Griffin: Our words are twisted and bent

[struggle4progress]

By Richard Griffin/ Growing Older
Thursday, July 6, 2006 - Updated: 03:09 PM EST

... The well-known journalist Katrina Vanden Heuvel showed herself both eloquent and passionate about this subject in a talk I heard her give this spring. She began by saying of the current leadership in Washington: "This administration has reached, not just for its guns, but its dictionary." ...

The White House has also used the term "compassion agenda" for a set of themes that justify pulling back on federal assistance to elder citizens. Describing these themes, political scientist Robert Binstock writes: "Elders should be productive, assume individual responsibility, and become part of the ’ownership society’ rather than rely on government programs." ...

A program to allow the cutting of trees in the nation’s forest carries the slogan "Clean skies, healthy forests." This phrase has provoked critical wags to propose an alternative title: "No tree left behind." ...

The corruption of language, Orwell believed, leads to the loss of liberty. When words are twisted like pretzels into meaning what manipulators want them to mean, then we are all in trouble.

http://www2.townonline.com/woburn/opinion/view.bg?articleid=532424&format=&page=2