' If you're a liberal, you're far left. Out of the mainstream. Bad.
It's the same reason that 'facist' or 'totaltarian' or anything like that was ridiculous and unacceptable and offensive according to Republicans when applied to a Republican president, but held up as true and acceptable and free speech when applied to a Democrat president.