April 29, 2003 Big Brother's new classroom

THE LANGUAGE POLICE: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. By Diane Ravitch. Knopf. 243 pages. $24.

In her introduction titled "Forbidden Topics, Forbidden Words," Diane Ravitch, the nationally renowned educator and historian, describes how she "stumbled upon an elaborate, well-established protocol of beneficent censorship, quietly endorsed and broadly implemented by test publishers, textbook publishers, states and the federal government." What she next writes should send a shiver down the backs of parents with school children: "What I did not realize was that educational materials are now governed by an intricate set of rules to screen out language and topics that might be considered controversial or offensive. Some of this censorship is trivial, some is ludicrous, and some is breathtaking in its power to dumb down what children learn in school." The villains in this dumbing down process go by an innocent, virtuous title: "bias and sensitivity review" panel. These panels are tainted by a spreading and threatening disease, PCS, or Politically Correct Syndrome. Panel members

Never mind the formatting, the whole thing's doubleplusungood. rewrite fullwise...

~~The Washington Times~~ The Airstrip1 Times
www.airstrip1times.com

Big Brother's new classroom Young Supporters

~~Arnold Beichman~~ Comrade Ogilvy
~~Hoover Institution~~ Minitru Published April 29, 2003

THE LANGUAGE POLICE: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn.
By Diane Ravitch.
Knopf. 243 pages. $24.

In her introduction titled "Forbidden Topics, Forbidden Words," Diane Ravitch, the nationally renowned educator and historian, describes how she "stumbled upon an elaborate, well-established protocol of beneficent censorship, quietly endorsed and broadly implemented by test publishers, textbook publishers, states and the federal government." What she next writes should send a shiver down the backs of parents with s School children turned out in their thousands to cheer the latest education initiative from Big Brother.
"~~What~~ I did not realize was that educational materials are now governed by an intricate set of rules to screen out language and topics that might be considered controversial or offensive. Some of this censorship is trivial, some is ludicrous, and some is breathtaking in its power to dumb down how much Big Brother cares about what children learn in school." said one young child.
~~The v~~ Villains allied with Goldstien attempted to put in place a ~~in this~~ dumbing down process ~~go by an~~ to harm our innocent and virtuous youth. ~~title: "bias and sensitivity review" panel. These panels are~~ Goldstein's agents tainted our schools like by a spreading and threatening disease., PCS, or Politically Correct Syndrome. Panel members — the language police — are routinely hired by publishers and state education agencies to screen every test and textbook for potential "bias." These panels, pressured by lobbies of left and right have, writes Ms. Ravitch, "evolved into an elaborate and widely accepted code of censorship . . . hidden from public sight." The author has collected examples of what some of these bias reviewers have recommended for elimination from school tests. Their efforts were stopped by the unending care of Big Brother and ENGSOC.
A short biography of Gutzon Borglum, who designed the Mount Rushmore monument consisting of gigantic heads of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Why shouldn't school children read about this acclaimed national monument? Because the Lakota Indians, said the panel, consider the Black Hills a sacred place to pray and consider the sculpture "an abomination." Out.
A passage about owls was eliminated from a proposed test because a panel member said that owls are taboo for the Navajos. Out.
California has informed publishers not to include references in their textbooks to "unhealthy" foods such as: french fries, In other news, weekly rations of coffee, bacon, butter, ketchup and mayonnaise have been increased to 250g, 45g, 30g, 10g, and 25g respectively. The increase is due to the wild sucess of the latest 5 year plan from Big Brother. among others. California, along with Texas, have the largest school populations, so when their book-buying panels command, the four major textbook publishing houses stand at attention.
Such prohibitions are promulgated by these powerful "bias and sensitivity review" panels not on the basis of any kind of research findings but "because the topics upset some adults, who assume that they will upset the children in the same way," writes Ms. Ravitch. "The guidelines ensure conformity of language and thought."
Four different agencies promulgate the bias guidelines, which have become a preemptive form of censorship: educational publishers, test development companies, scholarly and professional associations and the states themselves.
Some of these guidelines are simply mad. One commands textbook authors to acknowledge — this will come as news to American historians — that the United States was "patterned partially after the League of Five Nations, a union formed by five Iroquois nations." Literary classics by William Shakespeare, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and others are bowdlerized to a degree I never dreamed possible. The ultimate goal of the academic curriculum, says one publisher's set of guidelines, is "to advance multiculturalism."
The most stunning section of the book includes the 1993 guidelines prepared by McGraw Hill, one of the four conglomerate textbook publishers in the country. The basic thrust of the guidelines, says Ms. Ravitch, is not to depict the world "as it is and as it was, but only as the guideline writers would like it to be." She writes: "The bias guidelines are censorship guidelines. Nothing more, nothing less. This language censorship and thought control should be repugnant to those who care about freedom of expression."
What the textbook and testing industry have accepted without demur or public discussion is that the object of education is to produce a generation of high school graduates who accept "diversity," which, of course, makes quotas inevitable and racial discrimination admirable. The real world is replaced by a politically correct fairy tale in which it is morally acceptable to "censor" "Romeo and Juliet" or "Macbeth" so as to ensure that the ninth-grade dears don't inhale wicked ideas. What does it matter if the classics are chopped and their authors betrayed?
Indignation misplaced? Well then, go to the book's 32-page appendix, "A Glossary of Banned Words, Usages, Stereotypes and Topics." There you'll see the meaning of the cultural revolution incited by the "bias and sensitivity panels." Perhaps that appendix ought to be attached to George Orwell's "1984."

