Mind-Numbingly Stupid Political Terms

[Nuvem]

I'm curious about something; it's a question I'd like to ask our non-American comrades.

Here in the states, our politicians focus on "topical" politics. They like to focus on a few narrow topics or pet causes, and the media channels this even further by repeating the same topical catch phrases over and over. Here are just a few examples and their meanings.

"Cut and Run". We heard this phrase 10,000 times during the 2008 elections, in reference to "Cutting our losses" and "running" from Iraq. It was used before that, but never in such quantity.

"Drop and Leave". This one is somewhat new. It refers to the practice of undocumented immigrants having children in the US, which automatically grants the child US citizenship and prevents the parents from being deported. This one has actually sparked a debate about amending the Constitution.

"Anchor Babies". The children of those above.

"Drill Baby, Drill". This is the rallying cry of those conservatives who believe that the USA can drill its way to energy independence, ignorant of the fact that the nation already produces enough oil for its own consumption, but exports it. One of the common slogans during John McCain's candidacy.

"Better Dead than Red". No. Just....no.

"Axis of Evil". This gem was dropped by our old friend G.W. Bush to refer to Iran, Iraq and North Korea- which is to suggest that they had any meaningful alliance or connection. It was clearly a political tactic of Bush to associate these countries with terrorist groups and therefore justify any possible future military action. One in the USA throughout his presidency may have noted a particularly moronic popular hysteria involving all 3 nations...unfortunately, the label actually worked.

This is just a small sampling of the idiotic terminology that's thrown around for the purpose of distracting and controlling the American public. So I must ask, comrades abroad; do your governments have terms like this? Do many other governments use such mind-numbingly stupid terminology for this purpose? If so, share some of your "favorites".

[ed miliband]

"Big government".

[Diello]

Remember "flip-flopper" from 2004?

[Nuvem]

Yes, those are both excellent examples as well.

[Diello]

Hell, right now I think "socialist" and "communist" as applied to Obama by the American right could qualify as mind-numbingly stupid.

[GPDP]

These terms are meant to be quick sound-bytes to be consumed on the political marketplace carefully crafted by the media and the political establishment. They serve no purpose other than to hopelessly simplify complex issues into tidy packages Joe Six Pack can then slap into the bumper of his car to demonstrate his political views without bothering to critically think and engage in fruitful debate. In short, it's just the logic of business and marketing applied to politics, and boy does it work to capital's advantage.

[coda]

ethnic cleansing

collateral damage

pogroms

relocation

terrorists

[NecroCommie]

Totalitarian

[MarxSchmarx]

where I'm from the media is fond of putting "-gate" at the end of everything (as in watergate).

So we have, for example, something like James-gate if Mr. James gets questioned over bribary etc... Then there are other dumb things like "meter-gate" for when taxi meters in a regional city were found to be rigged, etc..., but I think these are common in the US too ("monica-gate") It's pretty idiotic and got old in the 70s but for some reason the media insists on using it.

Then there are those who "sell the country", usually applying to naturalized immigrants who retain loyalty to where they came from. It's kind of like the term "sellout" but with a connotation that you sold your (adopted) country. It can also apply to leftists who are stridently anti-nationalistic.

[La Comédie Noire]

"Intellectual labor" Not denying it exists, but when people use it to justify a CEO getting paid millions of dollars it gets on my nerves.

"Obamacare"

"Liberty"

"no taxation without representation"

"The exceptional man" Fuck this term.

Phew! I think I'm gonna crack open that pint of Jack Daniels a day early.

[Sean]

Lines get thrown about, but the media at least in the UK is far more subtle when it comes to spouting shite straight from government press releases. I think a lot of it is that people cringe when someone tries to coin a phrase on this side of the pond but I noticed a rise in the use of this kind of language since the conservatives got in.

9/11 and 7/7 are two of the most powerful examples though it kind of slips by people that those are buzzwords. The dates were specifically picked to be memorable and roll off the tongue.

[Manic Impressive]

"economic climate" pisses me off. WTF has climate got to do with a flawed economic system and everyone says it all the fucking time aaaarrrrgh

[El Rojo]

police "containment"

big society

all in this together

for your safety and security

health and safety

the war on terror

compasionate conservatism



that last one near makes me puke every time

[Jalapeno Enema]

Some of these border on quotes, but have been quoted so much that they snowballed into catch-phrases


Back to Basics

Giant sucking sound
Ross Perot

Hung Jury

Insurgent

It's the economy, stupid
I never inhaled
Bill Clinton

Left-wing conspiracy
Liberal Media

Peace for our time
Neville Chamberlain

Read my lips; no new taxes
Bush the Elder

The recession we had to have
Paul Keating

Shovel ready

Stay the course

WWJD?
WWR(egan)D?

