Wednesday, May 22, 2013

The Progressive Glossary

Taki's Magazine
"I’ve recently been made aware of a strange new tribe who refer to themselves collectively—they do everything collectively—as “progressives.” I think they used to call themselves “liberals” until it became clear that they don’t care much for liberty. Males and females in this tribe both tend to wear beards and gather in urban coastal areas, where they pay too much for apartments, water, coffee, and bean sprouts."

"They speak a strange and exotic tongue unfamiliar to my ears. But they repeat certain terms so frequently, I feel as if I’ve begun to get a handle on what they’re driving at. To the best of my ability, I will try to decipher what these buzzwords mean."
DISADVANTAGED—Dumb and unskilled.
DISENFRANCHISED—People who’ve received a free public education yet still can’t spell “disenfranchised.”
DIVERSITY—A magical incantation used to divert your attention from the fact that it is strikingly similar to the words “divide” and “division.”
DOG WHISTLE—A high-pitched screech from the enemy that only progressives are able to hear. Lately this term has been deemed offensive to canines and should therefore be replaced with “coded speech” wherever possible.
ELITES—Wealthy people on the political right. This term is never used to describe wealthy people on the left who control much of the media, government, and academia.
EMPOWERED—Loud and annoying.
EQUALITY—A concept that nearly everyone believes but no one has bothered to prove.
EVOLUTION—An indisputably true biological process that stopped occurring roughly 100,000 years ago when everyone became equal. Only Christians don’t believe it’s real, and only racists believe it didn’t stop 100,000 years ago.
EXTREMIST—Someone whose beliefs make us extremely uncomfortable.
FAIRNESS—A political strategy requiring that winners be treated unfairly.
FALSE EQUIVALENCY—A real equivalency that suggests our beliefs are false.
FASCIST—One who must not be tolerated under any circumstances and should instead be either lynched, sent to a gas chamber, or stomped under our boots.
FAUX NEWS—A biased news channel that presents an alternative to our preferred version of biased and false news.
FIGHTING THE POWER—Allowing oneself to be used as the unwitting tool of global power elites.
FORWARD—The direction one moves when headed toward a cliff......."

2 comments:

  1. Having spent more than 40 years in Seattle Public Schools I am very familiar with the terms having heard them on a daily basis and then having had them repeated during lengthy faculty meetings. This is the best, most comprehensive list of Alinsky double think. While I laugh as I read it, my blood boils at the memory of being stuck in a room while some POS stood in front blathering and sucking up air he shouldn't have been allowed to share, and not being allowed to respond appropriately. My decision to retire last year was made during such a session when five minutes into it I felt my bullshit filters clogged and realized I was going to be stuck there for the better part of a hour longer. It is difficult to convey the incredible sense of anger and frustration I feel when I remember the brainwashing that went on year after year after year. So few of us survived it intact, so many went over to the darkside and became mindless drones repeating these terms and believing them. The one term that is missing is: Courageous Conversation. This was the title of a workshop that ran for a couple years. It involved a nattily dressed Black man (the value of what he wore about the same as my entire wardrobe) talking about White privilege, and how insensitive we, the Whites on the faculty, were simply not understanding how privileged we were compared to the Blacks and other minorities (although other minorities were not given much space to respond.) It was, as is noted in the glossary, a very one-sided conversation. Anyone bold enough to respond in any manner other than the prescribed sycophantic manner was immediately branded a racist. Even my Black friends rolled their eyes.

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