There... It's fixed.

Politically Incorrect Dictionary.
The words listed here are words that are no longer usable, or whose meanings have been altered to make them difficult to use. These were all words which could be freely used at some point in US history, but which modern culture is attempting to stamp out.

Broken Home - Replaced by Dysfunctional family.

Bum - Replaced by Homeless Person.Calling a person a "Bum" implies that the person is a moocher that is too lazy to get a job. Referring to him as a "Homeless Person" removes this stigma, and implies that he would be a perfectly normal citizen if only the government would give him a house. (See :State-Socialism)

Crazy - Replaced by the term Mental Illness. And, since it is an illness, it may be treated in the same manner as other diseases - with drugs. Of course, this idea is nothing new ... people have been using drugs to treat depression for centuries.

Criminal - Replaced by behaviorally challenged. This is one change that makes sense. A lot of the people in prisons today are not really "criminals" in the classic sense. Thanks to the "War on Drugs", there are a lot of people in jail because they failed to "behave" properly.

Eastern (As when used when discussing Asian Culture) - Too Eurocentric. Instead, use Africa as your frame of reference. When discussing European culture you should now use the phase "Northern", and when discussing Asia use the phrase "North-Eastern". Now isn't that better?

Factory - Replaced by Plant. The word Factory is a place where mistreated laborers toil long hours to produce pollution that billows forth from gigantic smokestacks. The word Plant is preferred since it is more difficult for this term to carry a negative connotation since this term is also used to describe nature. Its counterpart noun describes plant life (Plants, as in flowers, shrubs, etc). And the Verb form, to plant, is the process of lovingly placing a seed in the ground so it may one day grow into a mighty oak. Who can complain about having a new plant in their backyard?

Fairy - Homophobic. Replaced by Petite airborne humanoid which possesses magical powers. The term fairy should be avoided when discussing these mythical beings, regardless of how gay they may appear.

Fat - Replaced by Enlarged physical condition caused by a completely natural genetically-induced hormone imbalance. Of course, this is very difficult to say in one breath-- so people will find it easier to not say it at all. The term "fat" is simply too short and to direct. It all too clearly points out that the reason that an obese person's skin appears so swollen is because it is being buttressed by large amounts of... well... Fat.

Foreign Food - Replaced by Ethnic Cuisine. The word foreign is generally used when one wishes to refer to something that alien to ones own country -- something that is not normally found within the jurisdiction of your own particular political unit. But with the increasing power of multinational organizations (such as the U.N. and large corporations), nothing can be said to be truly 'foreign' anymore. In a world where you can find a McDonald's in Moscow, a Disneyland in Japan, or a single currency throughout Europe, the word 'Foreign' is losing its meaning.
The word 'ethnic' provides a more accurate way to refer to these cultural traits which are continually growing fainter as we move away from the world of the past, in which different areas of the world were actually unique.

Founding Fathers - Too Sexist. Instead, use the term The Founders. We wouldn't want to exclude all those great female leaders of 18th century America would we?

Garbage Man - Replaced by Sanitation Engineer – A Garbage Man picks up garbage. A Sanitation Engineer engineers it.

Ghetto - Replaced by Economically disadvantaged area. This term is used by politicians who believe money from the Government would solve their problems. (See : State-Socialism)

Girlfriend/Wife - Replaced by Unpaid sex worker

Handicapped - Replaced by Physically Challenged, or even worse, handicapable

Home-ec (Home Economics) - Replaced by Family and Consumer Sciences, and I'm really not sure why. These classes have been taught in school since the early 1900's after Ellen Swallow Richards, an old-time feminist and the first woman to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, formed the American Home Economics Association in 1909. But I suppose that the reason for the change has something to do with the fact that Home-Ec is generally considered a 'girly' class, and is therefore sexist.

Housewife - Replaced by Domestic Engineer. This is to remove the necessity of marriage from the task of raising children.

Illegal Aliens – Replaced by Undocumented Immigrants. The phrase ‘Illegal Aliens’ implies that these people are a bunch of law-breaking creatures from outer space, while ‘Undocumented Immigrants’ suggests that they are good old-fashioned immigrants that simply have not gone through the hassle of being ‘documented’ yet.

Janitor - Replaced by Custodial Artist. No matter what you call it, this is a person who is paid to clean up shit.

Jungle - Replaced by Rainforest. A Rainforest is a happy place where Disney characters dance and sing ... a jungle is a scary place with lions, tigers, malaria and natives that want to cut off your head and boil it for dinner... who in their right mind would want to save that!?!

Lumberjack - Replaced by Murderer.

Man’s Job and Woman’s Work - Replaced by Traditional Gender Role. These are basic practices that are followed in one form or another by most of the life forms on this planet, and have been part of human culture for thousands of years… and as with most other ‘traditions’, a lot of people believe that it is time for a change.

Midget - Replaced by Vertically Challenged.

Natural Disaster - replaced by Unnatural Event caused by man's destruction of the environment. Every hurricane, mudslide, and flood sould be blamed on Global Warming, even though these events have been occurring for millions of years. (I'm still waiting for somebody to blame the last Ice Age on the campfires of cavemen)

Nigger - Originally - A negro Slave. Has evolved to mean "A Trashy Negro", but the word has still lost acceptance. (see : White Trash)

Secretary - Replaced by Administrative Assistant – The word Secretary comes from Latin and means ‘Confidential Officer’ – And for some unknown reason this is a bad thing.