You're either with us, or against us

[Sir Comradical]

"Political Correctness Gone Mad"

Idiot: I'm not even allowed to drink and drive anymore because apparently it offends them muslims...it's just political correctness gone mad!

[Sean]

A fav thrown about in the US media for just about every ballsup was "a perfect storm of X" thrown out to explain that there is no way we could have prepared for the financial fuckup.

[wunderbar]

"Death panels"

"Pro-life"

[El Rojo]

and kind of pre-fixed gate. watergate was ENOUGH

people with no understanding of politics are probably beginning to think we just make different kinds of gate

[revolution inaction]

"Legitimate concerns"

used to refer to any expression of racism, prejudice, scapegoat of people like benefit claiments etc

[gorillafuck]

"Fiscal responsibility", used by politicians who won't pay for peoples health or homes but will authorize massive sums of money to be used for occupation.

"9/11", using a tragedy to further imperialist ambitions, and the republicans who always talk about it refused to vote for health benefits to 9/11 first responders.

[Lucretia]

Definitely have to go with "working families" on this one.

[Pierre.Laporte]

You can tell what way a person leans just by listening to what kind of language the person uses. Go to a dinner party and listen to someone talking about immigration. They could use terms like "illegal immigrant" or "illegal alien" which would suggest they're conservative. They're probably a hard line conservative if they drop "anchor baby" or "welfare queen" somewhere in the mix. "Undocumented worker" is a term a liberal would probably use. The first, instills the image of an immigrant who crosses over in the shadow of the night to subvert the fabric of the United States so they can take away peoples jobs, sell drugs to their children, etc. The second suggests an impoverished worker coming across the border to find work because of rough times at home.

Of course, it's easy to tell the leaning of someone by the material of their argument, you'll almost never hear a liberal refer to immigration issues with the term "anchor baby."

Politics is a war with words. Sensationalism is rife in American politics like we all know. Both sides, politicians and reporters, all use this slanted language to their advantage.

It's the very annoying turn for the worse that American rhetoric has taken.

[Jazzratt]

"Indigenous Britons" - This one is occaisonally used to refer to other European natioinalities. It's a nasty phrase because it draws a false equivelence between a whinging racist cockslice complaining about arabs moving in next door and the indigenous peoples of other nations who have actually been forceably removed from their homes and quite possibly murdered brutally. There is literally no one who uses this phrase without a heavy sense of irony who isn't a racist scummer.

"Belt tightening" - Squeezing money out of the working classes.

"Tax & spend" - I was always under the impression that the function of taxes was to provide a pool of money to spend. I think, obviously, that the whole system is rotten but it does strike me as odd that there's an arm of it that seems to suggest people should pay taxes without anything coming out of it.

"Extremist" - Specifically when preceeded with "left-wing", the implication of the phrase is that people who hold these positions are dangerous and unreasonable people with unrealistic goals and principles. It's one of the more perniciouss terms in that it serves to reinforce the whole narrative that the officially designated "left wing" (liberals and in some extreme cases SocDems) is the acceptable edge of politics and beyond that lies madness.

[Os Cangaceiros]

where I'm from the media is fond of putting "-gate" at the end of everything (as in watergate).

So we have, for example, something like James-gate if Mr. James gets questioned over bribary etc... Then there are other dumb things like "meter-gate" for when taxi meters in a regional city were found to be rigged, etc..., but I think these are common in the US too ("monica-gate") It's pretty idiotic and got old in the 70s but for some reason the media insists on using it.

I think I realized that this had gotten out-of-control when the New York media started to refer to the Eliot Spitzer scandal as "hookergate".

[human strike]

It's interesting how, and this thread shows it, Europe and the US have a completely different political phraseology. Most of the terms American comrades have posted Europeans never hear.

[Red Commissar]

"European-style politics"

A term some pundits in the United States use to refer to the "socialist" policies in Europe.

[Telenus]

"Socialist indoctrination camps." In reference to public schools in the United States.

[IndependentCitizen]

Liberal-conservative...It makes my spine shiver.

[ed miliband]

"White Working Class" - usually used to describe a mythical group of racist trolls who hate the everyone and everything and have no shared interests with the non-white working class...

"lower middle class" / "upper middle class" (+ "middle class" in general tbh). In Britain people seem to like dividing sociological classes into as many different groupings as possible; upper-lower middle class, middle-middle class ad infinitum. And, you know, "middle class" is used to describe everyone from workers on £24k a year to David Cameron. Basically used by people in power to describe anyone who conforms to a particular set of social values regardless of position in relation to the means of production / annual wage / etc.

