Now us hunters are being told to stop donating venison and other stuff because it isn't USDA inspected. Go figure.
I'll say it again - the US just f--ked itself with the mid-terms. It will only get worse.
This example of language bastardization for political purposes is perfectly typical of what has been a fundamental strategy of not just this administration but of the new conservative movement. It represents the full-blown application of marketing techniques and principles to the political or governing enterprise. I really highly recommend "Edward Bernays, the Father of Spin" for insights into how this works and as to how pervasive it has become. Brock's "The Republican Noise Machine" is equally revelatory as regards the Chamber of Commerce dynamic which sits underneath it all. Brock's Media Matters site is really properly understood as a political-consumer-protection function.
This really isn't a partisan matter. It is Orwellian stuff which is meant to disguise truth and to promote false/inaccurate ideas for the benefit of a very few with no sincere regard for the many.
Food challenged or need help to put food on your family .....
blatham wrote:This example of language bastardization for political purposes is perfectly typical of what has been a fundamental strategy of not just this administration but of the new conservative movement.
Even the conservatives are unhappy.
Good-bye to All That - A former National Review trustee surveys the wreckage of contemporary conservatism.
in the same issue (I've posted a bit of it on another thread)
Quote:Many Republicans must feel like that legendary man at the bar on the Titanic. Watching the iceberg slide by outside a porthole, he remarked, "I asked for ice. But this is too much." Republicans voted for a Republican and got George W. Bush, but his Republican Party is unrecognizable as the party we have known.
Ideology Has Consequences
Quote:Bush campaigned in 2000 as a "compassionate conservative." Today, the media calls him a conservative, yet there is nothing at all conservative about his policies, whether foreign or domestic. William F. Buckley once said that conservatism is the "politics of reality." But Bush has not pursued reality-based policies. Will we have to find another word? It certainly looks that way.
Quote:Is Bush a conservative? Of course not.
<small snip>
The problem is that he is generally called a conservative, perhaps because he obviously is not a liberal. It may be that Bush, in the magnitude of his failure, defies conventional categories. But the word "conservative" deserves to be rescued. Against the misconception that Bush is a conservative, and appealing to Burke, all of our analytical energies must be brought to bear. I hope I have made a beginning here.
the online issue's been so interesting I may have to go find the whole mag
bethie
I've been finding commentary in that magazine increasingly interesting too. I'm certainly not unhappy to see this philosphical disparity become clarified and pronounced. I had hoped that the extremism (and authoritarian tendencies) of the Bush crowd would lead to some significant level of self-destruction (a la Mulroney) and that's at least partly coming to pass.
Synchronicity... I just bumped into precisely that piece via arts and letters daily.
I think it's worth looking at both of the articles I linked to. I've got to go poking into some of my other bookmarked conservative/republican sites and see what's up.
It is no longer just food versus medicine for the poor. Ever since they deregulated utilities and the like, prices have skyrocketed. When one makes the minimum wage and then has to pay rent and utilities at the current rate, there is not much if any left for food.
Hunger is not entirely Bush's problem that he created, because we had hunger before he became president in the US. But, there's always a but, Bush exacerbated the problem with his policies that decreased job opportunities, made college much more expensive, and more Americans lost health insurance (from 39 million when he took over to 46 million now). More senior Americans are now choosing between food or medicine, especially those that fall into the donut hole of coverage under his drug plan.
Bush and his admininstration and congress didn't have any problem funding the war and reconstruction in Iraq whlie more Americans went without.
I've always been an advocate for universal health care in the US, but our politicians have done nothing.
I hope the democratic congress does something to help the American People over any foreign country's citizens.
edgarblythe wrote:It is no longer just food versus medicine for the poor. Ever since they deregulated utilities and the like, prices have skyrocketed. When one makes the minimum wage and then has to pay rent and utilities at the current rate, there is not much if any left for food.
I guess they should find a better job instead of staying at min wage and hoping it will go up. Better jobs are there, you have to be willing to get them.
I was just telling my kids about the new language for hunger.
Their response was that "food insecurity" makes it sound like a disorder, or that they have a problem with eating food for comfort. Makes it sound like they are actually fat, cause they are eating all the time.
They had a point. Completely takes away from the seriousness of the issue.
And, Baldimo, for a good part of the past 6 years job creation has not kept up with the work age population. So, jobs are NOT out there for anyone that wants them.
Baldimo must be a republican.
Baldimo is correct of course. All a starving person need do is get rich and then they can buy plenty of food. Wish I had thought of that.
CLUE #1: Under Bush, job creation has been the worst since Herbert Hoover. Some people just refuse to live in reality.
Er...my sense is that food security is a newer language common throughout the aid/development community, as a way of conceptualising more precisely where communities are at re food in a more comprehensive way. I think it is meant as a useful conceptual tool, which then drives a better way of thinking about development and intervention, more than as a euphemism meant to make people think there is no problem.
I only searched this because I heard an aid organization head on the radio talking about it the other day, and thus the title of this thread nudged my memory.
Here is a wikipedia article on the concepts of food security:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_security
Some other sites using the term:
http://www.foodsecurity.org/
http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsec/
http://www.fao.org/spfs/
http://www.agr.gc.ca/misb/fsb/fsb-bsa_e.php
http://topics.developmentgateway.org/foodsecurity
But.....I am not sure that the term "food insecurity" is meant to put people's concerns to sleep.
But heck, I make no claim to knowledge in this area. I'm just a wabbit.
And your normal functions isn't really eating...
Well, gee willikers. Nice work, deb. I'm going to award myself donkey's ass of the month on this one.
blatham wrote:Well, gee willikers. Nice work, deb. I'm going to award myself donkey's ass of the month on this one.
Dunno...you're competing in a big and vigorous field.
That's an alarmingly Oroubrian metaphor in Australian, you know.