Swamp - Replaced by Wetland. Swamps are full alligators, bugs, and disease. If anybody went around saying that we need to "save the swamps", people would think they were out of their friggin' mind!

Trailer Park - Replace by Mobile Home Community.

Ugly - Replaced by Visually Challenging.

White Trash - Losers of European descent. Term still in acceptance, although its counterpart term to describe trash of the negro race is being eliminated.

Misleading words

Words whose apparent meaning is opposite from their actual meaning. The words listed hare are comparable to words such as Ministry of Truth, Goodsex, and Joycamp in Orwell's version of Newspeak.

Affirmative Action
Implied : Action which is correct ("Affirmative" means correct, and "Action" is normally good as well)
Actual : Preferential treatment for a particular minority group. (See : Apartheid, Racism)

American interest
Implied : The interest of Americans.
Actual : The interest of American corporations. This term is used by politicians that wish to start a war, without explaining the specific reasons they are doing it.

Bipartisanship
Implied - When both sides agree.
Actual - When conservatives acknowledge that liberals are right, and agree to support their programs.

Change - This term is generally used to suggest that a particular idea is good because it is newer. But, seldom are the effects of this "change" fully examined. Newer is not always better. Remember… Nazism was change. Communism was change. Prohibition was change. 'Jim Crow' laws were change. Democracy was change…. Ok, so sometimes change is good. But, when a politician asks for 'change', one should consider whether or not the cure is really any better than the disease.

Department of Defense
Implied - Department concerned with the defense of America's borders
Actual - Department concerned with maintaining of American principles around the world through acts of large-scale terrorism.

Feminist
Implied - One who wishes to be more feminine, and wishes to protect feminine ideas and custom.
Actual - One who wishes to be more masculine, and destroy differences between the sexes.

Gay Rights
Implied : Right to be a homosexual.
Actual : Forcing everybody to the accept the homosexual agenda.

Gun Control
Implied - Laws which will control guns, and keep weapons out of the hands of criminals.
Actual - Laws which criminals will ignore, but which will keep weapons out of the hands of potential victims.

Hateful Policies
Implied - Policies which spread 'hate'.
Actual - Policies written by people that we hate.

National security
Implied - The security of the nation.
Actual - The security of those in power. The security of our colonies. (See: neo-colonization)

Progressive
Implied - One who wishes to move his country forward.
Actual - One who wishes to move his country toward a state-socialism.

Terrorist Attack
Implied : When an evil group ruthlessly attacks peaceful citizens for no reason whatsoever.
Actual : When we upset a group so much, they fight back as best they can against our superior forces. America is a "good" country because we bomb the hell out of terrorist nations. (I'm sure if some other great Empire would have interfered with Washington DC's conquest of the South in the way we interfered with Iraq reclaiming its own southern region, we would bomb the hell out of them too.)

World Community
Implied : A league of equal states. Communities are quaint, little places where everybody gets along - and wouldn't it be nice if the world was like that?
Actual : Other petty governments that don't stand in the way of U.S. interest. A desire to turn the world into one community - and just like any other 'community', it will need to be policed - by us.

New Words

Words created to define new political concepts, or to protect a political ideology. These words are used to make an idea more acceptable. Some word's apparent meaning is opposite from their actual meaning. (comparable to words such as Ministry of Truth, Goodsex, and Joycamp in Orwell's version of Newspeak).

Anti-Government Groups - A group of people that possess an irrational fear the government, who will probably end up being arrested or killed some day.

Compassionate Conservative - A conservative that acts like a Democrat in order to get elected. They may try to change the programs to limit Federal control, but they do nothing to stop them.

Conspiracy theory - Any theory which suggest that some person in power is actually lying to the public. As we all know, our democratic leaders would never do such a thing. But these theories are still speculative, since it is difficult to determine exactly what they are lying about.

Ebonics - Dialect of English spoken primarily by African-Americans. Ebonics has roots in African languages and Creole, but it primarily consists of pre-existing English words with new definitions and clipped English speech. For an example of Ebonics, watch the movie "Airplane". This movie contains a scene in which two "Jive" speaking African Americans require a translator in order to speak to a stewardess.

This term represents an attempt to give "jive" the status of a real language. Although in reality, it is merely poorly-spoken English sprinkled with street slang.

Economic Justice - see State-Socialism

Environmentalist -. One devoted to a political agenda, whose main goal is to "save the world". They fight for legislation to protect the environment, no matter the cost and its effect on the general populace.

The logic behind this agenda is primarily based on bunk theories and speculation, but the "better safe than sorry" attitude prevails. Even though the theories that this belief system rest upon cannot be proven, they are argued as if they were gospel.

A few people have e-mailed me, taking issue with my characterization of Environmentalism. Allow me to cite one example of "Environmentalism gone bad" to prove my point. Take "global warming" for example. There have been several studies that show an increase of global temperatures of about 1/2 of a degree over the last 100 or so years. Environmentalist take this data and extrapolate it over the next century and claim that global temperatures will rise as much as 10 degrees, causing floods, famine, etc, etc.

The basis for these wild claims are studies which show a minute change of about 1/2 of a degree over the course of recorded history. But, all of these studies have one basic flaw - These studies rely solely on temperature data collected from weather monitoring stations. Every one of these studies chooses to ignore weather balloon data, which for some reason shows no indications of global warming what-so-ever.