[Quail]

^ Yes, "middle class" is definitely a very annoying term. I don't think it really has any meaning whatsoever. It's especially annoying when people use it as a slur, as in "middle class students" or whatever.

[Lobotomy]

This might give you a flashback to 2008: Maverick.

[IronEastBloc]

Private Sector Jobs--as if all jobs are good only if created by the private sector

No New Spending--as if all spending is evil and bad

American Dream--the silly notion that somehow, all 300,000,000 people in this country are entitled to their own car, their own two bedroom house with garage and yard, and their own swimming pool, if they just vaguely "work hard enough"

Partisan politician--someone who, for better or for worse, actually gets shit done.

Bush Tax cuts--obscenely lavish tax cuts for rich people

Bi-partisanship--opposite of Partisan politician

Church-going Christian--a far-right baptist born-again Christian

Radical Islamist--anyone from a muslim country who isn't satisfied with the USA invading their nation and plundering their country's wealth, or changing their government by force

"The troop surged worked"--something fictional. removed from reality.

"Middle America"--Anyone who's white, is a baptist, and votes republican. this group NEVER includes blacks, Mexicans, or anyone else of color.

Illegal Immigrants--Always refers to immigrants (even if legal) from Mexico. never refers to the 500,000+ white illegal migrants from Canada.

Socialism--coporatism.

Communism fascism without ballot box elections; even monarchies have been called communist in the USA.

Left-wing liberals--what every other country would refer to as a "center right capitalists".

working people--see: Middle America.

No Big Government--does not apply to gay marriage, abortion, death penalty, immigration, drug laws, censorship laws, morality legislation

founding fathers--a group of rapists, mass murderers, and slave-owners who created this nation to avoid paying higher taxes, basically. insult them and you might as well
insult god.

Inner City, Ghetto--ALWAYS refers to an area populated by people of primarily black or mexican ancestry, regardless of the income level or safety.

[Rocky Rococo]

Three good reasons for the revolution: "pragmatism", "electability" and "bipartisanship".

ETA: All code words meaning "acceptable to hegemonic capital".

[The Intransigent Faction]

From an article I read on Wikileaks, in reference to the footage of Iraqi civilians being gunned down from a helicopter:

"military excesses"

A few others:

"Family values".

"liberal democracy".

"the fall of communism".

[Diello]

This might give you a flashback to 2008: Maverick.

Oh, lord. Yes, everyone was a maverick that year, weren't they?

[Jalapeno Enema]

This might give you a flashback to 2008: Maverick.. . .2008 as a flashback? That just happened!

But, yes, I hated that, too.

[HEAD ICE]

How about leftist politics?

Whenever I read "critical support" I know I'm about to hear some horrible, disgusting, opportunist bullshit that will make me want to vomit out my ass.

[Thirsty Crow]

One of my favourite media campaings, which started with the first wave of job cuts and lay offs, excellently portrays the schizophrenic state of "post-socialist" countries.
The catch phrase or codeword was "lazy Croats". It should be noted that it reffered to workers almost exclusively.
The paradox was the following: the media gave a strong ethnic bend to the reports, juxtaposing the productivity Croatian workers with their fellow workers in Slovenia and other EU and non-EU countries, feeding into the opposite of Croatian nationalism - a sense of national inferiority (very much connected to the history of being on the periphery of European capitalism and its cultural systems).

Other stupid phrases include "wild capitalism" (referring to some semi-legal actions during the transition), designed to (re)produce the notion of a healthy, productive capitalist system which enables prosperity and the Croatian, post-socialist variant (I've even read an article explicitly claiming that Croatia is not a capitalist country, given the "fact" of the remnants of a "socialist state", "socialist mindset", "socialist measures").

"Tighten the belt" - you go and tighten it motherfucker, along with your buddies the "employers".

[Boboulas]

"fair"


This is coming from the UK.

[ed miliband]

"Centre ground of politics"

[Kuppo Shakur]

I have bookmarked this thread so that I can quickly and easily get MAD AS HELL if I ever need to for some reason.

"In this economy..."
IT IS THE SAME DAMN ECONOMY

[Jazzratt]

If you have the temerity to claim benefits in Britain you can easily expect to be accused of being a scrounger or, if you're claiming disability for something other than quadriplegia, a "bogus claimant." Usually by fuckheads.

[Jazzhands]

"1st 100 Days"-This is a rite of passage for US presidents where the media invents bullshit criticisms out of thin air and claims that this period sets the path of his presidency. despite the fact that he has almost 4 years left in office and the majority of his historically important actions will happen within years 2 and 3. Unless you're Zachary Taylor, nobody cares in the long run.