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Arkansas Blue's avatar

Great explanation of what terms to use in these times of the hostile takeover of our government.

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Susan Joseph's avatar

Thank you for your clarity in this moment btw I love Orwell’s work.

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Lark Leonard's avatar

Anat, I can no longer listen to the radio (NPR) because they are not using fully honest, fully true, language. It makes me feel like I'm going crazy. I agree whole-heartedly with your posting here. Language either vividly portrays a situation, or it obscures it. The radio voices are white-washing everything that the Trump regime is doing.

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laura davis's avatar

exactly. "Language either vividly portrays a situation or it obscures it."

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SBwrites's avatar

Let me see if I understand this correctly. Can I say, "Because of the hostile takeover of our government by Donald Trump, who planned and implemented an Insurrection and Cover-Up, and spent four years fomenting violence as he tried to overturn the 2020 election; and has manipulated the stock market so Tesla stock would rise, and his friends would get richer through insider trading; and has allowed Elon Mush to steal our personal data; and has recently awarded Musk's aerospace company SpaceX a $5.9 billion contract to launch military satellites into space over the next four years, I would like them both disappeared.

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Bruce buchanan's avatar

And run when you hear "Good people on both sides"!

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Bill Herrmann's avatar

The word *unconstitutional* needs to be retired and replaced with *anticonstitutional*. Unconstitutional implies, Whoops, we sorta stepped over the line, while anticonstitutional indicates that there was good old malice aforethought running roughshod over the boundaries of the constitution intentionally.

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elliott oberman's avatar

"An order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office resulted in a purge of books critical of racism but preserved volumes defending white power." "Two copies of “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler are still on the shelves." "Gone is “Memorializing the Holocaust,” Janet Jacobs’s 2010 examination of how female victims of the Holocaust have been portrayed and remembered."

Need we say more!

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Sharon L. Shelly's avatar

"We must underscore audience-facing harms, not violated processes."

This is important not only because many Americans don't understand terms like "checks and balances" and "due process." It's also because these terms have been obscured by extreme, cynical right-wing rhetoric. Americans need to know just how these abuses affect them, their neighbors, and their communities.

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Patricia Baker's avatar

Beautiful words. Meaningful to me as a writer and a citizen. Thank you.

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Marcia Hecht's avatar

Let’s also refer to CECOT in El Salvador as a “concentration camp”, NOT a “prison”. It operates outside any rule of law.

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Cynthia DiDonato's avatar

Thanks for this chart of what to say.

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laura davis's avatar

I loved this and reposted it far and wide.

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Ken Williams, PhD's avatar

Thank you, Anat, for this fabulous tool. Words have power. New Gingrich began his reign of terror by developing derogatory terms for his opponents. The derogatory attacks by the GOP have been an in attempt to de legitimize people of a different ideology. Instead of collaborating for the common good our political system has become competition for power, which has brought us to where we are today. In my writings, I’m calling it the “orange plague.” what do you think about this term and imagery?

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Thomas's avatar

Excellent. Thank you.

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