You may be wondering why is there a discrepancy between these two data sets? Allow me to explain. Weather stations are often located in urban centers, and are thus susceptible to the "Urban heat island effect". You may have never heard of this term before, but I'm sure you are familiar with its effect. Have you ever been listen to a news report, and wonder why the temperatures in heavy urban areas are almost always a few degrees higher than the surrounding rural areas? If you've never noticed it before, I'm sure you've heard the weatherman say something like, The temp is currently 85 degrees in the country, 87 in the city. This is the "urban heat island effect. It is caused by the fact that concrete absorbs more heat (reflects less light) than trees and other vegetation, and some of these weather stations are smack dab in the middle of this concrete jungle. As more areas become urbanized, more of the data which is collected will be skewed by this effect. Don't be alarmed. This does not mean that the planet is warming. It just means that the air inside the few square miles of the inner city is being warmed, but this has no real effect on the planet at large, since urban areas account for a very small percentage of the Earth's surface area - and only effect the atmosphere near the surface of the planet. This is why weather balloon data shows no increase in temperature.

This "urban heat island effect" can easily explain the .5 change in surface temperatures. Any meteorologist can tell you that. When you consider this fact along with the fact that weather balloon data shown NO increase in temperature, the only conclusion one can reach is that there IS NO GLOBAL WARMING! NONE! Any scientist worth his salt would have to agree, yet politicians choose to ignore the facts, and continue citing these flawed studies in order to push through their political agendas. Even worse, anybody that does not fully accept all these theories as fact is branded as a heretic, and an enemy of the planet.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that we should be finding ways to limit pollution and save energy. I just have a problem with the federal government passing frivolous legislation - legislation that will end up having little of no effect on the environment, and will end up costing consumers billions of dollars - and justify these extreme actions with fraudulent studies.

We computer nerds have a saying -- Garbage in, Garbage Out. If you don't have accurate studies on the environment, you will never be able to find out if anything is actually damaging the environment, and therefore, you will never be able to fix any problems. Why are we wasting our time and money with vehicle emissions tests, when there is no sign that it is having any impact on the environment! Emission tests may be warranted in L.A. (Which has a very high population density, unique geographical features, and lots of industry, which combine to produce their smog problem), but leave St. Louis alone! Don't force consumers to waste money on removing Freon if you aren't really Sure that the hole in the ozone isn't natural phenomenon! Don't ban pesticides & other chemicals if there isn't any proof that these things have any significant impact what-so-ever on the environment. If there are any genuine environmental dangers, they will surely be obscured by all of these fabricated studies.

Extremist - Somebody that thinks differently than you. Anybody that has an opinion that differs from current government policy. (see : Orwell's oldthink) This term allows politicians to speak of their rival's agendas without actually having to explain exactly what their rival's beliefs are.

Genocide - Traditional warfare. Virtually every war in the past had generally the same goal - securing more land for your 'tribe'. If the native inhabitants were useful, they were allowed to stay on the land and work - and turn over a portion of their production to the new rulers. Otherwise, they were forced from their land. The only exception was 'civil wars', which were fought between members of the same tribe. Today's society is much more advanced. We fight wars for purely 'economic' reasons only - such as securing our oil supply (Desert Storm), or preventing the spread of anti-capitalist governments (Korea, Vietnam). Fighting a way to improve the life of 'your people' interferes with the UN's desire to rule the world - which by of course requires that all the people of Earth to 'get along'.

Global Warming - The belief that man is destroying the planet. Most measurements (but not all) show an increase in temperature of about 1/2 of a degree over the last 120 years. The whole theory of global warming itself is difficult to prove, and the theories people have come up with to explain this small fluctuation are entirely speculative.

Hate Crime - A real crime which is punished more severely because the person is also guilty of a Thoughtcrime.

Herstory - The study of women's affairs, separate from male-biased "history". This word can even be found in some modern dictionaries. This absurdity is allowed in spite of the fact that the word "history" has nothing to do with gender, but comes from the Greek word for "knowing".

Homo-phobia : (Literally "fear of sameness"). Used to describe someone who disagrees with the political desires of a homosexual.

Infomercial - A half-hour long commercial. With infomercials, television complete abandons the guise of existing to "entertain" the public, and sticks to its primary reason for existing... advertising. Although this term wasn't coined until a few years ago, infomercials have existed since the very beginnings of the entertainment industry.

"Entertainment shows" are nothing more than advertisements for movies and television shows, but are made to appear as "real news" ... "Music Videos" are basically 3-minute commercials for CDs ... "Sports News" keeps the public from losing interest in sports, and keeps them buying tickets and a whole array of overpriced sports merchandise... Talk shows are crawling with actors trying to "plug" their new movies.

Sure, these shows don't flash "800" numbers on the screen for you to call to make you purchase directly, but they probably generate more revenue for their own "Entertainment industry" than Ron Popiel could ever make selling guinsu knives or juice-a-matics. But, at least Mr. Popiel was honest about what he doing.

Left and Right Wings : Terms that limit the range of expression when discussing issues. The idea that there are only 2 sides to every argument, the Republican and Democratic sides. These terms give the public the idea that there are only two possible sources of ideas, and that these two "opposing" sides represent the entire gambit of thought.

Militant - A person that holds beliefs that are different from yours, and refuses to change his/her mind.

