Words matter

[Richard D]

Words Matter

by Ralph Nader

Ever wonder what’s happening to words once they fall into the hands of corporate and government propagandists? Too often reporters and editors don’t wonder enough. They ditto the words even when the result is deception or doubletalk.

Here are some examples. Day in and day out we read about “detainees” imprisoned for months or years by the federal government in the U.S., Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. Doesn’t the media know that the correct word is “prisoners,” regardless of what Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld disseminated?

The raging debate and controversy over health insurance and the $2.5 trillion spent this year on health care involves consumers and “providers.” How touching to describe sellers or vendors, often gouging, denying benefits, manipulating fine print contracts, cheating Medicare and Medicaid in the tens of billions as “providers.”

I always thought “providers” were persons taking care of their families or engaging in charitable service. Somehow, the dictionary definition does not fit the frequently avaricious profiles of Aetna, United Healthcare, Pfizer and Merck.

“Privatization” and the “private sector” are widespread euphemisms that the press falls for daily. Moving government owned assets or functions into corporate hands, as with Blackwater, Halliburton, and the conglomerates now controlling public highways, prisons, and drinking water systems is “corporatization,” not the soft imagery of going “private” or into the “private sector.” It is the corporate sector!

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/05-1

[Chemisse]

1. I picture detainees as

People being held and questioned at a police station. Once they are placed in a cell, they become prisoners.

Even though we know these people are being held prisoner, I think the use of the word 'detainee' is unconsciously soothing to us.

'Providers' is used a lot by the government on forms to represent someone providing a service. So I don't think that one is intentionally deceptive.

Now 'privatization' is another story. While technically it is used in a legitimate way (private versus public), it's favored use is clearly meant to soften the rough edges of the concept.

[Itchinjim]

2. How about these words Ralph;

"There's no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush"? Go away Ralph.

[tavalon]

3. In the microcosm, he was dead wrong

I'm beginning to see that in the macrocosm, the two parties really aren't all that different. They all serve the same masters, the corporations, not us.

[Deja Q]

4. Good. Then the corporations can pay back the national debt.

They lobby for special privileges, so why can't they pay for them too?

[tavalon]

6. No argument from me.

[imdjh]

5. Precision matters.

By my definition I am a detainee from the moment the police car pulls me over and up to the point at which I am free to leave. In a sense I can see how those at Guantanamo (I have hated 'gitmo' since childhood) could be considered detainees, but it's also difficult to see the difference between them and "prisoners of war" so I can agree with Nader that these people are prisoners.

As for "providers", it's not clear here that Nader knows how this word is actually used, but I would agree with him anyway because anyone who is making money off me is in BUSINESS, and not "providing". Yes, they are providing a good or service, but my doctor is in business.

Of course there is a flip side to this coin. "Undocumented workers" are those who are legally eligible to work, but forgot their social security card today. People who are in this country illegally are illegal aliens, if they are working they are illegal workers, and if they take up residence then they are illegal immigrants.