Euphemism is the New Soma.
“The Economy lost 83,000 jobs in March.”
Who cares…
“200,000 Americans lost their livelyhoods, healthcare and face hunger and homelessness this March.”
“83,000 bread winners fired in March, what will happen to their families?”
Bam! Gut Punch!
It’s personified personalized – human. Putting a human face on issues is HUGE for Progressives.
As long as human issues are euphemistically talked about, couched in econ gobbledygook, or war-isms, people are desensitized to the actual human consequences.
Numbers
Numbers and econ speak are extremely un-emotive. They are antiseptic and boring, and for good reason! You can’t rob people if their paying attention.
I used to hate listening to Alan Greenspan until I realized what his euphemistic language really meant – until I learned what his droll delivery and econ-speak gobbledygook really meant.
Greenspan says something like, “Flexible labor markets are good because it reduces the bargaining power of labor.”
People think,”Wow, that sounds OK. Well how do we make the labor markets more flexible?” (if they haven’t already fallen asleep listening to him droll on…)
The “flexible labor markets” he talked about that were propping up our economy was a euphemism for people fearing the loss of their jobs.
How about the personified version, the human version, the Progressive version?
“Americans’ fear of losing their jobs is a huge benefit to the economy because when you have people over a barrel they’ll work for less.”
“Whoa! Did he just say what I think he said?”
“The fear of losing one’s job, healthcare and the ability to support one’s family is great for the economy. It makes people easier to exploit.”
“He did! He really said that! Screw him, I want another Fed chairman!”
If Greenspan spoke like that, or if someone actually challenged his econ gobbledygook with human, non-euphemistic language we’d never be in this mess.
We’ve got to do a better job of personifying these economic issues and staying away from the balance sheet bullshit.
Jobs are people. The economy doesn’t lose jobs, American workers, familes and people lose jobs.
It’s not downsizing, it’s firing workers.
Euphemism is the new Soma, and if we’re going to bust people out of the euphemistic daze they’ve been put in we’ve got to hit them in the gut and then let our political opponents try to euphemize their way out of the situation.
Imagine if (wow I just looked at the Senate finance committee… if that isn’t depressing…)
Alan Greenspan: “Flexible labor markets are good because it reduces the bargaining power of labor.”
John Kerry: “Are you suggesting that Americans fearing losing their jobs, their healthcare and the ability to provide for their children is good for the economy?”
How in the hell could Greenspan answer that?
With more gobbledygook, obviously.
Alan Greenspan: “Well ‘Flexible Labor markets are an important asset to ensure overall economic flexibility.”
John Kerry: “Let me be clear here… Flexible Labor markets means Americans fearing for their jobs, right?”
AG: “Well, it means that employers are able to manipulate the size of their labor force…”
JK: “Fire workers?”
AG: “If you want to…”
JK: “Are we really supposed to go tell the American people that the fact that they can easily be fired and hired is a good thing for them? What do I tell those 200,000 families that just lost their family income due to the 83,000 Americans fired last month? Thanks for doing your part for the economy?”
Who wins that exchange?
Zooming Out
One thing that Republicans have done extremely well is to personify and personalize, to put a human face, on issues that are important to them and their constituencies.
All that crap trotted out, Terrorism, Gay Marriage, Abortion, Guns, Immigration?
All those issues have been heavily personified. They actually mean something to people.
The Democrats try to fight this with facts and figures and just get shellacked.
The issues that are the bread and butter issues for Democrats, the ones that really matter to Americans:
- Education
- Healthcare
- Environment
- Economy
- Consumer Protection
These have been so dehumanized by euphemisms and transactional language that they’re rendered non-issues come election time. And to make matters worse, Democrats refuse to get personal.
Access to medicine for little kids gets called sCHIPS. WTF? Democrats hit the stump touting their great achievement on something called sCHIPS.
We need to take that shit back, man.
We need to give them a gut punch of humanity, personalized and personified and make them try to euphemize their way out of it.
If Democrats did that, we’d be smoking these turkeys.