A Democracy Dictionary

by Rob Kall opednews.com

This is the third in an occasional series of articles suggesting new, politically useful  words and phrases. Previous articles are listed at the end of this one.

Move over William Safire. You're not the only one who can talk language. Ambrose Bierce, close to a century ago, created the Devil's Dictionary. For example, his definitions include:

CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When we wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.

But long before Bierce, others took aspects of history and turned them into terms. For example, A Pyrrhic victory is one in which you win a battle that costs you the war. It was named after Pyrrhus, a Greek leader who expended so many resources to win a battle that his forces were too weakened, and it led to their losing the war.

And so, with history and precedent supporting me, I embark on a journey of politico-linguistic coinage, Chomsky, forgive me.

A Bush victory n., is one in which you win a war, then throw away or waste the victory, or turn it into a bigger loss by stupidity or bad leadership.  This is a phrase that deserves to be entered into the dictionaries and used as a cautionary term to prevent future Bush victories from occurring-- in world politics, in business, in personal fortunes. The father's stupid leadership led to the coining of the term in 1991. The son's moronic, lying leadership and the advice of his twisted, corrupt radical right advisors cemented the term into the lexicon. 

And here's another one to start to work, another meme-- a concept intended to work its way through the idea matrix like a virus, so it bubbles into mass consciousness, iterating and reiterating itself in different lights, different perspectives-- from the economy and ecology to the Bush Victory Iraqi democratic debacle, to the California elections to Enron and the 2003 Blackout, to the florida election theft and the supreme court whore sellout of the 2000 Election.

Bush treason n. is simple-- the selling out of the country by a person in power who claims to be acting on behalf of the good of the country. Ann Coulter calls liberals treasonous. This is a joke. The worst traitors in American history are in the Whitehouse, selling it off to the biggest, most dangerous enemy our country has ever faced, the international megacorporations and the billionaires who run them.

George Bush is a front man for the real perpetrators of the treason I speak of. It is obvious that he is incapable of articulately or intelligently responding to a tough, honest media. But that problem was solved three ways--

-by beating down the majormedia so they would be too afraid to confront this traitor of a president,

-by making him less available than previous presidents, and

-by structuring media contact so there is no real opportunity for the media to get answers to tough questions.

Of course, the job Bush and his handlers have done on the media, an essential system within any healthy democracy, is another example of Bush Treason. Practically speaking, we could just as well use the term, right-wing treason, and that may be another useful addition to a "democracy dictionary."

In my next op-ed, I'll explore the new term "Fox fair and balanced," which actually, is based on the same principles as the Bush Victory. it ain't what it claims to be.

Rob Kall rob@opednews.com  is publisher of progressive news and opinion website www.opednews.com and organizer of cutting edge meetings that bring together world leaders, such as the Winter Brain Meeting and the StoryCon Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story. He is also an avid collector of dictionaries and related reference works, with his 500 piece collection including books dating back to the 1500's. His quotationscentral.com offers over 1000 choice quotations. This article is copyright by Rob Kall, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached

Other writings of Rob Kall