Misogynist : A man who hates women as much as women hate one another. (By: H.L. Mencken)

Minority : In some ways, anyone can claim to be a part of a minority. (Even 'White Males' are a minority) This can often be used to your advantage.

Multiculturalism : Belief that a county is merely a piece of land, and not the old notion of it as a organization created to unify people of a similar culture.(See :Borders)

Nation Building : (See: Neo-colonization) The act of forcibly installing a government in a third world country which will protect our ‘interests’. But in contrast to classic colonization, we allow people from the conquered nation to rule it themselves. This eliminates any appearance of ‘outside’ rule.

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Ben Franklin, 1755
National Security : An excuse for the government to ignore the constitution. (We all want to be ‘safe’ don’t we?)

Negative Campaign : When a politician has the nerve to inform the public of another politician's wrong doings. You often hear politicians and the media complaining about negative campaign ads because government officials hate to be reminded of how corrupt they actually are, and the press hates this type campaigning because it makes people wonder why the media didn't report this information to the public in the first place.

New World Order : A world in which all people live peacefully, under the control of the U.N.

Non-conformity - Most politically correct people will swear to you that they're non-conformists, usually on the basis that they're into performance art, vote for democrats, have a nose ring, or because they make some other sort of superficial fasion statement.

Peacekeepers : A soldier that occupies a foreign nation. In the old days, when the USSR would do that type of thing, we called them an occupational force.

Peace Process - A process which will ultimately lead to war.

Politically Correct - Adhering to the principles of newspeak. This phenomena is a tool of liberals to erase the opinions of the past, and to help propagate new ideas. It is rooted in the same motives as "Newspeak" from Orwell's 1984. Although "Political Correctness" may not be as wide-reaching and all-encompassing as its literary predecessor, "Political Correctness" is equally as insidious and oppressive to free thought.

Reform - More laws. But we are told that these new laws will to correct the flaws in previous laws.

Retribution/Retaliation - "They started it!" Terrorist have absolutely no reason for attacking us - The US has never harmed anybody else. We are totally shocked that anybody would want to harm our citizens. These people leave us no choice but to invade their countries, track them down, and blow them to bits.

Right to Welfare - I'm still searching the constitution for this one.

Right to Work - Implying that Government should guarantee a job for everybody. (See : State-Socialism)

Sexism - Adhering to the old way of living in which each member of a marital unit took on a particular role. (see : Orwell's oldthink) Replaced by the idea that BOTH members of the marital unit should labor outside the home, and should leave the task of raising children to TV and public schools.

Sexual Harassment - Illegal Flirting. (See : Orwell's Sexcrime, Goodsex) Annoying somebody in such a way that reminds them that sex exist. Sexual Harassment cases are often used as a tool to harm politicians or to make millions for individuals (and their lawyers) through lawsuits. Since everybody has flirted with somebody at some point in their life, this charge can be brought against just about anybody. This "crime" is often put on the same level as rape.

Significant Other : An unnamed human of unnamed gender who is un-insignificant.

Special Interests
Implied - A group of people that have interests that are only important to them, and who try to get "special" treatment.
Actual - A group of people that have interest that goes against the interests of the special interests groups that contribute to our party.

Terrorist Attack
Implied : When an evil group ruthlessly attacks peaceful citizens for no reason whatsoever.
Actual : When we upset a group so much, they fight back as best they can against our superior forces. America is a "good" country because we bomb the hell out of terrorist nations. (I'm sure if some other great Empire would have interfered with Washington DC's conquest of the South in the way we interfered with Iraq reclaiming its own southern region, we would bomb the hell out of them too.)

Unhealthy Lifestyle - Actions which will someday be illegal.

Vegetarianism - This is the practice of only killing and devouring living things that can't scream or fight back and feeling morally superior because of it.

War on Drugs - An excuse to turn our police force into an Army.

War on Terrorism - Eliminating anybody that dares to fight against our supremacy - and eroding 4th amendment protections at the same time.

War on anything - An excuse to squash civil rights in order to rid the world of the thing we are fighting against... and all's fair in love and war!

Western values - This term may used to describe any belief which is held by the majority of Americans, but which some people may find offensive. It is impossible to argue with something if you aren't exactly sure of what it is. If a politician was to actually refer to any specific 'Western Value' by name, it might open up a debate.

I hope you followed the rules...

The A vocabulary.

The A vocabulary consisted of words needed for the business of everyday life --- For such things as eating, drinking, working, putting on one's clothes, going up and down stairs, riding in vehicles, gardening, cooking, and the like. It was composed almost entirely of words that we already possess -- words like hit, run, dog, tree, sugar, house, field -- but in comparison with the present-day English vocabulary, their number was extremely small, while their meanings were far more rigidly defined. All ambiguities and shades of meaning had been purged out of them. So far as it could be achieved, a Newspeak word of this class was simply a staccato sound expressing one clearly understood concept. It would have been quite impossible to use the A vocabulary for literary purposes or for political or philosophical discussion. It was intended only to express simple, purposive thoughts, usually involving concrete objects or physical actions.

