MEDIA DOUBLESPEAK
BY LOISE NEVILLE
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE MEDIA AND WASHINGTON, D.C.? The following definitions
will clarify what they are really talking about.
A GOOD ECONOMY: A prosperous stock market; it has no relationship to the
prosperity of people.
RECESSION: A redistribution of wealth involving tax money subsidies to corporations
with federal underfunding of states and government agencies, exacerbated
by the departure of large industries to cheap labor Third World countries.
PRIVATIZATION: The buyout of public agencies and public services by corporations.
FREE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM: Monopoly capitalist system in which a few international
conglomerates, consortiums, and bank holding companies control the economy;
defined by one economist as "the prevention of competition."
DEMOCRACY: A capitalist money system. In the case of Third World countries,
one with a dictator "voted into office." Examples: El Salvador,
Guatemala, South Korea, Santa Domingo, earlier South Vietnam in the '60s.
The CIA is notorious for arranging these "elections." If the elected
official is to remain, he can do so only if he is one of the State Department's
chosen ones.
THE UNITED NATIONS: The U.N. Security Council-United States, England, and
France with client states Russia and China. Temporary client states are
included briefly when needed for a special vote.
KEEPING THE PEACE: Making war.
REFORM: Economic reconstruction, a change from socialism to capitalism.
FREE NATIONS: Capitalist nations.
FREE TRADE: The freedom of corporations to pretend to close their U.S. plants,
citing poverty or bankruptcy, in order to move them to small countries where
profits will be 80 to 90% greater due to low costs of operation and low
wages to workers.
LOBBYING: Money bribes to public officials called "campaign contributions,"
though not contributed during a campaign. (Read the book by longtime successful
lobbyist Robert Winter The Washington Payoff, published by Dell.)
ECONOMIC AID: Called by economists the U.S.'s greatest source of income,
government-subsidized corporate sales to a nation in exchange for a credit-only
loan to that nation, for which the nation pays a high rate of interest.
SENSITIVE INFORMATION: Information which would make sensitive administrations
shudder if the public were informed about them.
PREFERRED-NATION STATUS: A nation U.S. business can get money from because
that nation needs U.S. exports. Not related to the internal policies of
that nation.
ECONOMIC FREEDOM: Corporate freedom.
COLONIALISM: The old term for what we have in the world today but now controlled,
not by nations, but by banks and corporations.
ETHNIC CLEANSING: The phrase Hitler used as an excuse to kill the Jews.
Now a popular expression.
CIA: Denoted by economists as the activist arm of the International Monetary
Fund banks (IMF) and world business in general. Sometimes a scapegoat for
acts of U. S. intelligence agencies which perform some of the deeds the
CIA is blamed for.
NEW WORLD ORDER: A new form of capitalism; world control, not by nations,
but by corporations and financial institutions; also called World Federalism.
CIVIL WAR: A euphemism for a CIA technique used to weaken or break up nations
in order to facilitate a junta.
EXECUTIVE ORDER: A law written by the President without the knowledge of
Congress.
BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS: The Washington bureau which takes Indian affairs
out of the hands of the Indians.
RUSSIAN CONSERVATIVES: Russian radicals; communists.
MILITARY AID: A takeover technique.
Some of these you already knew? No matter, try them out for a new view of
events.
