When Words Lose Their Meanings

It is worrying that in the American mainstream media (MSM) words have lost their common meanings. Taking 675000 dollars for three speaking engagements for Goldman Sachs (as Hillary Clinton did in 2013) is called earning a fee. It used to be called taking a bribe. A proposal for progressive taxation is called radical. It used to be called moderate. What used to be called democratic socialism or regulated capitalism is now called radical socialism or extreme leftism. Mind you, I am not talking about the way Trumpism distorts our thinking but about the way in which newspapers like The New York Times and the Washington Post use words.

This makes no sense unless one assumes that the MSM are all in the pocket of big money.

As usual, Chris Hedges makes more sense than the opinion-makers in the MSM (or as Hedges calls them, the corporate media). Hedges still says it as it is. His most recent paper, The New Rules of the Game, explains why the leadership of the Democratic party is more afraid of Bernie Sanders than of Donald Trump. It can be found on Truthdig.com. Recommended for you.

“If Sanders gets the nomination it will be due to the Keystone Cops ineptitude of the Democratic leadership, one that as Taibbi points out replicates the ineptitude of the Republican elites in 2016. But this time there will be a crucial difference. The ruling elites, once divided between Trump and Hillary Clinton, with most of the elites preferring Clinton, will be united against Sanders. They will back Trump as the least worst. The corporate media will turn its venom, now directed at Trump, toward Sanders. The Democratic Party’s mask will come off. It will be open warfare between them and us.”

People of common sense like Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader are nowadays called radicals in the United States.