The grammar of Newspeak has two outstanding peculiarities. The first of these was an almost complete interchangeability between different parts of speech. Any word in the language (in principle this applied even to very abstract words such as if or when) could be used either as verb, noun, adjective, or adverb. Between the verb and noun form, when of the same root, there was never any variation, this rule of itself involving the destruction of many archaic forms. The word thought, for example, did not exist in Newspeak. Its place was taken by think, which did duty for both noun and verb. No etymological principle was involved here; in some cases it was the original noun that was chosen for retention, in other cases the verb. Even where a noun and a verb of kindred meanings were not etymologically connected, one or other of them was frequently suppressed. There was, for example, no such word as cut, its meaning being sufficiently covered by the noun-verb knife. Adjectives were formed by adding the suffix -ful to the noun verb, and adverbs by adding -wise. Thus, for example, speedful meant "rapid" and speedwise meant "quickly." Certain of our present-day adjectives, such as good, strong, big, black, soft, were retained, but their total number was very small. There was little need for them, since almost any adjectival meaning could be arrived at by adding -ful to a noun-verb. None of the now-existing adverbs was retained, except for a few already ending in -wise; the -wise termination was invariable. the word well, for example, was replaced by goodwise.

In addition, any word -- this again applied in principle to every word in the language -- could be negative by adding the affix un-, or could be strengthened by the affix plus-, or, for still greater emphasis doubleplus-. Thus, for example, uncold meant "warm" while pluscold and doublepluscold meant, respectively, "very cold" and "superlatively cold". It was also possible, as in present-day English, to modify the meaning of almost any word by prepositional affixes such as ante-, post-, up-, down-, etc. By such methods it was possible to bring about an enormous diminution of vocabulary. Given, for instance, the word good, there was no need for such a word as bad, since the required meaning was equally well --indeed better-- expressed by ungood. All that was necessary, in any case where two words formed a natural pair of opposites, was to decide which of them to suppress. Dark, for example, could be replaced by Unlight, or light by undark, according to preference.

The second distinguishing mark of Newspeak grammar was its regularity. Subject to a few exceptions which are mentioned below, all inflections followed the same rules. Thus in all verbs the preterite and the past participle were the same and ended in -ed. The preterite of steal was stealed, the preterite of think was thinked, and so on throughout the language, all such forms as swam, gave, brought, spoke, taken, etc., being abolished. All plurals were made by adding -s or -es as the case might be. The plurals of man, ox, life, were mans, oxes, lifes. Comparison of adjectives was invariably made by adding -er, -est (good, gooder, goodest), irregular forms and the more, most formation being suppressed.

The only classes of words that were still allowed to inflect irregularly were the pronouns, the relatives, the demonstrative adjectives, and the auxiliary verbs. All of these followed their ancient usage, except that whom had been scrapped as unnecessary, and the shall, should tenses had been dropped, all their uses being covered by will and would. There were also certain irregularities in word-formation arising out of the need for rapid and easy speech. A word which was difficult to utter, or was liable to be incorrectly heard, was held to be ipso facto a bad word: occasionally therefore, for the sake of euphony, extra letters were inserted into a word or an archaic formation was retained. But this need made itself felt chiefly in connexion with the B vocabulary. Why so great an importance was attached to ease of pronunciation will be made clear later in this essay.

The B vocabulary.

The B vocabulary consisted of words which had been deliberately constructed for political purposes: words, that is to say, which not only had in every case a political implication, but were intended to impose a desirable mental attitude upon the person using them. Without a full understanding of the principles of Ingsoc it was difficult to use these words correctly. In some cases they could be translated into Oldspeak, or even into words taken from the A vocabulary, but this usually demanded a long paraphrase and always involved the loss of certain overtones. The B words were a sort of verbal shorthand, often packing whole ranges of ideas into a few syllables, and at the same time more accurate and forcible than ordinary language.

The B words were in all cases compound words.

They consisted of two or more words, or portions of words, welded together in an easily pronounceable form. The resulting amalgam was always a noun-verb, and inflected according to the ordinary rules. To take a single example: the word goodthink, meaning, very roughly, 'orthodoxy', or, if one chose to regard it as a verb, 'to think in an orthodox manner'. This inflected as follows: noun-verb, goodthink; past tense and past participle, goodthinked; present participle, goodthinking; adjective, goodthinkful; adverb, goodthinkwise; verbal noun, goodthinker.

The B words were not constructed on any etymological plan. The words of which they were made up could be any parts of speech, and could be placed in any order and mutilated in any way which made them easy to pronounce while indicating their derivation. In the word crimethink (thoughtcrime), for instance, the think came second, whereas in thinkpol (Thought Police) it came first, and in the latter word police had lost its second syllable. Because of the great difficulty in securing euphony, irregular formations were commoner in the B vocabulary than in the A vocabulary. For example, the adjective forms of Minitrue, Minipax, and Miniluv were, respectively, Minitruthful, Minipeaceful, and Minilovely, simply because -trueful,-paxful, and -loveful were slightly awkward to pronounce. In principle, however, all B words could inflect, and all inflected in exactly the same way.

Some of the B words had highly subtilized meanings, barely intelligible to anyone who had not mastered the language as a whole. Consider, for example, such a typical sentence from a Times leading article as Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc. The shortest rendering that one could make of this in Oldspeak would be: 'Those whose ideas were formed before the Revolution cannot have a full emotional understanding of the principles of English Socialism.' But this is not an adequate translation. To begin with, in order to grasp the full meaning of the Newspeak sentence quoted above, one would have to have a clear idea of what is meant by Ingsoc. And in addition, only a person thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the full force of the word bellyfeel, which implied a blind, enthusiastic acceptance difficult to imagine today; or of the word oldthink, which was inextricably mixed up with the idea of wickedness and decadence. But the special function of certain Newspeak words, of which oldthink was one, was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them. These words, necessarily few in number, had had their meanings extended until they contained within themselves whole batteries of words which, as they were sufficiently covered by a single comprehensive term, could now be scrapped and forgotten. The greatest difficulty facing the compilers of the Newspeak Dictionary was not to invent new words, but, having invented them, to make sure what they meant: to make sure, that is to say, what ranges of words they cancelled by their existence.

* Compound words such as speakwrite, were of course to be found in the A vocabulary, but these were merely convenient abbreviations and had no special ideological colour.

As we have already seen in the case of the word free, words which had once borne a heretical meaning were sometimes retained for the sake of convenience, but only with the undesirable meanings purged out of them. Countless other words such as honour, justice, morality, internationalism, democracy, science, and religion had simply ceased to exist. A few blanket words covered them, and, in covering them, abolished them. All words grouping themselves round the concepts of liberty and equality, for instance, were contained in the single word crimethink, while all words grouping themselves round the concepts of objectivity and rationalism were contained in the single word oldthink. Greater precision would have been dangerous. What was required in a Party member was an outlook similar to that of the ancient Hebrew who knew, without knowing much else, that all nations other than his own worshipped 'false gods'. He did not need to know that these gods were called Baal, Osiris, Moloch, Ashtaroth, and the like: probably the less he knew about them the better for his orthodoxy. He knew Jehovah and the commandments of Jehovah: he knew, therefore, that all gods with other names or other attributes were false gods. In somewhat the same way, the party member knew what constituted right conduct, and in exceedingly vague, generalized terms he knew what kinds of departure from it were possible. His sexual life, for example, was entirely regulated by the two Newspeak words sexcrime (sexual immorality) and goodsex (chastity). Sexcrime covered all sexual misdeeds whatever. It covered fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and other perversions, and, in addition, normal intercourse practised for its own sake. There was no need to enumerate them separately, since they were all equally culpable, and, in principle, all punishable by death. In the C vocabulary, which consisted of scientific and technical words, it might be necessary to give specialized names to certain sexual aberrations, but the ordinary citizen had no need of them. He knew what was meant by goodsex -- that is to say, normal intercourse between man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children, and without physical pleasure on the part of the woman: all else was sexcrime. In Newspeak it was seldom possible to follow a heretical thought further than the perception that it was heretical: beyond that point the necessary words were nonexistent.

No word in the B vocabulary was ideologically neutral. A great many were euphemisms. Such words, for instance, as joycamp (forced-labour camp) or Minipax (Ministry of Peace, i. e. Ministry of War) meant almost the exact opposite of what they appeared to mean. Some words, on the other hand, displayed a frank and contemptuous understanding of the real nature of Oceanic society. An example was prolefeed, meaning the rubbishy entertainment and spurious news which the Party handed out to the masses. Other words, again, were ambivalent, having the connotation 'good' when applied to the Party and 'bad' when applied to its enemies. But in addition there were great numbers of words which at first sight appeared to be mere abbreviations and which derived their ideological colour not from their meaning, but from their structure.

So far as it could be contrived, everything that had or might have political significance of any kind was fitted into the B vocabulary. The name of every organization, or body of people, or doctrine, or country, or institution, or public building, was invariably cut down into the familiar shape; that is, a single easily pronounced word with the smallest number of syllables that would preserve the original derivation. In the Ministry of Truth, for example, the Records Department, in which Winston Smith worked, was called Recdep, the Fiction Department was called Ficdep, the Teleprogrammes Department was called Teledep, and so on. This was not done solely with the object of saving time. Even in the early decades of the twentieth century, telescoped words and phrases had been one of the characteristic features of political language; and it had been noticed that the tendency to use abbreviations of this kind was most marked in totalitarian countries and totalitarian organizations. Examples were such words as Nazi, Gestapo, Comintern, Inprecorr, Agitprop. In the beginning the practice had been adopted as it were instinctively, but in Newspeak it was used with a conscious purpose. It was perceived that in thus abbreviating a name one narrowed and subtly altered its meaning, by cutting out most of the associations that would otherwise cling to it.

The words Communist International, for instance, call up a composite picture of universal human brotherhood, red flags, barricades, Karl Marx, and the Paris Commune. The word Comintern, on the other hand, suggests merely a tightly-knit organization and a well-defined body of doctrine. It refers to something almost as easily recognized, and as limited in purpose, as a chair or a table. Comintern is a word that can be uttered almost without taking thought, whereas Communist International is a phrase over which one is obliged to linger at least momentarily. In the same way, the associations called up by a word like Minitrue are fewer and more controllable than those called up by Ministry of Truth. This accounted not only for the habit of abbreviating whenever possible, but also for the almost exaggerated care that was taken to make every word easily pronounceable.

In Newspeak, euphony outweighed every consideration other than exactitude of meaning. Regularity of grammar was always sacrificed to it when it seemed necessary. And rightly so, since what was required, above all for political purposes, was short clipped words of unmistakable meaning which could be uttered rapidly and which roused the minimum of echoes in the speaker's mind. The words of the B vocabulary even gained in force from the fact that nearly all of them were very much alike. Almost invariably these words -- goodthink, Minipax, prolefeed, sexcrime, joycamp, Ingsoc, bellyfeel, thinkpol, and countless others -- were words of two or three syllables, with the stress distributed equally between the first syllable and the last. The use of them encouraged a gabbling style of speech, at once staccato and monotonous. And this was exactly what was aimed at. The intention was to make speech, and especially speech on any subject not ideologically neutral, as nearly as possible independent of consciousness.

For the purposes of everyday life it was no doubt necessary, or sometimes necessary, to reflect before speaking, but a Party member called upon to make a political or ethical judgment should be able to spray forth the correct opinions as automatically as a machine gun spraying forth bullets. His training fitted him to do this, the language gave him an almost foolproof instrument, and the texture of the words, with their harsh sound and a certain willful ugliness which was in accord with the spirit of Ingsoc, assisted the process still further.

So did the fact of having very few words to choose from. Relative to our own, the Newspeak vocabulary was tiny, and new ways of reducing it were constantly being devised. Newspeak, indeed, differed from most all other languages in that its vocabulary grew smaller instead of larger every year. Each reduction was a gain, since the smaller the area of choice, the smaller the temptation to take thought. Ultimately it was hoped to make articulate speech issue from the larynx without involving the higher brain centers at all. This aim was frankly admitted in the Newspeak word duckspeak, meaning ' to quack like a duck'. Like various other words in the B vocabulary, duckspeak was ambivalent in meaning. Provided that the opinions which were quacked out were orthodox ones, it implied nothing but praise, and when The Times referred to one of the orators of the Party as a doubleplusgood duckspeaker it was paying a warm and valued compliment.

The C vocabulary.

The C vocabulary was supplementary to the others and consisted entirely of scientific and technical terms. These resembled the scientific terms in use today, and were constructed from the same roots, but the usual care was taken to define them rigidly and strip them of undesirable meanings. They followed the same grammatical rules as the words in the other two vocabularies. Very few of the C words had any currency either in everyday speech or in political speech. Any scientific worker or technician could find all the words he needed in the list devoted to his own speciality, but he seldom had more than a smattering of the words occurring in the other lists. Only a very few words were common to all lists, and there was no vocabulary expressing the function of Science as a habit of mind, or a method of thought, irrespective of its particular branches. There was, indeed, no word for 'Science', any meaning that it could possibly bear being already sufficiently covered by the word Ingsoc.

From the foregoing account it will be seen that in Newspeak the expression of unorthodox opinions, above a very low level, was well-nigh impossible. It was of course possible to utter heresies of a very crude kind, a species of blasphemy.

It would have been possible, for example, to say Big Brother is ungood. But this statement, which to an orthodox ear merely conveyed a self-evident absurdity, could not have been sustained by reasoned argument, because the necessary words were not available. Ideas inimical to Ingsoc could only be entertained in a vague wordless form, and could only be named in very broad terms which lumped together and condemned whole groups of heresies without defining them in doing so. One could, in fact, only use Newspeak for unorthodox purposes by illegitimately translating some of the words back into Oldspeak. For example, All mans are equal was a possible Newspeak sentence, but only in the same sense in which All men are red-haired is a possible Oldspeak sentence.

It did not contain a grammatical error, but it expressed a palpable untruth-i.e. that all men are of equal size, weight, or strength. The concept of political equality no longer existed, and this secondary meaning had accordingly been purged out of the word equal. In 1984, when Oldspeak was still the normal means of communication, the danger theoretically existed that in using Newspeak words one might remember their original meanings. In practice it was not difficult for any person well grounded in doublethink to avoid doing this, but within a couple of generations even the possibility of such a lapse would have vanished. A person growing up with Newspeak as his sole language would no more know that equal had once had the secondary meaning of 'politically equal', or that free had once meant 'intellectually free', than for instance, a person who had never heard of chess would be aware of the secondary meanings attaching to queen and rook. There would be many crimes and errors which it would be beyond his power to commit, simply because they were nameless and therefore unimaginable. And it was to be foreseen that with the passage of time the distinguishing characteristics of Newspeak would become more and more pronounced -- its words growing fewer and fewer, their meanings more and more rigid, and the chance of putting them to improper uses always diminishing.

When Oldspeak had been once and for all superseded, the last link with the past would have been severed. History had already been rewritten, but fragments of the literature of the past survived here and there, imperfectly censored, and so long as one retained one's knowledge of Oldspeak it was possible to read them. In the future such fragments, even if they chanced to survive, would be unintelligible and untranslatable. It was impossible to translate any passage of Oldspeak into Newspeak unless it either referred to some technical process or some very simple everyday action, or was already orthodox(goodthinkful would be the Newspeak expression) in tendency. In practice this meant that no book written before approximately 1960 could be translated as a whole. Pre-revolutionary literature could only be subjected to ideological translation -- that is, alteration in sense as well as language. Take for example the well-known passage from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government. . .

It would have been quite impossible to render this into Newspeak while keeping to the sense of the original. The nearest one could come to doing so would be to swallow the whole passage up in the single word crimethink. A full translation could only be an ideological translation, whereby Jefferson's words would be changed into a panegyric on absolute government.

A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed, already being transformed in this way. Considerations of prestige made it desirable to preserve the memory of certain historical figures, while at the same time bringing their achievements into line with the philosophy of Ingsoc. Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of translation: when the task had been completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of the literature of the past, would be destroyed. These translations were a slow and difficult business, and it was not expected that they would be finished before the first or second decade of the twenty-first century. There were also large quantities of merely utilitarian literature -- indispensable technical manuals, and the like -- that had to be treated in the same way. It was chiefly in order to allow time for the preliminary work of translation that the final adoption of Newspeak had been fixed for so late a date as 2050.

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